Solution for Avoiding Green House Effect.

First off, earth cannot be modeled like a "green house" because there is convective heat transfer into space at 3 deg K. A green house prevents this heat transfer, and planet earth does not. Therefore calling it "green house" when it is not is a lie.

Second, CO2 is at the saturation point of light spectrum and therefore cannot add anything worth talking about to the warming of the planet. If you remove ALL the CO2 on the planet it will cool some amount. If you add back just 20 PPM most of the effect is had by the first 20 ppm, and as you add in 20 ppm more and so on, the effect is a log function that is nearly flat at 380 ppm. At 380 ppm, a doubling of CO2 would do nearly zero. Again, another lie is being told by the warming hoax con men. Why? Pick you conspiracy theory. You have to be a friend of a congressman to get funding for your "research" is what is happening. The USA government is the best way to get rich, provided you have "friends" (thieves) in congress. Ask Congressman Jon Oliver about Scuderigroup...and there are thousands of such cases. Uncle Sam is a sugar daddy.

CO2 is a good thing. Real world green houses like the CO2 to be around 1000 ppm. why? Because that is where the most benefit is per unit imput to plant growth is. The key is how to produce CO2 without the CO, NOx and HCL. When you solve that, running an IC engine is a very good thing. The more you drive, the greener the planet will be. Win-win.

CO2 from humans is so small (1-3%?) as to be zero. When a blade of grass dies it gives off CO2. Should we put all our lawn cuttings in a hole somewhere. Get a Clue! CO2 is in VERY short supply. Humans with big powerful SUVs are what the earth needs. The more the better. If we could burn ALL the known oil, coal, and gas reserves cleanly (only co2 and h2o) we would not make even a small difference in temperature, and the planet would shed the heat so fast as to be non existant. We are a spec on an elephant. The arrogance of the global warming crowd is so far off the chart as to be criminal. Actually, fraud, which is what "global warming" is, is a criminal act.

Think of ways to make MORE CO2. Planet earth needs more CO2. When you burn a fire you get lots of bad stuff, but when you burn gas in an engine that is built correctly (non are now), you get nice clean and useful CO2 and no smog and soot.

Go educate yourself on the facts about CO2. Stop believing what people with wacko agendas have to say, like AL a Gorator with his convienient lies. Did Al baby tell you that his graph shows that temperature LEADS CO2? Hello people. Wake up. Earth is a dynamic planet and temperatures should change and will change regardless of what we do. Warmer is better than cold. Cold kills, big time. The earth has "enough and to spare" for all people. Fear is what drives Global Warming. Fear is from evil.

seaplaneguy:, I feel you are wrong. CO2 is a potent grenhouse gas, not the most potent, but the evidence is clear we are indeed warming.

This will indeed mean more plant growth, It will also create deserts and wetter zones as a new balance comes along. The sea will also get 60 feet deeped in the next 200 years.

All underway now.

The NOx and SOx are also a nuisance, but they are declining as is Freon-X

Values beget beliefs

Beliefs beget thoughts

Thoughts beget feelings

feeling beget action.

Can you back feed your feelings, to thoughts, to beliefs, and get at what value you have that makes you "feel" as you do?

What evidence? Evidence it is warming, and tomorrow it could be cooling? Why do you think the earth should stay one temperature? How do you know the seas will be 60 feet deeper? Did Al Gore say so? CO2 turns deserts into green areas, so why do you think CO2 is a negative? A PhD told you so? hmmm

I have looked into this for quite some time. CO2 cannot be the cause for many reasons, as I mentioned above. When the computer models correctly model the last century, I will look at them. An engineers can lie with a model by puting false factors in. This is well known. No current models are even remotely accurate. The data shows many positives from CO2 and nearly no negatives. Hmmm

No, CO2 is the cause, along with Methane. I have researched this subject a lot too, trust me, you're arguing the world is flat.

There seems to be too much emotionally invested on both sides of this issue for any reasonable discussion on this issue. There are literally thousand of reasearch papers on the impact of CO2 in the atmosphere.

I don't think you need to be so caustic in your ridicule when someone tries to disagree with you on this issue, especially because your completely wrong. Don't take my word for it, just wait, you'll come around eventually.

Ah, no, the data is clear it is not the cause. I have researched this subject a lot more than you likely have. The world is flat to believers in CO2 causing warming.

The emotion is from the believers of doom and gloom. That is where the fear is from, and where the discussion is irrational. There are literally thousands of research papers on the impact, yes, but, they says, when you actually look at the data, that CO2 is near zero in effect and that there is nothing to fear and the sky will stay where it is...

You ridicule someone when you refuse to read both sides of the issue. That is what is caustic. Science is NOT consensus. Most all great scientific discoveries came from one or two lone souls who went against the majority. In the case of Global Warming, fraud was rampant. Science is not politics and when it becomes political is when you know the consensus is wrong. History tells you this.

You are likely one of those who believe the "hockey stick" curve is correct. It has clearly been shown to be a fraud and politically motivated, which is anti-scientific at best. Forcing and distorting data is and has been the methods of the global warming leaders. Mann was and is a liar.

You can feel free to read my three part series here in my blog on CR4. I assure you, I've read much more on the subject than you've thought about reading.

You wrote "Most all great scientific discoveries came from one or two lone souls who went against the majority."

This is a misconception of the general public. Most scientific discoveries were made by people you never heard of. Like Isaac Newton said "If I've seen further, it is by standing on the shoulders of giants".

In your posts you offer no links, no papers to back up your assertions. In my three part series here on CR4, not only do I explain the science of global warming in a way most have never heard before, because I have read the papers and have formed my own opinion, but I also provide evidence. If you read it you'll see I rip the Kyoto agreement apart, I'm sure you can agree with me on at least that.

Look, there are many things I don't know, but this I know. There is a misconception that there is a debate with regards to global warming, there isn't. The facts are in, the scientific community knows it's true, it's just that there is a lot of money at stake so there is a campaign of misinformation to confuse people. There is no debate with regards to the science. There is no doubt about it, Global Warming is real.

Will it kill us? No. Should we put restrictions on emissions? No, it would work. We need to develope fusion. The chinese have figured this out, we need to too.

For the record, I haven't seen Al Gore's movie yet. This isn't a political issue, its a scientific issue. I don't need a politician less qualified than myself explaining the science to me.

Hi Roger,

A couple of respectful comments/questions on this post:

1. One or Many - a matter of perception

I agree that scientific discoveries come as a result of many people's efforts, however, seaplaneman's comment is partially correct in that often the major changes in "world view" come about because one (or two) people shout against the established view - they are the "media-savy spokesmen" (for want of a better expression). Darwin is an example of this...the accepted view was creationism, and it was Darwin who was heard shouting from the rooftops (debating with bishops) until society stopped and looked hard at its accepted theories and the proposed new ones. He wasn't the only one working on the theory.

I think the message seaplaneman is trying to say (perhaps not in his first language) is that just because everyone else does, doesn't necessarily make it right (whatever it is).

2. Global Warming - does it exist?

seaplaneman is not denying the existence of Global Warming - he is arguing that rising CO2 levels is not the cause. Masu disagrees (BTW I think seaplaneman's comment "hotter is better than colder" was supposed to convey that man is better able to survive as a species on a planet with a higher average temperature than now (within limits) than on a planet with a lower average temperature than now. It wasn't a comment directly particularly at the Australian people).

3. Typo?

you said:

Will it kill us? No. Should we put restrictions on emissions? No, it would work. We need to develope fusion. The chinese have figured this out, we need to too.

Did you mean No, it would NOT work?

If so, I agree. If not, I don't understand the premise you are trying to explain here.

4. Politics

Unfortunately, the way we are organised today, the politicians have all the power, and no matter what wonderful solutions we engineers come up with, the politicians and vested interest players will squash them to preserve their power bases, often with misinformation which builds on the lack of useful education in large proportions of its population. So, engineers need to become politically aware and to beat the illegitimate darlings at their own game.

An example:

Does anyone else remember hearing about the car designed to run on water? The inventor claimed it worked and took out a patent. He couldn't get anyone to finance a build programme, and, being nearly bankrupt, eventually sold the patent to GM or Ford, who have sat on it for 10 years or so. I can't say whether his engineering was good; I haven't seen the plans. However, I surmise there was something in it, or the big car manufacturer wouldn't have paid money for it.

There are many reasons why we should reduce both our emissions/kWh and the amount of energy we use; I, admittedly badly read on the subject, have not seen convincing evidence that affecting our planet's average temperature is one of them (and before anyone misinterprets that statement, it does NOT mean there isn't any, just that I haven't seen any. I've never seen a real "live" space shuttle either).

And I promise to go read your blog

English Rose,

You Wrote "Darwin is an example of this...the accepted view was creationism, and it was Darwin who was heard shouting from the rooftops (debating with bishops) until society stopped and looked hard at its accepted theories"

This is not accurate at all. In fact, the theory of evolution, called transmutation at the time was already being formed long before Darwin made his famous trip. Here is a link that describes his influences. A debate existed before Darwin, he just provided the blow that should have ended the debate, but hasn't due to human nature's reluctance to accept science when it conflicts with emotionally held political or religious views.

You wrote "seaplaneman is not denying the existence of Global Warming - he is arguing that rising CO2 levels is not the cause."

Yes, I'm well aware of this. What I'm saying is that if you read as many papers as you can you realize that there is pretty solid evidence that CO2 and Methane emissions are the cause. The percieved doubt in this connection is a myth.

You wrote "Did you mean No, it would NOT work?"

No, I meant to say "It would work in theory, but never in practice". This is because we could never get everyone to play by the rules, it's against human nature. The only real solution is one in which we save money and reduce emissions, in other words, fusion.

"have not seen convincing evidence that affecting our planet's average temperature is one of them"

Yes, now we get to the very heart of the problem. People can't feel the warming yet, so they don't believe. The reason the climate hasn't changed drastically yet is the same reason a drink with ice in it stays cold. The heat is melting the ice, not warming the drink. That's why the alaskan, siberian, tibetan, and patagonian tundras are melting. That's why the arctic will have open sea lanes year round in 40 years and antarctica is shedding ice sheets like they are going out of style. All the heat is being soaked up by the glaciers and the ocean (70% of Surface). As we debate the obvious, the ocean is gradually getting warmer, which means that cooling will be much harder to accomplish since the ocean helps resist climate change.

You wrote "It would work in theory, but never in practice". This is because we could never get everyone to play by the rules, it's against human nature.

I agree--no one (country, corporation, etc...) wants to do without and let someone or another group get an advantage. Whether or not man, natural cycles, or variations in the earth's magnetic field are to blame, things are warming up and we need to deal with the changes that are coming.

Let's accept this and move to solutions that recognize that reality. Can we make fusion work? How about looking at seawalls for Belgium and the Netherlands or relocating large segments of population to the (soon to be) lush tropical forests of Northern Canada? How will our building codes change to accommodate extreme weather?

Politicians have all the power--they always have. Politicians don't understand science, engineering, or technology. Neither does my boss. Let's move on.

Engineers can contribute to a solution by finding feasible solutions to practical problems that politicians can then sell and make "possible." The greatest ideas in the world are going nowhere unless you can sell them. This is true in the corporate world, government, or any group setting.

Let's keep focussed on the problems and not get distracted by politics, national pride, good and evil, and other side issues!

We have those walls, and are building new high ones, but the land behind does not go up. We have the money to do this, the New Orleans region is also affected, here the money is lacking to do the necessary. Not to start thinking on India and Bangladesh.

No one would like to have those 16millon dutchman in his backyard. (joking)

and those indians and the ....

It is a high percentage of the world population that is affected.

As you mentioned: the world is changing, faster than ever before.

Glaciers are melting, did you ever calculate what power this requires? Imagine that the glacier is gone and now the same power is used to heat air.

See what happend to the Sahara: it used to be a rainforest, unit something stopped the rain, not that long ago.

"Glaciers are melting, did you ever calculate what power this requires? Imagine that the glacier is gone and now the same power is used to heat air."

It's worse than that. It takes 4x the heat to warm the ocean than it does land and the Earths surface is 70% water. This means that we have to really put things out of balance in order to even produce glacier melting, because the ocean takes in the excess heat first. Also, the oceans act as a climate change buffer, which means that once we have a noticiable climate change on land, it will (is) way to late to do anything short of stopping emissions completely, and even then it will take hundreds of years for things to go back to normal, maybe.

It kind of puts the problem into perspective--we can invest in prevention, invest in solutions, or...how many dutchmen/indians/new yorkers should we put your country down for?

The only two practical solutions are solar power and fusion. Fission is too polluting and dangerous. Ethanol is so bad I don't know where to start. The fact that Ethanol is considered a possibility by some kills the hope in me that people will come to their senses. If people can't see that a solution that requires us to convert land that we use for food to land for fuel, and that even if we used all the arable land that exists today we couldn't meet our fuel needs of today, much less our larger demands of tomorrow, not to mention its worse for the environment (think fertilizer), is impractical, then what hope can there be? Fossil fuels are producing way too much CO_{2 (http://arjournals.annualreviews.org/doi/abs/10.1146/annurev.arplant.55.031903.141610?cookieSet=1&journalCode=arplant)}

Fusion could provide 100 times the energy with one hundreth of the cost (at least), has been achieved several times and only faces problems regarding sustaining a reaction. People just don't get it.

