 | Have We Reached an Inflection Point in Economics History?: “Indeflation” and Energy | The Oil Drum | Fibber McGee, Molly, and Your Energy Future |  |
DrumBeat: June 27, 2009
Posted by Leanan on June 27, 2009 - 10:35am
Saving Ourselves: Consuming Within Recharge Rates
In fact, every resource has an inherent recharge rate , in the sense that the "balance of a system can be expressed as a relationship relating all of the inputs and outputs into or out of the system." Water is perhaps the easiest to measure, as in the swimming pool example, although in the real world variables such as soil moisture levels and the location of stormwater basins can make the calculations somewhat more complex. Still, rates are estimable if not outright calculable in most locales, suggesting that in practice we can find the balance point between output (i.e., what we consume) and input (i.e., what gets replaced) for any given resource. Using this framework, the distinction between renewable and nonrenewable resources become blurred, since everything has an inherent (or at least potential) rate of renewal and can thus be sustained over time.
A Buffett Turns to Farming in Africa
The middle child of Warren Buffett is an unassuming Illinois soybean and corn farmer. But for the past four years, he has played a behind-the-scenes role in the global war against hunger. Given a small portion of his father’s fortune for philanthropy, he spends much of the year traveling through Africa, experimenting with ideas for helping poor farmers produce enough crops to feed their families and so lessen the continent’s food shortage. His foundation is spending about $38 million this year on projects such as developing a disease-resistant sweet potato, encouraging poachers to switch to farming, providing micro credits, and helping farmers market their crops to United Nations’ hunger-relief programs. Probably his most ambitious project under way would give African corn breeders royalty-free access to Monsanto’s biotechnology for drought-tolerant corn.
A WHILE AGO, I heard an American scientist address an audience in Oxford, England, about his work on the climate crisis. He was precise, unemotional, rigorous, and impersonal: all strengths of a scientist.The next day, talking informally to a small group, he pulled out of his wallet a much-loved photo of his thirteen-year-old son. He spoke as carefully as he had before, but this time his voice was sad, worried, and fatherly. His son, he said, had become so frightened about climate change that he was debilitated, depressed, and disturbed. Some might have suggested therapy, Prozac, or baseball for the child. But in this group one voice said gently, “What about the Transition Initiative?”
Nigerian Militants Reject Amnesty, Say Key Issues Not Addressed
(Bloomberg) -- The Movement for the Emancipation of the Niger Delta, the main armed group in Nigeria’s oil region, said it rejected a government amnesty offer because it failed to address key issues.“The proclamation of amnesty seems to be directed at criminals,” Jomo Gbomo, spokesman for the group, also known as MEND, said in an e-mailed statement yesterday. “If the proclamation was directed at freedom fighters with a cause, it would have addressed the root issues.”
The National Assembly's probe of activities in Nigeria's oil and gas sector brings out to the public domain issues and challenges surrounding operations in the sector, which the Federal Government, at best would wish remains hidden.On daily basis crude oil production are suspended and most times outrightly shut down as a result of the growing insecurity in the nation's oil-rich Niger Delta.
Recent militant attacks on oil facilities in the Niger Delta have caused the country daily production cutback of over 540,000, or about $39million losses in revenue.
Angola: Governments Urge Cooperation Between Oil Companies
Luanda — Angola and Russia have decided to urge their oil companies to establish profitable cooperation for both sides, Angolan President Jose Eduardo dos Santos disclosed Friday.
New flight could stimulate oil and gas ties between Louisiana, Mexico
The AeroMexico nonstop flight between New Orleans and Mexico City will encourage business ties between Louisiana and Mexico, particularly in the oil and gas industry, experts said at a Friday morning forum sponsored by the World Trade Center.
Canaport terminal the right facility at the wrong time: analyst
The arrival this past week of the first shipment of liquefied natural gas to New Brunswick's brand-new Canaport terminal might a seminal event in the country's energy history but likely will have little short-term impact on North American markets, analysts said.
Obama Picked Wrong Advisers for Auto Overhaul, Gerstner Says
(Bloomberg) -- Louis Gerstner, the former International Business Machines Corp. chief executive officer, praised President Barack Obama’s economic performance while criticizing the way the White House handled restructurings of General Motors Corp. and Chrysler LLC.“Who did we pick to figure out how to fix the automobile industry? We picked two investment bankers,” Gerstner said in an interview with Bloomberg Television’s “Conversations with Judy Woodruff” airing today. “It’s sort of like asking the arsonist to run the fire department.”
North Sea tax break plea as oil exploration plummets
The UK Government has been warned that fresh incentives are needed to kick-start exploration in the North Sea after new figures revealed a huge drop in the number of oil wells being drilled.Statistics released by the Department of Energy and Climate Change (DECC) yesterday showed oil exploration – the “lifeblood” of the industry – had plunged by more than 75% in the first quarter of 2009.
In the first three months of last year, 13 exploration wells were being drilled by offshore companies. However, this year the number started has slumped to just three, as the oil price dipped as low as $35 a barrel.
LONDON (Reuters) -- Oil prices fell more than a dollar on Friday, pressured by weakness on Wall Street and news top African oil producer Nigeria would halt a battle with rebels in its energy-rich Niger Delta.Crude oil fell $1.07 to settle at $69.16 a barrel. London Brent fell 86 cents to $68.92 a barrel.
Russia signals it will stay out of OPEC
LUANDA (Reuters) - Russia clearly sees itself as an observer and not a member of OPEC, President Dmitry Medvedev told the oil producer group's current president on Friday.The Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC), which accounts for around 40 percent of the world's oil production, has repeatedly invited Russia to participate at its meetings in the hope that it would join or work with the group.
'In regards to our interaction with OPEC our positions are clear. Angola is a member of OPEC, while Russia participates in OPEC as an observer,' Medvedev said at a news conference alongside Angolan President Jose Eduardo dos Santos, whose country holds the rotating OPEC presidency.
Medvedev said the current ways in which oil prices were determined were too 'complex and lacked transparency,' adding that the oil market should not depend on one economy -- a reference to the United States.
Putin invites Shell to join Sakhalin 3, 4 projects
MOSCOW (Reuters) - Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin has invited Royal Dutch Shell to participate in Sakhalin-3 and Sakhalin-4 natural gas projects at a meeting with Chief Executive Jeroen van der Veer on Saturday."We are prepared to pursue cooperation further with your company having in mind Sakhalin-3 and Sakhalin-4," Putin said. "These require offshore production in difficult deep sea areas where your experience will be very valuable."
Gazprom in billion-dollar energy deal in Namibia
Russian energy giant Gazprom OAO said yesterday its banking unit had struck a $1-billion deal with Namibian energy company Namcor to build a new power plant in Namibia. Under the deal, Russia would build a power plant generating energy for both Namibia and South Africa, getting a foothold in the lucrative Kudu gas field, Namibia's only commercial field to date.
Wildcat strikes by thousands of contract workers were ending yesterday after a deal was agreed to resolve a bitter row over jobs at an oil refinery.
Japan firms set to win $10 billion Iraq oilfield development contract
TOKYO, (RTRS): A group of Japanese companies led by refiner Nippon Oil Corp is in the final stage of talks to win a $10 billion development contract for Iraq’s huge Nassiriya oilfield, a Japanese newspaper reported on Friday, the biggest foreign oil deal since the fall of Saddam.
Competition for remaining oil will be fierce
Current thoughts: Industry secrecy clouds the issue, but peak oil worldwide may have occurred in 2005. Many economists believe the resulting price increases to $140 a barrel last summer triggered the global recession. Enjoy the present low gas price ($2.50) because it’s only temporary.Americans are so in love with their cars that they will sacrifice almost everything before giving them up. When gas hits some unbearable price like $10 and the former middle class no longer can afford to drive, gas and guns will become chaotically intertwined.
No matter whom we elect president or to Congress, the U.S. military will occupy the Persian Gulf until all the oil is gone or we can no longer afford the occupation.
Americans eventually will have profound regrets about the money we have wasted on suburban sprawl and highways since World War II.
From the perspective of a deliberate non-driver, the car is indefensible. It's the devil's chariot, death on wheels, the ultimate privatised commodity. Motorists, meanwhile, believe car ownership to be a right.The authors of After the Car, both sociologists in the field of mobilities - the study of how people, things and information move and get moved - are firmly in the "devil's chariot" camp. Dennis and Urry exhibit a refreshing understanding of the sheer inefficiency and inconvenience of cars, describing them bluntly as "steel-and-petroleum" machines, and roads as the "killing fields" of contemporary societies.
The Population Reduction Agenda For Dummies
There are still large numbers of people amongst the general public, in academia, and especially those who work for the corporate media, who are still in denial about the on-the-record stated agenda for global population reduction, as well as the consequences of this program that we already see unfolding.We have compiled a compendium of evidence to prove that the elite have been obsessed with eugenics and its modern day incarnation, population control, for well over 100 years and that goal of global population reduction is still in full force to this day.
The $787 billion stimulus spending bill enacted in February promotes plug-in electric cars for use by the federal government, and eventually, the public.Purpose of these plug-in cars is to decrease greenhouse gas emissions and wean America off foreign energy sources.
That sounds good, except it won’t work. America doesn’t have the electrical capacity to make it work, and a report from the Government Accountability Office (GAO) says the plug-in vehicles being pushed by the Obama administration won’t decrease greenhouse gas emissions.
Climate Change Bill Narrowly Passes in House
The House passed legislation Friday to overhaul the nation's energy policy and curb global warming, handing President Obama a landmark legislative victory on one of his top priorities.
Obama Implores Senate to Pass Climate Bill
Hours after the House passed landmark legislation meant to curb greenhouse gas emissions and create an energy-efficient economy, President Barack Obama on Saturday urged senators to show courage and follow suit.
What the Energy Bill Really Means for CO2 Emissions
With a razor-thin margin of just seven votes, the House of Representatives on Friday evening passed the American Clean Energy and Security Act — the first bill to put a fixed and declining cap on U.S. greenhouse-gas emissions. Republicans and Democrats in the House spent much of the day sparring in sharp language over the bill, which will reduce U.S. carbon emissions 17% below 2005 levels by 2020 and 83% below by 2050. In the end, the vote of 219 to 212 included more than 40 Democrats who broke ranks with their party's leadership to vote against the bill. Republicans savaged the bill as an economy-killing energy tax — one member even called for a moment of silence for the Americans who would lose their jobs because of the bill — and some left-wing environmental groups, including Greenpeace, withdrew their support because they believed the bill's compromises made it far too weak.
One brief shining moment for clean energy
Passage of the first climate bill in Congress is a remarkable first step to cut global warming. But it's not enough.
Welch supports climate change bill
He said science has shown that sweeping changes are needed. "Although some dispute it, there is little doubt that our oil is a finite resource, that we are at or near peak oil, that global warming is real, the threat to our economy immediate, the need to act urgent," Welch said.The legislation will create jobs in a new "green" economy in Vermont and across the country, Welch said in a telephone interview prior to Friday's vote. "The concern I heard is people want jobs," he said. The country is falling behind in capitalizing on an emerging economy, he said.
20 scientists urge Obama to act on climate change
Scientists are calling on President Barack Obama to get heated up about the climate.Twenty leading U.S. climate scientists and experts have sent an open letter to the president and members of Congress, urging action on the issue of climate change, according to a statement by James Gustave Speth, dean of the Yale University School of Forestry & Environmental Studies.
Maryland congressmen break along party lines on cap-and-trade
Rep. Roscoe Bartlett, the state's lone Republican, whose district takes in northern portions of the Baltimore metro area and extends to the state's western border, was the only Marylander to vote "No." The remaining congressmen, all Democrats, voted "Aye."
Global economies eye 'green growth'
The world’s main economies are looking to “green growth” as the way forward out of the current crisis, opening up new prospects for climate-change negotiations ahead of the key climate change convention.
Contact
- Content: editors at theoildrum dot com
- Tech support: support at theoildrum dot com
License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 United States License.
OK, so the Climate bill passed the House.
Next question: Will the Senate version correct all the mistakes? I can't comment, since the only version I've seen so far was the second one, which was reported out of committee. I still think that rationing of transport fuels would be the best option, especially given that most prople will see things as price increases with no direct connection to reductions in CO2 emissions.
E. Swanson
Yes, I have such mixed feelings about this bill. It is great that a major climate bill has passed at least house of congress, but handing over the future of the planet the the investment bankers that gave us last year's global financial meltdown seems...reckless to say the least.
I'm all for "cap," but "trade" no longer has the bright, promising ring it did just a few months ago. We have all seen the "magic of the market" become the dark sorcery of destruction on a massive global scale. Does anyone anymore really think that systemic greed is likely to save the planet?
