Climate Change Study Of Scientific Consensus

[Guest Sundancefisher]

If I've learned anything from this board, and particularly the posts regarding climate change, is that I'd rather spend my time actually doing something to help the climate change situation than spend time trying to educate those who cannot be about the situation. Enjoy the rest of the self-debate!

 

I admire your commitment. I would suggest you look to buy carbon credits to offset your families carbon foot print. You can buy them if you plan to drive or fly anywheres. Have you switched to a hybrid vehicle like a Prius? I heard the ride is okay but acceleration is a problem when merging or passing. Have you scaled down to one car? Do you only buy locally produced vegetables? Please let me know what steps you are taking to doing something about this problem.

 

I think your comment is a valuable addition to this thread. Understand what us Albertans can do may encourage others to do likewise.

 

Thanks

 

Sun

[seanbritt]

Despite vowing not to continue on this thread, I must. Here are a 10 simple things we do as a family and you may consider as well:

 

1. Use one car. We use the bus and train as much as we can and unfortunately cannot afford a hybrid but have a 4-cylinder compact that gets good gas mileage.

2. Buy locally. We go to the farmer's market or community to buy locally. This is one of the biggest efforts one can make. Rather than buy imported kiwi's from New Zealand, buy some carrots from Innisfail.

3. Turn off lights/electronics when not in use. They make these great timers and even have remote controlled power surges now.

4. Insulate your windows/house to reduce heat release.

5. Offset your power by purchasing wind power via a company like bullfrog.

6. Visit your library instead of buying new books.

7. Use reuseable bags.

8. Recycle.

9. Replace any old light bulbs with energy effecient ones.

10. Use rechargeable batteries.

 

You may ask yourself, how do these litttle things help? Well, its a cumulative effect. Not only will little things save energy, etc. but save you money as well! By and far though, #2 will have the biggest impact and help local economies as well....

[Guest Sundancefisher]

Despite vowing not to continue on this thread, I must. Here are a 10 simple things we do as a family and you may consider as well:

 

1. Use one car. We use the bus and train as much as we can and unfortunately cannot afford a hybrid but have a 4-cylinder compact that gets good gas mileage. We also have only one vehicle. We find a minivan practical and picked the best mileage one at the time.

2. Buy locally. We go to the farmer's market or community to buy locally. This is one of the biggest efforts one can make. Rather than buy imported kiwi's from New Zealand, buy some carrots from Innisfail. I have looked into this and unfortunately buying locally does not always work...especially in winter. As such we do go to upicks and markets when possible and buy from local distributors. From a carbon footprint perspective...as the fuel costs are spread out over tons of produce...it is very, very small. Therefore I don't fuss this one too much. I do find local can often be fresher or picked at the optimum time for taste which is a nice bonus when you can get it. Buying fresh kiwis in January is better than frozen carrots from Innisfail. The energy it takes to store and refrigerate produce grown locally offset the shipping costs from further a field. Plus many people need some variety in their diet. There is NO locally grown fresh fruit in this area that can come anywheres near supplying Calgary unfortunately.

3. Turn off lights/electronics when not in use. They make these great timers and even have remote controlled power surges now. Man do we agree on this one. Try getting the wife and kids on board is tough. I turn lights off...seconds later...lights back on. My own clap on clap off without the clapping.

4. Insulate your windows/house to reduce heat release. I replaced all our windwo with lowE for this very reason. We won't ever make the money back but it is good for the environment and for comfort. Wow...we agreed again. Points like these are tough. They cost huge dollars so the average person can not often do it. We got a good deal. With higher taxes and penalties on a population...these things become impossible for the average person to do.

5. Offset your power by purchasing wind power via a company like bullfrog. While nice in practice and in theory the limited power available is meaningless other than it makes you feel good. There just is not the power production from these sources to make it viable. Plus the cost is higher. Plus I use Calgary transit which uses wind so I am covered there.

6. Visit your library instead of buying new books. Yup...we agree and do that also.

7. Use reuseable bags. Yup...we do that also

8. Recycle. Yup we do that also

9. Replace any old light bulbs with energy effecient ones. Yup...we are moving to that...although in places the wife does not like the look of some florescent bulbs. They do have some natural light ones we are test using now.

10. Use rechargeable batteries. Yup...we are doing that also.

 

You may ask yourself, how do these litttle things help? Well, its a cumulative effect. Not only will little things save energy, etc. but save you money as well! By and far though, #2 will have the biggest impact and help local economies as well....

 

Man...you and me are on the same wavelength here. Simple things can make a huge difference. You should see the stats on residual energy use in North America...it is huge.

 

Have you tried having a garden?

Do you mow your lawn at the longest setting?

Do you have tons of plants in your yard to absorb CO2?

Did you stop having any recreational fire as a wood burning campfire or natural gas fireplace fire?

Do you keep your thermostat down 2 degrees during the day and at night?

Do you keep your curtains drawn to keep the heat in?

Did you put fresh insulation in your attic?

Are you eating less meat...and going more vegetarian?

Do you buy carbon credits? That would be very similar to Bullfrog...but just paying upfront for the damage you are causing to the environment.

Are you doing only local vacations as opposed to driving a long distance or flying?

 

Out of curiousity...I find pretty much everything you do is the simple stuff. There is a real need to do the harder stuff if this global warming worry is real. As such some friends are really struggling with making personal sacrifices regardless how emotional they are about the subject.

 

What do you feel is the hardest thing you have had to give up in pursuit of your personal convictions regarding global warming?

 

Thanks for the discussion.

 

Sun

 

[reevesr1]

Uh oh. I can feel the keyboards being tapped from here.

 

Read up a bit on #2. It is not nearly as cut and dried as you may think. While some products may make sense from a carbon footprint to buy local, it is most certainly not true for all. Economies of scale is a powerful, powerful thing. When looked at on a carbon footprint per item basis, many if not most agricultural products have a smaller carbon footprint from beginning of life to your plate when grown, and transported, in bulk. I read somewhere that transportation accounts for only 11% of the total carbon footprint of food items (and I don't know what that included), and that packaging, fertilizer, cooking (25%), etc. took up the rest.

 

The same article said if you want to really cut greenhouse gasses in your food choices, cut down on the amount of red meat you eat.

 

Edit: Found the one article from Forbes and another from The Observer. Both UK, both worth a look:

 

The Observer

Forbes

[seanbritt]

Sun, interesting question about what is the hardest thing to give up.

 

I would have to say my own personal car. While Calgary has a public transit system, needless to say it is less than stellar. Also, coordinating the fishing trips and "quickies" to the river become more challenging when there is 1 vehicle and more than one user.

 

 

[Guest Sundancefisher]

Sun, interesting question about what is the hardest thing to give up.

 

I would have to say my own personal car. While Calgary has a public transit system, needless to say it is less than stellar. Also, coordinating the fishing trips and "quickies" to the river become more challenging when there is 1 vehicle and more than one user.

 

I agree. One car is tough...but we gave ours up a long, long time ago so we are used to it.

 

The hardest thing I gave up was going out fishing to the mountain streams by myself cause we have only one car. I can't get there on the transit.

 

The biggest financial hit however was the windows. Big ticket item..ouch. We actually save a fair bit of money only having one car which was a nice benefit.