I am inclined to agree with Roger that fusion is the way to go but in the interim what about wind power. Where I live the wind is extremely predictable and could at least reduce the current demand on the coal fired power stations till we get fusion up and running. By the way power in Australia is nearly all coal followed by some hydro and even less wind at present. There is only one operational nuclear reactor in Australia and that is only used for research purposes and the manufacture of isotopes for nuclear medicine.

Wind is a niche solution. What I mean is that it may well prove the best for certain isolated locations, but it's impractical on the medium and large scale because of cost, maintenance, and land usage.

You are probably correct and I have no figures on what is or isn't possible with wind farms. Have you seen the wind farm that they stuck out in the North Sea off the cost of the coast of Denmark if I remember correctly? It's about 10Km out to sea where the winds are both stronger and more reliable and due to the normal weather conditions in the North Sea its out of sight from land. From what I remember it produced a not unsubstantial amount of power and was economically very appealing.

I hadn't seen that. They certainly can work in some locations, its just for the most bang for your buck, Solar and Fusion are the best. Of course, if you live next to Niagara Falls, nothing beats Hydro power, just as if you live near or in a very windy area, nothing will beat wind farms.

Wrong again, there are many solutions. You only see two. If CO2 is a good thing, then there are hundreds. What problem are we solving, if CO2 is a good thing? Hmmm????

You want to run before you can walk. First learn to walk then you can run, then do a marathon. It is NOT way to much CO2. That is what this discussion is about. More is needed. The more the better. If we make a IC engine do what I know it can, we can cut 74% out and the rest of the world can come up to the standard of living that the USA has with current fuel flows.

If you like fusion, then invent it. Stop the cry baby nonesense. Figure it out. You think it can only be a massive central power plant. Maybe a small power source is possible. You believe what you believe and want me to support your religion. Sorry, that is not how it works in a free market system. Get off you butt and put your own money where your mouth is and stop using force to get your concepts worked on. I do not agree with your strategy, neither do most engineers or sane people.

"The reason the climate hasn't changed drastically yet is the same reason a drink with ice in it stays cold. The heat is melting the ice, not warming the drink."

This is an interesting and valid point. I would add to this that as you have stated in you global worming blog there is no permanent ice on the continent of Australia. The fact that there is no ice to melt would lead one to think that Australia is where you would see rising temperatures first. This is in fact exactly what we are seeing we are regularly seeing mean monthly temperatures the highest on record and on the 1^st January this year Sydney recorded temperatures of 45ºC (113ºF), the hottest on record and that was near the coast, higher temperatures were recorded inland. We are also in the midst of the worst drought in 1,000 years and there is no sign of it breaking.

"That's why the artic will have open sea lanes year round in 40 years and antarctica is shedding ice sheets like they are going out of style."

There are at this very moments ice bergs are floating about off the coast of New Zealand. This is equivalent to having ice bergs of the coast of California.

These observations are only for one continent but they fit with everything Roger has claimed and to me are exceedingly perturbing events.

Thanks for the reply. Darwen- I used it because the public perception is that Darwen did it all by himslef. My point was that he's the man credited with doing it...I said he wasn't the only one (implied not the first, but probably very loosely).

GW vs CO2 level - some posters don't seem to have seen the distinction.

My comment on not having seen the evidence was similar to seaplaneman's - i.e. I've not seen scientific evidence that convincingly links CO2 levels & the warming - I don't doubt that the warming exists...even if you think I haven't seen the effects . My earlier post makes the point that the planet's temperature cycles anyway, in a manner we don't have fully modelled at the moment, which is one of my objections to the CO2 theory.

habib makes well the point tried to make (or was that another thread): let's look at the solutions to the pollution and energy consumption issues. And habib, thanks for the reality check over politicians...ours are so insane, it's getting to me! How about the thread series/separate forum masu suggested in another thread?

Surely engineering is about working within the laws of nature/physics and coping with a changing environment? While I sympathise with the Netherlands poldar problem, in Britain we have whole sections of coast, including towns and villages falling into the sea...one in Norfolk will be gone in the next seven years (it's on its 3rd or 4th site in 300 years) nothing to do with global warming, but just as devestating to the local population. Conversely, Chester, 40 miles inland, was a major Roman seaport...

Adapt to survive - how can we persuade the population to change its habits when govts are still building more infrastructure that meets the needs of cars? I suspect that the solution to the transport part of the problem will involve something that reduces the need for personal transportation means (much as that upsets people...less convenience, less able to transport large items etc etc) and so will need a whole different way of approaching how we travel - but no groundwork is being set for this (London & Paris in my experience do quite well...plenty of carrots as well as sticks) so there is, as yet, no impetus for the change coming from those whose rhetoric is loudest.

Hmm...I'm starting to rant incoherently, going home to get some sleep! Maybe I'll make more sense tomorrow!

Mr. Pink,

Darwin's theory is called a theory because it is just that, a theory, not fact. Like I said elsewhere, Captain Kirk and Spock coming here with animals, bioengineering, plants "in all their variety" could be the answer. Show me the proof of Darwin's theory, the missing link! There is none. The missing link is still not found, if you have not followed that debate.

Look, life could have "evolved" on a far distant planet many billions of years ago, have been brought here many different times from many different planets as a replanting and so forth after a total destruction ofof earth life by a photon Kligon ray gun, asteroid, or whatever. Darwin's theory is the most unlikely of hundreds of possible answers because of the fossil records themselves. Darwin's theory says in essence if we can't fly to another planet then nobody else can. It is extremely arrogant. The same applies to Cell phones 100 years ago.

Moses was "transfigured" in order to see and talk FACE TO FACE with the being in the burning bush, an alien encounter if you will. That being in the bush was made of matter not necessarily based on our periodic table. It was matter, not nothing, though. When you can think out of the dogma box you are in, you can clearly see there are many possible theories, and Darwin comes up lacking, big time.

You, my doubting friend, are in a box, and you are unwilling to think out of the box to see what other people have to say. Your professor is your priest and you ware his priesthood (Darwinian) robe at graduation.

A good engineer is always willing to talk to others if not for the simple reason that the other perspective may spark a great idea. For example, I have been learning about Islam. Why? Because I learn more about my Christian religion (I don't buy the Nicene creed, by the way) by knowing what it is not and seeing it from another perspective. You are unwilling to show the other person the respect to see their point of view (which is what I am doing for an Islamist by study of his religion) .

That is what we do by providing facts. After that is done, it is up to the other person to act. One can lead the horse to water, but cannot make them drink. The facts are there, you must be willing to drink. I have seen your "facts" and they have been proven by many to be a fraud. Your facts are false. Do you want me to believe in a fraud?

You are unwilling to drink the facts about CO2 and Global Warming, just like most religionists are not willing to change their beliefs in the face of strong evidence. My faith is very compatible with science and that is why I stay with it. It works and the fruits are good. I cannot say that for other religions, or other religionists acting as scientists who promote Darwin's theory as fact, or this new upstart religion called Global Warming.

You need religion, do you?. I don't. I am looking for the truth, not religion. The truth will set me free.

Seaplaneguy you state that the people that believe there is a problem with global warming are the victims of a conspiracy, that we need to look at all possibilities and weight them up equally. I would therefore ask;

"Could it not be you that is the victim of the conspiracy and in fact the conspiracy is that global warming doesn't exist? Could in not be that the conspiracy is being perpetrated by those that have an interest in the world remaining dependant of fossil fuels?"

Look at organizations like OPEC that openly and unashamedly conspire to keep control over the production and price of fossil fuels. If you tried to do what OPEC dose, in countries like Australia and the USA, you would be thrown I gaol (jail for Americans) for insider trading, conspiracy to defraud and price fixing. Before you decide whom is the victim of a conspiracy look at who the likely conspirators are and what they are likely to gain.

I also noted that the questions I posed in post #82 have as yet gone unanswered. I will give you the benefit of the doubt and assume you missed them due to the post notification glitches of recent. I therefore give you a further opportunity to respond and anticipate your answers.

Go to this web site now!!! Your thoughts and proactive agenda are needed for the cause!!

http://www.dhmo.org/facts.html

You may want to consider the dangerous consequences of this at times dangerous compound. It is much more abundant then CO2 and something must be done. Your efforts to be correct would be better suited in correcting people in their thinking about this deadly compound!!!!.

Seaplaneguy, your post is so full of inaccuracies that is's hardly worth responding to. As for your statement

"Warmer is better than cold. Cold kills, big time."

Come to Australia and make statements like this will result in you getting lynched.. If you think record temperature of 45ºC on the coast, nobody know how much higher inland, coupled with the worst drought in 1,000 years with no sign or it breaking full stop, is a good thing then you have a very perverted concept of good. Every reservoir on the entire continent is below 40% capacity and the Darling river, one of the worlds longest rivers has completely dried up. Thanks to the hole in the ozone layer 50% of Australians can now expect to develop a melanoma some time during their life. I already have lost one friend to this and another one is unlikely to see next Easter plus 50% of my immediate family has already needed to have melanomas excised.

To give you something to compare with it's the equivalent of the Great Lakes being less than half full ant the Mississippi river drying up When that happens in North America, and it will, will you still be saying that the green house effect is a fallacy.

To think you have the audacity to say that we need it hotter!

Ah, yes I will still say it. You provide zero evidence that CO2 is the cause. None. Zip.

Warmer is better than cold is a well documented fact. Cold kills, warm and hot seldom does. Look at the data. There are many studies on this issue. Would you like to be stranded on a road at -15C or +15 C?

I feel your pain in Australia, but there is no evidence that CO2 caused it. You hint at 1000 years, which ironically is about where the temperatures were 1000 years ago. Perhaps why few settled in Autralia was because 1000 years ago they were roasted out of there...welcome to planet earth and its climate cycles...

What is a green house? How does it work? The earth is NOT a green house.

I did not say that Australia needs to be hotter. There are many places that would be great to live if the planet were a little hotter, such as Siberia, for example, with lots and lots of land with nobody on it for a very cold reason. When the planet warms the equator stays about the same and the heat basically moves north in general.

Getting emotional about it makes no sense. Because Al Gore and his ilk claim CO2 is evil, you want to blame it on CO2. The sun is the likely cause. Maybe you should set up a sun worship church and go for it...and become a Global Warmiing apostate...

You talk of everyone's lack of evidence. Where is yours? Also, I am curious about the meaning of your statement "Second, CO2 is at the saturation point of light spectrum and therefore cannot add anything worth talking about to the warming of the planet." What exactly in physics terms does it mean to be "at the saturation point of light spectrum"? Either I am uninformed or this statement makes it sound like you have no physics training and are parroting something you heard. Can you articulate the mechanism by which CO2 creates the greenhouse effect or do you disagree with this mechanism? Where do you get your information? It sounds like something off of Fox News. Can you site references so we can review them?

Do this: 1) Go to co2science.com Read all they have. It will take you several months, then we can talk.

Read all the anti global warming web pages you can find. Build a case against global warming and believe CO2 is a good thing. Find out all the good CO2 does, how it factors in, etc. Believe global warming is a hoax and find every bit of evidence you can find. After you spend several month reading the papers, then come back and e-mail me at seaplaneguy@msn.com or just open a new topic and we can have at it. OK.

Until you have built a case against global warming you don't know the global warming theory itself. You must know evil to understand good... See both sides before you decide.

For example, if I wanted to know about Islam I would read the Koran, Hadith and all known books of authority. I would visit a county with sharia law or read about it and talk to people who have lived there, sit in a court room, witness hands being cut off, and check it out. I would ask a truck load of questions and clear up all contradictions, such as those of the Mecca and Medina eras found in the Koran. I would talk to a lot of Moslems and Imans. Afterwards I would then find Christians and Jews and ask them what they think. I would compare and contrast each religion for structural and doctrinal fortitude and depth, looking for the orgins of a doctrine. Such would take maybe 2-3 months. At that point I would now have an opinion about Islam.

The same applies to global warming...

I am a Mechanical Engineer, not a paleoclimantologist, but I do know about heat transfer, computer models and design of experiments. Find a model that predicts that last century accurately. Engineers lie with models, and so do scientists. With all the data out there they should be able to back feed that data and develop a real world model, not one that goes off to infinity and cannot predict known history. Their models are junk, and they don't predict anything. Co2 science has lots of article on this issue.

I admit I am still learning. I am not an expert, but I can understand what lagging CO2 vs temperture means. What dropping temperatures and rising CO2 means. What saturation means. What plant feedback means. What convention cooling means, etc. This is a big puzzle, no doubt.

Co2 science has hundreds of reviews of scientific papers and after reading sever hundred myself I came away with a general impression that people have agendas they want to push to get research money. I have 4 PhDs in my family and I know how they think (they get a PhD so that they have "credibility" or in other words don't have to rely on facts, just their opinion, like the Priests of yesteryear…) and get money for grants. Many times the "scientist" would conclude opposite to what their own data shows when one factors in other aspects the "scientist" refuses to see. Co2science has tons of such cases. I look for trends and themes and avoid doom and gloom. I believe the earth is more robust than what the doomers claim.

