“anybody else old enough to remember rivers catching fire?”
I remember when the Cuyahog River caught fire in the late 60’s and fought the Mississippi River fire in St. Louis in Spring 1983. In both cases, people that caused the fires were prosecuted, jailed and fined. l don’t think there is anything wrong with that. I still work to fight pollution every day and hold the people responsible that create it.
But it was government action that brought about the improvement in water quality–the Clean Water Act of 1972. Ric earlier you complained about government intruding in the process–there’s no way you can have effective environmental law without federal action, because rivers flow across state and private jurisdictions.
The federal government has actually had some really remarkable successes in environmental law–the Clean Water Act and the Clean Air Act being two examples. Federal regulations requiring higher gas mileage and lower emission have brought gas mileage up and emissions down. Large scale change takes large scale action
mike omalley said:
It's a common move, in discussions of global warming, to make a charge like Mik did--well if you believe in global warming, how come you drive a car/use electricity/string christmas lights etc, as if believing in man-made global warming meant you wanted to return to the stone age. .... It's kind of odd. Who makes the argument that because people cause global warming, we should give up all technology? Absolutely no one, that's who. It's a straw man.It’s not such an unreasonable point. If human activity IS causing global temperatures to rise more quickly than they otherwise would, then are there things we can do to slow or stop the process? Is there a way to live “more lightly on the earth?” What’s wrong with that?
Algore’s electric bill was about TWICE what I even MAKE… Wouldn’t it have made sense for him to, I don’t know, maybe like SHUT OFF a few damned lights BEFORE he opened his mouth?.. But Nooooooo, that only happened AFTER someone called him on it, and he STILL uses something like 10 times what I do. For this they gave him a Nobel prize? More like noshame.
Remember the recent hulabaloo about the auto makers flying to Washington in corporate jets to mooch? What about all these climate summits with hundreds of people flying in on government and corporate jets to some fancy resort to figure out new ways to screw john Q. Taxpayer out of even MORE money for another study that says we need to study it more? If being eco friendly was really such a concern, then why not just have it online and save all the fuel, food and energy?
As for Freon, have any of you stopped to ask WHY it suddenly became such a problem the year Dow Chemical’s patents were due to expire, so it HAD to be replaced with… a NEW chemical patented by Dow. Coincidence? If you don’t believe any climate change could be, then why believe THAT hooey? (BTW I used to work in refrigeration, MOST CFCs are HEAVIER than air, so they got WAAAAY up there into the ozone layer HOW?
Like I said, if you’re gonna talk the talk and preach at ME, then YOU need to be contributing as little as possible FIRST.
mike omalley said:
But it was government action that brought about the improvement in water quality--the Clean Water Act of 1972. Ric earlier you complained about government intruding in the process--there's no way you can have effective environmental law without federal action, because rivers flow across state and private jurisdictions.The federal government has actually had some really remarkable successes in environmental law–the Clean Water Act and the Clean Air Act being two examples. Federal regulations requiring higher gas mileage and lower emission have brought gas mileage up and emissions down. Large scale change takes large scale action
Ric Golding said:but...but...
I have no argument with that statement. See we can agree.
I give up!
Mik said:I've never seen the Al Gore movie. I've seen endless charges that he's a hypocrite and endless rebuttals saying he's not. I don't really care. I don't actually care about the personal life or personal choices of someone who presents me with an idea, I care about the idea. For example, I don't care if a using is a drug user and deadbeat, I only care about his music. I think he lives like a wealthy guy, but try to minimize his energy usage. But then again I don't really care about Al Gore
Remember the recent hulabaloo about the auto makers flying to Washington in corporate jets to mooch? What about all these climate summits with hundreds of people flying in on government and corporate jets to some fancy resort to figure out new ways to screw john Q. Taxpayer out of even MORE money for another study that says we to figure out new ways to screw john Q. Taxpayer out of even MORE money for another study that says we need to study it more? If being eco friendly was really such a concern, then why not just have it online and save all the fuel, food and energy?
Mik said:I can't really answer this since it's not specific. I'd need some examples of climate summits with hundreds of people etc etc. I do a lot of work online, and it's often good, but it's hard to setup a video conference and the more people the harder it is. There's nothing like face to face contact. How else can you have international climate agreements or discussions without bringing people together? I suppose people could have sailed or come by horse, but then they would have been wasting taxpayer's money by taking a really long time.