[Guest Sundancefisher]

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/8483722.stm

 

Temperature and CO2 feedback loop 'weaker than thought'

By Roger Harrabin

BBC environment analyst

 

The most alarming forecasts of natural systems amplifying the human-induced greenhouse effect may be too high, according to a new report.

 

The study in Nature confirms that as the planet warms, oceans and forests will absorb proportionally less CO2.

 

It says this will increase the effects of man-made warming - but much less than recent research has suggested.

 

The authors warn, though, that their research will not reduce projections of future temperature rises.

 

Further, they say their concern about man-made climate change remains high.

 

The research, from a team of scientists in Switzerland and Germany, attempts to settle one of the great debates in climate science about exactly how the Earth's natural carbon cycle will exacerbate any man-made warming.

 

Positive, negative

 

Some climate sceptics have argued that a warmer world will increase the land available for vegetation, which will in turn absorb CO2 and temper further warming. This is known as a negative feedback loop - the Earth acting to keep itself in balance.

 

But the Nature research concludes that any negative feedback will be swamped by positive feedback in which extra CO2 is released from the oceans and from already-forested areas.

 

The oceans are the world's great store of CO2, but the warmer they become, the less CO2 they can absorb. And forests dried out by increased temperatures tend to decay and release CO2 from their trees and soils.

 

Commenting in Nature on the new research, Hugues Goosse from the Université Catholique de Louvain in Belgium said: "In a warmer climate, we should not expect pleasant surprises in the form of more efficient uptake of carbon by oceans and land… that would limit the amplitude of future climate change".

 

The IPCC's fourth assessment report had a broad range of estimates as to how far natural systems would contribute to a spiral of warming. The Nature paper narrows that range to the lower end of previous estimates.

 

The report's lead author, David Frank from the Swiss Federal Institute for Forest, Snow and Landscape Research, told BBC News that many of the calculations for the IPCC assessment report did not include an integrated carbon cycle.

 

He said that if the results his paper were widely accepted, the overall effect on climate projections would be neutral.

 

"It might lead to a downward mean revision of those (climate) models which already include the carbon cycle, but an upward revision in those which do not include the carbon cycle.

 

"That'll probably even itself out to signify no real change in the temperature projections overall," he said.

 

'Comforting'

 

The team's calculations are based on a probabilistic analysis of climate variation between the years 1050 and 1800 - that is, before the Industrial Revolution introduced fossil carbon into the atmosphere.

 

Using 200,000 data points, the study - believed by Nature to be the most comprehensive of its kind so far - compared the Antarctic ice core record of trapped CO2 bubbles with so-called proxy data like tree rings, which are used to estimate temperature changes.

 

The most likely value among their estimates suggests that for every degree Celsius of warming, natural ecosystems tend to release an extra 7.7 parts per million of CO2 to the atmosphere (the full range of their estimate was between 1.7 and 21.4 parts per million).

 

 

The oceans' ability to absorb CO2 figures strongly into the debate

This stands in sharp contrast to the recent estimates of positive feedback models, which suggest a release of 40 parts per million per degree; the team say with 95% certainty that value is an overestimate.

 

"This is a valuable paper that helps to constrain certain feedback components for the past," said John Schellnhuber, director of the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research.

 

"However, it is probably not suited for extrapolation into the future and it does not cover the really interesting processes like anthropogenic activation of permafrost carbon or methane clathrates."

 

The paper will surely not be the last word in this difficult area of research, with multiple uncertainties over data sources.

 

"I think that the magnitude of the warming amplification given by the carbon cycle is a live issue that will not suddenly be sorted by another paper trying to fit to palaeo-data," Professor Brian Hoskins, a climate expert from Imperial College London, told BBC News.

 

Another crucial issue is the degree to which past trends will line up with potentially very different future scenarios.

 

Professor Tim Lenton from the University of East Anglia said: "It looks intriguing and comforting if they are right. The immediate problem I can see is that past variations in CO2 and temperature over the last millennium were very small, and this group are assuming that the relationship they derive from these very small variations can be extrapolated to the much larger variations in temperature we expect this century.

 

"We have plenty of reason to believe that the shape of the relationship may change (be nonlinear) when we 'hit the system harder'. So, I don't think they can rule out that the positive feedback from the carbon cycle could become stronger in a significantly warmer climate."

 

 

[Guest Sundancefisher]

FIRST CLIMATE GATE INVESTIGATION REPORT IS IN

 

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/8484385.stm

 

Climate e-mails row university 'breached data laws'

 

Requests were made under the Freedom of Information Act

A university unit involved in a row over stolen e-mails on climate research breached rules by withholding data, the Information Commissioner's Office says.

 

Officials said messages leaked in November showed that requests under the Freedom of Information Act were "not dealt with as they should have been".

 

But too much time has passed for action against the University of East Anglia.

 

The UEA says part of a probe into the case will consider the way requests by climate change sceptics were handled.

 

'Legal obligations'

 

The leaked files include documents, detailed data and private e-mails exchanged between leading climate scientists.

 

But academics deny claims the material showed science had been manipulated.

 

Professor Phil Jones, who has stood down as director of the Climatic Research Unit while the review takes place, has said he stands by his data and insisted that the emails had been taken "completely out of context".

 

In a statement, Deputy Information Commissioner Graham Smith said it was an offence under section 77 of the Freedom of Information act "to prevent intentionally the disclosure of requested information".

 

He said the requests were made by a climate change sceptic in the 2007-2008 period and as the case was more than six months old "the opportunity to consider a prosecution was long gone" under existing legislation.

 

Mr Smith said the ICO was "gathering evidence from this and other time-barred cases to support the case for a change in the law".

 

He added: "We will be advising the university about the importance of effective records management and their legal obligations in respect of future requests for information."

 

Norfolk Police have launched an inquiry into the case.

 

Meanwhile, former civil servant Sir Muir Russell is heading an independent review to examine whether there is evidence that data was manipulated or suppressed in a way which was "at odds with acceptable scientific practice".

 

The UEA said it would also explore how freedom of information requests had been acted on.

 

 

[Guest Sundancefisher]

This is a huge fear of mine. Scientist don't know enough to make models work...they fully admit almost every factor that is studied for climate research is fraught with unknowns...and yet now some people will do the knee jerk reaction and consider messing with the climate.

 

What I fear the most is an ice age of any size or magnitude. Adding chemicals to the atmosphere...absolutely crazy...inducing clouds...they don't even know what effects clouds have now.

 

On top of it all...someone wants to make money off this scheme. Anyone else worried this will go in a bad, bad direction?

 

Yikes with capital Y I K E S!

 

 

http://www.calgaryherald.com/technology/Ga...3432/story.html

 

********************************************************************************

*****

Gates backing U of C climate research

 

 

By Kelly Cryderman, Calgary HeraldJanuary 28, 2010

 

 

A University of Calgary physicist's unconventional research into global warming appears to have attracted the attention of the world's richest man.

 

Blocking out some of the sun's rays is a faster and cheaper way of cooling the Earth's temperature than cutting greenhouse-gas emissions, says a research paper authored by David Keith.

 

On Wednesday -- the same day Keith's research paper was released by the science journal Nature -- a blog titled ScienceInsider reported that Keith and several American climate change researchers are being bankrolled by billionaire Bill Gates, founder of Microsoft.