See Junkscience.com for a discussion on saturation, and also several other places I have read including co2science.com. Google it. The saturation concept works with what I understand about light and spectrum absorption. I am working on green house effects for my engine and ways to capture all the heat from the sun via glass and destrimative alloying of the glass. I use to work in radar for the Air Force and I learned some things there.

When you ask the question what happens when I start with zero CO2 and then add it back in, one sees a logarithmic effect and not a linear or exponential effect. Most effect is in the first 20 ppm and it decreases thereafter. At 380 ppm adding more does nearly nothing. Co2science has research papers that attest to that as well as Junkscience.

CO2 lags temperature. CO2 has negative and positive temperature correlations. Look at the data. Why would Al Gore not present that fact of the data in his show? It is a fact that CO2 lags temperature. As you present such data it becomes clear that his position has a problem and that we know next to zero about climate, we cannot (have not actually) model it worth beans, we cannot predict anything about it, and all models fail totally to work with known historical data.

In CO2 science they did some experiments with plants. It showed that plants are more drought resistant with higher CO2 concentrations and grow faster. Basically the plant can grab the CO2 easier with higher CO2 concentrations and not have to open up and loose water to do so. If the planet is warming, for whatever reason, we need MORE CO2, not less, otherwise we will have drought and famine. The more CO2 the better.

Have you every considered that what the GW Al Gores of the world advocate may be just the opposite to what is needed? The plant data says it is. Temperature vs CO2 data indicates that.

CO2 is a good thing. Plants love it. Concentrations go up and down summer/winter. It is called the Carbon cycle. The more that is in the loop the better. And since it is in saturation, a lot more does nothing to temperature.

This planet can sustain many more plant and animals with more CO2. What the planet needs is smart Humans to get the CO2 cycle going again. That's right, a lot of SUVs with big honking powerful engines guzzling gas like crazy, but no CO, Nox and HCLs.

By the way I have seen a lot of "trained" people who are not so able to figure stuff out. I have Master in Mechanical Engineering, and 10 years of research. I put my money where my mouth is, unlike the grant sucking con men who promote Global Warming. The reason private enterprise works is because reality bites and if you believe a hoax you pay for it with your own cash. In government there is no risk to the spender and tax payers pay for the con game.

As for parroting…I read and draw my own conclusions. You can say that everybody parrots what Mann started. He invented the GW hoax. Jump on the gravy train…wheee, lets soak the tax payer…invent a new carbon trading tax game…and take a cut of the con game. I say pull the rug out of big oil, big government, big egos, and big companies, big religions and reinvent ourselves upon sound principals, not fear doom and gloom. All this GW bull is another way to tax, control, and micro manage people. It is a power grab without shame. A new religion. Look at the political bent of the GW backers. Wacho environmental dictator types with heavy socialist ideology. Which is more dangerous? A Moslem extremist or an environmental extremist? I'll take the Moslem any day of the week, at least I can reason with them (hah, hah).

As I stated elsewhere, the green house model does not apply to earth. I don't buy their simple "mechanism" as valid. Anybody who has done heat transfer knows how difficult it is to be accurate, let alone an entire planet. We don't even know how to take the temperature of the planet, let alone predict it! You could not give me an accurate "average" temperature of your house to .1 C. Come on, get reality guy.

If you "believe" there is Global Warming, great. I have ideas that could cut CO2 by 50-70%. Put your money where your mouth is….I am. Go build an engine that gets 100 mpg. Have at it. Figure it out, but please stop the whining. Call Al Gore up, set up a meeting and I will show him how to get his dream. I'm at seaplaneguy@msn.com. I called the president of the local chapter of the local Sierra Club and they were not interested. They only want power, not solutions. My problem is if we can cut CO2 by 70% we better get the third world driving SUVs to make up for the lost CO2.

I don't have FOX news. Sorry. I did stay in a Holiday Express the other day… (just kidding).

OK seaplaneguy you asked for evidence so be warned here it comes.

Firstly lets look at a statement in your most recent post;

"Warmer is better than cold is a well documented fact. Cold kills, warm and hot seldom does."

In Australia I can't remember the last time anybody died of exposure to the cold, heatstroke however is another story. Even in a city the size of Sydney it not uncommon to hear of people dying of heat stroke on hot days. The Australian environment kills numerous tourists each year as they are unaware of what it can do. If you plan to go into the heart of the country you need to take at least 7 liters of water per person per day, anything less and you die. You can also forget about finding any as there's none left. During summer adults can suffer sunburn in less than 10 minutes and children in even less time than that. There are cases of children dying form from sunburn and heatstroke after as little as 30 minutes of exposure to direct sunlight. Recently there have been several days where it is literally suicide to go outside. Adelaide, the capital of South Australia, is the driest capital city in the world and the amount of rain we have been getting has been dropping steadily over the last decade or so. You also stated;

"You hint at 1000 years, which ironically is about where the temperatures were 1000 years ago. Perhaps why few settled in Autralia (sic) was because 1000 years ago they were roasted out of there"

Well Europeans only settled in Australia in 1788, 18 years after Cook discovered the east coast in 1770. The indigenous Australians have however been here for a least 45,000 years and are probably the oldest, all be it primitive, civilization and culture in the world. There are thousands of galleries of cave paintings in Kakadu National park that up to 20,000 of years old. Here is a link that documents some of the paintings;

http://www.deh.gov.au/parks/kakadu/artculture/art/

So you see the Australian aborigines weren't roasted out of the place and western civilization didn't even know most of it existed till a little over 200 years ago.You asked

"What is a green house? How does it work? The earth is NOT a green house."

OK according to the Britannica dictionary a greenhouse is

"A structure, enclosed, used for the cultivation or protection of tender plants"

which isn't that bad a description of the Earth as a whole. However we are talking about The Greenhouse Effect which again according to Britannica is

"Warming of the surface or lower atmosphere of a planet rthat is caused by the conversion of solar radiation into heat in a process involving a selective transmission of short wave solar radiation by the atmosphere, its absorption by the planet's surface, and reradiation as infrared which is absorbed and partly reradiated back to the surface by atmospheric gasses".

So since we seem to all agree that it is getting hotter the questions are;

Do we need to be concerned about the rise in temperature and what are the gasses that are causing the rise?

So should we be concerned? Well I for one am, if what we are currently experiencing in Australia is a sample of the future and a precursor to what is likely to happen over much of the planet then we are all in smeging deep do do. Do you think you could cope with several consecutive days where the temperature rose above 40ºC during daylight hours and never dropped below 30ºC at night? Believe me you can't sleep, move, go outside or do anything. Cars overheat, and won't run, power supplies fail due to overloading, bushfires start, water supplies run out, etc. When I talk of bush fires they are nothing like the one you have in North America. Australian bush fires can be huge and unfortunately Australian native trees have highly volatile sap and are prone to explosion. You can't do anything to stop them, all you can do is get the hell out of the way. The ash from Australian bush fires has be know to fall to the ground in New Zealand, which is roughly as far away as New York is from Las Angelis. I quote you again

"CO2 from humans is so small (1-3%?) as to be zero."

This is absolutely wrong. Quoting from the following BBC article;

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/5314592.stm

It reports on what has been learnt from ice cores that have been taken from the ice shelf in Antarctica. The results show that the CO₂ levels now are higher than they have been for the last 800,000 years. The report states;

"Ice cores reveal the Earth's natural climate rhythm over the last 800,000 years. When carbon dioxide changed there was always an accompanying climate change. Over the last 200 years human activity has increased carbon dioxide to well outside the natural range,"

So you must agree that there is some sort of relationship between the levels of CO₂ in the atmosphere and climate change. The report also states;

"The "scary thing", he added, was the rate of change now occurring in CO2 concentrations. In the core, the fastest increase seen was of the order of 30 parts per million (ppm) by volume over a period of roughly 1,000 years. The last 30 ppm of increase has occurred in just 17 years."

That would pretty much point the finger at us burning fossil fuels being the culprit. If the planet follows, and there is no reason to think it won't, the patterns of the past then the increased levels of CO₂ are going to cause the planet to heat up. To quote you again;

"There are many places that would be great to live if the planet were a little hotter"

And that may be true but if it warms enough to make currently inhabitable Artic areas inhabitable then the Antarctic ice sheet would melt. The resulting rise in sea level would cause the inundation of many of the pacific islands. Holidays in Hawaii are going to require a snorkel because a big chunk of it is going to be under water. Its already started as ice bergs are turning up off the New Zealand coast, that's equivalent to them being of the coast of northern California. A final quote from you;

"Go educate yourself on the facts about CO2."

Well I did and the more I learn the more devastating the effects of rising CO₂ levers becomes. There is just too much evidence now that shows we are the problem and if we don't do something soon we are all going to be in big trouble.

Finally I will close with an oblique question. Do you think that the effect of smoking tobacco, directly, passively or otherwise, is detrimental to your health, or is this too a conspiracy perpetuated by over zealous bureaucrats that just want to ruin you day? .

Masu,

See co2science on cold vs hot. They have lots of papers on the subject. You are not correct on this.

In 1770 we were still in a little ice age. Talk to roasted Aborigines of 1000 AD. Australian climate has many factors, none of which could be related to CO2. You are guessing.

Captain cook was a white guy. Maybe you should invest in sun screen skin care products…

Convection is not covered in the model. Read Wikapidia's rant. Lots of hole in it. Radiative and convective both. Do the models do both? No, from what I gather. Fact is they don't know and are guessing.

BBC? What a source. Co2 science has lots of article on the CO2 history. Read them. They conclude differently and interpret and correct data for other factors. This is not easy.

Temperature follows the sun well, not CO2. There is positive and negative correlations, but not for the sun. CO2science has lots of article on this too.

How do you know the seas will rise? You don't know that! Again, CO2 has many articles on this.

Question: Does the sea level rise when an iceberg melts? Hmmmmm

What evidence? Again, CO2 has the papers. Read them.

Check this article out. Purpose of the hoax? Globla governance, says French PM. Ah, the French, still living in the past longing for relevance and any way to steal money from hard working Americans....

Read it : http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2006/11/05/nosplit/nwarm05.xml

Drought is not caused by the warming of the planet. In Fact, record rainfall is occurring around the world, ostensibly caused by the warming! This is natures own way of cooling. Our planet has been much warmer and much colder. We simply find ourselves living on this planet during a very short period of time because now, the planet can support our life. This too, is temporary. We may change our planetary eco-system slightly, but the planet itself will change itself, and keep on doing so until we too are sucked into that great big super massive black hole in the center of our galaxy. Yes, it's that simple.

Masu,

How about this new article. You will love it!

New Findings Show Earth is Not Getting Warmer; Studies Also Show Climate Models Break from Reality Says NCPA Scholar

http://releases.usnewswire.com/GetRelease.asp?id=34630

Gee, I guess I was not wet after all...hmmm. Like I said... It looks like our in control planet can keep its cool even with all the nasty and greedy Americans driving massive cars, flying jets, and living in mansions...It seems the globe is warming "not so much"...

Ya got to love this quote: "If the global climate is not warming, why all the fuss?" asked Singer. "The whole issue of controlling CO2 emissions is moot."

It seems to me this hoax is about taxes and redistribution con game...hmmm. I wonder when they will firgure out we get it. Imagine your heating fuel bill jumping from $150/month to $1000/month. So much for that 4000 sq ft house, best be looking for a German style Hochhauser. Ya Wohl mein Fuerher!

Wake up will ya, and join reality...

Seaplaneguy when you make statements like this

"The more the better to about 1200 ppm..."

In relation to the level of CO₂ in the atmosphere it makes me think you havn't thought things through thoroughly. While the an atmospheric CO₂ level of 5,000ppm can be tolerated by humans and mammals in general they however can't tolerate it 24 hours a day 365 days a year. For continuous exposure the safe level is considerably lower. For continuous exposure current estimates are that levels over 426ppm could be dangerous to health. Quoting fro this paper;

http://www.ias.ac.in/currsci/jun252006/1607.pdf

"The lowest value at which the atmospheric concentration of carbon dioxide could be stabilized by reduction of additions made by human activity (fossil fuel-burning, etc.) is estimated16 as 550 ppm. To achieve this, severe limitations are required on the latter activities. The most often quoted16 desirable/attainable stable concentration is 750 ppm. This concentration level is not related in any way to health considerations and is above the estimated dangerous level of 426 ppm. The value is also above the 600 ppm level, which results in the 'stuffy room' conditions"

1,200ppm atmospheric CO₂ levels may not kill us but it is certainly going to make it difficult to concentrate and stay awake. If you like walking about in a stupefied state that's fine but I personally don't like the idea of needing to carrying about a bottle of compress O₂ just so I can think clearly and stay awake.

"New Findings Show Earth is Not Getting Warmer; Studies Also Show Climate Models Break from Reality Says NCPA Scholar"

Having read the article all I can say is that we have one set of figures that at first appear to be in contradiction to numerous previous sets of data. Personally I hope it is correct and the planet isn't warming but at the moment the overwhelming data available to date shows the planet is warming and it doesn't look at ocean temperatures

How do you know the seas will rise? You don't know that! Again, CO2 has many articles on this.

Question: Does the sea level rise when an iceberg melts?