Put down that broad brush, step back from the wall, and take a deep breath.
Just because we've seen some spectacular examples of greed-driven stupidity in recent years--and anyone who thinks we haven't is dumber than a sack of rocks--does not mean that any program that relies on market-based mechanism is doomed to failure.
One could use the same approach to condemn all government actions, all educational institutions, all gun ownership, any organized religion, etc.
We have to choose the best possible ways to address the quickly growing problems of climate chaos and peak oil. That means not just picking the right mechanism and walking away, but remaining diligent, and flexible, about how those mechanisms are implemented.
I really hate how much the current bill was watered down, but it's so much better than doing nothing or relying on Bush-era "voluntary compliance" that had I been a member of the House I would have voted for it--and immediately made plans with my colleagues to strengthen it.
That is not at all accurate-reclassifying fraud and neglect of fiduciary responsibility as "stupidity" is the current Party Line but it is a lie. Excluding a few exceptions such as Madoff, pretty well every "stupid" person involved in hurting the USA economy at a high level has done very very well indeed (and continue to thrive). Fuld, Greenspan, Bernanke, Geithner, Paulson, etc. etc.-the list is a very long one. You could label both Goldman Sachs and JP Morgan as "stupid" organizations as they needed taxpayer money to continue operations, but the players are thriving nonetheless.
Not really. Just as in every recession, GINI falls and the number of billionaires dwindle.
Also, in response to the first commenter, I would like to mention that rationing of gasoline would be stupid for real. We have a mechanism to optimize resource allocation - it's called "price". Btw - cap and trade is also somewhat daft - simple taxes creates the same effect but with far less beaurocracy. It's a pity you yanks can't stomach carbon taxes.
"cap and trade is also somewhat daft - simple taxes creates the same effect but with far less beaurocracy. It's a pity you yanks can't stomach carbon taxes."
We can certainly agree here. But note that by endorsing taxes that you are admitting that freemarket price alone has not been an adequate "mechanism to optimize resource allocation."
Rationing should still be in the mix. If you don't think the current crisis is every bit as pressing as WWII, you haven't been paying attention.
A National (FIT) Feed in tariff really makes sense to encourage alternatives to coal - even if at market rates. Hard to corrupt a power meter, Infrastructure for trade already exists. Without a FIT (or to a limited extent -net metering), you have little choice in your role as polluting grid-sucker.
A 200w PV panel with a Gridtie Inverter is under $1000 now and falling. Given a choice, many will (and are) investing to new power technologies on the personal and most important on the business level, Summary of FITs here:
http://www.wind-works.org/articles/feed_laws.html
The problem with rationing is that there are too many ways to game the system. Really that's a potential problem with all systems, so part of the trick is to come up with something that minimizes the opportunities for cheating..
That's right. Companies are going to comply by shutting their US plants, which are relatively clean, and open new ones in the BRICs which zero pollution controls.
And as a special bonus, they can fire all those pesky over-paid Americans AND pay fewer taxes. Sounds like a plan businesses can really rally around.
I'm surpised companies aren't begging for tighter US emissions rules.
This isn't a new phenomena. From the time the very first emission rules were promolgated in California putting rules on manufacturers while permitting the import of the same products from locations without rules condemns the local manufacturers.
I find it difficult to tell if all the world's legislatures are filled with blithering idiots or they are simply bought and paid for. Maybe both.
The Climate Bill (H.R. 2454) includes allocations for products which are imported, as I understand it. There is also mention of exemption for exported products. This is a very big bill and I don't claim to have complete grasp of it yet.
But, I was trying to focus only on transport fuels, which are most often consumed by individuals or small companies, who would not be directly covered by the cap-and-trade system in the climate bill, in which the allocations are only issued to entities which produce electricity or with produce emissions in excess of 25,000 tons per year. One needs to study the definitions under SEC. 312, which modifies Sec 700 in Title VII of the Clean Air Act, especially sub paragraph (13), COVERED ENTITY.
The direct allocation of transport fuels thru rationing would be difficult to game. This would be especially true if the allocations had a limited lifetime. There would thus be no way to accumulate the allocations. The Cap-and-Trade proposal allows banking of allocations. The rationing system would need a white market to smooth out the bumps in the allocations and would be a place for excess allocations after the expiration period. Again, it would be difficult to game such a system, as the official trading system would provide a floor on the value of allocations and the allocations would go directly to individual consumers.
As for the long term effectiveness of this Act, I think that the resulting consumer revolt would allow the Repugs to repeatedly pound in the notion that all the increases in cost of living over the next 4 years are the result of Cap-and-trade. The Repugs could blame the inflation from the Fed and Treasury's efforts to re-inflate the debit bubble on this, since the average 'Merican won't be able to see the difference. I think this could push the Democrats out of control after the next Presidential Election cycle...
E. Swanson
If you are going to call Republicans, Repugs it seems only fair to call Democrats, Damnocrats. I would prefer neither since it reflects poorly on the Oildrum.
Actually, I would rather call the Republicans of the Lush Numbrain/Darth Cheney faction something like "ReThugs", for their insistence that military bullying is the best approach to handling our relations with the rest of the world. You know, these guys label anyone that tries to fight us "terrorists", while calling our invading military forces "patriots". RePugs is a bit less inflammatory, but gets my feelings across too.
The sad thing is that the "Kill 'em all, let doG sort them out" solution may turn out to be the only way to deal with the fundamentalist fanatics...
E. Swanson
Does name-calling improve your logic?
I need all the help I can get. Got any logic to offer?
E. Swanson
Black Dog is being quite gentle.
I personally think that all those responsible for electin--then reelecting!--that national and global catastrophe GWB should be at the very least disqualified from ever voting again as they have shown themselves to be incapable of making rational judgments.
Drummers,
Peak Psychiatric Help. A practice devoted to those stumbling under the burden of believing in Peak Oil. Now you can tell your friends "I'm not as think as you crazy I am!"
http://www.peakoilblues.com/who.php
Speaking of crazy. Here is an item from Wired about a car that can tell if the driver has just had a stroke or heart attack. The car will ease to a stop and, I dunno, email the local ambulance service and fax the mortuary and put on the hazard lights if you show symptoms, slump over dead etc. If there really is a demand for this kind of thing it doesn't bode well for ditching the devil's chariot. We're going to be enslaved to these things until the end it seems. It used to be about snarling V-8 power, mag wheels, tail fins, and goin' fast. Now its triage on the off-ramp.
http://www.wired.com/autopia/2009/06/bmw/
New York Times - Is the climate change science settled?
http://www.nytimes.com/gwire/2009/06/26/26greenwire-two-epa-staffers-que...
How predictable that a minor disagreement over some minor points would be spun by the denialist dittohead hordes to imply that there is some deep question about the science. For an intelligent and well informed discussion of this tempest in a teapot, check out:
http://www.realclimate.org/
Again, the basic facts:
1. CO2 is a greenhouse gas (established over 100 years ago)
2. Industrial civilization has dumped hundreds of billions of tons of additional CO2 into the atmosphere (over 30 billion tons just last year), mostly by burning fossil fuels, in the last 150 years.
3. Global concentration of CO2 has increased over this period from about 280 parts per million to about 390 ppm now.
4. Global average temperature has increased by over one degree over this period.
Each of these is completely uncontroversial. These are the clear and well established "dots" that deniers can't quite deny, but can't bring themselves to connect.
Not also that every established scientific body in the world that has considered the issue has found that AGW is real and dangerous.
Again, denialist can't deny this, so they come up with hodge-podges of random people from random fields who signed vaguely stated proclamations that is then spun to suggest that there is great scholarly disagreement on this issue. There is not.
Among published climatologists, there is essentially unanimous agreement on that AGW is real and is a real threat. The highest level climatologist are the ones most concerned.
Don't be fooled by well-funded denialist spin.
Well said. (And consider "denialist dittohead hordes" as good as stolen, at least by me.)
I'm astonished at the way the media keeps coddling the wackaloon climate chaos deniers. If someone called the NY Times with "proof" that man never landed on the moon, the Earth is flat, Elvis is alive and working the midnight to 8AM shift in a 7Eleven, the reporter wouldn't go near the story, except possibly to mock the caller and his fellow travelers.
So why do the crackpots who endlessly claim it's cosmic rays or fairy dust or whatever continue to be treated seriously?
All of which reminds me of one of my all-time favorite quotations:
Neither global warming nor any other serious problem can be addressed by a society that equates willful ignorance with freedom of thought.
-- Bernard Cooperman
Lou: How about an appropriate label for the BS artists who claim that cap and trade will materially affect climate change?
Again, personal attacks and branding people heretics does not seem to help.
The earth has been cooling for most of the last decade. As far as i know, the IPCC did not predict this before the cooling happened. The IPCC predicted continued warming. To me, this indicates that the IPCC models are seriously flawed, and perhaps there models are fatally flawed.
Fatally ? Hell, which other event than AGW (true or not true) could NOW for governments be a trigger to switch to green energy ?
The point of science is to find out the truth and how the universe works. I do not believe that science should be concerned with politics.
Science should be in service of human race, especially if is has to be saved on the brink of ruin. So it is best if politicians believe in AGW, since most don't seem to get PO. I know what the point of science is.
I do not believe that science should be concerned with politics.
It doesn't matter what you think.
The reality is humans live within a framework of laws. Laws created and enforced by politics.
So the science be damned - what is politically expedient is what will happen.
CO2/Sunspots/Aliens controlling the sun (see Scott Stevens for that POV) - it doesn't matter.
The growth economy model is not functional without cheap expanding energy to drive it. To admit that is to admit that the leadership class was wrong - and the resulting backlash is not something "they" (or odds are "us") want to see. Sane and rational people understand that "rock oil" was way under priced and is still under priced for a non renewable resource. Handing out indulgence taxes as a way to try and correct the underpricing of energy and shifting the economic model WHILE attempting to assign the blame elsewhere is the reality.
You the leadership class "forced us" to use your money/economic system places less blame on the participant class than "everyone emits CO2 even by breathing" of taxing CO2 to shift the economic system/provide cover for the broken economic system model.
Me, I'm going to sit back, take more of my FRN's and convert them into solar panels to add to what I have, add more evacuated glass tubes and when the ppl I know complain about a new energy tax I'll remind them that I told 'em to install PV/Solar hot water and then they'd be paying less in carbon taxes now.
The rest of you may resume your bickering over
FRN - Federal Reserve Note?
yes.
Great. Two people who are either utterly clueless about basic science or who are completely dishonest about it. Strike that: This stuff is too simple to misunderstand, so you are simply dishonest. The only question is whether your ideology truly can overwhelm the basic functioning of your brain or whether you simply embrace a bunch of lies and bullshit.
1. You both know a short term trend is not useful in climate science. Long term trends are needed to smooth out noise in the system, i.e. natural variability.
2. The natural variability being abused here is El Nino. You are both pretending you know nothing of El Nino, know nothing of statistics (anomalous measures are discarded in much, if not all, statistical analysis to get rid of noise in the system, no?), and know nothing of determining trends.
3. You are both pretending to not understand that any measurement above the long term trend raises the trend. Given every year, including 2008, in the last twelve has been well above the long term trend, it is statistically impossible to claim there is a cooling trend in a thirty year trend calculation. I repeat, a ten year trend is not meaningful in climate science, which you both know.
Thus, you are both lying your asses off or are ideologically blinded actors in this debate. This is an inescapable conclusion, so don't bother responding.
4. If temperatures were the sole driver in this debate, one might be willing to give you the benefit of the doubt, but they aren't. However, they are the only part of the debate you will engage in because you perceive the public to be stupid enough to buy that *you* are stupid enough to not understand 1, 2 and 3 above. Every metric under discussion is showing warming/deterioration. Every single one. While there are some metrics that give short-term benefits in isolated instances, these are almost always completely canceled by negative effects.
A simple example is the claim more CO2 is good because it increases plant yields. Indeed! Until, that is, heat and evaporation overwhelm the gains of increased CO2.
In fact, a recent study out of Florida showed this effect even happens in the Arctic where melting CO2/methane increases plant growth for a period of time, but then is overwhelmed and the melting permafrost becomes a carbon emitter. This likely helps explain why there was a methane decline for about ten years, but a new spike starting in 2007.
Also, CO2 doesn't just aid the growth of what we might consider beneficent plants, but also such plants as ragweed, etc., which increase the incidence and severity of health problems, costing lots of money, time and misery.
But, the two of you know this.
5. The completely idiotic point above, BC, is childish in its poor construction. The IPCC didn't predict this supposed cooling, so their models are wrong? Ridiculous. Again, the question arises, are you truly that ignorant, or are you that deranged by your ideology? To wit:
- The IPCC didn't predict anything. It generated a wide range of scenarios based on data at the time. (Data which is now well out-of-date, thus Copenhagen.)