 

The blog said a U.S. researcher and Keith are in charge of deciding how millions of dollars are being dispersed to geoengineering research -- or climate manipulating projects.

 

In an interview Wednesday, Keith declined to provide further details about the funding, but confirmed the report was correct.

 

"Yes, it's true. Bill is funding our stuff," Keith said.

 

An inquiry to the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation on Wednesday went unanswered.

 

Keith preferred to speak Wednesday about how solar radiation could be reflected back into space by releasing megatonnes of light-scattering aerosol particles, or how low-altitude clouds could be created with sea salts.

 

The Nature article, which calls for a co-operative international research effort worth $1 billion, suggests a number of sun-reflecting techniques be investigated.

 

"Many scientists have argued against research on solar-radiation management, saying that developing the capability to perform such tasks will reduce the political will to lower greenhouse-gas emissions," says the article, which was authored by Keith and two other researchers.

 

"We believe that the risks of not doing research outweigh the risks of doing it."

 

Bouncing solar rays back into space carries numerous environmental and geopolitical dangers, and has, until very recently, been frowned upon by the scientific community.

 

However, the report says geoengineering could offset temperature increases much more cheaply than cutting the world's greenhouse gas emissions.

 

Keith cautions that geoengineering should only complement greenhouse gas reductions, not replace cuts. The article also cautions that countries must work collaboratively so that no "rogue state" takes unilateral action.

 

"There's the beginning of serious research projects, but really just starting up, literally, right now," Keith said in an interview.

 

It may sound like science fiction, but last year the Royal Society -- the national academy of science of the U.K. and the Commonwealth -- also released a report calling for large-scale intervention in the Earth's climate system.

 

That report said giant space mirrors may be required as backups to blunt the effects of climate change if emission reductions prove to be too little too late to stop the predicted effects of human-caused climate change.

 

Wednesday's article in Nature noted that Keith has a commercial interest in carbon dioxide extraction technology.

 

kcryderman@theherald.canwest.com

[Guest Sundancefisher]

Study shows water vapor is a major cause of warming and cooling trends

 

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2010/...00131145840.htm

 

 

**************************************************

Stratospheric Water Vapor Is a Global Warming Wild Card

 

ScienceDaily (Feb. 1, 2010) — A 10 percent drop in water vapor ten miles above Earth's surface has had a big impact on global warming, say researchers in a study published online January 28 in the journal Science. The findings might help explain why global surface temperatures have not risen as fast in the last ten years as they did in the 1980s and 1990s.

 

Observations from satellites and balloons show that stratospheric water vapor has had its ups and downs lately, increasing in the 1980s and 1990s, and then dropping after 2000. The authors show that these changes occurred precisely in a narrow altitude region of the stratosphere where they would have the biggest effects on climate.

 

Water vapor is a highly variable gas and has long been recognized as an important player in the cocktail of greenhouse gases -- carbon dioxide, methane, halocarbons, nitrous oxide, and others -- that affect climate.

 

"Current climate models do a remarkable job on water vapor near the surface. But this is different -- it's a thin wedge of the upper atmosphere that packs a wallop from one decade to the next in a way we didn't expect," says Susan Solomon, NOAA senior scientist and first author of the study.

 

Since 2000, water vapor in the stratosphere decreased by about 10 percent. The reason for the recent decline in water vapor is unknown. The new study used calculations and models to show that the cooling from this change caused surface temperatures to increase about 25 percent more slowly than they would have otherwise, due only to the increases in carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases.

 

An increase in stratospheric water vapor in the 1990s likely had the opposite effect of increasing the rate of warming observed during that time by about 30 percent, the authors found.

 

The stratosphere is a region of the atmosphere from about eight to 30 miles above the Earth's surface. Water vapor enters the stratosphere mainly as air rises in the tropics. Previous studies suggested that stratospheric water vapor might contribute significantly to climate change. The new study is the first to relate water vapor in the stratosphere to the specific variations in warming of the past few decades.

 

Authors of the study are Susan Solomon, Karen Rosenlof, Robert Portmann, and John Daniel, all of the NOAA Earth System Research Laboratory (ESRL) in Boulder, Colo.; Sean Davis and Todd Sanford, NOAA/ESRL and the Cooperative Institute for Research in Environmental Sciences, University of Colorado; and Gian-Kasper Plattner, University of Bern, Switzerland.

[Guest Sundancefisher]

http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/thereport...n_written.html

 

 

Distorted view through the climate gates

 

Richard Black | 17:29 UK time, Tuesday, 2 February 2010

 

Much has been written - not least on this website - and much more surely will be written over the coming months about supposed inconsistencies, errors, misjudgements and poor practice among climate scientists.

 

How many "scandals" do we now have with the suffix "-gate" attached to them? At least five, by my count, with the most embarrassing surely being the projection that the mighty Himalayan glaciers could largely be gone within a human generation.

 

EarthThe latest -gate - detailed in a series of articles in The Guardian by environment journalist Fred Pearce - concerns a set of temperature data from China that was used in a 1990 paper in Nature to estimate the likely impact of progressive urbanisation on temperatures recorded at weather stations.

 

The paper is one of several cited by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) in reaching its conclusion that:

 

"Urban heat island effects are real but local, and have not biased the large-scale trends."

 

The implication of The Guardian's article is that Chinese scientists contributing data for that paper had not taken as much care as they should have done to document and allow for the fact that some of the weather stations had been relocated over the course of the study period, possibly affecting their readings; and that at some stage the paper's lead author, Professor Phil Jones, had been made aware of the issue by an independent UK researcher, Douglas Keenan, but did not seek to publicise or remedy it.

 

As anyone following the -gate trail will know, Professor Jones is the scientist at the centre of the original "Climategate" - November's e-mail theft from the University of East Anglia.

 

The point of this post isn't to go once more over well-trodden ground, but to raise a simple but crucial point.

 

Like all the other noisy -gates, this latest one throws up two questions: was scientific best practice followed, and is there anything here that affects the basic picture of climate science?

 

Weather_stationWhatever the answers to those may be - and Professor Jones' University of East Anglia has issued a rebuttal covering key points of The Guardian's article - the important point to make is that they are separate questions.

 

In some circles, every single -gate "relevation" has been followed by a ritualised fanfare claiming that the picture of climate warming through rising greenhouse gases concentrations has now been "fatally undermined", or some similar phrase.

 

Journalists with an eye for old-fashioned concepts such as balance, like Fred Pearce, are careful to avoid making that conclusion.

 

He writes that this latest episode...

 

"...does not change the global picture of temperature trends. There is plenty of evidence of global warming, not least from oceans far from urban influences. A review of recent studies published online in December by David Parker of the Met Office concludes that, even allowing for Jones's new data, 'global near-surface temperature trends have not been greatly affected by urban warming trends'."

 

He could also have cited the body of evidence from the satellite record, which also shows a clear warming trend.

 

In a paper published in the journal Energy and Environment [pdf link] in which he detailed his concerns about the 1990 conclusions, Doug Keenan made the same point:

 

"None of this means that the conclusion of the IPCC is incorrect."