You are forgetting about the ice that covers Greenland and Antarctica which isn't floating and in some places is several kilometers thick. Current estimates of ice sheet volumes for Greenland of 2.6 to 5.1 x 10⁶Km³, Antarctica of 25 to 62.5 x 10⁶Km³ combined with the oceanic surface area at somewhere around 300 x 10⁶Km² give us this simple arithmetic problem;

Ocean_Rise = (Volume_Antarctic +Volume_Greenland) / Ocean_Area

Rise_Minimum = (2.6 x 10⁶ + 25 x 10⁶ / 300 x 10⁶ ≈ 92m or 300 feet

Rise_Maximum = (5.1 x 106 +62.5 x 106) / 300 x 106 ≈ 225m or 740 feet

This clearly shows that if even 1% of the ice caps were to melt using the most conservative estimates of the ice volume the sea levels would rise by around a metre. If you think this isn't a problem look what happened to New Orleans recently. Could it possible exist with a one metre rise in sea level? What about all the island nations in the Pacific Ocean? What if even more ice melts? Can we all come and live in the USA when our homes are swallowed by the ocean? Another statement not thought through properly.

This all sounds like a conspiracy by seaplaneguy to cover up global warming in an attempt to allow sea levels to rise, inundating all the airports and thus forcing us to use sea planes!

Even if the earth isn't warming to continue dumping vast quantities of CO₂ into the atmosphere is a really injudicious idea. If we don't act we might get away with it, if we act we will. To me a certain bet is always better bet then probable bet.

Not to act now, while we still can, would be immoral, scandalous and reprehensible.

The climate is changing.

Human activity has some effect

CFC use has burned a hole in the ozone.

Even if reducing CO² levels is bullshit [ sort of like the space program ], What will we learn while do the research?

What do we have to lose by making less pollution, while generating power/transportation & using that power/transportation more efficiently?

I feel seaplaneguy's pain when it comes to the government.

We could certainly reduce CO² [ hot air] levels if we could make institutions more $ efficient.

The Good ole boys run the world & probably always will.

You can bitch about it or you can make your own special friend.

If you have read any of my post, I am working on a more efficient engine, one that can get 100 mpg. I am looking at the Ansari prize(s). It will not have emmision issues like a Diesel. I am all for cleaner. But CO2 is NOT a polutant or harmful gas. It is not a CFC. It is part of nature. The more the better to about 1200 ppm...

I think he means clean the air of all the other bad chemicals released

i know i would rather breath fresh clean air

free all the free radicals

In the middle ages around 100 to 1300 the average global temperature was about 4.5 degrees F. above the average temperatures of the 20th century. The prediction for the current warming trend is for the earth to warm up by 2 degreed F. This warming trend is well within the normal global cycles. The rise in temperature in the middle ages certainly wasn't caused by industrial emissions of co2 and neither is current warming period. The argument isn't whether the earth is warming (it is), but whethger co2 emissions have anything to do with it.

What are your credentials other then being able to log on to the web and read?? How many publications that you have authored have been published? Please site the peer reviewed journals and publications from which you so vehemently defend you position? True scientists are skeptics at heart---why are you so positive your conclusions are the correct conclusions??

Oh, about your comment on green houses, are you saying that a green house (i.e. a house with more windows then a regular house used to grow plants) is theoretically perfectly insulated? That is an invalid statement to say that the earth is not like a green house because it (the earth) radiates heat away form itself….so does a green house!!! It seems to me that a green house still loses heat to the environment outside of itself thru radiation as well as convection.

Furthermore from what I understand about global warming is that the only thing anyone can say is that it is drastically going to change our climate as we know it to be. No one is 100 percent sure of what is going to happen whether it be heating or cooling besides yourself. We do know that the earth has gone thru many of these climate changes in its long history and that dramatic climate changes has had an effect on the living things on the earth (why don't dinosaur and woolly mammoths inhabit the earth with us).

For you to say that a massive release of carbon into the atmosphere will be good for the earth is preposterous. How do you know if it will be good or bad????? . Have you not seen other planets that have atmospheres in which we would not be able to live? What research have you done to prove these claims? You seem to be refuting documented scientific evidence from the following areas: Biology, chemistry, physics, cosmology, geology, meteorology, etc. so on and so forth. Why should any one believe what you are saying----because you read about it on the internet???

What are your credentials other then being able to log on to the web and read?? How many publications that you have authored have been published? Please site the peer reviewed journals and publications from which you so vehemently defend you position? True scientists are skeptics at heart---why are you so positive your conclusions are the correct conclusions??

Oh, about your comment on green houses, are you saying that a green house (i.e. a house with more windows then a regular house used to grow plants) is theoretically perfectly insulated? That is an invalid statement to say that the earth is not like a green house because it (the earth) radiates heat away form itself….so does a green house!!! It seems to me that a green house still loses heat to the environment outside of itself thru radiation as well as convection.

Furthermore from what I understand about global warming is that the only thing anyone can say is that it is drastically going to change our climate as we know it to be. No one is 100 percent sure of what is going to happen whether it be heating or cooling besides yourself. We do know that the earth has gone thru many of these climate changes in its long history and that dramatic climate changes has had an effect on the living things on the earth (why don't dinosaur and woolly mammoths inhabit the earth with us).

For you to say that a massive release of carbon into the atmosphere will be good for the earth is preposterous. How do you know if it will be good or bad????? . Have you not seen other planets that have atmospheres in which we would not be able to live? What research have you done to prove these claims? You seem to be refuting documented scientific evidence from the following areas: Biology, chemistry, physics, cosmology, geology, meteorology, etc. so on and so forth. Why should any one believe what you are saying----because you read about it on the internet???

If you believe everything you read on the internet try this site:

http://www.dhmo.org/facts.html

You may want to consider the dangerous consequences of this possibly deadly compound. It is much more abundant then CO2 and something must be done. Your efforts to be correct would be better suited in arguing the truths of this compound.

Seaplaneguy is right. Water vapor has hundreds of times greater effect on the earth's temperature than co2. If you want to cool the earth, you have to find a way to dry up the oceans.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IPCC_list_of_greenhouse_gases

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Greenhouse_gas

Oh dear another one.... ;-)

Seaplaneguy you should re-evaluate your own beliefs first before criticising others...

Errrrmmmmm they are your own beliefs arn't they?

No, oh how very different from the normal herd mentality!

John.

Politicians lie to us whatever next,people will be saying b"*ls to the queen.Are the people who run our countries not advised by highly paid highly educated men and women or do they sit around together and guess at the facts and run with them.Neither pro or against in this thread seem to have produced any facts ,what are people like myself to beleive when apparently educated people like the contributors to this thread cant aggree or it seems provide evidence for either argument.I realize the meek will not inherit the earth but it always seems the lunatic fringe get their way in to many situations.I suppose im another one electroman,I am incapable of forming an informed opinion on the subject as I am not informed.However I can hold beliefs be them influenced by others as they are.One of your colleges said.Few people can express with equenimity opinions which differ from the prejudices of their social enviroment.Most people are incapable of forming such opinions.So we have to be led by our peers be they politicians or sceintists.Forming beliefs based on the information we receive does not invalidate an argument we might put foreward.

dennis

I will say what I want to say, and call it as I see it. If you cannot handle it, that is your problem. If you cannot stand the heat, stay out of the discussion. I re-evluate my beliefs daily, thank you. Oh dear, another one...;-)-)-)-)-)-)-)-)-).... Was that supposed to add or be funny...hah hah. Hmmm Not so much.

try this article. http://www.crichton-official.com/speeches/speeches_quote04.html

Belief is not science...

looks like 75% of climate change is cosmic rays. CO2...nichts mein Hairless one. Maybe you need to reevaluate your beliefs...hmm...chock one up to reality.

http://spacecenter.dk/cgi-bin/nyheder-m-m.cgi?id=1159917791|cgifunction=form

Come on guys, Oprah is backing Al now!! Global warming has to be true!! (I'm joking if you didn't pick that up) My 2 cents, we need to be friendlier to our environment. I agree with the opinion that the temperatures and climates are bound to change, I live in WI and recently experienced a thunderstorm that had rain, hail, snow, and lighting all in the course of two hours. Pretty Cool! I think the biggest problem we have is that when a celebrity endorses something, a lot of people start mooing and heading for the barn! It's hard to believe someone that is fanatical about a topic, if there isn't some skepticism, it always seems fishy. There are only two guarantees is life, (U.S.) Death and Taxes!

If you didn't pick up on it, I'm not a real believer in "Global Warming"

Just how, specifically and exactly, do you propose to filter out the CO-2, and where do you propose to put it after you have filtered it out?

Peter Cross, Belmont, CA

dear zankruti: re: your original question,Avoiding(or preventing!) the green house effect. the answer is quite simple really; we just have to stop "burning ourselves into oblivion"!. there are substitutes for burning coal and oil etc. even china's steam locomotives can use a clean flamless boiler and/or "internal non-combustion" substitutes for the old diesels. and some nice "Phd." at ERDA said my "earthtap" geo-thermal system, could supply electricity for the entire world's needs, and it would take 40 million years to drop the heat source's temperature one degree!. with no nuke waste to dispose of, and "distilled water" as the only waste? product/or leftover, even the poorest developing countries would have to agree that it is a very "ecolnomic" help for their economies/&development. mother earth can provide this free fuel, all over the globe, and would you believe the "oil companies" have the knowhow to put it to good use in many places fairly fast, a water supply(large preferably) a drilling rig/with assocat'd piping and many high speed steam turbine generaters make the shopping list for "gigawatt power plants" complete. know anyone with a few billion to invest, for a multi trillion return??.. have them contact chuck, at chuckylov1@verizon.net, and we can discuss a "clean&green" future for the world.. good luck to you, chuck

Why not use some of the power from a power plant to reduce emissions? Isn't this what we do with car engines to make them cleaner?

Global warming seems to be happening. People could be part of the problem, and, if we as a species are to survive, we need to find a way to deal with the results.

Some research and discussion seems more about proving that man and man's works are evil than about taking an objective look at the data and developing concrete solutions. This wastes everyones time and diverts time and energy away from finding solutions.

If some areas become less habitable, why not move? Think of the choices the residents of the Sahara forest had to make. Expecting things to stay the same is unrealistic at the best of times.

Finding workable solutions to practical problems is what engineers do best. The winners will be the ones who don't get distracted by the whole good and evil debate.

Hi Habib, in answer to your questions;

"Why not use some of the power from a power plant to reduce emissions? Isn't this what we do with car engines to make them cleaner? "

The majority of power plants burn fossil fuels to generate electricity so all you end up doing is moving the pollution.. Trying to pick up energy from the grid with coils is extremely inefficient so you would end up producing a whole lot more pollution than if you ran a petrol motor or charging batteries directly from the grid.

"Some research and discussion seems more about proving that man and man's works are evil than about taking an objective look at the data and developing concrete solutions. This wastes everyones time and diverts time and energy away from finding solutions."

This is probably the most intelligent statement in this thread so far. I have spent way to much time trying to debunk perpetual motion machines and ludicrous statements like CO₂ and global warming is good.

It's high time we stopped squabbling and got on with the job of developing a clean abundant energy source. Look at how much money companies like Ford or General Motors, spend on unnecessary cosmetic changes to their cars each year. If we spent just one years budget for cosmetic upgrades on emerging technologies we would most likely have the problem licked.

I completey agree with the above statement regarding:

"Some research and discussion seems more about proving that man and man's works are evil than about taking an objective look at the data and developing concrete solutions. This wastes everyones time and diverts time and energy away from finding solutions."

I leave you with:

• Faced with the choice between changing one's mind and proving there is no need to do so, almost everyone gets busy with the proof. – J. Galbraith
• Be gentle with the earth - Dali Lama

I have worked in HAZMAT for the past 10 years. The only reliable reference for chemicals is NIOSH. this is a group of scientists that have no political controls. All the information (except OSHA levels - US goverment regulations driven by political and industrial interests) are derived at by pure science.

I am also Living in Canada and have witnessed the effects of the hole in the Ozone Layer. The fact that the weather patterns is changing is in no doubt here. To blame Carbon Dioxide is questional. Carbon Dioxide is necessary for life it is only dangerous to life at levels approximately 20 times higher then is average on earth.

• From the NIOSH guide to chemicals ( http://www.cdc.gov/niosh/npg/pdfs/2005-149.pdf) see bottom
• Normal constituent of air is about 300 ppm
• Carbon dioxide is Immediately Dangereous to Life and Health at 40,000 pppm
• The Time Weighted Average or maximum accumulated safe level for a humane in an average work week is 5000 ppm

The greenhouse effect: short wave radiation that passes through the atmosphere hits the ground is absorbed. It is then re-radiated as long wave radiation which will not pass through the glass and is trapped.

The weather on this planet is driven by solar radiation and the oceans. (harmful radiation is reflected or absorbed by the OZONE Layer and normally does not reach the surface) When it heats the land it warms the ground slightly but it cools it just as fast. (day night temperatures). Water absorbs heat six times faster and retains it up to six times longer. This effect is why most large storms develop over Oceans and why you will lose heat (causes of hypothermia) in the water faster than in the air.

