Global warming--solutions.

[MountainDon]

Plant a tree?? Screwed if you do or if you don't...  :-/

"Forget planting trees to negate your SUV's contribution to global warming -- according to Stanford University atmospheric scientist Ken Caldeira, forests in the wrong location can actually make the Earth hotter."

full article...

http://www.wired.com/science/discoveries/news/2005/12/69914

It leaves you wondering what to do. Tress look nice... go on and plant 'em!!

[benevolance]

Do not believe the hype that trees are not the answer...

Trees cool the earth...They clean the air and keep precious water from running off.. they prevent desertification and soil erosion...

So better water.. better soil... better air quality...More soil...

and they say trees are not the answer...

It is all bullshit...Just one of those neo con scientific reports to contradict the ever growing amount of evidence that carbon build up is warming the earth. This study tells us that trees and nature are warming the earth instead...

Which the heavy industry and oil guys want the report to say....because if it is trees that are causing all the problems in the environment...Then they should not have to build pollution free factories or spend money to limit emissions etc.....

Let's blame this on the trees...

Holy F you C k!

[Sassy]

PG&E POLICY BODES POORLY FOR CALIFORNIA
By Michael Shaw

September 10, 2007

NewsWithViews.com

Peter Darbee has been the chief executive officer of California's Pacific Gas and Electric (PG&E) for approximately two years. Pacific Gas and Electric was the first utility to support California's global warming legislation. This should come as no surprise as PG&E's commitment to "Sustainable" policy was evident as far back as the 1992 Rio UN Conference where the globalist Sustainable program and the global warming agenda were laid out and embraced by chosen participants.

Since then, PG&E has been active in the promotion of setting the stage for limiting the prospects of individual opportunity and collective improvement. The Company was one of few business participants (Ken Lay on behalf of Enron was another) to engage on Bill Clinton's "Council for Sustainable Development." In summary, Sustainable Development calls for the abolition of private property, the formation of world government and a reduced human population. This is accomplished via the program of so-called "Three E's."

The Three E's are equity, economy and environment.
http://www.newswithviews.com/Shaw/michael10.htm

[MountainDon]

PG&E POLICY BODES POORLY FOR CALIFORNIA

More "it's for the common good" [highlight]garbage,[/highlight] and I'm being polite.

[Sassy]

Don't know why I always feel the need to post a lot of political articles the day before I go back to work but hopefully, someone reads them.  I think it's important that we are aware of what our gov't is doing & how it effects us as owner/builders/gardners etc.

EXPERIMENTAL WEATHER MODIFICATION COMING TO YOUR NEIGHBORHOOD, SOON

By Rosalind Peterson
November 2, 2007
NewsWithViews.com

Prepare yourself for more water shortages, floods, droughts, and a sharp decline in food supplies in the United States when U.S. Senate Bill 1807 & U.S. House Bill 3445, that were introduced on July 17, 2007, are voted into law. These identical bills, titled: "Weather Mitigation Research and Development Policy Authorization Act of 2007", are moving forward at a rapid rate in Committees on Commerce, Science and Transportation. Please note that these bills were not referred to Committees on Agriculture, Natural Resources, the Environmental Protection Agency, or Forestry, and that you were not invited to debate the merits of these bills by your elected representatives.

"It is the purpose of this act to develop and implement a comprehensive and coordinated national weather mitigation policy and a national cooperative Federal and State program of weather mitigation and research." The Board of Directors will be comprised of eleven members and only one member shall be a representative of the Department of Agriculture. There are no members of the public to be appointed to this Board, no EPA representatives, no Natural Resources or Forestry representatives, and there are no provisions for county, state, public, or agricultural oversight of these programs prior to implementation.  con't at link below...

http://www.newswithviews.com/Peterson/rosalind8.htm

[benevolance]

anyone keeping up with the new eco friendly batteries the ultra capacitators? 10 times the energy stored over lead acid and no nasty chemicals either... they charge in a fraction of the time and last almost forever....

The Zenn electric car is going to get them as their power source this fall and the range of the electric car will go from 35 miles to 350 miles just by changing the battery...

the Zenn is a neat car because it plugs in at home and in some states you can drive for as little as 1 cent per mile

[MountainDon]

the range of the electric car will go from 35 miles to 350 miles just by changing the battery...

I've heard of them. The skeptic in me says we'll have to reserve judgment until they've been in use for six months to a year. There's no free lunch.

[MountainDon]

Maybe someone can tell us what you do with your electric car in the winter and it's chilly to downright cold?  We wouldn't want Homegrown in WI to freeze her bu## off driving into town, would we?