- The IPCC did, in fact, expect chaotic responses because climate is a non-linear system. I guarantee you you will find no claim in the IPCC that warming would be a steady year-on-year event into perpetuity because they would have had to be morons to make such a claim. It's bad science. It's utterly devoid of science to make such a ridiculous supposition.
To be clear, you are claiming the IPCC participants didn't, en toto, understand non-linear systems and would venture to claim a climatic system would act in a linear way. This is absurd on its face.
To be clearer, by stating what you do above you are proving beyond a doubt that you either A. do not understand statistics, non-linear systems and climate or B. you are ideologically incapable of rational thought on this topic or are an ideologically-driven liar.
I leave it to the reader to deiced for themselves.
I advocate EcoNuremberg for any and all who lie about climate science, for they are putting the survival of civilization at risk, not to mention billions of lives.
Personal insults are the domain of those with weak arguments. LOL.
The point on the IPCC has made predictions, that the world will get warmer. The fact that the world has stopped getting warmer contridicts the IPCC's models.
The IPCC tries to fudge the issues by calling their predictions "scenarios", but they are predictions all the same.
The issue is not a cold month or even a year, but that the IPCC has not predicted a cooling decade. Each month that the world does not get warmer, the global warming arguement becomes weaker and the models become more suspect.
As i said before, look at the temperature. The change in the UAH data shows a very minor up trend, consistent with normal, year-to-year changes. This is over a 30 year period.
At the end of the day, all that matters is what the temperature is, not what modelers say the temperature should be or should have been.
The truth, by definition, is not an insult; it's an observation.
Lie.
Stupid. Judging by your spelling, I'm putting you squarely in the, "I'm a dupe!" camp. Thus, you are forgiven your ignorance. Well, you would be if you would learn from your errors, but you don't.
Stupid.
They haven't predicted anything. If you look at the "predictions" you claim are being made, i.e. the output from the models, you will see they DO, in fact, have downward trends within the overall upward trend. Why lie?
Climate is determined at the scale of decades, minimum, and you carry on about months? Idiotic.
Yes, i am not a good speller.
Question: If the IPCC has not predicted anything, how do we know the world will get warmer and that sea levels will rise? The IPCC has clearly predicted future climate predictions.
Second, how can you say that the IPCC has not predicted a warmer earth? How is this a lie?
Based on UAH data, which i have linked before, the world has stopped getting warmer over the last few years.
On a side note: Are you capable of having a mature, adult discussion on scientific issues without personal insults?
Personal insults are a refuge of people with weak arguements.
blondieBC, please state scientific definitions for the following words:
prediction
scenario
projection
forecast
trend
model
Is the Pacific Decennial Oscillation responsible for the general decline in global average temperatures during this decade?
If not, what do you think is the physical cause or causes?
For how long do you think your "cooling trend" will continue into the future?
Do you think your "cooling trend" will continue linearly?
What factors do you think affect global average surface temperature, and what are the magnitudes and time series of their contributions?
the world has stopped getting warmer??
http://nsidc.org/data/seaice_index/images/daily_images/N_timeseries.png
"The IPCC predicted continued warming. To me, this indicates that the IPCC models are seriously flawed..."
Just for the record (I'm not going to persuade you, BlondieBC), the global mean temperature varies a lot from year to year. The long-term trend is buried in this annual random "noise".
The IPCC models are climate models, not weather forecasting models. They ignore short term random variation. 10-year runs are meaningless in climate terms. The smallest time period that climate scientists examine is thirty years. Check back in 2029.
One More "Basic Fact:"
While CO2 in the atmosphere, as measured at Mauna Loa, has increased by 20.85 ppm (about 5%) in the last 11 years, Global Temperatures have Fallen, Significantly.
Kdoll..
Get out of here! Just leave, if you're going to keep lying like this.
You have posted this stupid graph using the 1998 outlier temps to "Prove" this lunacy about 4 times this week. Change that date on the right to "1997" and plot it again.. WHOA! The Trend just reversed itself!
Do you have any pride?
Bob
We will see a strong El Nino sooner rather than later and when that happens the denialists graphs will have to start with that year :) It will be hilarious to watch 'em.
Every MONTH (this is pretty astounding) since 1992 has exceeded the global mean temperature baseline from 1951-1980.
GISS Global Temperature Data
This data has some issues:
1) From different data sources.
2) Why use only 30 years to base line, why not use the full data set?
3) The data has been edited. This editing can have biases.
Also, we are cooler than the medevial warm period or the last interglacial. Both sides seem to be picking data periods as a debating tactic, more than as a search for the truth.
I'm still waiting for someone to question the simple basic facts presented above or to show how they do not point to AGW. All I see is idiotic cherry picking and outright lies.
Still waiting......
Dohboi,
The question is NOT whether they are facts; we can stipulate that they are. The question is, "Are They Relevant?"
Did 1, 2, and 3 Cause 4?
If so, "To What Extent?"
A LOT of the warming was before 1945, for example. Most of the Fossil Fuels were burned After 1945.
You can wave your arms, and shout, and call me a "Lying Denier" all you want, but it just isn't that simple.
The Science is Not "Settled." Heck, it's hardly even begun.
It is your points that are irrelevant.
I take it you are conceding that they are facts. If you cannot see their relevance, you have some cognitive deficits no amount of reasoning on my part is going to help you with.
Most of the fossil fuels were burned after '45, right, so what? That is still a lot of ff burning before '45? Hence a lot of warming. How is this so hard to get?
Your points are so idiotic, I feel embarrassed even addressing them.
The science is very settled. I'm still waiting for someone to come up with a major, established scientific organization (not some random collection of idiots or a rightwing think tank) that has concluded otherwise.
Nearly 100% of published professional climatologists acknowledge that AGW is very real and very dangerous.
No amount of bolds and caps by people like you trying dangerously trying to obscure these important truths is going to change these facts.
Let me add kd is again showing her innate ability to lie like a rug, or can she truly be ignorant of the cooling effects of aerosols that have been shown to be the primary reason for the cooling trend from @1940's to @ 1970's?
http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn11639-climate-myths-the-cooling-af...
Not only does the above make it quite clear kd is flat-out lying here, it also puts paid to her ridiculous claims the supposed cooling of the last ten years has any significance: here we have a thirty year cooling trend that was nothing more than masking the underlying problem. That's a thirty year trend! Yet, it meant less than nothing in terms of Anthropogenically-driven Climate Change. But ten years of well-above-average-trend temps is significant cooling? That is BizarroLand reasoning.
I say she cannot possibly be ignorant of this, so has been caught in yet another, to be far kinder than deserved, misrepresentation.
As Oreskes, et al., have shown, truth is not their province, accuracy not their concern.
Yes, this is one person's explanation. Other people point to solar cycles or long-term weather patterns. This article merely shows one person's hypothesis, not proof.
Again, personal attacks do not advance science.
One person's explanation? You are a joke. Didn't even read it, did you?
Personal attack? You lie and that equals me making a personal attack? You don't understand basic scientific practice, I say so, and that's a personal attack? Bullshit.
Your lies are an attack on MY survival.
You are stupid or a liar, and I really could not care less which it is.
My belief system has no impact on the amount of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere or the the temperature.
When i state my existing beliefs, i have no impact on your survival.
BTW, if you don't care, why do you keep responding. LOL
You have a right to your own 'belief system' but not to your own facts.
Your beliefs determine your actions concerning emission and sequestration of anthropic greenhouse gases. Stating your beliefs in this forum is an attempt to persuade others to adopt your beliefs. Emission of anthropic GHS's is a group action and can not be altered by the actions of an individual. The issue must be addressed by the group. ccpo views anthropic GHG's as deadly pollution while you do not. Similarly you probably view his desire to confront anthropic climate change as a threat to your standard of living.
Hopefully I have made his perspective clear to you.
I've never read such nonsense. Mt Agung - .5 C ?
Mount Agung was a VEI 5 (that's "Explosive Index" to you, Bubba.)
Pinataubo was a VEI 6. (That's 10 Times a Five.)
Pinataubo's effect was in the .4 to .5 range. Agung would have been in the range of 0.05, or hardly noticeable.
Google it, Bro.
Typical ploy to ignore the main thrust of the argument and niggle about a minor one.
I'm done feed you trolls. Completely worthless trash.
Good catch Bob! Not a very good effort Kdoll... Sure, point us to an interactive page where we can plug in values and see the results for ourselves. Don't you think inquiring minds will want to play around a little? The further back you go the more distinctly positive the trend line gets.
http://www.woodfortrees.org/plot/uah/from:1958/plot/uah/from:1958/trend
(Hint: anybody can plug the year they want to view the data from into the above URL to go straight to the graph)
Lame efforts like that won' get you much cred in these parts I'm afraid, as a matter of fact, I'm forced to refrain myself from describing your mental abilities in very unflattering terms.
Alan from the islands
Yes, I flew off the handle a little, didn't I?
That post comes with an implicit apology to CCPO for getting on him about such rants.. but of course at some point, the yelling quickly finds diminishing returns.
Maybe TOD could set up a sort of FAQ that can be quick-links so we can just say;
"WHY THE ABOVE IS STILL UNTRUE AND NOT WORTH SPENDING MORE TIME ON.. See Number 14,"
Bob
Lame effort, maybe, but at least I know what I'm putting up.
Islandboy, your graph is from 1979 (that's as far back as satellite data goes.) You type anything before 79', and it defaults to the earliest available data.
BUT, since you put it up (btw, you do realize that this is, effectively, a graph of temperatures of the "Positive" Oscillation of the PDO, right?) Anyhoo,
Even this positive PDO period only increased by about 0.4 C.
That would be about 1.3 C per Century.
Oh, the misery.
Yeah, I realized when I went to play with it some more that, the data set in question doesn't go back further than 1979. Playing with it some more, I found that data for global ocean surface temperatures goes back at least 100 years and I posted a link to that somewhere on this thread.
Generally speaking, I fall into the category of people who look at a potentially bad situation and try to prepare for "the worst". ending pleasantly surprised if things don't go that badly after all. You appear to look at unpleasant trends and find data or reason to suggest that such trends are only temporary or oscillations as you put it. I hope for all our sakes, that you are right but unfortunately my belief systems do not allow me to share your optimism.
Alan from the islands
kdolliso,
You are not only ignorant of the consensus about anthropogenic climate change but you are also fractally wrong.
The IPCC Fourth Assessment Report
(2007)
+2500 scientific expert reviewers
800 contributing authors
450 lead authors
+130 countries
The current consensus is that things are worse than was originally predicted.
http://climatecongress.ku.dk/presentations/
No, I posted the 1997 forward chart last week, along with the 1998 chart (Once.)
The 1997 chart gives an increase of about 0.025 Degree Centigrade for a period of about 12 years. That would give an increase of about, what, 0.20 Degrees Centigrade/Century?
That'll make the seas boil, eh?
Then why did you post 1998 just today, as if that defined a trend IN ANY WAY?
Doing things like that works against ANY point or principle you might be trying to make.. I attach that tactic to your name, and anything else I read under KDOLLISO gets run through that filter.
You're losing ground.
Jokuhl, oscillations are defined by their "Peaks," and "Troughs."
Temps on earth seem to be on a steady warming trend since the end of the Little Ice Age. This "Overall" Trend seems to be modulated by a 60 year, Peak to Peak, Trough to Trough Cycle. It closely corresponds to the PDO, but other oscillations intensify, or diminish it. The AMO (Atlantic Multi-Decadal Oscillation) is one of these.
The PDO is, also, closely tied in with the ENSO (El Nino, and La Nina) occurrences. So closely, in fact, that there is disagreement as to which actually drives which.
Anyway, 1998 was the "Peak" of the last cycle. We probably won't see another one like it for many years.
As for the Sun: It really is an interesting topic to study.
And, as for AGW: I'm agnostic. I, actually, support most of the things the AGW'ers want to do, Just for different reasons.
I bet we will see another like it within the next 10 years.
2005 already surpassed it, according to the GISS global temps.
http://data.giss.nasa.gov/gistemp/tabledata/GLB.Ts+dSST.txt
http://www.drroyspencer.com/latest-global-temperatures/
Using satelite data, your test, and 1980 as the base year; global warming has already lost.
Huh? I call 'bullshit.'
You would have to plot the 1980-2007 annual trend, with a standard deviation (or was it two? I'll have to go back and check) to 'box' in the trend. Then take the 2007 high and low and extend them flat into the future. Then you can plot future yearly averages against the past trend to determine if it the trend is broken.