The warm water in the oceans are driven around the planet in an attempt to equalize its temperature. It is affected by numerious planetary effects. i.e cold water from the artic drives the trans atlantic current south on the east coast of north america which results in the warm water going north in western europe. Thus it is warmer in europe then the same latitude in Canada. Both water currents and wind currents are effected by mountains. and structural features. (the lee side of mountains will always be drier)

The effects of the holes in the ozone is that alot more radiation is getting through the atmosphere at the north and south poles. Some of this radiation is very harmful and will heat up the atmosphere alot faster. The results is that people in northern and southern latitudes may get sunburnt and harmfully radiated in as little as 10 minutes exposure. The United States (middle latitude) which is one of the bigger polluters is seeing only secondary effects of minor transient weather shifts and thus; some don't believe a major change is happening) Some see only what is in there own back yard

The high radiation at the poles is harmful to life and is of immediate concern. Carbon Dioxide has nothing to do with this.

The warming of the poles is causing numerous effects which takes longer to realize:

• It causes rapid melting of the Ice caps which causes:
• more cold water in the ocean which causes:
• water currents to shift which causes:
• weather patterns to shift: which causes:
• more moisture in some areas
• less moisture in other areas
• ocean levels to rise which causes
• more area to absorbe solar radiation which causes
• water temperatures to increase which causes:
• more severe storms
• Higher winds
• More ice to melt which starts the cycle over again.
• overall more total moisture in the planets atmosphere

The real problem is the hole in our protective shield (the ozone). Ozone or O₃ is only effective when it is clean and not attached to pollutants. CO₂ is heavier than O₃ and does not have much effect. CO₂ only keeps the heat in at night. It does not react with Ozone, it reacts with metals.

The arguments I have read is that one person is arguing that we have to fight global warming.(right) The counter argument is that Carbon Dioxide is probably not the cause (also right)

The answer is ,however, is not to burn more fossil fuels unless the other Ozone depleting chemicals can be eliminated.

The next question is this good or bad?

Well if you are an area that is negatively affected .. Its bad. those areas are:

• near the north or southern sections of the planet
• In a low lying area near the oceans
• near a river
• near an area prone to tornadoes or hurricanes
• on the leeward side of mountains (after the winds have changed due to water current shifts)
• Food supply for animals have moved out of range

Well if you are an area that is positively affected its good.

• new weather patterns may make previously inhabital land, habital
• some arid land may become productive

Can we do anythin about this? The damage is done.. the lack of responsibility of the ones with the power has changed the planets weather patterns and it will continue to change . We must minimize the rate of change or nothing will survive.

While scientists were tracking natural wildlife in North America they have noticed some species changing there natural habitat farther north by as much as a hundred miles a year. This may not seem significant until you take into consideration that the balance of nature (food) cannot keep up. Alot of species will boom and others will bust.

From the NIOSH guide to chemicals ( http://www.cdc.gov/niosh/npg/pdfs/2005-149.pdf)

Carbon dioxide is Immediately Dangereous to Life and Health at 40,000 pppm

The Time Weighted Average or maximum accumulated safe level for an average work week is 5000 ppm

Carbon dioxide Formula: CO2CAS#: 124-38-9 RTECS#: FF6400000 IDLH: 40,000 ppm Conversion: 1 ppm = 1.80 mg/m3DOT: 1013 120; 1845 120 (dry ice); 2187 120 (liquid) Synonyms/Trade Names: Carbonic acid gas, Dry ice [Note: Normal constituent of air (about 300 ppm)]. Exposure Limits: NIOSH REL: TWA 5000 ppm (9000 mg/m3) ST 30,000 ppm (54,000 mg/m3) OSHA PEL†: TWA 5000 ppm (9000 mg/m3) Physical Description: Colorless, odorless gas. [Note: Shipped as a liquefied compressed gas. Solid form is utilized as dry ice.] Measurement Methods (see Table 1): NIOSH 6603 OSHA ID172 Personal Protection/Sanitation (see Table 2): Skin: Frostbite Eyes: Frostbite Wash skin: N.R. Remove: N.R. Change: N.R. Provide: Frostbite wash Respirator Recommendations (see Tables 3 and 4): NIOSH/OSHA 40,000 ppm: Sa/ScbaF §: ScbaF:Pd,Pp/SaF:Pd,Pp:AScba Escape: ScbaE Chemical & Physical Properties: MW: 44.0 BP: Sublimes Sol(77°F): 0.2% Fl.P: NA IP: 13.77 eV RGasD: 1.53 VP: 56.5 atm MLT: -109°F (Sublimes) UEL: NA LEL: NA Nonflammable Gas Incompatibilities and Reactivities: Dusts of various metals, such as magnesium, zirconium, titanium, aluminum, chromium & manganese are ignitable and explosive when suspended in carbon dioxide. Forms carbonic acid in water. Exposure Routes, Symptoms, Target Organs (see Table 5): ER: Inh, Con (liquid/solid) SY: Head, dizz, restless, pares; dysp; sweat, mal; incr heart rate, card output, BP; coma; asphy; convuls; frostbite (liq, dry ice) TO: Resp sys, CVS First Aid (see Table 6): Eye: Frostbite Skin: Frostbite Breath: Resp support

Guest I quote you as saying;

"Carbon dioxide is Immediately Dangereous to Life and Health at 40,000 pppm

The Time Weighted Average or maximum accumulated safe level for an average work week is 5000 ppm"

Which I do not deny and in my post I also used the 5,000ppm level for working environments. However at levels as low as 600ppm you will begin to feel the effect. You have most likely felt it in a crowded room with poor ventilation. Could you imagine living in conditions like all time? Your concentration would lapse, reflexes would be slowed, peripheral vision would be diminished, night vision would be impaired and you would feel drowsy. Basically at around 600ppm you would start to feel like you had been hit round the head with cricket bat. Now I know there are people that aspire to feeling this way, but like me I believe the majority of the population wouldn't appreciate it..

In response to habib's and zankruti's original questions;

"Why not use some of the power from a power plant to reduce emissions? Isn't this what we do with car engines to make them cleaner?"

Actually scientists in Australia and several other countries are attempting to do this, it's called clean coal technology. Here are a couple of links about it;

http://www.australiancoal.com.au/cleantech.htm

http://www.uic.com.au/nip83.htm

http://www.climatechangeissues.com/cci-cleancoal.php

but there are issues like what do we do with all the CO₂ after we remove it and unfortunately it's not yet viable. Also it uses a great deal more that 1% of the output of a power station.

To date it's still unclear if clean coal technology will be viable or weather other technologies like wind, tidal, geothermal or nuclear fusion will overtake it but I think it is imperative that we do something drastic and it needs to be done soon.

Regarding the Ozone, the UV it blocks is not only bad for animal life but all life. If the Ozone layer were to disappear all animal life would starve to death in short order with no plant life to eat.

Lets all return to the caves...eat raw meat, and die at 30. We can then watch the next ice age cover New York with a couple miles of ice.

All the BS about global warming...we can't even model tomorrows weather 100% but we are to believe that we can predict our effect on the planet. The argument has become political. I'm not saying that we shouldn't do all we can to be good stewards of the planet. I don't drive an SUV, have solar panels and wind power for my home and run a tree farm. All you need to do is look at the politics. Many of the same idiots (see Ted Kennedy and John Kerry) that are screaming global warming are fighting wind farms in their backyard.

I don't know if it's true or not but even if you agree that it is. Look at the geologic record. We are on the cusp of the cycle for another ice age. Do we really want 1/3 of the populated land area to be covered in ice? If we are causing global warming is that really a bad thing?

A review of the posts in response to this suggestion reveals a low percentage of statements referenced specifically to any sources at the peer-reviewed level, and a lot of digitally-represented bs and hot air. Digital bs does not produce methane, and digital hot air does not add to melting ice caps or the retreat of glaciers, so I guess the greatest harm caused to those not involved is some waste of server energy. The message for me is that unless a more solid level of scientific and engineering discussion is forthcoming, spending a lot of time in such exchanges doesn't result in much learning or forward motion. No one has addressed the original question with any very specific information, or extended it toward design suggestions or quantitative analysis. Some specific data has been furnished relating to the broad context of the question. The real yield seems low for the effort expended.

Peter Cross, Belmont, CA

"The real yield seems low for the effort expended."

I'd say the fact that we finally got to the point where someone said clearly "This is all political" and "CO2 is not the main cause" and "the earth's temperatures cycle anyway" is pretty good yield.

The question "How do we reduce CO2 emissions and so stop global warming?" is, IMHO the wrong question. It assumes a raft of things as fact, most of which have already been discussed here, for which we have no actual proof.

What we really need to do, and several contributors here are doing, is to formulate the correct question - for without that how can we hope to find the correct answer?

There is far too much knee-jerking, rhetoric and vested interest in this arena. A rational, scientific/engineering debate is needed - one we're not going to get if we leave it up to the politicians. And to the naive poster who believes politicians are advised by experts - please grow up: politicians only listen to those who tell them what they want to hear and whose information they can use to forward their own interests.

We're building ugly eyesores of wind-farms in places of great beauty, destroying the local habitats there with diggers and earth movers, installing pylons to distribute the electricity the produce and putting in roads so the service technicians can reach them...is the environmental equation adding up? Is wind-power on this scale truly eco-neutral when flocks of migrating birds are shredded by the fans?

The Severn Estuary has the second highest tidal reach in the world; it is a major staging point on the migration of birds from all around world. When I was a child, there were huge campaigns from the wildlife experts to save this area from industry and pollution so that the migrations would continue as other areas were lost. Now the "environmental lobby" (emphasis on mental) what to barrage the mouth of the Severn, flooding the mudflats so they can harness the tidal energy for power! And *** the birds...Grrrrr

We have to ask WHY we are doing this. It's NOT about "saving the planet". The planet will do just fine without us...we're doing it to save ourselves and our current way of life. It's not even about saving other species - oh we pay lip service to the pandas and the tigers, but what about the beetles and the ugly things - they're important too - but if they get in the way of human expansion, we cart them off somewhere else - we build roads through their habitats and are surprised when, a year down the line, the transplanted "habitat" has failed. (I know there are plenty of genuine people out there doing their best, I'm ranting at the two-facedness of govts, politicians and bandwagon jumpers worldwide).

As to global warming - we don't have enough data to accurately map the temperature changes of the past to show us the cycle time and perturbations. In Roman times, about 2000 years ago, it was possible to grow wine in southern England - the soil is part of the same chalk escarpment the French vineyards are on. It is starting to get that warm again. the last approx 1000 years are known to have been a "mini-ice age" - which means that we should expect it to get warmer.

A dynamic system is much healthier than a static one - you just have to accept that things change - and that change means losing some things.

That said, I do believe that humans, as the dominant worldwide virus, do have a responsibility to leave less of a mark on the planet - reduce pollution, reduce energy consumption etc etc. But let's be honest about why we're doing it. We want to keep all the cute little creatures because without them, our lives would be more difficult. Also the reducing of energy consumption and water use is politically vital, since these will become the means of one nation holding another to ransom. A return to self-sufficiency - on both personal and national levels - is vital if we are to move towards world peace and to avoid domination be successive powers, each rising and failing as their resources of energy are exploited. Hmm, so there we go - a solution to bring world peace. Not bad for a Tuesday morning!!

Peace be unto you...

English Rose:

I agree with you that Mother Nature will take care of herself no matter what we do to it. However, it's the reaction Mother Nature take is what worry me. I personly beleives global warming exist, whether it's due to CO2 or not I can not say.

We can read data from either side and find truth in their finding, because anybody can prove or disprove something by accepting data that support their findings. The question I have to ask is who fund these studies??

I am sure there are people out there who wants to do survey and collect data and find the reason behind global warming for their own interest, but where do they start?? More than likely they start by looking at researches and data other people have collected throught out the years. And it is in this data that I'm questioning, who funds these data?? Are they for or against that particular research??

For example, data have shown tobacco products cause cancer, but the tobacco industries defend themselves with data of their own showing stating it isn't true, and the industries uses experts in the field to back up their claims. Who is right and who is wrong?? The answer depends on who you ask and what's in it for you!

So, in closing, I would like to ask each one of us to use your own judgement, and do what is right. Play nice with each other and to try to leave this earth the same way we found it, otherwise, our children will be the one who paid for it.

"We can read data from either side and find truth in their finding, because anybody can prove or disprove something by accepting data that support their findings."

This is known as sophistry, and the foundations of Science are built upon it's rubble (Aristotle being the father of science, Plato and Socrates being the one who fought this perception of relative correctness).

Look, what you say above is true if you only read conclusions of papers. If you read the methods used, the procedure followed, the data obtained and the conclusions drawn from the data, you can form your own opinion.

People have the impression that taking the middle ground, regardless of the topic, is inheritly more reasonable. This just isn't true. Sometimes taking the middle ground is the same as closing your eyes to the evidence so as not to stand out by your assertion. If the emperor has no cloths, you are just as guilty of denial if you say nothing than if you assert that he is clothed.

There are countless papers that show links between green house emissions and global warming. To say there is no direct evidence is to completely ignore the laws of statistics. Papers by botanists the note longer growing seasons, forestry papers noting increased drying and the shrinking of tundras. An example could be the recent difficulties the chinese ran into constructing their train to Tibet. Permafrost in the tibetan plateau melting caused all kinds of havoc, and was quite unexpected since it didn't occur in the recent past. There are countless papers like these that provides hints that when taken as a whole produce a pretty clear picture. A warming trend began at the start of the industrial revolution and accelerated exactly in step with the acceleration of emmisions in the environment. CO2 and Methane are transparent to visible light but not to IR, which results in the "car in the sun" effect, which is called the "Greenhouse effect" since glass does the same thing.

