Global Warming...New Report...and it ain't happy news

It's all but dead and even one of it's most enthusiastic supporters has suggested this. Read Blair's comments in a speech he gave in New York recently.

How about a compromise? You do it your way and we'll do it our way.

No scientist doubts that over the past 100 years, the temperature observed over the SURFACE and averaged over the earth has increased by about one degree Fahrenheit.

WHAT IS IMPORTANT IS THAT CO EMISSIONS WERE INSIGNIFICANT IN THE EARLY 20TH CENTURY YET SUBSTANTIAL WARMING OCCURRED ANYWAY.

The recent warming has been observed only on the SURFACE of the earth, using thermometer measurements that have major uncertainties-for example, the local heating produced by growing mechanized cities. More sophisticated temperature records--taken from the surface to a few miles up using NASA satellites--show no warming over the past 25 years, the period for which the satellites have been yielding measurements.

Not denying we should be interested, just not in agreement with the way to go about it. I take it from your posts that you're solidly behind the Kyoto sham.

It's all but dead and even one of it's most enthusiastic supporters has suggested this. Read Blair's comments in a speech he gave in New York recently.

It's your opinion, apparently, that the best method to tackle global warming (assuming it's the alarming threat you think it is) is through international treaties (Kyoto-style - not working)

and it's my opinion that there's a better way - perhaps through developing new technology.

How about a compromise? You do it your way and we'll do it our way.

Interestingly the United States has nearly the world's lowest energy consumption per unit of production or GDP.

WE consume more energy, but we produce much more useful stuff.

Canadians like SUVs just as much as do we and on a per capita basis they consume much more energy than Americans - and produce less for it..

But nobody is giving the U.S. any credit for what it is doing, the policies that are already in force, what has already been accomplished, and and what it hopes to accomplish. We're just the big bad arrogant SOBs because we didn't sign on to what is obviously a toothless Kyoto treaty that lets the worst polluting nations off the hook altogether while obligating us to pay them if they do anything.

How much has Germany's population grown in those 13 years?

How do your emissions per capita compaire with ours?

And how is your economy doing?

Everybody who wants a job has one?

How long can any country sustain a policy that hurts people even if it might help the environment?

It makes sense to me that more people require more refrigeration, more transportation, more products (goods and services all which have capacity to increase emissions of something),

not to mention that more people working are going to be producting more products and services and any increase in activity is going to be a factor in the overall picture.

Can you clarify how this might be faulty reasoning, OE?

Do you think Germany's record would be as good if all the people out of work there were working?

I am not suggesting this is the sum of the whole reason by any means,

but the fact is, Germany is not the United States.

We do not have a government as socialist as Germany's government is, and we do have old fashioned yankee notions that people forced into doing something are going to be less cooperative in the long run than if they can be convinced that something is a good idea. I wonder how many unemployed Germans would choose a job over not rethinking Kyoto?

When you convince the American people that those CO2 emissions are in fact affecting the world's climate, you'll see policy to deal with it go into effect quickly, and it will be with the blessings of the people. Meanwhile our people would rather be working and supporting their families and contributing to the common good than following an unproved theory that may or may not be correct. When you try to bully or shame us into doing something that makes no sense to us, you'll just have to be disappointed in us I guess.

Again you are assuming that Americans are not concerned about the environment because we didn't sign the Kyoto treatment. And you are 100% wrong about that.

Just out of curiosity, where are these emissions levels you cite taken?

I suspect that readings would be very very different in the industrial section of Pittsburg or Detroit than you would find around the Intel Plant in Rio Rancho NM.

In other words, the logical place to start a dedicated emissions reduction program would be in the very heavily industrialized northeastern United States where there probably are in fact unacceptable levels though I do know great strides have been made there to clean up the air and water. And, as previously mentioned, that is the area the initial focus is concentrating on.

But if readings are taken there and not in New Mexico or Wyoming or Montana, and the readings in a heavily industrialized area are extended to conclude that the entire United States is one belching cauldron of CO2 emissions, the picture would be very distorted.