Your link does none of that.
Here is the monthly trend of UAH lower troposphere:
http://vortex.nsstc.uah.edu/data/msu/t2lt/uahncdc.lt
trendline: dTemp = 0.0012 * month + -0.1324
rms: 0.1784
r^2: 0.30415225
yearly deltaT = 0.0144
You really think that 2008 is going to fall outside the 28 year UAH trend with deviation? I don't.
If I'm around tonight, I'll run the numbers.
If your graph is correct to scale, and the test range is about 0.2 from your trend line, YES.
Any year below 0.4 warming breaks your test. I am not defending or attacking your test. I am mearly running existing data through the test you proposed.
http://vortex.nsstc.uah.edu/data/msu/t2lt/uahncdc.lt
No month in 2008 was above 0.25 variation, so test comes out no global warming.
http://www.drroyspencer.com/2009/06/may-2009-global-temperature-update-0...
And no month has been above 0.4 this year. So it has been at least 17 months since your test passed for global warming. March 2007 was the last month to pass your test, as shown in the graph.
I'm not engaging with blondie--clearly a troll.
If he/she experienced a day or week in the spring that was colder than the previous one, he/she would claim that this was proof that the theory that summer was warmer than winter had been proven wrong.
This kind of argument is not worth engaging in. It is beyond puerile.
Again, you avoid discussing the data, and do an attack on me.
I am quite serious, and i am using recognized data sources.
I do not believe the other guys test is valid, i was merely apply actual data, to his hypothesis, to obtain a result.
Blondie - you are trying to apply UAH data into a GISS temp chart.
Apples and oranges.
If you want to examine the UAH trend 1980-2007, you need to use a UAH chart
Now we are ready to drop the 2008 data point into the 1980/2007 trend ...
2008 falls into the defined trend for UAH annualized data.
The trend is defined to a 95% confidence level. Having one year in 20 drop out of the boundaries would be no surprise. The initial 'bet,' which generated the first GISS chart above, was for 2 years to fall out bounds. If they fell above the 2007 upper limits (above the 2sd-hi light red line post 2007), warming is confirmed. If they fell below the bottom of the trend's lower limits (below the blue line post 2007), cooling (or flatlining) is confirmed.
For now, there is no proof that the long term warming trends (GISS or UAH) are broken. But time will tell.
BTW, the little green dot in the GISS chart above is the 2008 GISS annual anomaly applied to the 1975/2007 trend. 2008 did not break the trend for GISS either.
If you want to see the origins of the 'trend line bet,' check out the following link:
http://tamino.wordpress.com/2008/01/31/you-bet/
Hmm, what's that little blue dot down in the lower right corner?
Oh, that's 2008. Interestingly, UAH has 1999/2000, and 2008 almost the same, whereas GISS has 2008 almost 0.12 higher than 1999/2000.
They're Both La Nina Periods. That IS strange.
"And, as for AGW: I'm agnostic."
Agnostic literally means "not knowing." That fits pretty well, apparently.
Which of the points that I made above do you doubt or do you not understand?
I posted my answer above; but it's mainly one of "Causation." Did 1, 2, and 3 Cause4, and to what extent?
This is tantamount to a killer saying, "Yes, I pointed the gun at his head, I pulled the trigger, the bullet went into his head, but these three things didn't CAUSE his death, or maybe just to some minor extent..."
Your position and your reasoning are both below contempt.
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/06/29/opinion/29krugman.html?_r=1&em
I don't think the oceans are going to boil, but such poor science tends to make my blood boil. Changes in climate variables, such as temperature, can't be detected reliably on short time scales. For example, there is that 11 year cycle in sunspots, which is likely to produce a small variation in the data, so picking a period of less than twice that 11 years is going to be dominated by whatever influence comes from the measured variation in TOA insolation. Then too, there's the ENSO oscillation to consider, which looks like more noise. We know that 1998 was a very warm year, so starting a trend calculation then (or in 1997) would give a smaller trend than one beginning in 1990, before the eruption of Pinatubo. Besides, there are other indicators of climate change besides the noisy temperature record, such as Arctic sea-ice or low latitude mountain glaciers...
E. Swanson
You don't have to extrapolate based on a sample you can use actual data for the last century like the dat for global sea surface temperatures here:
http://www.woodfortrees.org/plot/hadsst2gl/from:1908/plot/hadsst2gl/from...
Now there! You can just extrapolate for the next 100 years based on the last 100, ignoring the chance for any possible positive feedback loops!
Don't even get us started on the "seas boil" thing.
Alan from the islands
Okay, you're looking at (per your chart) about +0.8 C anomoly/Century. Boogedie, boogedie
HOWEVER, you might ought to consider that the 20th Century, basically, consisted of a period of TWO Positive PDOs, and ONE Negative PDO. This Century will be Just the Opposite (ie Two Negative PDOs, and One Positive.)
Lets play scientist.
I suggest that you can not state with certainty that the PDO will exhibit your future projection until you can describe the exact mechanism(s) involved.
Does the PDO cause climate change? Does the PDO repeat with an absolute fixed period or is the period of oscillation uncertain? But, what causes the PDO? If the cause is internal to the Earth's climate system, please describe it for us. If it is external (such as solar variation), please demonstrate the physical connection and provide proof.
As the old saying goes: "Put up or shut up".
E. Swanson
I can't do it. I don't know.
Now, maybe you can explain to me how, inasmuch as we know the forcing of CO2 to be logarithmic, and, thus, unlikely to produce a forcing of more than 1.3 Degrees over the next 100 years, exactly how "Positive" reinforcement from Clouds, and water vapor is going to push us up to James Hansen's 3 Degrees Centigrade, or higher.
And, while you're at it, tell us what the temp rise is going to be if Spencer, and Christy are right that Clouds actually produce a net "Negative" Reinforcement.
The first point might be answered when one understands that water vapor is a greenhouse gas and the amount of it in the atmosphere (on average) is a direct function of temperature. So, as the temperature rises due to increasing CO2, the amount of H2O in the atmosphere also increases, thus causing more warming. The IR absorption bands for CO2 and H2O block different wavelengths in the overall emission spectra from the surface out to deep space.
As for clouds producing a negative feedback, I think it's up to Spencer and Christy (and Lindzen as well) to explain how the Ice Ages happened. That is to say, what possible cooling forcing would be large enough, absent the warming due to the proposed negative feedback from clouds, to produce the global cooling we know happened. In other words, a 5 deg C cooler Earth during the Ice Ages must have been caused by a larger overall cooling, perhaps 8 or 10 deg C. Feedbacks work both ways, you know.
E. Swanson
More water vapor = more clouds too.
And water vapor is also a log function.
Naw, Ron, I don't think anyone's said that the AGW'ers have to "explain the Ice Ages," and I don't think Spencer, et al, have to either.
I know you know most of this, but Here, Spencer's work on clouds is somewhat synopsized.
Basically, I think it's fair to say, he gives the devil its due when it comes to water vapor, but feels that clouds pretty much make up for it.
CO2 is only the most important of the anthropogenic GHG, comprising just over half the human forcing. NO2, and methane are also pretty important. So that bumps up the basic forcing. Interestingly the aerosol forcing (particullates/ global dimming) just about cancels out the CO2 forcing, but that requires the continuing burning -at an ever increasing rate of fossil fuels. The water vapor, which is a response to the heating not the GHG, roughly doubles the effect of any forcing (be it solar or whatever). The gross size of the water vapor feedback is reasonably well constrained, both by theory, and the matching of paleoclimate data. There will always be those who for ideological reasons throw out stuff that claims to refute the science. The science doesn't support a negative water vapor feedback. Of course if it were negative it would reduce the size of the response. Claims of a negative feedback need to be re-enforced by peer reviewed studies and data. Extraordinary claims (which at this point negative water vapor feedback would be) require extraordinary data.
Unfortunately, the data for the last 10 years does not support your conclusions.
The global warming crowd is so focused on the models, they forget to walk outside and check the temperature. All the models in the world will not change the actual temperature.
Blondie, although climate and weather are not the same thing (days and seasons V decades and centuries) I'll still refute you based on your logic. Here in Sydney (Australia) we had the hottest period EVER last summer and our southern neigbours(Victoria) had it far worse (a heat wave period 3 times longer than EVER experienced AND a perfect storm for bushfires (hot, dry, windy) that wiped whole towns off the map Google "Black Saturday" to see how bad the situation was). If you want to chance going through that then please continue in denial of AGW.
"Now, maybe you can explain to me how, inasmuch as we know the forcing of CO2 to be logarithmic, and, thus, unlikely to produce a forcing of more than 1.3 Degrees over the next 100 years, exactly how "Positive" reinforcement from Clouds, and water vapor is going to push us up to James Hansen's 3 Degrees Centigrade, or higher."
kd, like blondie, seems to be a troll, repeating many oft refuted points. But for lurkers who may still be hoodwinked by such horse feathers:
There are multiple positive feedback loops (better termed vicious cycles or death spirals), reinforcing and amplifying the global warming that humans have already and are still causing:
1) Albedo--as the snow and ice cover of land and sea melt, they reflect less light out into space and the land and sea revealed absorb more of the light which turns into heat. This heat melts the remaining snow and ice faster which leaves yet less reflective and more light absorbing surface...
2) Melting tundra emits green house gases, especially CO2 and methane (70+ times more powerful as a ghg than CO2 over the short time scales it stays in the atmosphere). Huge quantities, exceeding the hundreds of billions of tons of ghg's we have already emitted, could be released from just this source.
3) CO2 dissolved in the ocean becomes carbonic acid. About half of the CO2 we have emitted has been absorbed into the oceans. All this extra acid is acidifying the surface of the ocean and killing the plankton that can act to more permanently sequester CO2.
4) The oceans are also getting saturated with CO2 and will not absorb much more, instead it will start releasing the vast amounts it has stored.
5) The oceans are also warming and warm water can not absorb CO2 as readily.
I could go on, but these self-accelerating processes are already underway. Another one that may have already started based on recent studies in the Arctic is the release of clathrates--methane hydrates frozen on the sea bed. These represent many times the total CO2 we have already emitted. This is the real sleeping giant that we have probably already awakened.
It is hard to model how these feed backs will all interact and reinforce each other, but those who have tried to account for even a few show inevitable rises far beyond what the IPCC report suggested.
Here is a Norwegian Kdoll-warning ... make that a blondi-warning as well
Please, often refuted points.
Do you or do you not accept the UAH data set as valid?
As to point 5, the oceans do not appear to be heating over the last 4 or 5 years.
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=88520025
Do you or do you not accept these measurements as accurate?
From the article you linked to:
Ridiculous, childish bullshit.
Yep, that would be about 12 1/2 Inches in a Century.
Omigawrsh, I'm Drownin, Drownin I tell ya.
Right. Because climate is linear.
Why do you have such a need to lie?
kdolliso, YOU may live on a mountain where a foot of elevation is nothing but a billion or so people live in low lying areas where a foot represents the difference between productive land and land loss to the sea or aquifer saltwater invasion. Think the Nile delta (about 40 million people) or Bangladesh or New Orleans or entire countries (Maldives, Tuvalu) that are doomed. BTW it may not be a foot but 2 or 20 (or more) if feedback loops cause ice melt. If that happens then about half the worlds population and productive land is in trouble and they will screw you out of your comfy lair.
Further up this thread islandboy posted the following link showing sea surface temperatures over the past century:
http://www.woodfortrees.org/plot/hadsst2gl/from:1908/plot/hadsst2gl/from...
I can only assume you did not look at this, because if you did you would quickly see the folly of attempting to draw any meaningful conclusion from an interval as short as 5 years.
Yes, we observed that it's about 0.8 Centigrade/Century.
Bialin they is, Jes Bialin
Albedo is very high at the poles, whether it's off ice, or water. Lot of supposin going on, there.
Methane/tundra - More supposin
The oceans are very alkaline. They may be just slightly less alkaline than a hundred years, ago. Maybe not.
Protoplankton were flourishing the last I read. Perhaps you'd like to provide a "cite" for that.
Actually, according to the Argos buoys the ocean has been cooling since 2003. Check with Josh Willis.
However, Flora, Globally, is flourishing. It's up about six percent in the last decade, or so. Flora tends to Cool the earth, you know.
Look, you can wave your arms, and go on, and on about "this Could happen, That Might happen, Something else is Possible. It doesn't mean anything, As Blondie said: "Check the Thermometer."
So you're an agnostic, but you deny every aspect of cliamte change? Liar. Pure and simple.
As for your idiotic - will things never change? - points above?
Mathematically deficient. The difference in reflectivity is massive: @80% for ice, @20% for water. Try again. This idiocy also implies you deny Arctic Amplification. Good luck with that.
