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2008-05-31 Fifth Column

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Posted by GolfBravoUSMC 2008-05-31 02:30|| || Front Page|| [11129 views ] Top

#1 Hey... June 1st is one day away in Chicago burbs and I still need to turn my heat on at night. Explain that enviornuts.

Posted by 3dc 2008-05-31 03:01|| 2008-05-31 03:01|| Front Page Top

#2 What a load of crap. Post Ice-Age Warming is opening up the Arctic Ocean land shelves up to development. Anywhere that is now a desert, was once a jungle, which means milleniums of tranformation of organics into oil. Oil is in the Arctic; that is why the Ruskies are laying claim to the shelf. Prediction: enough new oil sources will be discovered prior to the invention of cost effective hybrid and electrical vehicles, to meet all of our needs. A major leap would be the introduction of linear induction engines. Go-Karts are empowered by an attachment to an overhead power source. What if electrical roadways could be created that allowed low amp powering from an source in the road surface? Sci fi films like "Minority Report" feature exactly that type of transport system; looking ahead 30 years or so, it could be science fact. Pardon my optimism.

Posted by McZoid 2008-05-31 04:29|| 2008-05-31 04:29|| Front Page Top

#3 I get into the culture of deception that pervades the warming side of the debate at Anthony Watts excellent blog. My comments are toward the end where I beat up on a warming believer.

Posted by phil_b 2008-05-31 06:39|| 2008-05-31 06:39|| Front Page Top

#4 Models depend on assumptions about complex planetary systems -- from ocean currents to cloud formation -- that no one fully understands.

What I do know is that this having been the coldest Jan-Apr time frame in a long time, that the models are just plain screwed and anyone who uses them for justification are just plain power mongers out to substitute them as our new overlords. It's all mesmerized by 'science' that is nothing more than a Three Card Monty hustle than classical critical scientific analysis.

Posted by Procopius2k 2008-05-31 08:36|| 2008-05-31 08:36|| Front Page Top

#5 Models depend on assumptions about complex planetary systems -- from ocean currents to cloud formation -- that no one fully understands.

Can they tell if I will meet a young, slender, beautiful woman and have her steal me away from my current wife? Hey, Newton worked on astrology, too. After they pass this bill maybe they can solve the housing crisis by finding a way to turn lead into gold.

Posted by Nimble Spemble 2008-05-31 08:56|| 2008-05-31 08:56|| Front Page Top

#6 Jeebus from Phil_B post from commenter there:

Alex Cull (08:49:29) :
According to the Zen of Global Warming, the ice could simultaneously be there (i.e. we can see it and the ship was stuck in it) and not there, as it could still be melting but in some strange alternative way that cannot be witnessed or measured. Just like polar bears can be simultaneously be increasing in numbers and dwindling away to extinction. Can you hear the sound of one hand clapping?

Im sure many will also fall back on the long-term warming-trend explanation. One cold day does not a winter make (although a hot day is yet another ominous sign that GW is on us.) As long as the models still predict long-term climate meltdown, anything can happen in the short term - flourishing Arctic ice, polar bears frolicking in the streets, glaciers doing the hokey-cokey - and it wont mean a thing. Global Warming will be postponed for a little while longer, they will say, but wait and see. We might not have an ice-free Arctic in 2020, but we assuredly will in 2025. Or in 2030. Or 2050. Or maybe 3050. Depends on how we tweak the models.

Or maybe all that ice is a GW-denial-induced hallucination, and the reality is a steaming expanse of open ocean, littered with floating polar bear corpses and oil-drilling platforms

Me, facetious?

Posted by George Smiley 2008-05-31 08:57|| 2008-05-31 08:57|| Front Page Top

#7 Research -- untainted and reliable -- to determine whether the carbon footprint of man is or is not lost among the massive natural forces (from sunspot activity to ocean currents) that affect climate.

THat's all I want. A fair and open debate. Not the stacked deck the political types want, and the kind the treetards have where they demand silence and assume thier conclusions rather than actually testing them.

And not based off some damnably variable model on a computer that cannot even reproduce the climate of today given the starting point and inputs of the last 400 years.

I know programs and modeling. And it not something to stake such important things upon.

Posted by OldSpook 2008-05-31 10:21|| 2008-05-31 10:21|| Front Page Top

#8 I'm not a global warming believer. I'm not a global warming denier. I'm a global warming agnostic who believes instinctively that it can't be very good to pump lots of CO2 into the atmosphere, but is equally convinced that those who presume to know exactly where that leads are talking through their hats.

-explains my position to a t.
Concur OS, I just want the most object & unbiased report possible.

Posted by Snash Oppressor of the Mohammatans aka Broadhead6 2008-05-31 12:14|| 2008-05-31 12:14|| Front Page Top

#9 McZoid I was thinking "Slot Cars" but I like the induction idea better, no need to keep the slot clean with induction, no slot.

Posted by Redneck Jim">Redneck Jim 2008-05-31 14:04|| 2008-05-31 14:04|| Front Page Top

#10 A carbon card -- what a lovely eco-idiot concept. I suggest they make them optional for a decade so the Al Gores of the world can work out the kinks and show us how it's done. That should stop Gore in his tracks by about January 15th of each year. It should be good for U.N. conference budgets too, except I assume that the Indian and Chinese delegations would be exempt.

Posted by Darrell 2008-05-31 17:52|| 2008-05-31 17:52|| Front Page Top

#11 since private jets are notorious fuel burners. I would propose a year-long ban on private jet travel - to see the effects on the climate. Think that would pass?

Posted by Frank G">Frank G 2008-05-31 18:14|| 2008-05-31 18:14|| Front Page Top

#12 We are designing wood-fired boilers into our municipal buildings that we design and build. The more independent we become at the local level, the better off everyone is.

Now, we have to start thinking about wood-fired aircraft.......

Posted by Alaska Paul 2008-05-31 19:01|| 2008-05-31 19:01|| Front Page Top

#13 in the days of wood aircraft, I think fire was a concern (after gravity and termites)

Posted by Frank G">Frank G 2008-05-31 19:06|| 2008-05-31 19:06|| Front Page Top

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