Maybe a wood burning stove?  :-/

[StinkerBell]

I say we look at the Amish. We go horse and buggy. Plus side it has ambient surround sound......

[MountainDon]

This thread has lain dormant for a while....

One 'picture' that has been used a lot with reference to the dire effects of global warming is the dire straits of the polar bears. We have been told by Al Gore "that for the first time, polar bears have been drowning in significant numbers." However the study, where most people who bandy this about, by the Polar Bear Specialist Group of the  World Conservation Union, really states that out of 20 distinct subpopulations of polar bears only one or possibly two in the Baffin Bay area were declining. More than half were known to be stable and two subpopulations were actually increasing.

Global polar bear population has actually increased from around 5000 in the 1960's to around 25,000 today, through stricter hunting regulations. The two populations that have been in decline are in areas that have been getting colder in the last 50 years! The two increasing populations in the Beaufort Sea area are in an area that is getting warmer! There has been a single sighting of 4 dead bears after an "abrupt windstorm" in an area housing one of the increasing populations.

The best studied polar bear population lives on the west side of Hudson Bay. That its population has declined 17 percent from 1200 in1987 to 950 in 2004 has received much news coverage. However, not mentioned is that since 1981 the population has soared from just 500. Moreover nowhere in the news do you hear that each year some 300 - 500 bears are shot globally, with an average of 49 shot each year on the west side of Hudson Bay. Even if we take the case of decline at face value it means that we have lost 15 bears to global warming and 49 each year due to hunting.

All we hear in the news are exaggerated and emotional claims that are not supported by the real data.

IF we are really losing 15 bears a year to global warming we can easily remedy that by allowing the shooting of fewer bears, at much less cost than that proposed by the ill advised Kyoto Protocol.

Most of the above from Cool it; The skeptical environmentalist's guide to global warming, by Bjorn Lomborg

[glenn kangiser]

They bend the story as needed to fit their desires or to increase their profits.  Usually somewhere there is an angle that is not the subject they lead you to believe they are talking about.

[benevolance]

Yeah there are a lot of bullshit reports and quotes...What I do not understand is why people are fighting kyoto and other pollution controls? I mean who out there believes that pollution is good or that emissions are not causing harm to the environment...

No agreement to cut pollution levels is going to be perfect...But if the world cuts their emissions then the world is cleaner, greener and our natural resources are more secure... It should be as simple as that.

Yet any time there is any idea to make a meaningful change and go green for the planet it is met with heavy resistance by the industrialized world

America is the world's #1 polluter...And we lash out in anger at the notion that there needs to be pollution reforms

This notion itself to me is sickening....

[Sassy]

I don't like some anonymous group of people somewhere in the world dictating the rules that the United States should be governed by...  you can bet that our best interests are not on their minds - more like the international bankers' & propagandists'.  That's why I don't support the Kyoto agreement... 

Besides, I think China & India pollute more than the United States - I'll have to get some numbers - China isn't under the Kyoto guidelines, has never bought into them...  people that go over there to visit say the pollution in the air & water is terrible.  The US has cleaned up a lot of stuff - I'm all for clean air & water - that's what makes me so angry about the damnable chemtrails the gov'ts spray on a daily basis around the world.  Peter, I haven't heard you respond to that even one time - what about the chemtrails?

[glenn kangiser]

I take pictures of them doing their near daily spray runs after which the entire sky clouds over.

They are stealing our solar power too.  Maybe we can stop them by pursuing the pollution angle if not the chemtrail angle.  These trails do not dissipate like normal contrails, which generally disappear in a few miles behind the plane.  Ice sublimates- vapor dissipates - chemtrails spread and dominate the sky with white cloudy overcast.







This may be where the Pentagon lost part of 2.3 trillion dollars that they will not talk about.  Top Secret.  We must not tell the public what we are spraying over them...even if it is their money.  They may object.  Look up once in a while if you don't believe me. 

Natural flight patterns look like fireworks from major centers if plotted on a map.  These are intentional grids not even close to natural flight patterns.  I am a pilot and know what they look like.  I have seen these guys in the sky when I was flying - too close for comfort with no warning and told by Air Traffic Control that they were not there.  I was seeing things.  Like hell.  I was at 10,000 feet over Redding. CA area when this happened.

[MountainDon]

That's why I don't support the Kyoto agreement... 

Ditto.