What would be impossible would be an addition of a gas to the atmosphere that hugs the ground and traps IR that didn't produce a climate change. It just isn't possible. If you say that this is a small percentage of the atmosphere, thats true, but we aren't talking about the entire atmosphere, we are talking about the part just above the Earths surface. There is so much misconception and misinformation on this subject that it is utterly demoralizing for me.

Roger

I am not saying I take the middle ground. I already stated that I believe global warming exist. Maybe I should be more clear in that I don't know if it's due to CO2 or not because I haven't read up on the data and research. I don't like to make a statement until I have the fact (or more info on the subject, at least.)

What I was saying is that for a given theory, most people have a hidden agenda for proving or disproving that theory. (i.e., paper publish, more giant, etc) So, in order for us, the not so inform, to accept that theory, we should ask ourselve why they are doing this. I think (and I would be wrong) once we know the motivation, we could paint a better picture of what's invlove.

MidniteFighter

You Wrote "So, in order for us, the not so inform, to accept that theory, we should ask ourselve why they are doing this. I think (and I would be wrong) once we know the motivation, we could paint a better picture of what's invlove."

I disagree. Facts we can know, but motivations we can only guess at. If you read the paper, if the argument is flimsy, you will see it in the procedure, data and conclusions, you don't need to know the motivation of the writer, it becomes apparent. You should judge a paper on its facts. Trying to guess motivations is a dangerous game with no solid ground. What makes you or me a good judge of motivation?

Its playing a dangerous game of prejudice to judge motivation before seeing the data. It affords people to introduce a "reasonable doubt" which is actually not reasonable at all but based upon their prejudices against those who put the facts forward.

The very idea of sophistry is that truth is not something solid but fluid and completely dependent upon the speakers who is presenting the facts supporting the truth. Socrates, and later Plato showed that if examine ideas with tough questions, truth emerges regardless of who is speaking.

Help me understand this.

http://www.clearlight.com/~mhieb/WVFossils/greenhouse_data.html

I remember hearing that 1 lg volcano eruption put out more greenhouse gasses than everything since the emergence of humans.

What we do may be the straw that melted the glaciers.

it does seem that this argument is about whether humans make a significant difference to the climate.

I have posted this article before but here it is again

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/5314592.stm

The information from the ice cores clearly shows that the atmospheric CO₂ level is now higher and that the current rate if increase is nearly 60 times greater than either have been in the past 800,000 years.

There is only one answer to the question of why the levels of CO₂ are rising so fast and that is us burning fossil fuels.

Dr. Wallace Broecker is a politician mindful of where his grants come from

You Wrote: "Help me understand this."

Sure, first of all the writer from this site assumes that of the 80,000 ppb increase in CO₂ since the industrial revolution began 150 years ago, only 14% of that increase is caused by man. No evidence or explanation is offered to explain why the Earth just suddenly decided to "naturally" produce 60,000 ppb more CO₂. This is a classic argument, start with a bad premise and ride it all the way to a bad conclusion.

Next the article proceeds to explain how the man made contribution to the Green house effect is small. This is correct, though not as small as the writer would have you believe do to the faulty numbers I discussed above. Man made contributions to the greenhouse effect are at least 1 %. To understand why a 1% change in greenhouse effect can cause a change in climate, we have to understand what it would be like to not have a greenhouse effect at all.

To understand what greenhouse gases do, lets look at a planet that is the same distance from the Sun and has no atmosphere, the moon. The temperature range at the equator of the moon ranges from -173 C to 117 C (-280 F to +242F). Thats a temperature variation of 290 C. On Earth the variation at the Equator ranges from 24 C to 39 C (75F to 102F), a temperature variation of 15 C. So at the equator, the temperature variation on Earth is 275 C smaller than on the moon.

So lets assume for a second that Humans have only had a 1% effect on the Greenhouse effect. If the green house effect reduces the temperature range difference from 290 C to 15 C, then 1% of that effect would amount to 2.75 C or 5 F. Of course, your website ignores the fact that warmer air can hold more water vapor and that unfreezing land releases additional CO₂ into the atmosphere due to decomposition. I guess such feedback mechanisms as these, though occurring because of the shift caused by man made CO₂ emissions doesn't count as "man made" effects, though they certainly contribute. Kind of like pouring gasoline around a house and setting the gasoline on fire and refusing to take responsibility for the house burning down since you "only set the gas on fire".

Now 2.5 degrees C doesn't sound like much, but when it causes ice to melt, which reduces the amount of light reflected back into space causing a net increase in solar power being absorbed by the Earth, and causes a warmer atmosphere that can hold more water vapor, and causes frozen land with all kinds of frozen plants and animals to suddenly start to decompose and release their carbon dioxide into the atmosphere. It starts to cause problems. But don't take my word for it, do some research on glaciers. Investigate every region of the world from Asia to Africa, Europe to South America and you will find that the glaciers are receding at an accelerating rate. Not a good sign.

For what its worth, I'm against the Kyoto agreement as well. The entire corrupt thing is little more than an empty gesture, but that is an completely different post.

Thanks Rodger

No dispute from me that the climate is changing.

Just needed some clarifacation on how small co² changes affect the overall climate. [seemed to be missing from the discussion]

the melting of the permafrost will release huge amounts of methane, not a good thing.

Living in the "big valley" here in california, manmade changes to the air are readily apparent, since it's 1 of the worst air basins on the continent.

Transportation must become more efficient.

Positive incremental change.

Mankind is destined to become extinct, it's up to us wether it take 1year or several million years!

This whole tread is showing the real problem: there are believers and there are non-believers. al have their proofs, none has the complete truth.

Some weaks ago I read an interview in the newspaper with a Phd that has been asked by the CE to evaluate the evolution of the planet and to look deeper in the different opinions.

What he found was amazing: Believers had a clear story with clear proofs that something was going quite wrong.

Non-Believers had only some statistical data and proof that nature did already encounter higher differences in global temperatures. The engine behind these differences is not always clear, effect on nature is nearly always neglected in these "proofs".

His opinion was that we should start prepairing the trial of the non-Believers as they are merely driven by personel interest and the only evolution they want is to get more freedom for the global economic players. The only region in the world that still has those non-believers active is North America (below the Canadian border and north of Mexico)

I live in the north of Belgium, together with The Netherlands we have quite some regions below sea level, the level of the sea has already risen 1m since we started measuring it in a dececent way. (approx 100y now) If the level keeps on going up at the actual speed we need to relocate 20 milion people to higher ground.

As stated earlier we do have a sea regulated climate, the north atlantic current pushes our temp up with at least 5K, the same current is also cooling the gulf of mexico. This current travels south, driven by the cold, high saline water of the north atlantic. This higher salinity comes from evaporation of water in the cold regions between Norway and Greenland. At the moment there is some proof about the engine driving this current to stop. The fresh water, flowing off greenland is mixing with the high saline water and thus reducing the salinity. This reduced salinity makes the water less heavy and thus it will not push on the lower water layers.

In recent history the North Atlantic Current has stopped due to a natural dam to collapse (somewhere in the the north of Canada) The amount of fresh water flowing through the Baffin bay into the north atlantic stopped the current for some years. Resulting in mid sommer snow for western Europe.

Last summer the National Geographic had a complete issue on human influence on nature. The main voice was: Stop this bloody american imperialism on the world because at the end it will kill us all. It is not because the Whitehouse is still surrounded by green grass that there is no problem.

In Alaska and Siberia, permafrost is melting, nearly all glaciers in the world are shrinking. Only one region has proven glacier growth: Norway. Climatologists are not sure: is it getting colder or did it get more snow due to the higher moisture level in the atmosphere.

Something funny: Romans had quite good weather in their days: they had wine in the south of england. In that same period, the sea level was that low that the ancient city of Oostende (harbour on the Belgian coast) is now completely below sea level. Inhabitants moved up, when the sea came up. This has been discovered during WO2 when the sea went amazingly low and structures became visible.

Al around the globe we can find proofs of ancient civilisations that went bankrupt due to changes in their surrounding nature. When we trace back the temperature differences and other things we can track, we see little differences but enough to make complete regions useless.

Yes, those evil Americans. That nasty freedom they have. With freedom the planet is doomed! I have repented and become a true believer! Let's return to horse and buggy before it is tooooooo late. Yes, lets string up all non-belivers, cut their heads off. Yes, only in America is that vile hateful conservative and earth destroying doctrine of freedom and liberty allowed to rule. Off with their heads. Kill all the Americans to save the Netherlands from reality. We must not let the conveyor belts stop the warm water to the our blessed lands (that should be underwater....). Yes, praise be, the biggest evil doer is none other than GW (pun intended). We cannot allow England to grow grapes or the French economy will collapse. Neither can we let Amsterdam flood, or all the prostitutes will go out of business and the Netherland ecomony will crash. Yes, climate causes all the world to go bankrupt. Such doom and gloom.

What are your credentials other then being able to log on to the web and read?? How many publications that you have authored have been published? Please site the peer reviewed journals and publications from which you so vehemently defend you position? True scientists are skeptics at heart---why are you so positive your conclusions are the correct conclusions??

Oh, about your comment on green houses, are you saying that a green house (i.e. a house with more windows then a regular house used to grow plants) is theoretically perfectly insulated? That is an invalid statement to say that the earth is not like a green house because it (the earth) radiates heat away form itself….so does a green house!!! It seems to me that a green house still loses heat to the environment outside of itself thru radiation as well as convection.

Furthermore from what I understand about global warming is that the only thing anyone can say is that it is drastically going to change our climate as we know it to be. No one is 100 percent sure of what is going to happen whether it be heating or cooling besides yourself. We do know that the earth has gone thru many of these climate changes in its long history and that dramatic climate changes has had an effect on the living things on the earth (why don't dinosaur and woolly mammoths inhabit the earth with us).

For you to say that a massive release of carbon into the atmosphere will be good for the earth is preposterous. How do you know if it will be good or bad????? . Have you not seen other planets that have atmospheres in which we would not be able to live? What research have you done to prove these claims? You seem to be refuting documented scientific evidence from the following areas: Biology, chemistry, physics, cosmology, geology, meteorology, etc. so on and so forth. Why should any one believe what you are saying----because you read about it on the internet???

If you believe everything you read on the internet try this site:

http://www.dhmo.org/facts.html

You may want to consider the dangerous consequences of this possibly deadly compound. It is much more abundant then CO2 and something must be done. Your efforts to be correct would be better suited in arguing the truths of this compound.

I know it is good because history says it is good...because plant and habitat data says it is good. How else? I am an engineer, not a religionist. I approach religion like I do engineering, look at the facts, put the puzzle together.

I defend it with peer-reviewed papers and common sense.

Why am I so positive? Because I can smell a rat and figure out things most engineers cannot. I have a track record of this. It pisses people off, and I love to stir the pot, especially when it comes to belief systems. I do not think like most people. I ask quality questions that lead to quality solutions, unlike most engineers. I have been interviewing engineers for a position as a Mech Engineer that I am offering, and 99 out of 100 cannot think, cannot find the answers, and most cannot even ask any questions that lead to further light and knowledge and results.

Do this...read all of co2science.com. Read everything you can find on why the Global Warming story is a hoax. Once you see the other side, then go back and check the facts. I have, and I am totally convinced that Al Gore and the government are wrong.

No, everbody knows it is NOT a green house. Green Houses prevent convection, and are not bounded by 3 K heat sink. Temperatures in Oceans dropped suddenly. Why? Global Warming??? The planet is much more complex than we know.

It is good because plants respond to it in very positive ways. Search CO2science.com and they have books, and a truck load of data on the positive effects of CO2. Our earth is starving for CO2!

I do engine and airplane research. I do not do the climate research myself. I rely on peer-reviewed papers like most people. CO2science has lots of such papers for you to read. Read them, OK, stop complaining that the data is not there…it is, in loads…

"Seem" is the key word, because it does not match your beliefs. I stay with the facts, not beliefs. Why should they believe? They should not, just flippen read the stinken stuff, OK. Get off your computer butt and read co2science for pete sake.

Grow up and learn. Realize that people with agendas want money from the government. Uncle Sam is the biggest sugar Daddy in world history. This is why politics is becoming more rank, because corruption and pay back rules the day. You have to be their "friend" to get money (quote from congressman Jon Oliver's assistant June 2006). Such is illegal, but it rules the way money leaks out of the USA treasury like a tidal wave. Most people go along to get along. Most are corrupt to the core. Few have the guts, like myself, to stand up and say it like it is. One of the reasons I got myself financially independent is so that I can speak my mind. I suggest you do the same...

Gwen, The problem is not the Americans. The problem is 1.3 billion Chinese and 800M Indians who demand the right to use fossil fuels at the same rate the USA does.

Obviously the oil and oil sand reserves will only do that for 150 years, after that coal is the remaining way. The Chinese are just going to buy oil at whatever the price is and export their labor products to pay for it. In time they will out bid the USA/Europe for those reserves as their product prices will be so low that the USA/Europe will not be able to sell a thing outside their borders to get the hard currency to buy oil/coal.