I am very much afraid that Old Europe does not have the facts on the alleged "global warming"

I will refer to the report from "Earth Report" --McGraw-Hill - P. 2000

RONALD BAILEY

Adjunct Scholar, Competitive Enterprise Institute
Adjunct Scholar, Cato Institute. Science Correspondent, Reason Magazine. Science and Technology reporter for Forbes 1987-1990. Competitive Enterprise Institute's Warren T. Brookes Fellow in Environmental Journalism in 1993.

Bailey has written widely in criticism of climate change science and is a producer for television shows "Think Tank" and "Technopolitics."

Bailey was editor of "Global Warming and Other Eco-Myths: How the Environmental Movement Uses False Science to Scare Us to Death," "The True State of the Planet" and "Earth Report 2000: Revisiting The True State of The Planet," all of which were published by the Competitive Enterprise Institute. He authored "Eco-Scam: The False Prophets of Ecological Apocalypse" and "The Law of Increasing Returns." Bailey received funding for Eco-Scam from the Atlas Economic Research Foundation. Bailey has long-standing connections to the Wise Use movement and was a speaker at the 1997 Fly In for Freedom, the annual gathering of "wise use" activists sponsored by the Alliance for America.

BA in economics and philosophy at University of Virginia.

First of all, the ground based measurements have shown a warming of the planet of about 0.1 to 0.15 C( NOTE) per decade in the last century, giving rise to the concern that man made greenhouse gases may be dangerously warming the planet. The GROUND BASED TEMPERATURE RECORD HOWEVER, SUFFERS FROM MANY PROBLEMS SUCH AS THE URBAN HEAT ISLAND EFFECT WHICH MAKES IT DIFFICULT TO TELL WHETHER THE OBSERVED WARMING IS REAL OR AN ARTIFACT OF INSTRUMENT KOR MEASUREMENT ERROR.

l. Old Europe says we live on the surface of the planet--Of course but it is vital to obtain measurements from Satellite data for many reasons, one of which is the urban island effect.

I am sure that Old Europe realizes that Co2 rises. The computer simulations that produce alarming levels of warming over the next century ALL ASSUME that water vapor( the most important natural greenhouse agent) will amplify the small bit of warming expected from an increase of CO2 concentration IN THE AIR.

That assumption has not been verified by any actual measurement.

The National Academy of Sciences in 2001 reported:

"The nature and magnitude of these hydrological feedback give rise to the LARGEST SOURCE OF UNCERTAINTY ABOUT CLIMATE SENSITIVITY"

(Do you have information and data which contradicts this last point, Old Europe?)

You say we live on the surface--Indeed--but you do not appear to be aware of problems regarding measurement of temperatures on the surface of the earth- specifically, the heat island effect.

Changes in land use will cause changes in average ground temperature. Cities are hotter than the surrounding countryside.

Here are some specific examples( source- United States Historical Climatological Network)


New York, New York-- average yearly temperature rise from 1930 to 2000-54 degrees to 55 degrees.

Albany, New York- average yearly temperature DECREASE from 1930 to 2000--48.2 to 47.2

Charleston, South Carolina- average yearly temperature INCREASE from 66.4 F to 66.6 F

Greenville, South Carolina- average yearly temperature DECREASE from 1930- 2000 61.4 F. to 60 F.

Now, according to my source, Earth Report 2000( mentioned earlier)

QUOTE:

"The failure of the satellite data to verify global climate model predictions seriously challenge the idea that greenhouse gas emissions are likely to cause significant global warming in the next century"

Now, with regard to your doubt concerning the accretion of CO2.

DE Parker in the Journal of Geophysical Research -article-- Interdecadeal changes of surface temperatures SINCE the late nineteenth century--99, 14373 ( 1994) reported that most of the observed temperature rise occured before 1940( I NOTED THAT PREVIOUSLY) whereas MOST OF THE ADDITIONAL CARBON DIXOIDE (OVER 80%) ENTERED THE ATMOSPHERE AFTER 1940.

I am afraid, Old Europe, that you neglected to comment on the quite important point which indicated that climate changes as shown by the fact that Greenland, Iceland and Newfoundland were farmed by Vikings in what is known as the Medieval Warm Period( 800-1200 AD). This, as I have mentioned, was before the invention of the Steam Engine.

OE - you forgot to mention that part of the reason for Germany's reduced emissions is the closing of all those inefficient factories in the east, following reunification.