 

In an interview with the Press Association (PA) about The Guardian's article, Phil Jones says he stands by the conclusion of the 1990 paper, not least because it was backed up by other studies, including papers in 2007 and 2008 that used a more detailed Chinese dataset.

 

 

He goes on to say:

 

"It makes me quite worried people are beginning to doubt the climate has warmed up."

 

And clearly some people do doubt that - many of you tell me so, in great detail, on every post I write, whatever it deals with - and judging by your comments, that's partly because some of you believe that all climate scientists are as bent as a... well, a hockey stick might be a good simile here.

 

It is a free world; and if you really do hold that view, then presumably it makes sense to jump the divide between the two questions I raised earlier, and conclude that as all climate scientists are dodgy, so is all climate data.

 

But I would argue that keeping the questions separate is of absolute and vital importance.

 

How scientists and the institutions of science behave is an important issue, no doubt about it - for evidence, look no further than the latest developments on the MMR saga, which sees The Lancet retracting the decade-old paper that sparked all the fuss - and Phil Jones tells PA in his interview:

 

"We do need to make more of the data available, I fully accept that."

 

But what matters far, far more than the nuances of climate scientists' behaviour is whether the climate is warming, and if it is, what is driving that warming.

 

Those are questions crucial for humanity's future, because if the IPCC's projections become reality, substantial swathes of the global population will find themselves living in much more straitened circumstances than they face at present.

 

If the scientific case for greenhouse warming crumbles, so be it; but I'd suggest we should beware of assuming it is crumbling simply because a few scientists or a few scientific papers or a few IPCC reviewers have been seen to fall short of the highest standards.

 

[Guest Sundancefisher]

‘Climategate’ inquiry shows scientist didn’t falsify data

Mike De Souza, Canwest News Service

Published: Wednesday, February 03, 2010

 

An academic inquiry into the so-called "climategate" email scandal has concluded that a well-known U.S. scientist did not directly or indirectly falsify data in his research.

 

The review, by a panel of senior administrators at Pennsylvania State University, found no evidence that climatologist Michael Mann had manipulated research that indicates humans are causing global warming. However, the panel has recommended further review on questions about whether his conduct had undermined public confidence in his findings as a scientist.

 

Allegations of improper conduct surfaced last fall when unknown computer hackers stole thousands of emails from the Climate Research Unit at the University of East Anglia in the United Kingdom. Climate change skeptics posted the emails on websites calling it "climategate" prior to the last round of international negotiations on global warming in Copenhagen, Denmark. The talks subsequently failed to reach a binding agreement to reduce the quantity of heat-trapping gases in the atmosphere after 2012.

 

"While a perception has been created in the weeks after the CRU emails were made public that Dr. Mann has engaged in the suppression or falsification of data, there is no credible evidence that he ever did so, and certainly not while at Penn State," said the inquiry report, published by the university on Wednesday.

 

The report concluded that one particular criticism about the researchers using a "trick" to create a graph showing rising temperatures, was actually referring to the use of an accepted scientific formula for producing an accurate graph.

 

"They were not falsifying data," said the report. "They were trying to construct an understandable graph for those who were not experts in the field. The so-called ‘trick' was nothing more than a statistical method used to bring two or more different kinds of data sets together in a legitimate fashion by a technique that has been reviewed by a broad array of peers in the field."

 

The report praised Dr. Mann for his "composure" and "forthright response" to all questions, finding no evidence that he had attempted to hide or destroy information, emails or data from his research. It also cleared him of allegations of misusing any privileged or confidential information he had access to as an academic scholar.

 

But the review noted that media reports and Internet blogs have been deeply divided over whether Dr. Mann and his fellow researchers violated public trust because of personal comments made about climate change skeptics who challenged peer-reviewed research. As a result, it recommended that a more detailed review would be needed to examine accepted practices and address all questions raised in the eyes of the public.

 

"One side views the emails as evidence of a clear cut violation of the public trust and seeks severe penalties for Dr. Mann and his colleagues," said the report. "The other side sees these as nothing more than the private discussions of scientists engaged in a hotly debated topic of enormous social impact."

 

http://www.nationalpost.com/news/story.html?id=2518632

 

 

[Guest Sundancefisher]

http://www.agu.org/meetings/fm09/lectures/...deos/A23A.shtml

 

 

Richard Alley’s Lecture 'The Biggest Control Knob - Carbon Dioxide in Earth's Climate History'

 

http://www.agu.org/meetings/fm09/lectures/...deos/A23A.shtml

 

Very good for you to understand the geological record and what can be derived in this issue.

 

Sun

[Guest Sundancefisher]

 

http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2010...e-jones-chinese

 

 

Professor Phil Jones, who was director of the Climatic Research Unit (CRU) and a professor of environmental sciences at the University of East Anglia in Norwich. Photograph: University of East Anglia

 

Phil Jones, the beleaguered British climate scientist at the centre of the leaked emails controversy, is facing fresh claims that he sought to hide problems in key temperature data on which some of his work was based.

 

A Guardian investigation of thousands of emails and documents apparently hacked from the University of East Anglia's climatic research unit has found evidence that a series of measurements from Chinese weather stations were seriously flawed and that documents relating to them could not be produced.

 

 

Link to this audio Jones and a collaborator have been accused by a climate change sceptic and researcher of scientific fraud for attempting to suppress data that could cast doubt on a key 1990 study on the effect of cities on warming – a hotly contested issue.

 

Today the Guardian reveals how Jones withheld the information requested under freedom of information laws. Subsequently a senior colleague told him he feared that Jones's collaborator, Wei-­Chyung Wang of the University at Albany, had "screwed up".

 

The revelations on the inadequacies of the 1990 paper do not undermine the case that humans are causing climate change, and other studies have produced similar findings. But they do call into question the probity of some climate change science.

 

The apparent attempts to cover up problems with temperature data from the Chinese weather stations provide the first link between the email scandal and the UN's embattled climate science body, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, as a paper based on the measurements was used to bolster IPCC statements about rapid global warming in recent decades.

 

Wang was cleared of scientific fraud by his university, but new information brought to light today indicates at least one senior colleague had serious concerns about the affair.

 

It also emerges that documents which Wang claimed would exonerate him and Jones did not exist.

 

The revelations come at a torrid time for climate science, with the IPPC suffering heavy criticism for its use of information that had not been rigorously checked – in particular a false claim that all Himalayan glaciers could melt by 2035 – and UEA having been criticised last week by the deputy information commissioner for refusing valid requests for data under the Freedom of Information Act.

 

The Guardian has learned that of 105 freedom of information requests to the university concerning the climatic research unit (CRU), which Jones headed up to the end of December, only 10 had been released in full.

 

The temperature data from the Chinese weather stations measured the warming there over the past half century and appeared in a 1990 paper in the prestigious journal Nature, which was cited by the IPCC's latest report in 2007.

 

Climate change sceptics asked the UEA, via FOI requests, for location data for the 84 weather stations in eastern China, half of which were urban and half rural.

 

The history of where the weather stations were sited was crucial to Jones and Wang's 1990 study, as it concluded the rising temperatures recorded in China were the result of global climate changes rather the warming effects of expanding cities.

 

The IPCC's 2007 report used the study to justify the claim that "any urban-related trend" in global temperatures was small. Jones was one of two "coordinating lead authors" for the relevant chapter.