Bull:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2008/nov/25/water-ocean-acidity-sh...
Here's why it's important: http://www.realclimate.org/index.php?p=169
Yes, let's do.
http://74.125.95.132/search?q=cache:BE0n4CmQYg8J:oceans.pmel.noaa.gov/Pd...
And you can wave your arms and lie your ass off and misrepresent the science and show utter stupidity by claiming a short-term change equals climate, but at the end of the day you are lying your ass off or are one of the dumbest people I have ever come across. Given your ability to post in complete, though foolish, sentences, we must assume you are a pathological liar.
Well, you misrepresented your puny little VEI 5 Volcano by about a factor of 10, and now you're misrepresenting the deal with the Argos buoys.
A rather large temperature decrease was seen when the buoys were installed, and the boyz had to scramble to try and fix it. They found some of the old XBTs that were blowing too hot, and some new Argos that were registering a little too cold. They pretty much fixed their problem, except, they didn't
It has continued to get colder in the oceans. They have "adjusted" like crazy but they haven't managed to get it "all out." Thus, the data since 2003. Loehle (sp.) got hold of the "raw" argos data, and it's plunging. You can find it; it's published.
Raw data is just that, raw data. I worked in research analyzing data from astronomical satellites. You would probably be amazed at the years of careful and tedious data correction you need to apply to raw data to get real believable results. I'd estimate 75% of my research time was spent in correcting raw data. Small signals and many sources of noise mean the raw data can bear very little resemblance to the final corrected data. I don't doubt it is similar in this case. So raw data trends mean absolutely nothing.
Of course you are free to say that you think the scientists are all busy faking the data like crazy, and I am free to treat that as the comment of one truly ignorant in the ways of science, and one with whom it is not worth having a conversation since any inconvenient data can simply be dismissed as fakery.
If my research had had the same inconvenient implications as climate science research does, I'm sure people like you would have been accusing me of fakery.
I said nothing about any volcano. As for the rest, assertion is all you got, liar. I don't take the word of lying internet prima donas over actual scientists without very good reason.
Above, you posted this:
Then, when called on the fact that it was a VEI5, incapable of producing 0.1 much less .5 you say you didn't post it, and Call Me a Liar.
It's right above, Dumbo.
Jane, you ignorant....
L e t m e s a y t h i s r e a l s l o w: I misrepresented nothing, I distorted nothing, I said nothing. I posted a quote from an on-line magazine. You're a meat head. Your assertion about the effect is nothing but your assertion. You want to prove the writers/researchers wrong, get published. Otherwise, shut up.
Further, you are lying by omission: you didn't even address the issue. The volcano content in that snippet was completely secondary to the issue. This is a tactic you employ constantly.
And, yes, you are a liar. Your claim that *I* misrepresented anything is a flat-out lie.
Negative feedback loops also exist.
(I've already replied down a bit in the same vein)
Don't forget - change the scale to 1999 and.... it also goes up:
http://www.woodfortrees.org/plot/uah/from:1999/plot/uah/from:1999/trend
Here is the 30 year graph.
http://www.drroyspencer.com/latest-global-temperatures/
It shows about a 0.2 degree change. Based on the starting date picked, the trend can be show to go up or down.
There was a 1992 volcano event and a 1998 El Nino year. However, the temperature did peak in 1998 and has declined since then. Since the 1998 El Nino was used to prove global warming, the decline since then is a fair way to disprove global warming.
Hmm, where to begin? Firstly a single data point would never be cited as validating any scientific theory, it is accumulation of evidence that is required. Secondly AGW is a theory, so almost by definition cannot be proven. That is just a basic lack of scientific understanding. If you read the IPCC reports you will note they never claim proof, just probability. Accumulated evidence increases probability that a theory is true, but will never prove it. Thirdy, 1998 was never claimed to "prove global warming", since it was widely acknowledged at the time to be an outlier due to an extreme El Nino event. A temporary retreat after such an extreme event is unsurprising.
That is why it is a mistake to focus on individual data points and real scientists would never do so, the complete opposite to the unscientific methods of so much of the denialist camp. Declines since the extreme 1998 year are not in the least surprising. Since the first part of your sentence is nonsense it renders the second half irrelevant. Note though that the 10 years to end-2007 were the warmest on record, and the last 10 years to end May 2009 were the second warmest - and that does not include the 1998 event at all.
Another "Basic Fact:
What will happen in 2012-13 ?
Sorry, that image is bloody huge. I replaced it with a link.
Only 140 k, but I see.
Anyway it was very debunkingly proactive against kdolliso 'the jokers' relentless and unscientific claims.
Only 140K? You realize a quarter of our visitors are still on dialup, don't you?
And it doesn't need to be that big. GIF is a poor format for an image like that.
I will convert it to JPG for you - it's only 35k that way.
I'm running at 26.4K. I appreciated having the graphic. Came thru with no problem.
I converted it to JPG and re-posted it. It's 1/4 the file size that way.
Thanks.
Yes, thanks, but could you post the link, too. Good, and scary, graphic.
The other point is that the periods when warming proceeded more slowly correspond ('45 to '70s and last ten years) correspond with years when a lot of dirty coal plants were built, first in the developed world, more recently in China. The aerosols emitted by these are calculated to block up to two degrees worth of warming.
So if China cleans up their coal plants (which they are planning to do, since the particulates are killing their people) or their economic decline continues and they shut many down or run them less, we can expect a rather sudden jump in global temps as this masking effect is removed or reduced.
This on top of the multiple and potentially very powerful feedback loops that are already kicking in, and on top of the sun cycle so nicely graphed here is likely to make the next decade very...interesting one. We will likely have essentially a different planet in a few very few years.
Here you go , Deep Solar Minimum :
April 1, 2009: The sunspot cycle is behaving a little like the stock market. Just when you think it has hit bottom, it goes even lower. ... and so the story goes.
http://science.nasa.gov/headlines/y2009/01apr_deepsolarminimum.htm
Here is more, if you like to tear the trolls completely apart ...
http://solarscience.msfc.nasa.gov/
Thanks, paal. And don't let the trolsters get you down.
I wont let them get to me :-)
What puzzles me the most about these pedestrians, is why God was so seemingly unfair when he shuffled and distributed this IQ-luggage - or is it just Darwins ideas juggling on ?
Again, personal insults. These are not useful.
Your lies are far more insulting than anything anyone could possibly say to you.
Yes I know there are many still on dial-up and that 140k is some size in that regard. But people come here to TOD to get and add info, and often the threads balloon beyond the reach to take in all - and the proverb 'a picture tells a thousand words' is true - IMHO -
That image would immediately widen some 'still uninformed' people (and still will if clicked), that there are someting called solar-spots - which in turn inflict on the climate / weather. If say kdolliso 'the joker' understood this paramount info, maybe he'd QUIT to act like a moron or some to that effect.
(let it be understood : I understand that you changed the pic to a link since I didn't bother to reduce the pic)
**** EDIT : Good to see the pic back in the thread again!
thanks.
Also remember that folks on a dial-up only need to download a picture once - when they refresh it's still in the cashe-memory on their computer.
I usually allow charts and graphs, even if they're oversized.
But climate change is not really the subject of this site, and most people have made up their minds by now, and aren't going to change them no matter how many charts and graphs are posted. So I'm asking for some restraint in that area.
That depends on the server, actually. Ours used to force all images to refresh every time you reloaded the page. They changed that, thankfully.
I do understand how caching works. I would ask you to consider what it would be like if everyone posted just one image that was "only" 140k.
What? I posted numbers (from NASA satellites) and you posted a graph of sunspot activity.
Are you saying the sun might have something to do with temperatures?
Are you familiar with Svensmark?
Next you'll be trying to tell me we've been in a "Positive" PDO (Pacific Decadal Oscillation) for the last 30 years (ending about 2007.)
Or, maybe you'll just wave your arms, and call me a "Liar."
You posted data from UAH. That data was derived from NASA MSU instruments, which don't measure temperature, but, instead measure equivalent microwave radiance as measured at the instrument. There have been many problems uncovered with Spencer and Christy's TLT and they still have not explained how they came up with their algorithm which converts "brightness temperature" into their TLT product. I say that after going to the effort to read everything they wrote about the TLT since their 1990 paper, in an effort to understand what they did.
Their first work was later claimed to be in error, although it's still the foundation of their "MT" product. I even proposed another approach to processing the MSU data, but that suggestion has been ignored, for all I know.
There's still lots to be learned about climate. The PDO may be connected to the variations in the AMOC on the other side of the Earth, for all I know. I do think that ocean circulation is changing, so looking only at short term temperatures is foolish, as the time constants on circulation are likely to be many decades long...
E. Swanson
"Derived from Satellite data."
Valid Point.
It's fascinating how you completely ignore the point of nearly every post. No response to the criticisms of the Spencer/Christy crap science? They have known about this problem with their data for a very long time, but have done nothing about it.
Do you consider that honest?
There was a problem with diurnal drift. It's an ongoing thing with satellites. It requires eternal vigilance. There was, I think, another technical glitch early on. Black Dog can explain it.
Anyway, I know of NO One that says it wasn't fixed.
It's certainly more accurate, now, than having temperature devices sitting next to barbeque grills, and air conditioning vents, on a slab of blacktop, in the middle of a city that registers 7, or 8 degrees F higher than the surrounding countryside.
No, it was a problem with radiosondes. Perhaps it was Douglass, et al? (Who the frick cares, really?) If you've got proof they fixed their data - in either case - do post it. I know of no source that says they have fixed it.
It's certainly more accurate, now, than having temperature devices sitting next to barbeque grills,...
Because you deny that scientists can use statistics with some degree of professionalism. This temps data bullshit is just that, bullshit. The critiques don't hold, and you repeating the Big Lie doesn't make it any more true.
As if ground stations were the only source of data...
Lies on top of lies on top of lies...
Remember: lying is bad. You will go to hell.
Yeah, they put what? A 0.05 adjustment to a screen in the middle of Phoenix. Fixed the heck out of it, didn't they?
Even better, the "Earlier" years, they adjusted Down. Cool.
In all honesty, it mostly depends on the ENSO. If it's an El Nino year we'll probably be a little hotter. If it's a La Nina year we'll probably be about the same as this year, or a little cooler. If it's "neutral" probably about the same as this year.
Many think that sunspots (or lack, thereof) affect current temperatures somewhere around 0.10 C, or, maybe, a little less. Others, like Svalgaard, think not.
Others think the sun goes through longer episodes of TSI, and that we're ready for a lag effect from the higher TSIs of the first, and middle part of the 20th century. Right Now? Tiz a mystery, for sure.
Not a lot climate wise because of the new solar cycle, the total amplitude of the solar influence is around .1C, which is similar to the amount of secular (slow) change due to GW. Of course if we snap into a strong El-Nino (IIRC we are expected to be at the beginning of one, but predictions of ocurrance and strength are not very reliable). It would be interesting if a delayed solar cycle produced some strong coronal mass ejections (but this is pure speculation). These wouldn't do much climate wise, but perhaps electrical infrastructurewise they could.
Nasa has revised their solar cycle 24 forecast two times, so i doubt its accuracy. The current nasa prediction is a peak of 90, in 2013. In truth, we don't know is the correct answer.
The latest study from helioseismology (watching the way "sound" waves on the sun bounce around, has shown that there is a subsurface jetstream in the sun, and that as these (there is a north and a south stream) migrate towards the solar equator (IIRC) the next cycle begins. This last cycle they have been migrating much slower than usual, so that supports a late start for the next cycle. Clearly there are a lot of unknowns about how the solar magnetic cycle works.
Or maybe they have increased, significantly:
http://www.woodfortrees.org/plot/uah/from:1997/plot/uah/from:1997/trend
(same data, but one extra year in the range)
AKH
Yeah, like I said, "about 0.025 C in 12 years. That's about 0.2 Degrees in 100 yrs. The Oceans will boil. :)
Islandboy made a trend that holds water - just upthread , but here is the range from late 1970's till date : http://www.woodfortrees.org/plot/uah/from:1958/plot/uah/from:1958/trend
Bear in mind that Kdoll will come back every now and then with his "1998 - till date"-trend .. time and time again. I hope that Kdoll and his equals will have to eat that "potential food" which is not coming to a table near them - due to AGW in the years to come.
Nah, I think your trend is fine. It's influenced by the fact that it's, basically, the "Positive" Oscillation of the PDO (now turning negative,) but, it's fine.
0.4 comes out to about 1.3 C/Century. We kin live wit dat.
It's not my trend its reality's trend. (I guess)
Fine for you , that you believe you can live with an 1.3 C increase, just like that..