So USA Europe must get onto the waste cellulose to ethanol circuit over the next 100 years and have ultra high efficiency fuel cell engines in their cars, as well as lower acceleration. Another 20 years and waste cellulose to ethanol via enzyme pathways will be a mature tech(exiting the labs now)

Firstly, the US is by far the number 1 consumer of oil in the world, and the largest polluter. Secondly, Europe isn't that much better (total the contributions of the entire European Union and you get about 2/3 of the US amount). Also Europeans chastising Americans on imperialism is the height of hypocrisy, so lets not even worry about Gwen's ridiculous statement. Here is a website that provides CO2 emissions by country.

The point is we are all responsible and all must act. I think you and I agree that the Kyoto protocol, which by its own admission has not even reduced CO₂ emissions in its member states yet, and promotes a carbon trading system that effectively protects members from ever really reducing emissions. Didn't make your quota this month Germany?, no worries, just buy some credits from the third world nations like Brazil and they'll promise to cut down less rainforest. What a scam. Here is a detailed explanation of the Kyoto Protocol.

I'd like to know more about this cellulose ethanol you keep mentioning. I must admit I have my doubts, but its unfair for me to attack it if I'm not familiar with it. I'm familiar with the type that comes from sugar cane or corn. Could you provide some links so I can get up to speed?

Well, yeast is alive and at 15-16% ethanol it stops maiking it due to toxicity = distillation/membrane tech are the only remaining ways to 95% ethanol. This takes energy.

In addition, yeast starts with sugar, mostly from corn starch.

Current biomass ethanol seeks to use enzymes from molds that work in vitro to degrade cellulose into plant sugars, mostly 6 and 5 carbon type. This also releases lignin from the lingocellulose. Lignin can be burned or used as a feedstock for various products. Since it is in vitro there are no cells to kill, but the usual housekeeping the cells did has to be done other ways and even in vitro high ethanol % acts as a rate reducing contaminant. Some people have modified the enzymes with extremophiles from hot springs that allows the reaction to take place at elevated temperatures and a higher rate that also allows the ethanol to distill off to stop the limitations.

Lots of work being done. Recent article in Scientific American, sadly they want a fee

http://www.sciam.com/article.cfm?chanID=sa006&colID=1&articleID=9349BB10-E7F2-99DF-3A5B6177D3B5B9BD

searches give many paths

http://www.google.ca/search?hl=en&q=%22ethanol+from+biomass%22+%2Bmold&btnG=Google+Search&meta=

http://www.google.ca/search?hl=en&q=%22ethanol+from+biomass%22+%2Benzyme&btnG=Search&meta=

I'm going to jump in and contribute my two cent's worth.

For sure, we may not know if the earth is cycling towards a warmer or hotter climate and nothing we do might stop it. I do know, however, that carbon dioxide, or CO₂, is a bad thing for us O₂ breathing creatures. The plants may like it but we definitely don't, at least in high quantities.

You may argue that higher levels of CO₂ is good for plants and will probably result in more plant growth, hence, more O₂. Unfortunately, humans are killing off plants faster than nature can replace them. Worse, we're doing it with CO₂ producing machines and others by setting fire to the forests which produce even more CO₂.

You may have gone a little overboard by saying, "we need more CO₂", 'coz I certainly would not recommend it. I love my O₂ with the right mix, thank you.

Here is a dimes change.

CO2 is bad at 5,000-15,000 ppm. We are at 370 ppm. Your home is likely twice or more than that. Ventilation is because people pass gas and smell, not because of CO2 which is odorless. In Europe this is a big problem, but in USA we take showers.

Killing off plants more? Have you ever taken the time to ask an old crusty Forrest Service fire fighter about tree growth. My neighbor was one. There are lots of data showing that forests are much thicker and larger than back in the 1850s. See also co2science, they have many articles on this.

Overboard? Hardly. Read co2science. The planet is starving for CO2. I find it funny that a person can call him/herself "green" and not want more CO2. If you want green, you want more CO2.

The hockey stick graph that Al Gore showed is flawed because of several things: 1) The math was wrong, which lead to random numbers having hooks (no wonder the data had hooks, even random numbers show hooks...duh), 2) it did not subtract out the effect of CO2 variations on the pine proxy. Now how dumb or dishonest can you get? No much... An Al Gore believe it! This is a man who would have had his finger on the big red button. Heeeeeelllllllpppppp!

In Europe this is a big problem, but in USA we take showers.

Every new post you reveal more of your character. Keep talking.

There are lots of data showing that forests are much thicker and larger than back in the 1850s.

Yes, in the US, because of higher CO² levels. I don't think you'll find that's the case in Brazil.

Character? I lived there. Worked there. I call it like it is. It is called honesty. It is a lot easier than dishonesty. Telling the honest truth is central to debunking the global wamring politics and hoax. You must be willing to be honest.

You have lied to me about your understand of global warming. Not knowing about the hockey stick is like claiming you know about America (USA) and not knowing what the Declaration of Independence is! The hockey stick is one of the first major con jobs pulled on the world in the GW hoax. This is where it started. This is the smoking gun, yet you don't even know about it. It has been proven totally false, yet Al Gore and the UN still use it. Tell a lie long enough and they will believe. I don't believe, I get the facts...

You claimed that you read my original post. You have not. You won't admit you did not. The time stamp on the post clearly shows you lied to me. What else is there? Are you telling me you can read co2scicence.com in less than an hour? What a flat out rank lie, and you know it. Do you want me to give you a quizz? Do we need to go to the High school level and write home notes to mommy? Wake up.

Again, if you would acutally take the time and read ALL of co2science.com you have the facts and may get the understanding to know that "CO2 is a good thing" which is another way of saying that the Global Warming CO2 crowd has it 180 degrees wrong. When you read co2science you have articles pro and con. You can get the facts and make an informed conclusion. When will you do this?

Yes I can read that fast. The more you read, the faster you can read, I don't know how else to explain it to you. It took me 45 minutes. Many of your links were single pages with large fonts. I'll tell you what. I'll reread them again and post again once I'm done. I promise to be thorough.

P.S. - I still have no idea what the hockey stick is supposed to mean. Despite what you might believe, that isn't a technical term.

So I've read all of it. Everything except the 40 page paper (though I read the first 10 pages of that and finally know what you mean by "Hockey Stick").

Listen, I don't want to argue with you anymore, so here's how it is. Your wrong and your going to look foolish 10 or 15 years from now when globalwarming is beyond the denial stage. Your digging yourself a giant hole, but you can change your mind. Believe me, this isn't about winning or losing a debate. Its about being completely wrong and lashing out at all the 'idiots' who try to tell you.

Eventually your going to figure this out. When you do I want you to know that I take no pleasure in your finding out. Your not the bad guy here, your strings are being pulled by marketing that distorts and manipulates the truth.

I'm sure a smart guy, and I know you're passionate and I admire that. I wish you were in our foxhole. But regardless of your good intentions, your wrong, and your fervent in your attacks against the truth and thats harmful, though I know you don't see it that way. I wish that you would just see the truth, I would love to see you put that energy to use helping others see through the misinformation that the anti-Global Warming community are putting forward. I understand though that you will only accept the truth in your own time. For what its worth, I hope its soon.

Nine volumes covering years of data??? I don't think you could even download it all that fast let alone read it. You obviously only glanced at it and have not read it. Do you want to bet $10,000 that you have not read it??? I'm game.

I've read the links you've provided. Since you are so keen on that CO2 Science website, tell me this, do you agree with the statement they make below?

"The most logical candidate would appear to us to be the historical and still-ongoing rise in the air's CO2 content. This phenomenon provides a near-perfect fit with both the timing and the nature of the increase in human longevity, which has (1) occurred primarily over the past 150 years, and which has (2) progressed essentially exponentially. "

C'mon, tell me you believe that the reason people are living longer is because of CO² emissions. You promote this website as the truth, prove it, agree with that statement above with the same vigor you use in attacking my character.

Mr. Pink,

Congratulations! You actually "read" one article from co2science.com. You owe me an apology by the way. Now, you can take a month and read the rest of the articles and links. Way to go. I knew you could do it. Just don't spin it like you are here.

I would agree with it on several fronts. I know one thing, you and I would likely be dead or never have born had it not been for the use of carbon fuels. The fact that you have the time to argue with me about GW is due to the use of carbon fuels. You would be frozen about now (winter time and 0F where I am) without some form of carbon fuel. I will freeze waiting for you fusion machine. Petrochemicals make a lot of medical devices, and medicines. Our planet is based on the carbon cycle, and the more it cycles the better by many times more than we have now. Plants are starved for it as clearly shown by the data they present. Is it better to starve or feed a plant? We live by the food of that plant. The healthier it is the healthier we are. Why don't you ask what would happen if we did not have carbon fuels and what our food supply would look like at 280 ppm? Not so good, frankly.

You love the evolution theory. I think I read that a rise in co2 from 180 ppm way back when, allowed farming to become viable whereas before that co2 level, hunting was what humans did. Look, we do evolve! Why farm when nothing would grow? If we keep up the co2 to 1200 ppm, earth may just start looking like the "Garden of Eden" …again. Maybe God's secret was co2 injectors placed around the Garden that enhanced plant growth rates. Maybe God was a member of the oil lobby of ancient days...not. The rest of the planet was a "lone and dreary" place to live, and still is, but with the sweet addition of more co2, it will be wonderful and green again. Hmmm, ain't that co2 a wonderful thing...

Seaplane Guy,

I read the articles you suggested when I said I did. This article was a new article. This website is dynamic, it adds research and stories. Your attempt to twist this into some kind of proof that I had not read the articles in the past is just wrong and makes me wonder if you yourself have read the website you suggested.

For instance, you have extrapolated well beyond the CO₂ Science website with the following statements;

"I think I read that a rise in co2 from 180 ppm way back when, allowed farming to become viable whereas before that co2 level, hunting was what humans did."

"If we keep up the co2 to 1200 ppm, earth may just start looking like the "Garden of Eden" …again"

I defy you to point to a direct source of the statements above. The CO₂ Science website merely states, over and over again, that plants grow better in a CO₂ rich environment. Your statements above are wild speculation and unscientific extrapolation and not supported directly by any article on CO₂ Science that I can find. I don't deny that plants do better in a CO₂ environment. That doesn't change the fact that Global Warming is occurring and it is caused by the greenhouse gas emissions from the burning of fossil fuels which you no longer seem to be denying.

Mr. Pink,

Maybe you should look harder. What can I say.

Like I have said, there are thousands of articles you could read and be peer-reviewed to the point you realize really what is going on.

Well, why don't you research what I said? It is an evolution fairy tale, which is not my cut of tea. Do you want me to hand it all to you? You are the type that needs to discover it himself. So, have at it.

By the way, how do you suppose we use the energy from a fusion reaction? Steam engine? (hah hah)

As I have been trying to get you to realize, we need to learn "line upon line, precept upon recept" and progress (not evolve) to a point that we can actually be able to use a fusion reaction. It is like you just discovered a match. Welcome to planet earth. What you do with the match is the hard part. If you cannot use a carbon fuel based match, why do you think you can use a fusion based match? How do you harness it? Back to the old steam engine again???? NOT.

You Wrote: "Maybe you should look harder. What can I say."

Provide a link. I know you can't because it doesn't exist to support your two statements from your previous post. Either back up what you say or stop wasting everyones time.

You Wrote: "By the way, how do you suppose we use the energy from a fusion reaction? Steam engine? (hah hah)"

I will admit that I as yet have not read all the articles on your pseudo CO₂Science.com web site but the ones I have read seem to be all over the place. Some claim global warming is a hoax and there is no rise in atmospheric CO₂ while other say CO₂ levels have nothing to do with it and that global warming is a good thing. There is no consistency and no solid basis for your argument.

When you make statements like;

"I think I read that a rise in co2 from 180 ppm way back when, allowed farming to become viable whereas before that co2 level, hunting was what humans did. Look, we do evolve! Why farm when nothing would grow? If we keep up the co2 to 1200 ppm, earth may just start looking like the "Garden of Eden" …"

it makes me wonder where you are coming from. Where on Earth did you get the statement that the evolution of farming was due to rising CO₂ levels. I have never heard this and from what I have read, in books like Out of the Fiery Furnace, the evolution of farming. The smelting of metals and the production of metal tools enabled mankind to cultivate and harvest certain types of grain bearing grasses. I am more inclined to think that the introduction of metal smelting and its associated burning of fuel that increased the atmospheric CO₂ levels rather than the other way round.

The concept of keeping the atmospheric CO₂ levels at 1,200ppm has to be yet another unintelligent, dim witted, appalling idea that hasn't been thought through. Whilst it is true that the short term exposure limit is 30,00ppm and the safe exposure for a working week is 5,000ppm these levels require qualification. Both levels require periods of exposure to the current levels of atmospheric CO₂ to allow the body to recover. For every hour you are exposed to 5,000ppm CO₂ you require more that 3 hours at 300ppm to recover. Increasing the background level of CO₂ will firstly increase the time that it takes to recover form existing safe levels and reduce the current safe exposure levels. Secondly the current mean level of CO₂ is 300ppm but it is not uncommon to find levels 3 of 4 times this in areas of poor ventilation. It is also true that the above levels are the maximum and symptoms of CO₂ poisoning start at considerably lower levels. At 600ppm, roughly the levels in a stuffy room, you peripheral and night vision are impaired, you cognitive ability is reduced and you will feel drowsy.