 

The leaked emails from the CRU reveal that the former director of the unit, Tom Wigley, harboured grave doubts about the cover-up of the shortcomings in Jones and Wang's work. Wigley was in charge of CRU when the original paper was published. "Were you taking W-CW [Wang] on trust?" he asked Jones. He continued: "Why, why, why did you and W-CW not simply say this right at the start?"

 

Jones said he was not able to comment on the story.

 

Wang said: "I have been exonerated by my university on all the charges. When we started on the paper we had all the station location details in order to identify our network, but we cannot find them any more.

 

"Some of the location changes were probably only a few metres, and where they were more we corrected for them."

 

In an interview with the Observer on Sunday Ed Miliband, the climate change secretary, warned of the danger of a public backlash against mainstream climate science over claims that scientists manipulated data. He declared a "battle" against the "siren voices" who denied global warming was real or caused by humans. "It's right that there's rigour applied to all the reports about climate change, but I think it would be wrong that when a mistake is made it's somehow used to undermine the overwhelming picture that's there," he said.

 

Last week the Information Commissioner's Office – the body that administers the Freedom of Information Act – said the University of East Anglia had flouted the rules in its handling of an FOI request in May 2008.

 

Days after receiving the request for information from the British climate change sceptic David Holland, Jones asked Prof Mike Mann of Pennsylvania State University in the United States: "Can you delete any emails you may have had with Keith [briffa] re AR4? Keith will do likewise.

 

"Can you also email Gene [Eugene Wahl, a paleoclimatologist in Boulder, Colorado] and get him to do the same ... We will be getting Caspar [Ammann, also from Boulder] to do the same."

 

The University of East Anglia says that no emails were deleted following this exchange.

 

[Guest Sundancefisher]

The IPCC let's everyone assume there is peer reviewed science in their fear mongering comments. The last one was glaciers...now we have African crops. This is so irresponsible...it is an embarrassment to the whole IPCC premise. What can you trust that the science is good when some stuff has zero science behind it?

 

 

***************************************************************

 

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/envi...icle7017907.ece

 

 

 

Top British scientist says UN panel is losing credibility

Jonathan Leake, Environment Editor

 

A LEADING British government scientist has warned the United Nations’ climate panel to tackle its blunders or lose all credibility.

 

Robert Watson, chief scientist at Defra, the environment ministry, who chaired the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) from 1997 to 2002, was speaking after more potential inaccuracies emerged in the IPCC’s 2007 benchmark report on global warming.

 

The most important is a claim that global warming could cut rain-fed north African crop production by up to 50% by 2020, a remarkably short time for such a dramatic change. The claim has been quoted in speeches by Rajendra Pachauri, the IPCC chairman, and by Ban Ki-moon, the UN secretary-general.

 

This weekend Professor Chris Field, the new lead author of the IPCC’s climate impacts team, told The Sunday Times that he could find nothing in the report to support the claim. The revelation follows the IPCC’s retraction of a claim that the Himalayan glaciers might all melt by 2035.

 

The African claims could be even more embarrassing for the IPCC because they appear not only in its report on climate change impacts but, unlike the glaciers claim, are also repeated in its Synthesis Report.

 

This report is the IPCC’s most politically sensitive publication, distilling its most important science into a form accessible to politicians and policy makers. Its lead authors include Pachauri himself.

 

In it he wrote: “By 2020, in some countries, yields from rain-fed agriculture could be reduced by up to 50%. Agricultural production, including access to food, in many African countries is projected to be severely compromised.” The same claims have since been cited in speeches to world leaders by Pachauri and Ban.

 

Speaking at the 2008 global climate talks in Poznan, Poland, Pachauri said: “In some countries of Africa, yields from rain-fed agriculture could be reduced by 50% by 2020.” In a speech last July, Ban said: “Yields from rain-fed agriculture could fall by half in some African countries over the next 10 years.”

 

Speaking this weekend, Field said: “I was not an author on the Synthesis Report but on reading it I cannot find support for the statement about African crop yield declines.”

 

Watson said such claims should be based on hard evidence. “Any such projection should be based on peer-reviewed literature from computer modelling of how agricultural yields would respond to climate change. I can see no such data supporting the IPCC report,” he said.

 

The claims in the Synthesis Report go back to the IPCC’s report on the global impacts of climate change. It warns that all Africa faces a long-term threat from farmland turning to desert and then says of north Africa, “additional risks that could be exacerbated by climate change include greater erosion, deficiencies in yields from rain-fed agriculture of up to 50% during the 2000-20 period, and reductions in crop growth period (Agoumi, 2003)”.

 

“Agoumi” refers to a 2003 policy paper written for the International Institute for Sustainable Development, a Canadian think tank. The paper was not peer-reviewed.

 

Its author was Professor Ali Agoumi, a Moroccan climate expert who looked at the potential impacts of climate change on Tunisia, Morocco and Algeria. His report refers to the risk of “deficient yields from rain-based agriculture of up to 50% during the 2000–20 period”.

 

These claims refer to other reports prepared by civil servants in each of the three countries as submissions to the UN. These do not appear to have been peer-reviewed either.

 

The IPCC is also facing criticism over its reports on how sea level rise might affect Holland. Dutch ministers have demanded that it correct a claim that more than half of the Netherlands lies below sea level when, in reality, it is about a quarter.

 

The errors seem likely to bring about change at the IPCC. Field said: “The IPCC needs to investigate a more sophisticated approach for dealing with emerging errors.”

 

 

 

 

 

******************************************

IPCC accused of erring on African crop prediction

Jonathan Leake, Sunday Times, London, 8 February 2010, 01:30am IST

 

A leading British government scientist has warned the UN’s climate panel to tackle its blunders or lose all credibility.

 

Robert Watson, chief scientist at Defra, the environment ministry, who chaired the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change from 1997 to 2002, was speaking after more potential inaccuracies emerged in the IPCC’s 2007 benchmark report on global warming.

 

The most important is a claim that global warming could cut rain-fed north African crop production by up to 50% by 2020, a remarkably short time for such a dramatic change. The claim has been quoted in speeches by Rajendra Pachauri, the IPCC chairman, and by Ban Ki-moon, the UN secretary-general.

 

This weekend Chris Field, the new lead author of the IPCC’s climate impacts team, said he could find nothing in the report to support the claim. The revelation follows the IPCC’s retraction of a claim that the Himalayan glaciers might all melt by 2035.

 

The African claims could be even more embarrassing for the IPCC as they appear not only in its report but, unlike the glaciers claim, are also repeated in its Synthesis Report. This report is the IPCC’s most politically sensitive publication, distilling its most important science into a form accessible to politicians and policy makers. Its lead authors include Pachauri himself.

 

http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/world/u...how/5546596.cms

 

 

[headscan]

[Guest Sundancefisher]

 

We do seem to see these cartoons a fair bit. Playing upon emotion and bringing other things into the argument that have no sense being there.

 

Every single one of those points is more connected to the religion of global warming than the science.

 

Energy Independence (name a cost effective alternative other than Nuclear? Blaming the oil and gas industry is a big out to put blame on something to allow for focusing on something to take your mind off something else.)