Let me remind you that during the last iceage a 1 - 2 and uptill 3 kilometer ice blanket covered the top and bottom of this planet.
Average global temperature ? ... well a mere 4 C less than today.
Following your argumentations "this would have been piece of cake" for the Kdoll's with family. You can even adapt to a shift in temperature of +/- 4 Celsius even within the span of 24 hours, can't you ?
kdolliso,
You just regurgitate idiotic denier propaganda like a complete fool.
Svensmark?, Willie Soon, Lindzen, Christy and Roy Spencer.
What about Lord Monckton?
Garbage. All disproven.
Go read actual climate scientists at Realclimate and get educated.
It's the perfect way to lose any credibility you might have had.
You are a f&%king embarassment, dude.
No global warming for a decade?
http://data.giss.nasa.gov/gistemp/graphs/
Do you have peer reviewed evidence that shows GISS is accurate and UAH is inaccurate?
How can their be a consensus, when scientist can't agree on the data?
As for GISS, well, I can't offer you the proof you want, but, for the UAH TLT, there's this brilliant piece of work:
GEOPHYSICAL RESEARCH LETTERS, VOL. 30, NO. 20, 2040,
doi:10.1029/2003GL017938, 2003
Evidence of possible sea-ice influence on Microwave Sounding Unit tropospheric temperature trends in polar regions
Of course, I'm a bit biased, since I wrote it...:-)
E. Swanson
Majorian, have you ever seen a "blink-comparator" of GISS data, before, and after, "Adjustments?"
It's quite amazing.
People disagree with you, so you hope they starve to death.
(since your Q here is completely without philosophical horizon, I'll give my answer straight from my liver ...)
sure , I hope the ignorants and deniers go first. Do you see anything immorally in that ?
This planet will need the brightest people around - when the going starts to get tough - and that will hopefully show to become self-regulative.
Another basic fact is that while oil production failed to increase very much in the last few years, oil prices have fallen significantly. So there goes peak oil, too.
Another basic fact is that the moon is still hanging in the sky. There goes gravity.
Another basic fact is that you continue to post here. There goes evolution.
Can we tone it down with the personal attacks, please?
If oil prices continue to fall over the next decade, it will be strong evidence that peak oil is not relevant in the short run.
Second point is meaningless.
Third point is personal insult, which is meaningless.
The global warming crowd seems to be taking the form of a religion, where any decent is not tolerated and people are branded heritics.
As to you points:
1) Correct
2) Correct
3) Correct
4) Maybe correct but it is definately incomplete.
Temperatures have been flat to declining since 1998, over 11 years. Over the last 40 years, temperatures have increased around 0.2.
There is also data issue problems with the last 150 years include extra heat from cities and the majority of the globe for the majority of the time did not have data stations. The temperature data over the last 150 years is regional data with a potential for a heating bias.
Also, about 150 years ago, the little ice age was ending.
And, the Medivial warm period was warmer than today.
To prove that we have indisputable climate change, the following points need to be proved:
A) The change in temperature is mostly caused by carbon dioxide.
B) We can acurrately predict future weather with our models. The models need to start proving themselves by issuing acurate predictions in the one to five year time frames.
C) The change will be a net catastrophic harm.
D) We have the ability to prevent the change.
These issue are complicated and difficult. Insisting that they can be settle with a few simple points and that everyone agrees does not help improve the world.
You wrote that:
Do you happen to have any valid proof of this claim? I know that this has been stated over and over by the denialist, but, as far as I've been able to learn, while there were some regions which experienced warmer conditions, there's no proof that GLOBAL temperatures were warmer than today.
E. Swanson
Before satellites, there was no global temperature measuring system. Using your standard of proof, means that we throw out all yearly or decadal climate data before 1979. If we do that, the entire global warming discussion is pointless due to lack of data.
This quandry gets to the heart of the "settle science" issue. We are using partial data sets, that we cannot agree on. And, we are supposed to believe that it is "settle science". This is a joke, climate models and climate studies are in their infancy, and we are trying to set global policy for the next century based on little more than partial data, flawed models, and educated guesses.
BTW, to me, a climate model flawed and inaccurate, if it can not produce accurate forcasts in the 1 to 5 year range. These predictions can be used against actual data to see if the model is useful or a piece of junk.
As to the medivial warm period, it is clear greenland, iceland, and western europe were warmer due to the written records and where crops were grown. For example, england was a wine producing region, and it is too cold to produce wine there today.
Not true
Irrespective of opinions regarding the accuracy of models, since carbon dioxide is known to be transparent to visible light but absorbent to longer wavelengths, and since there has been an increase of 104 ppm atmospheric CO2 since 1750 leading to a radiative forcing of 1.46 W/m^2, and if it is the case that global temperature is indeed trending downward, a search for truth should seek to find what mechanism is nullifying this radiative forcing.
It would seem the burden of proof is on the folks who dispute a warming trend.
All I have seen in this regard have been speculations about oceanic absorption of heat and increased cloud cover resulting from higher evaporation, neither of which are strongly confirmable. Ocean absorption will be outrun by CO2 in the long run anyway, and whether increased albedo due to cloud cover outweighs the radiative forcing of water vapor is very speculative at this point.
Actually, in the Long Run all CO2 will become Limestone, and all life on Earth will be gone.
However, in the shorter run, it seems it would be up to those with the theory to Defend the Theory.
1998 was the "High" point. Since then it's been cooling (according to UAH, and RSS satellite-derived numbers. GISS says 2005 was the high point.)
As for "forcings:" it seems to me that CO2 is pretty well understood. There's not a LOT of disagreement. Some say Arhennius (sp?) was too high; that it's really around 0.6 C per doubling. Others, like the IPCC, stay with 1.3, or so.
The Real Fight is "Clouds." Spencer says he's proved with Aqua Satellite data that clouds are a "net" Negative Reinforcement. The Warmers say he's full of it. Don't know; I'm a layman.
But, I enjoy reading about it. And, I DO like "Warm" more than "Cold."
The burned of proof rests with those who claim carbon dioxide is causing catestrophic global warming while the temperature remains flat.
Oceans Rising Faster Than UN Forecast, Scientists Say (Update2)
By Alex Morales
June 18 (Bloomberg) -- Polar ice caps are melting faster and oceans are rising more than the United Nations projected just two years ago, 10 universities said in a report suggesting that climate change has been underestimated.
http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601124&sid=afmw1nT6inhA
Humans have adapted to much faster water rises than 3.1mm per year. Three or four millimeters is not that big a deal.
Let me simplify what I wrote: Since CO2 is a known greenhouse gas, how do you explain the fact that it (in your opinion) is NOT causing warming? This needs to be explained by anyone who denies AGW, yourself, for instance. That is if you are really interested in truth and not some political agenda. That is what I mean by "burden of proof."
Well, correlation is not equal to proof.
Lowtech,
As I wrote above, hardly Anyone disputes that CO2 is a "Greenhouse" Gas. 99.9% of all Deniers, accept that more CO2 in the atmosphere will lead to higher temperatures. It's the "Sensitivity" that's in question.
Look, a hundred, or so, years, ago, Arhennius (sp), after a period of observation, concluded that CO2 will, by doubling in the atmosphere, cause a temp. rise of approx. 1.2 C. It wasn't a long period of observation, and some think that might be a little high. Others say, fine, 1.2 C is good enough.
This whole argument is about "Feedbacks." Hansen, and the boyz, basically are betting the ranch on Clouds being a Positive feedback. You can't get to where they want to go w/o that. Spencer, et al are of the opinion that Clouds are a "Negative" feedback, overall.
Then, there's the "Ocean Oscillations." We know that El Nino, and La Nina are Powerful forcings; but No one has the foggiest what causes them.
This brings in Svensmark, and the "Sun Brigade." So, here you go. There was a temp rise; but how much of it was CO2? And, how much was something else. Only a Charlaton would claim to have all the answers to all these questions at this time.
I'm just an "interested layman," but as a citizen of the USA, and Earth, I have a stake. I'm, intuitively, very wary of those who wave their arms, and speak of "Runaway Positive Feedbacks." A bit of reflection will inform you that these are pretty "Rare" in Nature.
I know, the only thing that Really scares the Bejeebers out of me is the "Ice Age." We're NOT ready, yet.
In spite of claims by Christy and Spencer, the UAH TLT product does not "measure global temperature". But, that wasn't my point. I asked for your proof that there was a GLOBAL medieval warm period. Your reference to the North Atlantic region does not answer that question. I expected as much.
Furthermore, the notion that Greenland was warmer than in recent times is not supported by the facts. Sure, there were Vikings living in a couple of colonies in Greenland and they went missing after 1408. That might have happened for several reasons, including short term cold periods. The Vikings attempted to live using the same farming and animal husbandry techniques which worked in Norway, but Norway is on the warmer side of the Nordic Seas. In Greenland, using those techniques meant that the Vikings always close to failure and a single large volcanic eruption such as the one in 1453, could well have doomed them. For example, consider what happened after Tambora in 1816, which produced "The Year Without a Summer" in New England, a location further south than the area where the Vikings tried to live.
E. Swanson
I will try to state this again, since you missed my point. There is
NO GLOBAL, ACCURATE DIRECT MEASUREMENT TEMPERATURE DATA BEFORE 1979.
If we insist on GLOBAL proof, we can not even begin to build climate models since we only have a few decades information. Ergo, the entire global warming debate, kyoto accord are pointless for lack of data.
It is clear from written records that the north atlantic land areas warmed.
The midevil warm period being warmer than now is inconsistient with glaciers having retreated to open up ground that has been ice covered for 5000 years.
I don't know, Enemy; Some Glaciers, even today, are advancing while others Retreat.
Besides, that particular example just goes to show that it was at least "as warm" 5,000 Yrs ago (in that particular location) as it is Today.
kdilliso is right.
Also, glaciers can retreat do to less snow even with a constant temperature. Retreating glaciers alone is not enough to prove that it is warmer today than in a prior period.
Very, very few are advancing, something like 99% are retreating, which ought to be a startling statistic. Tidewater glaciers, and surging glaciers in Alaska are a special case. They have rough periods of tens to hundreds of years for the land based surging glaciers -these babies build up ice at altitude until they become oversteapened, then in the space of a couple of years a large volume of ice flows downhill advancing the snout. The tidewater glaciers are an interesting bunch, the most famous two are Columbia (near Valdez), which is undergoing catastrophic retreat. Hubbard, in the SE. comes off the most glaciated mountains on the planet (in one of the stormiest places), and about 80% of the ice loss is by calving not melting. These babies slowly advance for many centuries, until they get overextended. Their snouts are stabilized by gravel they had deposited, once they lose contact with the gravel grounding and stabilizing the snout, rapid retreat ocurrs. Climate change has not yet been severe enough to have much effect on these.
A global glacier index update
Tell the truth: what's the ratio?
Tell the truth: what's the net loss/gain in ice?
Don't lie. Liars are bad. They go to hell. For eternity. Or so my religious friends tell me.
Blondie wrote: "extra heat from cities"
That is all I have to read to know that you are being intentionally misleading and not worth interacting with further.
That claim has been addressed and corrected for long ago. To bring it up here is like saying that gravity does not operate consistently because a feather does not fall at the same rate as a pebble of the same mass.
Have a good time with your conscience.
blondieBC,
Science IS a religon with me, so don't mess with it.
What's your religion?
Maybe it's money.
Maybe its attention.
I get peeved when tobacco companies produce fake-science to 'disprove' lung cancer hazards or when Big Oil funded think tanks spread money for 'skeptical' papers on climate or fundy dingbats keep funding 'research' out of tax exempt churches to 'debunk' Darwin.
But hey, that's what SCUMBAGS do.
But when people fall for their anti-science baloney and then repeat that nonsense as if it was the lastest 'truth' I tend to get a bit boiled.
Obviously some of them do it just to get attention, which it certainly does. ("Okay, guys how do like this latest and greatest from [weatherkook] Anthony Watt")[
Some are basically paranoids looking to get persecuted(Free speech, free speech--said the tobacco lobbyist)
Nobody who understands the science(except a small number of paid rascals) is buying what you are trying to sell.
You are using an old debate tactic of stating things that i have not said, then showing they are incorrect.
I have not discussed tobacco in these posts.
I have not support or attacked Big or Small Oil.
Then you do a personal insults. These don't help advance truth and understanding.
I have not tried to sell any product or service to anyone in these posts.
Your post has many words, but no substance.
He didn't say you did, troll.
Neither do lies and stupidity, yet you persist in lying - as with the above misrepresentation of what was said - and saying really stupid things.
Lie. You are selling an agenda and lies.