What about all these climate summits with hundreds of people flying in on government and corporate jets to some fancy resort
I guess you want action with no study at all?
Mik said:I've never heard of this about the patent--freon started being cited as a problem in the 80s. Are you suggesting that DuPont faked research to suggest that its product caused harm, and then produced a new product? Do you have some evidence for this you can point me to?
As for Freon, have any of you stopped to ask WHY it suddenly became such a problem the year Dow Chemical's patents were due to expire, so it HAD to be replaced with... a NEW chemical patented by Dow. Coincidence? If you don't believe any climate change could be, then why believe THAT hooey? (BTW I used to work in refrigeration, MOST CFCs are HEAVIER than air, so they got WAAAAY up there into the ozone layer HOW?
Factually, the Mt Saint Hellens volcanic explosion spewed more pollution into the atmosphere than “Man” has created since the beginning of time. Not to mention all the deforestation critters killed.
Oh and BTW, Freon, a patented product by Dow Chemical, was ruled to be environmentally unfriendly less than one year before Dow’s patent ran out. IIRC, the same happened with Freon’s replacement product.
David Hill said:Even if that were true, so what? I mean, what bearing does that have on the discussion of global warming? A very big asteroid hitting the earth would be far more devestating than an atom bomb. So should we drop more atom bombs? I early used the forest fire example--forest fires start naturally and are far more devestating than man made forest fires. Should we therefore not put out forest fires?
Factually, the Mt Saint Hellens volcanic explosion spewed more pollution into the atmosphere than "Man" has created since the beginning of time. Not to mention all the deforestation critters killed.
Can someoen please send me a link on this Freon patent thing? Here is a link that very convincingly debunks that arguement
http://www.imcool.com/articles/aircondition/refrigerant_history.php
David Hill said:
Factually, the Mt Saint Hellens volcanic explosion spewed more pollution into the atmosphere than “Man” has created since the beginning of time. Not to mention all the deforestation critters killed. Oh and BTW, Freon, a patented product by Dow Chemical, was ruled to be environmentally unfriendly less than one year before Dow’s patent ran out. IIRC, the same happened with Freon’s replacement product.
And viewing it in person brings into perspective just how insignificant man is in the overall scheme of things…
(http://i253.photobucket.com/albums/hh58/rgseng/Oregon%202006/Mt%20St%20Helens/mtsthel06.jpg)
mike omalley said:I made no such charge. I just asked a few questions about what steps you were taking, since you felt man was the cause of global warming. I am all for reducing polution. Ken alluded to the power of nature. I believe global warming would be taking place, whether man was here or not. Look up the amount of energy unleashed by a single thunder storm. Then look up how many thunderstorms are taking place on the planet at any given moment. Man is but a pimple on the face of the earth. Global warming is more likely a result of solar activity from above and/or volcanic activity from below. Ralph
It's a common move, in discussions of global warming, to make a charge like Mik did--well if you believe in global warming, how come you drive a car/use electricity/string christmas lights etc, as if believing in man-made global warming meant you wanted to return to the stone age. Ralph, you made this charge to me earlier.
BTW Mike,
I also gave you “props” for the steps you have taken to reduce your energy use.
Notice how the usual suspects conveniently ignored the shrinking icecaps on Mars. Someones gotta warn the Martians! I’ll spell it out so that even historians can understand it. If the icecaps on Mars are shrinking, and there are no Martians to cause global warming on Mars, then the problem must be caused by other sources! I was going to use the word “shown” instead of “proven,” but I figured that the usual suspects would object to that, too. “You can’t just show something, you gotta prove it! Don’t you know anything about science!,” they would say. For a laugh:
(http://www.skepticalscience.com/images/t370.jpg)
Since Al Gore refuses to debate reputable skeptics of global warming, preferring instead to spread his propaganda unchallenged in the mass media, Demand Debate decided to splice together their own ‘debate with Al Gore’ by comparing his claims with their factually-based science. The result: The Al Gore Debates Global Warming Video. Click the link to see the video on Youtube. http://scottthong.wordpress.com/2007/12/14/video-refuting-al-gore-on-co2-levels-and-temperature/
What kills me is Al’s graphs show temperature and Co2 rising and falling together for 650,000 years. What was man doing to cause this?