The expected temperature rise if we do nothing at all is 4.7 degrees F by the year 2100.  I have read that Kyoto matters very little for the climate. That even if all the countries in the world signed up and followed the guidelines that in reality there would be extremely little change in climate. That we would still reach the temperature rise of 4.7 F in the year 2105. Not a good deal for the billions that would be spent. These figures are not from some wacko anti environmentalist group. They come from the IPCC [Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change].

India, China and other developing countries are growing their economies and are not likely to sign to Kyoto. The deputy director of China's Office of Global Environmental Affairs has stated, "You cannot tell people who are struggling to earn enough to eat that they need to reduce their emissions."

The earth has been warmer than it is now before. It has also been colder. Greenland had settlements at one time, and they grew crops. Yes the earth is in a warming period. Yes, the build up of human caused CO₂ has caused at least some, a good part, of the rise. But warmer may not be as bad as the envirowackos want us to believe.

In the UK during the heatwave of 2003 about 2000 people died from heat related causes. That made extraordinary big news worldwide. However, left unsaid for the most part was the fact that in an average UK winter about 25,000 die from the cold. And that during the cold winters of 1998-2000 about 47,000 died from cold related causes in the UK in each of those years. A single episode of 2000 heat deaths garners the worlds attention whereas the cold related deaths of 25,000 brings hardly a ripple.

For the UK it has been calculated that a rise of 3.6 F in temperature would result in 2000 more heat deaths, but a reduction of about 20,000 fewer cold deaths. Not a bad deal.

[MountainDon]

Here's an interesting comparison. Helsinki, Finland to Athens, Greece.

We humans are adaptable. There is an optimal temperature for any location. This is the temperature at which there are the fewest deaths. Going above or below this temperature causes an increase in deaths. In Helsinki this temp is 59 F. In Athens the optimal temp is 75 F. The optimal temp is also very close to the average summer temp. The actual temp goes above the optimal temp less frequently than the actual temp goes below. In Helsinki the optimal temp is only exceeded 18 days a year and below the optimal temp 312 days. Research shows that 55 people die from temps above the optimal and 1655 people die from temps below the optimal. Well, you say, it's Finland, the frozen north, you expect more deaths from cold.

On to Athens where the optimal temp of 75 F is exceeded 63 days a year, below optimal 251 days a year. The death toll from excess heat in Athens is 1376 people. The death toll from excess cold is 7852. Again more people die from cold in Athens, than from heat. Startling?

So we're adaptable. We live well at 59 F and at 75 F. If the average global temp rises there would be many fewer cold deaths than deaths from the rise in temp. A warming world would save lives.

One last thing for now on the temperature. The lower temperatures increase more than the higher temperatures. In the last century global winter temperatures have risen more than summer temperatures, and night temperatures have risen more than daytime temperatures. Moreover winter temps have risen more in colder areas than in the warmer areas. Most of this has occurred in the northern hemisphere. Only Australia and New Zealand have had their daytime temps increase.

Temps have been recorded in central England since 1659. There has been a clear reduction in the number of cold days, but no increase in the number of hot days. We don't hear about this stuff in mainstream news. Disaster sells papers and draws viewers; good news does not.

'nuff for now.

[ScottA]

What exactly do you think they are spraying Glen?

[glenn kangiser]

Tests have shown some barium and various other things.  Research chemtrails on Rense or the net.  Some of it seems a bit out there but it is obvious that it is happening.  Also there is a theory it may be something to do with HAARP -- weather modification for warfare or other reasons. 

A couple bills have been recently submitted to allow it, but that's because it is already happening.

The military said they would like to own the weather by 2025.  To implement such a large project they have to be already working on it. 

http://www.abovetopsecret.com/pages/af2025.html

http://www.rense.com/general50/owningweather.htm

http://www.rense.com/politics6/chemdatapage.html

Look up in the sky before you dismiss it all as conspiracy.  Something is going on.  The odd winter weather can be affected by HAARP also - some of the grids may assist it.  They have found they can steer the jetstream with HAARP by heating the ionosphere and one article mentioned that the sprayed grids may be to measure it's effects via satelite.

Here is a start -- no particular reason for choosing this source.  http://educate-yourself.org/zsl/dearionosphericphysicist07sep03.shtml

[benevolance]

Okay lets talk turkey about some of the pollution issues.

If China or India have surpassed America in Greenhouse emissions it was only the last month or so...For the last hundred years the USA has been the worlds largest polluter...And think about this...If China does surpass the USA in emissions it is not that big a deal considering that they have 5 times the population and right now are at about the same level of pollution...

That fact itself should  bring this into clarity for Americans how we have used the world as our septic tank.

Kyoto is not perfect...And yes other countries are involved in the decision making process...America could have been an integral part of that process.. only they have refused by and large to have anything to do with it...