The draft report in question was prepared by a couple of stiffs in the Economics department at the EPA. Looking the report over, it looks like a hodgepodge of your run-of-the-mill denialism. Energy company mouthpieces are going to run this news story into the ground.
I almost believe the only way to get a strong majority of Americans onboard with climate change legislation is to have a U.S. mean annual temperature that exceeds 1934/1998. I think it may be possible if a strong El Nino kicks in this year.
The people who prepared the report work for the EPA, not energy companies.
It's pretty cool, really. I'm shilling for "Big Ag" when I'm supporting Ethanol, and I'm an "Exxon Troll" when I Question "Runaway Anthropogenic CO2-induced Global Warming."
What a Country. I must be getting Richer than Croesis. :)
Actually, I have no doubt you are paid for your misinformation, in one form or another. Else, why would you need to lie outright, as you so often do? It makes no sense you would do so just for shits and giggles.
He did not say they worked for energy companies, if you read what he actually wrote.
I'm more cynical than you in this regard. I do believe there is a good chance of a new record soon given how high temperatures are even with a La Nina and solar minimum, but the fact is that records are usually set when more than one one factor peaks at the same time, usually it is an El Nino event that pushes it over the edge. So those in denial will simply say the record is the result of a particularly strong El Nino (ironic since they point to the 98 El Nino as a "peak" year since which temperature has declined.)
As exhibit A, observe the record low arctic sea ice minimum in 2007. That was attributed partially (and rightly) to an unusual combination of currents in the region, and was dismissed for that reason by those in the denialist camp. However when 2008 showed the second lowest on record without similar unusual conditions, it was again dismissed, this time as evidence that sea ice was recovering from the 2007 low. You just can't win this game, there will always be something to cling to for those who insist on living in denial. At some point you just have to move on and disregard them.
If, anytime in the next two decades, temperatures (according to UAH, and RSS) go Above 1998, I Promise you I wll take a Very Long, Hard Look at MY Position.
One should note where the guys that wrote this complaint came from:
Both came into government service under Ronnie RayGun, the guy that wanted to eliminate government regulation. His people did everything they could to kill the environmental movement, reducing funds for environmental and solar energy research. They are a bit like a couple of Cold War Soviet moles who just surfaced with their economics oriented crap.
E. Swanson
There you go again.
Gotta keep trying. There's so much cow poo to wade thru.
E. Swanson
Good interview with Jeff Rubin on Financial Sense this morning.
Needless to say, I have few areas of disagreement with Rubin. I do think that conventional crude production probably peaked in 2005, but we are of course on the same page regarding net oil exports.
In effect, he discusses "Receding Horizons," (BTW, who coined that term, wasn't it Ilargi?), i.e., the high oil prices that will allow increasing unconventional crude production tend to destroy demand. However, he points out that for every one American that will be forced to largely abandon cars, five Asians want to drive a car for the first time, and new low cost cars are making that possible.
As I have pointed out, after 1930 oil demand worldwide rose throughout the Thirties, with more cars on the road in the US in 1937 than in 1929, and oil prices rose at about 11% per year from the summer of 1931 to the summer of 1937.
He basically endorses (without mentioning Alan) Alan Drake's plan for streetcars & light rail.
"Receding horizons" was coined by HeIsSoFly.
I'm listening to it right now. He speaks about the Saudi's water problem and points out that they burn oil to run their desal plants.
I recall in "Twilight in the desert" that Simmons talks about the Saudi's making a concerted effort to develop more gas supplies specifically for this purpose.
Re: crude oil prices triggering global recession
I would like to see, by someone who has the tools, forecasts of the economy, from mid 2007 until now, run at different fixed (or at least somewhat stable) prices of crude and / or gasoline. Just to see what happens in theory if prices did not radically increase they way they did last year. Maybe hold them at 40,50, and 60 dollars per barrel.
Friday night failures:
Five Banks Are Seized, Raising U.S. Failures This Year to 45
Doing more with less is something that my business was always dedicated to. I grew up in a clean your plate depression era parent environment so this seemed like a good pitch. You never bought something new if you could fix it, cars were expected to last 10 years. My software business specializes in making software faster and more efficient as well as scalable. I had thought that would be an attractive proposition. Surprise, surprise, it never was. Making it faster could be done by waiting for a faster CPU and scalability was thought to be achieved by purchasing more computers. Never worry about spending more money on hardware if you could justify it with the gigantic revenues you would lose by not getting to market ASAP. Course most of the time the crap that got to market didn't work and didn't scale but there were always lot's of other excuses for that. It was never due to the fact that no effort ever went into understanding how to make the software scalable and efficient.
In a world gone insane for growth, my ideas were quaint at best. I thought after 2001 that surely we would see people forced to deal with reality and to need what I offered. Nope, Greedspan made sure that the growth engine was ramped back up to speed in the summer of 2002 and we entered another orgy of buy more and throw out the old. Well here we are today and there probably aren't any customers left because businesses are dying at a rapid rate. I have one big customer left (a black govt contractor) who uses the software to make sure that timelines are met. They might renew for one more year this week, if not well then that will be it.
I think that now would be the time business and govt would be thinking about how to do what they need done with less but my phone isn't ringing. Course I am not out selling my stuff anymore because I just got so tired of the same old answers from the same old people. I think it's going to be very hard for people to deal with the constraints put into this bill and industry isn't geared to understand how to do anything but be wasteful. It's endemic to the people doing the "trade" that money and assets are to be wasted just so they can make money.
Call me cynical but I don't think this cap and trade stuff is going to do anything beneficial. It's just more busy work by Congress to enable their masters to better rule over the masses............
You aren't being cynical at all on cap and trade-it isn't even defended on sites like this one that continually obsess about climate change deniers. The logic is very simple: unless you are a climate change denier, you must support the cap and trade scam, or propose an alternative method likely to materially affect climate change. The likelihood that cap and trade will do immense damage to the economy without materially affecting climate change is a politically incorrect reality known by most but unacceptable to acknowledge.
That comment would carry more weight if the CBO backed you up. So "known by most" seems to reduce to "dittoheads."
The politically incorrect reality is that you get what you pay for: the bill doesn't cost much and won't do much.
Ron, I don't object to what is, "supposedly," in the Bill nearly as much as I object to "how it was passed."
There is, absolutely, NO telling what's in this thing.
B/S-the vast majority of the American public get nothing from this scam. Your CBO comment labels you as the biggest dittohead of all.
Outside of the usual denialist crap, I haven't seen anything that supports the slimmed down cap & trade in WM will do any real economic harm. Of course as Bob so succinctly stated upthread, any economic underperformnace will be demagouged as due to cap & trade. But we know here that PO, retirement of debt, etc. will cause a lot of this. But missattribution is a powerful and well-known propaganda technique.
The likelihood that cap and trade will do immense damage to the economy
The economy as it was practiced and known before was already damaged.
Cap n trade is just a fine excuse to avoid saying "Gee, that stuff we did before - yea, we screwed up."
You might want to try touting it to the head office of a charity - some years ago, I was seconded as IT manager to a charity, and it was generally a case of "replace machines when they break", rather than the (then) prevalent "replace every 2-3 years". Also, the development companies that we worked with had long replacement cycles - at a time when Windows 95 had been out for 2 years, some of them were not only still on Win 3.11, but they were using Novell as well
This "keep" strategy meant that maybe one machine was replaced per year (in an office of 12 staff). As a result, software that could extend the life of the machines would be welcome (I did my part with their in-house, but sold to others, Excel template - in my time there, I cut the file size down by 66%, even while new features were added)
AKH
Thanks for the suggestion. Our software is more on the development and deployment side though. It's intended to be used by developers and integrators where the applications are fairly large scale and are server side type applications. Extending the life of existing software systems would also be a good goal of IT departments and our software could help there when applications have begun to consume all available resources. There are lot's of ways I could see our software being used if there really were concerted efforts built into the process so that more was done with less. Right now that isn't part of the business process except when it comes to management of human resources.
Yesterday Leanan posted a story about "Clean, Green Hydrogen Power" - here's the link:
http://www.thedalleschronicle.com/news/2009/06/news06-25-09-01.shtml
You can find the rant that I sent to the editor in yesterday's (6/26) DB.
The Dalles Chronicle editor, Kathy Gray, sent me a long and polite reply this morning, so it warranted a little more expansion of yesterday's themes on my part:
Ah, well, time to pick up my bride from the Portland airport - she just crisscrossed the Pacific to spend two days in Tokyo.
"If you're not part of the solution, you're part of the precipitate." - Steven Wright
"The horror, the horror." - Colonel Walter E. Kurtz, in "Apocalypse Now"
I'm interested to see what her response to your original mail was.
If/when I hear from her again I'll ask permission to post it here.
This is the third time I have tried to complete this comment and each time I delete it in the end.
So this time it may get posted,,even thought this DB is hot and heavy into Climate Change.
Its about how I have of the last couple of weeks seen the startling effects of this economic train wreck starting to finally become obvious and take a very large toll of people I know or hear of.
Its happening out here in the wastelands of America.
My uncle passed away last week. Refused a nursing home stay, refused to go to the hospital and died in his bed last week. Leaves a widow in very bad shape, no where to go, kids far away,my last living relative in directly upward lineage. The funeral was almost unbearable. He is just 10 years older than me.
In general then and less personal I note a young man, judged with borderline deep pyschological problems suddenly disappear without a trace so far. Over a week now. He had a hard time dealing with life and something recently must have changed.
A friend who is very close to being unable to support his wife and two teenage children, sold most everything he had, was let go at work, traded off his wife's car for a junker, is at his wits end. Becomes extremely angry.
Another good friend was doing good just 3 months ago. Now in deep trouble. A wife who is completely disabled. Doctors have given up. He tried to sell their house to no avail. He lives IMO from minute to minute,hour to hour. Lost his job a year ago.
Another whose wife left him and he is now unable to work due to being in surgery or recovery for the last 5 months. Will never work again likely. Lost his job months ago.
There are others. What I just wanted to say that its ok to discuss the issues impersonally but when you deal with a man crying, families in distress, people not sure of the future, and they NOW realize just how bad it is and know it will get far worse.
When I spoke to them in the past of our energy problems and more of late the economic meltdown , they listened politely but it was not in their life's viewframe. Now it is. They fully acknowledge what is occurring. They can do nothing about it.
Small towns are bad and going to get worse and out here you see it right before your eyes. People in the country and small towns know about everyone else and their problems.
What I and we talked about on TOD in the last three years is now here and coming on strong.
I think in the near future there will be a huge groundswell of dissatisfaction with the current situation and who is responsible. I don't see violence so much as I see enormous pain and suffering and nothing to be done about it. Many too old to do the survival thing. Many now without funds of any kind who live from day to day and are unable therefore to plan for anything.
I think we will see chaos among the people on this world like nothing that has ever happened before or in recorded history.
I myself am coping since I was prepared for much.But I was not prepared to see the suffering in others though.People's lives coming apart. I thought I was beyond that.
There is something about living in a good fashion for 70 years,living that American Dream and suddenly seeing it breaking apart. Something in your mind almost snaps. Becomes undone. Wrecks your sleep. Preys on your mind. Almost a wasting away of reserves.
Drains one's strength.
Within this year I expect to see suicides.
This is in the nature of a report card on what I observed of late.
There are fewer smiles to go around and little to joke and laugh about anymore.
Airdale-
There's a new world coming
and its just around the bend
There's a new world coming
this one's coming to an end.
Monte Walsh--Mama Cass Elliot
A problem is that ,with so much anger, some will attempt to take as many people with them as they can ..
http://www.jhsph.edu/publichealthnews/press_releases/2008/baker_suicide....
http://www.who.int/mental_health/prevention/suicide_rates/en/index.html
I've been trying to cope with the possible future tragedy from some time.
Maybe this one old indian has a clue:
"Time evolves and comes to a place where it renews again. There is first a purification time. Then there is renewal time. We are getting really close to this time now.
.....
To me it's not a negative thing to know that there will be great changes. It's not negative. It's evolution. When you look at it as evolution, it's time. Nothing stays the same. "You should learn how to plant something, that's the first connection. You should treat all things as spirit and realize that we are ONE family. It's never something like the end. It's like life, there is no end to life."
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g7cylfQtkDg
It hasn't hit all that hard around here yet - those most affected are in the construction business, and convinced it will be coming back. Whistling past the graveyard maybe.
But most of those I know are just so unprepared, in every way imaginable. We had some strangers over this morning for a little kid's birthday party. My wife was popping kids on and off the pony like nothing (they didn't weigh as much as a feed bag), and I heard some of the (overweight) moms remarking on how it didn't seem to bother her at all. Lots of comments on how much work it must be to take care of everything and the animals. It's pretty clear that physical work is not going to be popular.
