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

I am well aware that true pollution comes mostly from heavy metals, and radioactives released into the environment during energy production.

Reducing CO2 emissions isn't as important to me as reducing the levels of truly toxic agents that are released yearly. Nevertheless; it certainly can't hurt to do so when possible.

I envision, George, a gradual change; instead of mandating immediate changes, we make rules for new factories and businesses that phase the higher restrictions in over time. Advances in technology not only make this cheaper, they can make it downright profitable. I don't think the 'tipping point' has been reached, or even close, but it probably does exist; closed systems can only take so much instability before they collapse.

As I said, I'm not trying to be alarmist; just taking the long look.

Cycloptichorn

I assume you are talking to me since Squinney hasn't posted all weekend. Fixing the problem and mitigating the effects are two different things. Every scientific body and commentator has said we need to continue to study this carefully, nobody thinks we have a full picture.

You say there is no scientific basis for these predictions? I think that could be argued, but it also could stem from not having the long-range simulations which this government has chosen not to fund as well as not giving credence to any outside simulations developed by other nations.

"Absurd" tipping point? Large body of reason to reject them out of hand?
George, I asked if you would point us to the place where you get your executive summaries and detailed information. Surely there is something online.

A question, as you seem well-versed on this, George: I've recently been reading quite a bit on the large amounts of radioactives being released through coal burning in America, especially in the less efficient plants. I've seen numbers as high as in the millions of pounds of emissions. I know that such emissions must be pretty diffuse, and that pretty much everything has some latent radioactivity; in your opinion, is this a health threat? Is it something that should be addressed?


I know that modern coal plants are much cleaner...

Also, I've been reading quite a bit on DUranium and the uranium dust that is created upon shell impact; any thought?

Cycloptichorn

You are saying that the Washington Post is not a reputable newspaper? I'm surprised.

This included some serious misreporting by the Independent, a newspaper whose standing is comparable to the Washington Post's.

<Peer-reviewed science from Battelle, ExxonMobil, Dupont Fluorcarbons, ESKOM (one of the world's largest electricity utilities and the national power company in South Africa), plus Japan's Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry.>

Actually, I do want to know the science. I am not personally worried for myself.

So you agree there will be global warming... but you believe that the scale is questionable and likely not-catastrophic.

I have questioned how it will affect me and you say it won't.

The rates of heatstroke have been rising.

I am reading and repeating what seemingly well-respected scientists are saying... these are not simply my foregone conclusions.

As to Kyoto, I have said and will keep saying... what else can our scientists come up with?

It would be interesting to know why the right wing conservatives are so against the very idea that there is a threat to our planet due to pollution and things like that.

This included some serious misreporting by the Independent, a newspaper whose standing is comparable to the Washington Post's.

My point -- I think obvious enough -- was that the Independent and the Washington Post are both reputable newspapers, and that even reputable newspapers routinely misreport the scientific community's research results on global warming. .

Piffka wrote:

<Peer-reviewed science from Battelle, ExxonMobil, Dupont Fluorcarbons, ESKOM (one of the world's largest electricity utilities and the national power company in South Africa), plus Japan's Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry.>

That's a bold accusation. Would you care to provide evidence that the current state of climatology is significantly corrupted by industrial bribes?

Dramatic change in West Antarctic ice could produce 16ft rise in sea levels
By Michael McCarthy, Environment Editor
02 February 2005


British scientists have discovered a new threat to the world which may be a result of global warming. Researchers from the Cambridge-based British Antarctic Survey (BAS) have discovered that a massive Antarctic ice sheet previously assumed to be stable may be starting to disintegrate, a conference on climate change heard yesterday. Its collapse would raise sea levels around the earth by more than 16 feet.

BAS staff are carrying out urgent measurements of the remote points in the West Antarctic Ice Sheet (WAIS) where they have found ice to be flowing into the sea at the enormous rate of 250 cubic kilometres a year, a discharge alone that is raising global sea levels by a fifth of a millimetre a year.

Professor Chris Rapley, the BAS director, told the conference at the UK Meteorological Office in Exeter, which was attended by scientists from all over the world, that their discovery had reactivated worries about the ice sheet's collapse.

Only four years ago, in the last report of the UN's Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), worries that the ice sheet was disintegrating were firmly dismissed.

Professor Rapley said: "The last IPCC report characterised Antarctica as a slumbering giant in terms of climate change. I would say it is now an awakened giant. There is real concern."