Preserve Rainforests (Until you can feed people and cloth people and provide adequate shelter and medicine...people have to cut down forests. Now a massive dam is being built which will destroy lots of rain forest...pump tons of methane into the air and displace lots of indigenous people. Global warming nuts are torn...as they believe this is better than oil and gas. Fact is that it is not...it is just an alternative that in my mind is no better or no worse than other alternative. We in the west tend to meddle in these third world decisions too much)

Sustainability Lots of words get used repeatedly to try and push an agenda for some. Politics drive this agenda now it seems. We are sustainable according to the experts. The free market economy and capitalism controls consumption and prices which creates a natural balance. To conserve more...is a great thing. Forcing it down our throats at any costs is not good for anyone. We need an open and honest dialog with any attempts to tax us into conservation.

Green Jobs There are make work jobs and jobs that add no value, they do nothing to ncrease GDP and increase overall wealth. These green jobs as far as I can see are make work and actually reduce the over all economics value of a country. Can anyone think of a green job that actually adds value? Creates value? The biggest industry right now is carbon credit trading.

Livable Cities Calgary is fine. Smog is not CO2.

Renewables What do they mean. Energy independence is the same thing to most people unless this is supposed to refer to reduce, reuse, recycle...

Clean water and air CO2 does not pollute air and water. It is natural and the constant attempt to label CO2 as smog etc. is just bad science and reporting.

Healthy Children What does CO2 have to do with children's health other than the UN spending billions on climate to the detriment of kids health.

etc. etc.

 

If I was to put in words to define a better world I would choose...

 

Access to decent health care

Access to food

Access to shelter

Access to fresh water

Access to education

Freedom from tyranny

Freedom from war

Freedom of the Press

Acces to Crime protection

Freedom of religion

Elimination of pollution

Protection of Nature

Protection of Parks and Recreation

Free hockey tickets

 

 

In the true sense of the Global Warming alarmists...all of my points will be fixed by CO2 reductions. That is bogus since all of the above takes significant world resources and efforts and that money is currently being spent on wondering why they said Africa is going to starve and hundreds of millions will migrate to Europe and North America. That was purely propaganda to scare the conservative majorities in those continents to want to keep people in Africa where they are. Simply scare tactics with NO basis in science. Shear stupidity on their part and definitely moves me towards the don't believe side.

 

They better explain themselves quickly.

[Guest Sundancefisher]

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/envi...icle7017922.ece

 

Who on Earth would tell the world media they wanted to kill themselves because they had emails leaked. Granted he has now admitted to not turning over data for peer review...he blames it because he did not want to release data to people that wanted to prove him wrong. Who gives any scientist the right to make people not ask questions? Science is not science until it is scienced to death. By that I mean people have to think about ways to prove the theory wrong or right after the first hypothesis is thrown out to the world to think about.

 

It is a very arrogant scientists IMHO that feels they must "protect" their data and point of view from criticism.

 

Now...as to why Jones has release this personal information...who knows. Maybe he is just not that smart. Maybe the "god factor" is coming into play. Some of these guys are trotting around like heros to the many fanatics and as such are protected well from scrutiny and personal attacks. On the other hand those opposed to the premise of Man made CO2 global warming catastrophy have very, very, very thick skins :tongue2:. When someone gets knocked down off a very, very high pedestal then rightly or wrongly they will get very depressed.

 

 

*************************************************************

I thought of killing myself, says climate scandal professor Phil Jones

 

Professor Phil Jones said in an exclusive interview with The Sunday Times that he had thought about killing himself “several times”. He acknowledged similarities to Dr David Kelly, the scientist who committed suicide after being exposed as the source for a BBC report that alleged the government had “sexed up” evidence to justify the invasion of Iraq.

 

In emails that were hacked into and seized upon by global-warming sceptics before the Copenhagen climate summit in December, Jones appeared to call upon his colleagues to destroy scientific data rather than release it to people intent on discrediting their work monitoring climate change.

 

Jones, 57, said he was unprepared for the scandal: “I am just a scientist. I have no training in PR or dealing with crises.”

 

The incident has taken a severe toll on his health. He has lost more than a stone in weight and disclosed he is on beta-blockers and using sleeping pills. He said the support of his family, and especially the love of his five-year-old granddaughter, had helped him to shake off suicidal thoughts: “I wanted to see her grow up.”

 

He remains at risk, still receiving death threats from around the world including two in the past week: “I was shocked. People said I should go and kill myself. They said that they knew where I lived. They were coming from all over the world.”

 

Jones has temporarily stood down as director of the climatic research unit at the University of East Anglia. He fiercely defends the unit’s science — “I stand by it 100%” — but now accepts that he did not treat Freedom of Information (FoI) requests for the data as seriously as he should have done. Jones believes that the unit was maliciously targeted with multiple FoI requests by climate change sceptics determined to disrupt its work.

 

Last week Graham Smith, the deputy information commissioner, ruled that by failing to release requested data Jones and his colleagues breached FoI regulations. The affair is now the subject of a review led by Sir Muir Russell, former vice-chancellor of Glasgow University.

[Guest Sundancefisher]

Anyone who feels that this is about surviving the heat versus politics and power...just look to the IPCC power struggle. Where major special interest groups like Greenpeace is trying to get the IPCC chief fired. But he does not wish to give up the power position.

 

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/envi...icle7014203.ece

 

********************************************************************

IPCC chief Rajendra Pachauri under pressure to go over glacier error

Pachauri: failed to act when error in glacier science was revealed

 

Ben Webster, Environment Editor

 

The head of the UN’s climate change body is under pressure to resign after one of his strongest allies in the environmental movement said his judgment was flawed and called for a new leader to restore confidence in climatic science.

 

Rajendra Pachauri, chairman of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), has insisted that he will remain in post for another four years despite having failed to act on a serious error in the body’s 2007 report.

 

John Sauven, director of Greenpeace UK , said that Dr Pachauri should have acted as soon as he had been informed of the error, even though issuing a correction would have embarrassed the IPCC on the eve of the Copenhagen climate summit.

 

A journalist working for Science had told Dr Pachauri several times late last year that glaciologists had refuted the IPCC claim that Himalayan glaciers would disappear by 2035. Dr Pachauri refused to address the problem, saying: “I don’t have anything to add on glaciers.” He suggested that the error would not be corrected until 2013 or 2014, when the IPCC next reported.

 

The IPCC issued a correction and apology on January 20, three days after the error had made global headlines. Mr Sauven said: “Mistakes will always be made but it’s how you handle those mistakes which affects the credibility of the institution. Pachauri should have put his hand up and said ‘we made a mistake’. It’s in these situations that your character and judgment is tested. Do you make the right judgment call? He clearly didn’t.”

 

The IPCC needed a new chairman who would hold public confidence by introducing more rigorous procedures, Mr Sauven said. “The IPCC needs to regain credibility. Is that going to happen with Pachauri [as chairman]? I don’t think so. We need someone held in high regard who has extremely good judgment and is seen by the global public as someone on their side.

 

“If we get a new person in with an open mind, prepared to fundamentally review how the IPCC works, we would regain confidence in the organisation.”