For me a weekend is a race to see what projects I can get done before I run out of time and light on Sunday. It's always been that way, and I cannot imagine a life of leisure activities on the weekend. Given all of that, we will likely not hang on to this place in the end, but at least we see it coming and know how to work hard physically, have some useful skills. To lose this place would be a major blow, but we have backup plans and won't waste time in shock and denial. As for the rest, I dunno what they will do.
Come this fall, when the rally is over, the jobs market has continued its decline, the housing market hasn't come back, and states are going bust and raising taxes and cutting services, then people will begin to see the reality. While we're certainly vulnerable, we're in as good a position as we could manage and will hold out for a while yet. We often remark on people we know who are just so very exposed, and it will be very hard to watch those who we care about struggling - and knowing there simply isn't much we can do about it.
Sorry to hear about the loss of your uncle. Will none of their children take in their mother? Or does she just not want to move?
My parents are still healthy and active, and doing well financially. They are traveling the world. Just bought a new car. I tried to talk to my dad about the possibility of another Great Depression and deflation, but he is convinced that Obama's policies will lead to hyperinflation, and stocks are the place to be. (He actually seems to think deflation violates the laws of thermodynamics or something.) He's convinced the market will bounce back; this is a buying opportunity.
My parents will always have a place with me if they want one, but they would have to move, and I don't think they'd want to.
Things aren't so bad around here yet. People are cutting back on things like cable and internet service. A lot of people are trying to raise money by selling stuff - Avon, etc. They would work second jobs if they could, but not many are available, and there's also a feeling that it's wrong to take a job from someone who might need it more than you do. People are saving money who never used to save a cent. But there seems to be a sense of rising optimism - that we're turning the corner and things will be getting better soon.
My uncle was not diagnosed with anything after his two weeks in the hospital...then one week in the nursing home which he detested and then he came home and died. The way he wanted it..in his own bed with friends gathered around.
Their children are a mixmaster type. Lots of tragedy there unspoken.
Yet married to same woman 50 years. He couldn't afford the hospital and nursing home costs and wanted to spare her that...he was an auto worker for 35 years.
In the suburbs I think they do not as yet live as close to the bone as we do. Some have only the land and SS. Children who stayed are usually into drugs. Around here if you have a loan its backed by your land usually...so default and you lose your land and house,barn,etc..goes on the auction block or sheriff's auction on the courthouse steps.
Its different in the country. But I would be no other place. And I do own my land outright.What I have left.
Thanks for the reply,
Airdale-my grandfather had 14 children..my uncle was the last of that family to pass on
Airdale,
u'n me buddy we have been lucky(??) enough to reach the age when we see people we haven't seen for awhile mostly at funerals-and all too often it's someone close to us who has passed on.
We dodged a funeral this week at our house,but one is in the cards and it won't be long coming.
We have had a couple of suicides in my extended family and there are a couple of relatives who will probably drink themselves to death soon.
But at least out here we have seen it all over and over, from planting to harvest and from birth to the final rites so in some ways it's not so hard for us as it is for the people in the rat race who never learn the names of the people who live within a stones throw.
The generations come ,and the generations go,but the earth abides forever.
When the rest of my folks are gone I will still have the fields and gardens they worked.They will be keeping me company spiritually as I take care of the apple trees and the garden.The seasons will still come and go -as we have come and as we must go.You will I hope be able to hang on to your place too.
At least we will go with a certain dignity denied to the folks who have no roots.
It's really hard for me to try to explain just what is wrong with the world these days to the really old folks in my family,because it causes them so much pain-not for themselves but because they desperately want the world to be a good place for the little kids who are the second and third time removed from the glint in Old Pa's eye and the blush on Granny's cheeks.
Now this last is off topic,but the GOOD THING about white knuckles when you ride is that for a minute at least you are young again.It's not exctly the same kind of young as looking at a hot young blossom back when we were ALL hard muscles,but it's still a minute when you forget absolutely all the bullshit and LIVE-UNTIL YOUR HEART SLOWS DOWN AGAIN. I will get motorcycle again when I am finished with looking after a couple of old folks who would be in a real bind if I weren't handy and mobile.
OFM,
Your comments rings bells. I value my land but others around here do not.
Yet I can trod the ground where my ancestors trod it.
We are of the same or close generation. As to the bike/motorcycle...when events start to cause me to lose my rudder I roll out the Harley, climb on and go riding. Sometimes a long ride and it clears my mind. Always has for its hard to take your problems with you when you butt is hanging in the wind and you better not miss that next curve.
I also use it becuase it gets 50mpg. Always exactly 50.
I was ready to trade my bike up to a 05 or 06 model. FLSTC Heritage Softail Classic but when I test rode it I knew right off my LowRider could blow its mirrors off. So I kept it, shined it up and changed the oil. Put new Dunlops on it and will go another 30k miles. The Softail had NO tach and I really like my tach.
Luck to you OFM and keep in touch,
Airdale-thinking of a ride to Reelfoot Lake to see the eagles,which nest there ,the place where the Mississippi ran backwards as the 1811/1812 earthwake shook this land
That's the worst part about collapse, not only having to do things you don't want to do, but also having to witness things you don't want to witness. It's the part I really dread. Watching tragedy unfold effects everyone, even if not directly involved, there is no escaping it. And with a chaotic economy, a chaotic climate and chaotic resource availability, there becomes a certain randomness regarding those it hits. Even being aware and prepared is no safeguard.
This is the way the world ends
Not with a bang but a whimper.
--TS Elliot
Ps.
In my part of France there seems to be an awful lot of weeds growing in the cereal crops. Looks like the farmers have been cutting costs on inputs, beyond the norm. Looks like liquidity is draining away in the farming arena and setting the stage for lower yields further down the line (although its looking good for this year). I also notice that farmers are now using very short strains of cereal crops, I assume cost savings are the reason, rather than yield (peak straw?).
Doomers here may appreciate this:
http://www.foreignpolicy.com/articles/2009/06/22/the_2009_failed_states_...
Turns out only a few places in the world are doing well, at least according to the article.
Back in the 80s it was hard sometimes for farmers to make a profit. Sometimes the Government would step in and let them off the hook..like let them pasture 'set aside' lands and call for crop disasters,,
but with the huge deficits I am not so sure that if it returned to those types of yields and losses that the Government would do so again.
The farmers are not smiling around here like they were the last couple of years. The last couple years being huge profits for them.
Airdale
Short stem grains suport heavier heads so that they will not fall over when heavily N fertilized. Known as Green Revolution.
These cereals are much shorter than anything I've seen before and although I've not measured them, they seem to be only about 12" tall. The farmers have also started to harvest some of the crops (probably barley), which seems a bit earlier than normal. But, perhaps I've not been paying enough attention in the past to was happening and when.
Airdale, sorry to hear of your Uncle. Funerals suck.
I am blessed to have a Father , brother and sister nearby to live with if I ever need it and would also make my place available for them if they needed it.
I deal with life one day at a time due to my spine injury. I literally have been taking one day at a time since '96 when the injury occurred. I guess I've got alot of practice in doing that. Things still get me down - I'm human. Not being able to do simple things get to me the most. Dropping my cane or my crutch. Putting on my shoes. Driving. Bringing in groceries to the house (upstairs). Taking a shower. And I'm not even 50 yet.
I have alot of practice with changing jobs too. I never had kids because the very first job I got out of school layed me off 9 months later, 2 days before XMAS, back in '82. I saw early on that my future would have little stability even though it's what we, as a nation, need the most, so I never had kids.
I figured that I needed to do WHAT I could WHEN I could and take nothing for granted. That's probably why I don't worry when the economy takes a dump or some other event threatens our existence. What can I do about it? I know it's hard for some to adopt that attitude when all they have is gone and it is getting worse.
Around here in San Diego things seem to be going on much as usual with the exception of retail space for lease. Commercial space is becoming available very quickly. The "For Lease" signs are everywhere and becoming more numerous.
It is tough out here. I hope that this country does not fall apart, but who knows what is in store for us?
My little dog keeps me smiling. Bless her heart. 9 LBS. of Cujo in a Poodle suit. Every day is a play day.
Hang in there man. Take a ride on that HD or your boat and have a beer for me under the tree.
SDO,
I simply cannot understand how you deal with your problems.
My little bout with renal cancer pales before your problems and life.
Its good though to read that you cope well with it and it enlivens my courage to deal with mine as well.
I overdid the beer and new garden cabbage a tad recently and am now paying the penalty. You have to ease up on new cabbage or get an internal cleansing you didn't want or expect. Never have this trouble with sauerkraut...so no more boiled fresh cabbage.
Best to you,
Airdale
Two cases today in the Dallas area of men on highway overpasses threatening to commit suicide by jumping off. One was resolved after several hours (he didn't jump). The other is still ongoing. I don't recall the last time this happened in this area (been here since mid-Eighties).
I forgot. We had one Thursday.
The woman jumped from the Coronado bridge, 200' above the waters of the bay. She survived....
http://tinyurl.com/mrpse2
Suicides: The problem is not so much absolute level of poverty as expectations. There are plenty of people in India who are far poorer. But they have much lower expectations and live around lots of others who are just as poor.
The challenge is to get people to lower their expectations and lower their living standards. Stop trying to hold onto a large home. A friend just sold his very expensive house (where we live houses cost $700k and up) and moved into a trailer park. He's now in a position to save. He's got no car payments. His family's monthly costs are at a level low enough to live for a long time.
Chaos like never seen: No, I do not believe that. The Black Plague moving across Europe killed a third of the population and did something similar in China. We aren't faced with anything that bad.
Did anyone else read Dave Cohen's piece on shale gas?
http://www.energybulletin.net/node/49342
I found the discussion of Estimated Ultimate Recovery per well especially shocking:
Just to put this in perspective, here is the long term Texas trend for EUR. You can see it drops from about 6 Bcf per well down to near 1 Bcf. Barnett started with higher values, but now seems to have declined to the Texas average. It would then make sense that drilling has fallen further in Barnett than in the other shale plays.
The data for the Texas average line came from http://gswindell.com/ The Tight Sands, Shale Gas, and Coal Bed methane numbers were taken from an power point presentation. I can't vouch for the accuracy.
http://www.rrc.state.tx.us/data/production/gaswellcounts.php
The last year for which the Commission has annual data is for 2007.
Total natural gas well production in 1972 was 9.60 TCF, from 23,373 wells, or 1,125 MCFPD per well.
Total natural gas well production in 2007 was 6.42 TCF, from 88,311 wells, or 200 MCFPD per well.
So average production per well has fallen at -5%/year for 35 years, which would suggest another 50% decline, to 100 MCFPD per well, in about 14 years. However, the recent per well decline rate has been a little lower, at about -3.4%/year, since 2000.
I'm a little confused.
The y-axis is 1000's CF.
So 6000 * 1000CF = 6 million CF ... not 6 billion CF.
Should the label be "millions of CF"?
Or is my math screwy this morning pre-caffeine?
yes, you are right.
"On daily basis crude oil production are suspended and most times outrightly shut down as a result of the growing insecurity in the nation's oil-rich Niger Delta."
I think when we see information in articles about Nigerian rebels slowing or stopping the flow of oil, we sometimes wonder what's their problem. Why are they constantly damaging valuable infrastructure needed to bring greater wealth to their country? The reason why is because the people of Nigeria do not benefit from that wealth. They live in abject poverty. It's another case where the leaders of a country hoard all the wealth to themselves, with a tiny percentage of the population benefiting from a National treasure.
I read an account in the book, 'Lives Per Gallon' by Terry Tamminen, in which a pipeline sprang a leak in Nigeria, and quickly formed a large pond of black gold, Texas T. The ragged masses scurried to find pots, buckets, anything they could find to gather up some oil to sell or use to cook food. As they all stood there ankle deep in black goo finally having something to smile about, a spark ignited the pond and everyone standing in it was swallowed up by the inferno. Most of the townspeople were gone in a flash.
Knowing their plight gives me pause when seeing News headlines about militant damage being done to Nigerian pipelines. If the wealth won't be shared, then I stand with the rebels!
I agree with you CS about the unfairness. You might have caught some of my posts about Equatorial Guinea. Same as Nigeria but no rebels. But from what I've seen you might not want to throw much support to the rebels in Nigeia. Just another group of crooks with no interest in the well being of the people. As long as we "civilized and kind" consumer nations continue to sign those checks for the oil stolen from the citizens nothing will change. And thus my opinion: nothing will change. In fact, IMO, the unfairness will increase as the worst effects of PO manefest themselves
not to mention the profits flowing from Nigeria to the west. "we" are getting rich off of them, like always. and the msm paints them as 'rebels' and worse.