You are proposing that we maintain a level of atmospheric CO₂ that would seriously impair you night and peripheral vision and ability to concentrate, would increase the period that it takes to recover from high exposure levels, reduce the maximum safe exposure levels and generally make you feel that you needed a good nights sleep.

The concept of a base level of atmospheric CO₂ of 1,200ppm is an appalling idea that would produce many harmful effects. Much of this has been pointed out earlier in the thread but you seem to completely disregard it and persist with your foolhardy concept that a 1,200ppm level would be desirable. You accuse others of not looking at the facts yet you hypocritically persist with this short sighted, poorly thought out idea.

Masu,

Maybe you have found an area of research to get funded! I'm sure the tit of Uncle Sam will allow you to hook up and suck all you want.

I have not found or had the time to look (sorry about that) to give you another source on this issue. Your claims are not widely addressed from unbiased people. Most I have read say it is zero problem until 5000 ppm, just like co2science does.

Look in heating and ventilation sources. Most focus on body odor as the main issue, not co2 per se. Great question though. Way to go.

As for the 180 ppm, I thought I read it in co2science somewhere, very sure about that. If you take the growth rates as a function of co2 you can see a point that crops don't do much per unit work at the 180 ppm level. Look, I am not an evolution fairy tale believer any more than a co2 world doom believer. I brought it up to show there are more to it than you might think, and in any case "co2 is a good thing." (You can quote me on that...)

Seaplaneguy, you have accused others of not reading the literature and yet you do exactly the same. You have not read the article I posted earlier on the effects of increased atmospheric CO₂ have you? Here it is again, its only 3 pages long and I suggest you read it.

http://www.ias.ac.in/currsci/jun252006/1607.pdf

It shows that while the current safe levels can be tolerated chronic exposure to levels only a fraction of the current 5,000 ppm safe working environment level, do produce undesirable effects in humans. It's a lot more complex that you think and there is geological evidence that high CO₂ levels in the past were extremely detrimental to mammals.

Oh yes, you have still avoided answering the questions I posted over a week ago now.

Masu,

Ah, I read it. I don't just take one opinion as fact. It does not seem to agree with other sources. Great question, but I don't go by one biased opinion . This topic is loaded with peope who have agendas. Sorry, that is not how I or you should work. I think I have answered it as best as possible for now.

You claim that the documents presented on your site counter those posted on a multitude of other sites which is true in the sense that they oppose documents and papers presented by others..

I would therefore, for the second time in this thread, pose the following question. If all things are equal and a conspiracy is being perpetrated then;

Could it not be you that is the victim of a conspiracy that is being perpetrated by those that have a vested interest in the continued use of fossil fuels?

Just look at whom would be more likely to conspire and who has the most too loose.

Masu,

You can believe in conspiracies, I don't. I have read hundreds of engine patents and each has a serious flaw to it that prevents it from being better than the old piston and crank at a fuel price of $2.25/gallon on up to $5/gallon and more. 99.99 % add nothing at all to the thermodynamics.

If someone did get an engine that could get 100-250 mpg that was reliable and as cheap to build, all the other car companies would go out of business if just one decided to use the technology.

Ford, for example, is on the skids. Ford would be #1 very quickly if it can get 100-250 (highway-city) mpg in its cars and SUVs. Ford is bringing out the F-150 hydraulic assist that may get 60 mpg city. This will shake up things a lot. Electric hybrids will be on the skids.

Find and invent a better way. Build it and they will come.

PS there is no such thing as a secret carberator that "they" won't allow on the market. If you have one, please, I will put it out for sale tomorrow.

"You can believe in conspiracies, I don't."

But aren't you accusing the those, that are saying that the green house effect and global warming are real and are bad thing, of perpetrating a conspiracy. In fact in one of your posts you said;

"Again, another lie is being told by the warming hoax con men. Why? Pick you conspiracy theory."

So you want us to believe in something that you, as you have stated yourself, don't. Some would call you a hypocrite but I will give you the benefit of the doubt, as I have now done several times, and assume that you statement was a sarcastic quip.

I would also ask you to consider this article on the melting of the Antarctic and Greenland ice sheets

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2006/12/061212091619.htm

Do you deny that the ice sheets are melting even in the face of overwhelming evidence that they are?

What do you think is going to happen to all that water?

What is going to happen to all the people that live in low lying areas?

Can all the people that live on low lying Pacific islands all come and live in the US when their islands are no longer habitable?

Or are you just going to ignore theses questions, like you have the questions in post #82, that I now remind you of for no less than the third time?

Masu,

Anything can be a conspiracy if you look at it like you do. Who is stopping you from solving problems? Nobody besides yourself. It is your excuse to justify your lack of work. Like I said, pick your theory. I don't put weight or energy into such theories, I just go about my business and try to produce a product people will want. Simple, eh?

No, I don't what you to get into the conspiracy stuff. I would not say you are technically a conspiritor, but you could qualify for one if you were "rich and powerful" whatever that is.

When things get warm, more water dumps on land. This is part of the feedback loop. There is a lot of potential for more moisture in the air. I don't think sea level will do any different than they have been doing, which is very little (I can't remember the exact data, but it is very small). I would suspect they will rise and fall just like the temperature goes up and down. Look, we have cities that were 300 (!) feet below our current sea level. Should we cry about it and think we can do anything about it? No.

Did you know that co2 can actually cause a cooling feedback loop? Hmmm, put that in your gw model, or was that a gc model.

Overwhelming both ways. What about the areas that are increasing. All the glasciers seem to be on a rather linear melt off since the early 1700's. Great, they melt. Then they retreat. So what. Temperatures go up, droughts happen, and they go back and forth. This has happened for millions of years, and will continue regardless of what we do.

They move and buy real estate from me at inflated prices. They will do what they have to. The pacific islands show many are having LOWER sea levels. So what. Live with it.

"Who is stopping you from solving problems? Nobody besides yourself."

You may be interested to know that on another thread I suggested that we start a series of discussions, first on what alternate energy sources may become viable in the not too distant future and then an in depth discussion on each of the suggested technologies. The idea behind it is to stimulate discussion and therefore get people involved. The only way for serious change to take place is for the masses to put social and political pressure on our, chosen or otherwise, leaders to get of their procrastinatorial obese posteriors and do something constructive. These threads I believe are important and so I decided to wait till after the celebrative season is over, when people are more inclined to look at the proposals in a constructive manner, before I kicked them off. So stay tuned.

"They move and buy real estate from me at inflated prices. They will do what they have to. The pacific islands show many are having LOWER sea levels. So what. Live with it.

This is a very self centered response. In the Unites States of America, with its litigious philosophy, why should innocent people that have no control and have not caused a problem be hung out to dry because you don't care less. I thought the US of A was based on equal rights and a fair go for all. I seem to remember something about these rights being universal or is this some sort of I have rights and you don't.

Where did you get the statement

"The pacific islands show many are having LOWER sea levels.

from, I have not heard this and would be interested to see how you, or whoever you are quoting, came to that conclusion?

"There is a lot of potential for more moisture in the air."

Just how much water do you think the atmosphere can actually hold? The volume of water currently stored in the Greenlandic and Antarctic ice caps is enormous. If you start of with a bone dry atmosphere, then saturated it you would be lucky if it could carry half of the amount of water that is currently stored in the ice caps. In reality the atmosphere could only take a fraction of the melt water. That leave only the ocean and land with the inevitable rise in sea levels. Just look at what happened to New Orleans recently and extrapolate. Not good is it?

Masu

Gotta chime in on the New Orleans thing.

The French kicked the indigenous people off higher ground & started a port [NOLA].

the parts of the city that survived the hurricane are on this higher ground.

NOLA survived the hurricane. The levee's were tall enough. Inadequate construction tech, led to the collapse. The levee boards were & probably still are full of Friends & good ol boys w/no real interest in anything other than getting paid. Substandard materials & tech's were used , so the extra $ dollars could be pocketed! The culture of corruption is directly responsible for the disaster. The flooding & human carnage that followed, mostly affected the poor [can't afford to live on higher ground] that don't have means politically or financially to advocate their interests [they're not good ol boys]. Everyone from Bechtel to local construction basically stole the $'s meant to build & support an adequate hurricane protection system.

Political corruption is the enemy

I look forward to alt. energy discussions

We can do more w/less

Positive incremental change, will lead us to a more equitable future

China & India want to live the western lifestyle, we will need more & less distructive energy to make this a reality!

Masu,

You clearly have a government mentality. People on the pro GW seem to think Uncle Sam has all the money and answers. You doubt yourself and your ability to the core of nearly everything you say. Such people I would never want on my team, because they don't have the faith and confidence to get it done despite the odds.

Government is NOT the solution. The government is corrupt. The people who are their "friends" (quote from Congressman's Jon Oliver's office by the way) get the money, not legitimate projects. It is full of pay back, "squid" pro Joe, and darling deals for the "connected." Understand how government works, and you will run from it and not look back.

Frankly, I have had discussions on chat boards before, and never has ONE SINGLE person wanted to get off their butt and actually contribute, except for the $100/hr guy who really costs me $100/hr. Sad fact. Where are such people? I say you are a complainer and spoiled brat and want mommy (government's tit) to fix your life for you. I say, grow up, and get a life. Serious.

Look how the Wright brothers did it. Langley got his $70,000 government contract for his piece of junk that could not have flown, while the Wrights did the entire thing to first flight for around $2500, freezing their butts off in a wood shack in December. The Wrights used engineering, collected data, and did not go by emotion and beliefs, just the experimentally derived facts. They were not political animals, just the opposite. Langley did it the government way by getting the "experts" on board, and getting it oked by the rats. He failed. NASA has failed in its original charter and frankly in the space charter. Government sucks. Understand that.

I say we need to be "Wright" about this and not take the "WLong" ley approach with committee designs that never seem to quite work. Engineering is not a democracy. You can't vote it to work. It either works or it does not.

Self centered? It was a joke…get it??? Libs cannot understand simple things. I have several thousand feet of sea level rise before it hits me (another joke…). If you want to live on the coast, buy your self a damm dam. Live like Holland does, but stop the whining and grab for government hand outs.

Google about pacific islander water levels. I read it somewhere. I don't bookmark every article I read. You have Google, use it…

There are massive lakes underground. Read the Bible, or talk to a geologist, think a little. Think of the ground as a sponge…squeeze it and the water level goes up. We don't have a clue why the levels are continuing to rise. The sea floor in the Pacific could be swelling by some amount. Ever heard of the swelling earth theory? They started to rise well before the Industrial Rev even started. Come on big guy. Get off the GW con game and get reality. You cannot solve the problem of energy unless you are willing to set aside your sacred new religion called GW. It blinds you.

Again, nobody is equal because our values are not equal, nor are our work and contributions. Our economy is based on the simple fact that people don't value things equally. Is it fair to give everybody a salad for lunch? Under your model that is the fair thing to do. In reality, it is perhaps as unfair as it can get. What if one person cannot eat radishes? What if one person wants pudding instead? What if someone is 250 lbs 6'10" and another 100lbs and 5' tall? Is it "fair" to give equal portions? NO! Try Economics 101, not Marxism 5000. You think like a commi stinking wacked out liberal. The "masses" must be equal, but the animals in charge are more "equal" and need their mansions to boot. Rent animal farm and watch it ten times, please. One person's mansion is another person's waste of drywall.

You want to force your fears on everybody. GW is your vehicle. Give it up. We all know Global Warming is a political hoax.

If you want to "change the world" provide a service and a product. That is how you "change the world" today. In the past you conned a bunch of thugs to cut people's head off and forced a religion on them. We still have people in the Middle East who think that is how it is done. We call it the "war on Islamofacism." Today, if you want to change things, you invent it, build it and they will come. People vote with their wallets. Want good movies, make good movies. Want good cars. Build them. Want clean power? Build the machine! To do that you need to build a cash flow machine that is profitable and that has synergy. Getting that machine going is hard. So what. Life is work. That is what I am working on. Frankly, it is a "road less travel" and few are willing to go the mile.

Well, The rights were lucky that Lilienthal killed hisself, that gave them a short term advantage, which they lost to others who invented around them when they were too greedy to licence their plans on reasonable terms. End of Wright story.

I agree with the Islamofascist stuff, you might look at this, whiich gets into where they went wrong. In effect if all your smartest and brightest waste their time studying Islam the only ones left to operate the weapons cannot RTFM = lose all their wars

http://www.danielpipes.org/article/366

US and most democratic government is not so much corrupt, but inept. Look at the shrinking fiheries all over the world. Scientists tell them they are killing and eating their seed stock, but the politicians refuse to call a totalk halt to the fishing for 10 years = soon zero fish left.

You exploit the ineptness of the government and their pandering to the oil/coal interests to spout your lack of smarts as this thread full of 'proof' there is no global warming...get a brain

Aurizon,

Islam went wrong when Mo picked up a sword in Medina and abdicated the peace of Mecca. The rest is "bloody" history, mate.