 

Dr Pachauri did not return calls yesterday but he told Indian television at the weekend that he believed attacks on him were being orchestrated by companies facing lower profits because of actions against climate change recommended by the IPCC.He added: “My credibility has been established because I was re-elected chairman in 2008 by all the countries of the world. They must have been satisfied with what I did in terms of the fourth assessment report [published in 2007] because they have given me the mandate of completing the fifth assessment report [[to be released over 2013 and 2014] which I intend doing.”

 

Bob Ward, of the Grantham Research Institute on Climate Change, said the countries that had appointed Dr Pachauri should consider his handling of the glacier issue when the IPCC plenary meeting is held in October. “That issue ought to be dealt with by them. It would depend on how he responds to the crisis facing the IPCC.

 

“He has made mistakes but I don’t think those mistakes are so serious that you would automatically get rid of him. If you changed the head, I don’t think that would necessarily restore the credibility of the IPCC.”

 

[BBBrownie]

Anyone who feels that this is about surviving the heat versus politics and power...just look to the IPCC power struggle. Where major special interest groups like Greenpeace is trying to get the IPCC chief fired. But he does not wish to give up the power position.

 

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/envi...icle7014203.ece

 

********************************************************************

IPCC chief Rajendra Pachauri under pressure to go over glacier error

Pachauri: failed to act when error in glacier science was revealed

 

Ben Webster, Environment Editor

 

The head of the UN’s climate change body is under pressure to resign after one of his strongest allies in the environmental movement said his judgment was flawed and called for a new leader to restore confidence in climatic science.

 

Rajendra Pachauri, chairman of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), has insisted that he will remain in post for another four years despite having failed to act on a serious error in the body’s 2007 report.

 

John Sauven, director of Greenpeace UK , said that Dr Pachauri should have acted as soon as he had been informed of the error, even though issuing a correction would have embarrassed the IPCC on the eve of the Copenhagen climate summit.

 

A journalist working for Science had told Dr Pachauri several times late last year that glaciologists had refuted the IPCC claim that Himalayan glaciers would disappear by 2035. Dr Pachauri refused to address the problem, saying: “I don’t have anything to add on glaciers.” He suggested that the error would not be corrected until 2013 or 2014, when the IPCC next reported.

 

The IPCC issued a correction and apology on January 20, three days after the error had made global headlines. Mr Sauven said: “Mistakes will always be made but it’s how you handle those mistakes which affects the credibility of the institution. Pachauri should have put his hand up and said ‘we made a mistake’. It’s in these situations that your character and judgment is tested. Do you make the right judgment call? He clearly didn’t.”

 

The IPCC needed a new chairman who would hold public confidence by introducing more rigorous procedures, Mr Sauven said. “The IPCC needs to regain credibility. Is that going to happen with Pachauri [as chairman]? I don’t think so. We need someone held in high regard who has extremely good judgment and is seen by the global public as someone on their side.

 

“If we get a new person in with an open mind, prepared to fundamentally review how the IPCC works, we would regain confidence in the organisation.”

 

Dr Pachauri did not return calls yesterday but he told Indian television at the weekend that he believed attacks on him were being orchestrated by companies facing lower profits because of actions against climate change recommended by the IPCC.He added: “My credibility has been established because I was re-elected chairman in 2008 by all the countries of the world. They must have been satisfied with what I did in terms of the fourth assessment report [published in 2007] because they have given me the mandate of completing the fifth assessment report [[to be released over 2013 and 2014] which I intend doing.”

 

Bob Ward, of the Grantham Research Institute on Climate Change, said the countries that had appointed Dr Pachauri should consider his handling of the glacier issue when the IPCC plenary meeting is held in October. “That issue ought to be dealt with by them. It would depend on how he responds to the crisis facing the IPCC.

 

“He has made mistakes but I don’t think those mistakes are so serious that you would automatically get rid of him. If you changed the head, I don’t think that would necessarily restore the credibility of the IPCC.”

 

This all looks like a monologue/personal crusade to me. Is there something you feel guilty about (dirty job, drive a hummer, support feedlots, dump oil down the catchbasin, etc) and perhaps need to try and absolve yourself? I realize that the jury is still out, but bottom line, the more garbage we produce, the worse off we are. I don't care whether you believe in climate change or not, if you produce emissions, they will accumulate, there will at some point be an effect, just like if we were to all piss straight into the river (untreated), at some point it would accumulate and there would be an effect. I am never on the side of polluting and I will always seek to minimize consumption as as the more *hit we pile up, the worse off we will be. A problem I see with your list (on an admittedly quick read through) is that you don't figure in any sort of ecological arguement. It appears to me that you have a fairly utilitarian view toward nature, which is common in Alberta. You see it as only for our use, not much value beyond what we need. See, I will disagree and say that I don't feel that we have a right to continually plunder natural systems, I don't see you or me as being superior to any other living thing, don't have the right to continually take. We MUST seek ways of becoming sustainable, reducing our consumption to producing our items - food, fuel, clothing, etc from lands already dusturbed. Of course I realize that at this time it is a pipe dream, but I feel that we have the responsibility to try. Just because we are smarter than than any other organism and have opposable thumbs does not mean that we have the right to exploit everything that we are able to dominate. I am as bad as most, I drive, I have a yard, I have a dog, I probably eat more than I should some times, but I do try and reduce my footprint through the many little things I can...reduce my water usage (don't water lawn, keep rain barrels for plants, 4 short showers per week, saving for dual flush toilets), only eat meat if it is sustainable game, recycle anything we can, focus purchases on items with minimal packaging, and many other things. Bottom line, you must at least try. Defeatist attitudes will make the world a worse place for my kids, your kids, their kids, and all the living things that currently exist here.

 

[BBBrownie]

Just so you know, all the bad science surrounding the climate change issue, IPCC, really burns me up as well. Even though I believe in sustainabilty, reducing consumption, etc, I really think this issue has a big black eye at the moment. I say shame on those who use science as selfish vehicle. The big problem here is that it is often very difficult tp get the public on side with a movement, to gain public trust to affect political will. When bad science is used in the manner that some abusers have in this issue, the public really loses faith. This hurts good, pure and applied science in the end. A shame is that regardless of the true processes occuring in the climate change arena, the issue may remain muddy for a long time to come as it will be very difficult to win public support back for true research and real science.

[Guest Sundancefisher]

This all looks like a monologue/personal crusade to me. Is there something you feel guilty about (dirty job, drive a hummer, support feedlots, dump oil down the catchbasin, etc) and perhaps need to try and absolve yourself? I realize that the jury is still out, but bottom line, the more garbage we produce, the worse off we are. I don't care whether you believe in climate change or not, if you produce emissions, they will accumulate, there will at some point be an effect, just like if we were to all piss straight into the river (untreated), at some point it would accumulate and there would be an effect. I am never on the side of polluting and I will always seek to minimize consumption as as the more *hit we pile up, the worse off we will be. A problem I see with your list (on an admittedly quick read through) is that you don't figure in any sort of ecological arguement. It appears to me that you have a fairly utilitarian view toward nature, which is common in Alberta. You see it as only for our use, not much value beyond what we need. See, I will disagree and say that I don't feel that we have a right to continually plunder natural systems, I don't see you or me as being superior to any other living thing, don't have the right to continually take. We MUST seek ways of becoming sustainable, reducing our consumption to producing our items - food, fuel, clothing, etc from lands already dusturbed. Of course I realize that at this time it is a pipe dream, but I feel that we have the responsibility to try. Just because we are smarter than than any other organism and have opposable thumbs does not mean that we have the right to exploit everything that we are able to dominate. I am as bad as most, I drive, I have a yard, I have a dog, I probably eat more than I should some times, but I do try and reduce my footprint through the many little things I can...reduce my water usage (don't water lawn, keep rain barrels for plants, 4 short showers per week, saving for dual flush toilets), only eat meat if it is sustainable game, recycle anything we can, focus purchases on items with minimal packaging, and many other things. Bottom line, you must at least try. Defeatist attitudes will make the world a worse place for my kids, your kids, their kids, and all the living things that currently exist here.