His own graph shows that temperatures have been higher previously than they are now.
Any grade schooler should be able to look at his big beautiful graph and see that history and nature is repeating itself. At some point the process will start over with another ice age.
Ralph
Steve, steve steve
http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2005/10/global-warming-on-mars/
I’ll spell it out so that even a guy --never mind, edited out in the interests of highmindednes.
It’s only three years of data from mars, it’s only one guy’s theory, and it’s not at all clear that it’s a global phenomenon, it ignores the effect of dust storms–which our does not have planet is mostly water and covered with life and has a different atmosphere and etc.
But I don’t really have an ideology in this–if it turns out that global warming is caused by sunspots, or natural cycles, well good, I’ll be happy. My argument as always been simply that there is good evidence to suggest that humans are having an effect. There’s lots of evidence to suggest it. a lot of the hostility to global warming around here seems to be mostly about hostility to some kinds of people. I’m not really here to insult anyone, but you seem obliged to lay it out “so even a historian can understand it.” Why is that necessary?
But I’ll keep tabs on the Mars thing.
mike omalley said:Look at Al Gore's 650,000 year graph. The real story in the graph is there will be another ice age. Look at the intervals between ice ages, and look at the time since the last ice age. Ralph
But I don't really have an ideology in this--if it turns out that global warming is caused by sunspots, or natural cycles, well good, I'll be happy.
But Ralph, everybody already knows there will be another ice age. It’s not in dispute. Everybody–and I mean everybody–agrees that the earth has warmed and cooled on its own over millenia. No doubt about it.
It seems pretty clear that they are rising faster now than they ever have, and that the amount of “greenhouse gasses” put in the air by people is increasing at a rate never before seen. Is there a connection? I think there is. You think there’s not.
Why does Al Gore keep getting dragged into it? Like I said, I never saw the movie. I never particularly liked Al Gore. But it seems like a lot of the hostility people express towards the idea of global warming is actually hostility to “that smarty pants hypocrite Al Gore.”
There’s going to be another ice age? I thought Global Warming was going to kill all mankind and hurl the earth crashing into the sun. Well, this changes everything. I feel better. So we really do have a chance of freezing to death over being burnt to death? This is good news. So will that be man’s fault, also?
Why does everybody keep bringing Algore into the argument? Because its fun. He swets and contributes to Global Warming all by himself. He’s one of the few we can make fun of and not be politically incorrect. He’s not black, that’s off limits. Doesn’t really have big ears. That’s off limits. I don’t think he’s queer/gay/sexually confused/challenged or whatever the latest term is and besides all that’s off limits. He’s not a female, that would be off limits. If he dresses like a female is that off limits? I forget. He’s just a fat, white guy, that swets a lot and that matches a lot of us and that makes him still fair game.
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Just using Al’s 650,000 year graph to illustrate the trends. The graph shows that the temperature rises before the Co2 does. Both rise between ice ages and fall during ice ages.
This pattern is repeated over and over.
So why would anyone think we are some how responsible this time? The same pattern has repeated it self eight times.
Unless humans have caused global warming for 650,000 years while nuking themselves every 80,000 years or so, it seems pretty obvious nature is responsible.
And no, temperatures are not rising faster than they ever have. The graphs show this as well.
Ralph
Ric Golding said:In my short time here I do not believe you have ever stated something so impossible to argue with...LOL.
Why does everybody keep bringing Algore into the argument? Because its fun. He swets and contributes to Global Warming all by himself. He's one of the few we can make fun of and not be politically incorrect. He's not black, that's off limits. Doesn't really have big ears. That's off limits. I don't think he's queer/gay/sexually confused/challenged or whatever the latest term is and besides all that's off limits. He's not a female, that would be off limits. If he dresses like a female is that off limits? I forget. He's just a fat, white guy, that swets a lot and that matches a lot of us and that makes him still fair game.
“In my short time here I do not believe you have ever stated something so impossible to argue with…LOL.”
Thank you!