 

 

Just so you know, all the bad science surrounding the climate change issue, IPCC, really burns me up as well. Even though I believe in sustainabilty, reducing consumption, etc, I really think this issue has a big black eye at the moment. I say shame on those who use science as selfish vehicle. The big problem here is that it is often very difficult tp get the public on side with a movement, to gain public trust to affect political will. When bad science is used in the manner that some abusers have in this issue, the public really loses faith. This hurts good, pure and applied science in the end. A shame is that regardless of the true processes occuring in the climate change arena, the issue may remain muddy for a long time to come as it will be very difficult to win public support back for true research and real science.

 

I updated my quick list.

 

As for a crusade or monologue...personal or not...I hate bad science and one sided support for opinions. Because I am putting information out there for all to see quickly...if they so chose to read it...you seem to wish to label me.

 

Your argument however quickly jumps for man made CO2 induced global warming to cleaning up our pollution, garbage, excessive use of materials etc. That is an argument the pro global warming side uses to convince additional people that all can be fixed by simpling reducing CO2. That is an incorrect assumption and connection and is not part of the issue. It is great to say to convince those that are on the fence by throwing lots of non related problems into the mix and changing the scope of the argument but I don't buy it.

 

You will find many anti global warmers believe in reduce, reuse and recycle and reducing true pollution etc.

 

You and I probably agree more than you think. I just don't try and force anyone to believe anything. I also don't mind your opinions and won't talk about someone in a negative light because they simple believe the hype. Those that believe should be buying lots of carbon credits to put their money where their mouth is IMHO. Otherwise...it is just religious verbal blatherings versus substantial, deep down scientific convictions.

 

As for plundering and a fairly utilitarian view toward nature...you clearly know nothing of my upbringing, interests or education. I have put my own personal efforts to reducing my Carbon foot print on this site. Many say that killing game is plundering nature. Yet you seemingly believe otherwise. Be very careful how you translate issues and responses cause very quickly you become on the opposite side of the fence.

 

Sun

 

P.S. As for dual flush toilets...I have looked into these a lot. Those toilets are bad and not environmentally friendly. They don't work as advertised and will cause you to have to flush repeatedly to get ride of the by products of the wild game.

 

Also I have posted some very pro global warming articles as well. If people can't read and think for themselves...nothing I or anyone else can do to change that.

[BBBrownie]

[BBBrownie]

Also I have posted some very pro global warming articles as well. If people can't read and think for themselves...nothing I or anyone else can do to change that.

 

That was a nice little personal jab!

Just so you know I never stated which side of the "climate change" debate I am on, only that I support minimizing emissions, pollutants. I also do not think that harvesting game is in any way "on the other side of the fence>" You are linking carbon emissions to harvesting game as being in any way related(Other than the fuel my truck burns on the way to the forest)? I harvest sustainable animals as I am a conservationist, not a preservationist, there is a huge difference that you can look up if you are not aware of this. We do indeed influence our environment in many ways, some of which greatly benefit certain species, native or not. White tail deer have expanded their range with the advent of agriculture. They are not native to the calgary area, only naturalized. In the same way that I have no qualms with harvesting (albeit rarely) non-native fish species, or even native fish species(if it is a necessary management tool in modified or desturbed ecosystems), I have no issues with sustainable harvest of game species. I really don't care whether you are utilitarian, dominionistic, transcendental or what, I jsut observed from your list of values for the earth that they were all anthropocentric. Again, not looking for personal attacks here, this is how you become ostracized, your point will be moot. So, good on you for preaching your beliefs, but in the end neither of us is a climatologist (well, I am not anyhow) or an expert studying in this field, so all we have is opinions and my opinion is that garbage is bad, and climate change needs transparent research. BTW, I have taken many dumps on dual flush toilets, perhaps mine are well shaped or something, but they flush just fine thank you (although that may have to do with my being a vegetarian for the year due to not having time to harvest an animal this fall).

[Guest Sundancefisher]

That was a nice little personal jab!

Just so you know I never stated which side of the "climate change" debate I am on, only that I support minimizing emissions, pollutants. I also do not think that harvesting game is in any way "on the other side of the fence>" You are linking carbon emissions to harvesting game as being in any way related(Other than the fuel my truck burns on the way to the forest)? I harvest sustainable animals as I am a conservationist, not a preservationist, there is a huge difference that you can look up if you are not aware of this. We do indeed influence our environment in many ways, some of which greatly benefit certain species, native or not. White tail deer have expanded their range with the advent of agriculture. They are not native to the calgary area, only naturalized. In the same way that I have no qualms with harvesting (albeit rarely) non-native fish species, or even native fish species(if it is a necessary management tool in modified or desturbed ecosystems), I have no issues with sustainable harvest of game species. I really don't care whether you are utilitarian, dominionistic, transcendental or what, I jsut observed from your list of values for the earth that they were all anthropocentric. Again, not looking for personal attacks here, this is how you become ostracized, your point will be moot. So, good on you for preaching your beliefs, but in the end neither of us is a climatologist (well, I am not anyhow) or an expert studying in this field, so all we have is opinions and my opinion is that garbage is bad, and climate change needs transparent research. BTW, I have taken many dumps on dual flush toilets, perhaps mine are well shaped or something, but they flush just fine thank you (although that may have to do with my being a vegetarian for the year due to not having time to harvest an animal this fall).

 

That has nothing to do with you personally. In researching this topic there has been a lot of reading. When debating or simply discussing this with the average personal that feels extremely strong about this topic and it's implications on people...time and time again they don't understand the topic but rather go solely on what the media is telling them. That is the scary truth which I was commenting on in general. You may be reading what is out there. I doubt you have read everything I have posted and if I am wrong that is great. For anyone to still believe after reading and thinking about the concerns posted by others shows that they still have some techical opinions that they hold dear as gospel. One of my recent posts was strongly in favor of the pro side. I actually quite liked it and if I heard more like it and the science was done well I can still be convinced.

 

It is not about right or wrong but to me still about doing great science and not taking a hypotheses and picking data to make it work.

 

Anyways...when you come on this thread and state that we need to clean up the Earth...you are actually starting a new topic if your reference was also not pertaining to CO2.

 

Otherwise...if you are on the fence...you and I are the same.

 

If you want actual clean air and water, parks to play in, fish to catch, birds and bees to watch etc. etc. We are again both in agreement.

 

Just to be clear...your commentary on early posts is identical to trend arguments and strategies imposed by the IPCC. Take Climate change and blame anything you can to capture all demographics. Since that was not your intent and rather a general observation about wanting to live cleaner...could not agree more!

 

Cheers

 

Sun