A loss of habitat or forest is not that big an issue for a country the size of America...But consider how small the countries in Europe are and how fragile their eco systems are....And then Consider our water and air pollution are carried directly to them via the jet stream.

America is extremely selfish.... China has started to get serious about cleaning up their environment..They have slowed population growth and they have started to make the green economy in China Profitable...China will clean up their act I fear long before America Does.

And it shocks me quite frankly when people here are against things like Kyoto or environmental controls...When refusing to advance restrictions on air pollution give coal and oil a green light to continue business as usual....Where placing restrictions on emissions and setting goals for lowering emissions year by year would drive the green economy here in America...It would allow Solar and Wind tech to grow...It would allow America to rebuild a efficient mass transit rail system And get the bulk of the inefficient truckers off the roads...

There might be slight changes in the way we do business...But ensuring the air and water is clean is worth it...and for every job that is lost to a dirty tech another opens up in green tech....Actually there are more jobs and a stronger economy in using everything throwing nothing away..Profit margins go up when we recycyle and turn what used to be garbage into something useful. Innovation will always allow there to be limitless possibilities for this economy... America has a great Climate...All kinds of natural resources (water, trees, Arable land, minerals.) America will always have a strong economy so long as they use innovation

I just do not see how you compare air quality restrictions to the Federal Reserve. The Fed gives us nothing of importance...They do nothing to improve the quality of our life and we do not need them...

Air quality restrictions ensure better air and water...Which benefit everyone...And ultimately allow more green tech to be implicated. We need clean air and water...We need green tech...We need to wean ourselves of dependence on foreign oil and fossil fuels for the most part....Going green will save this country billions... it will reduce the foreign trade deficit and it will reduce the national debt...

This is a win, win, win situation

[Sassy]

Peter, I am not against pollution control - making our air, water & land clean - I remember just 20, maybe only 10 yrs ago when people would talk about Europe & other foreign countries not being able to drink their own water - that they had to drink bottled water & low & behold, here in the US most people are drinking bottled water.  We are still blessed that we can drink our well water at our place in the mountains & the valley. 

But, there is a small town a few miles from Kerman - 30 miles, maybe.  They started out with a little cheese factory - great for the little town's economy...  there are city, state & federal restrictions on pollution - but this factory which has now grown into the world's largest, pumps out a million gallons of polluted water a day!  Think of that - and only recently have people gotten on the band wagon & the company is being sued.  The city fathers must have known what was going on, most everyone else must have known - it's probably new arrivals who have bought homes/land there that are making the stink.  Actually the lawsuit was settled in 2005, it looks like...

"Cheese Maker, State Settle

California water-quality enforcers have agreed to drop all allegations of wrongdoing against the world's largest cheese factory in the biggest water pollution case in Central Valley history, according to a tentative settlement released Tuesday. In exchange, Hilmar Cheese Co. of Merced County will pay $3 million to be divided between the state and a Hilmar-commissioned study of groundwater pollution of the food processing industry as a whole, according to the agreement."  http://republican.sen.ca.gov/opeds/99/oped2987.asp

So, lets make even more laws, lets invent more permits, rules, regulations, strangleholds on the people - who usually suffer from those?  My guess is you & me, the little guy... the big companies, corporations get by with murder...  we have the Patriot Act - is it making us more safe?  Heck no, it is only taking more of our freedoms away & the so called terrorists (read gov't goons) are running wild over the citizens.  So, who's going to oversee these big international spies who are checking out how much we are polluting? 

Have you read & understood the UN's Agenda 21 yet?  I think you made a comment on the "LibertyGarden" site out of Santa Cruz, CA http://www.libertygarden.com/gateway/html/modules.php?op=modload&name=PagEd  They explain Agenda 21 & Sustainable Development pretty good... 

[benevolance]

Sassy nice article and all... you are sidestepping this issue and getting off track...

Stop trying to go all over the place...There are exceptions to every rule... Stick to the basics... The basics of this is that cleaner water and air are good...taking steps to protect our natural resources are good...Setting guidelines for pollution and emissions to prevent future pollution and to clean up existing pollution is also good.

It does not have to be a bad thing when the international community gets together to agree on matters of pollution control...In the past they have led to the elimination of CFC's and the replacement of leaded gasoline with unleaded gasoline...Also things like Low Sulphur Diesel fuel have come about from pressure for change from the international community on pollution.

Kyoto is far from perfect...But the goal of it is to reduce emissions from the industrialized nations of the world. A very worthwhile goal...As china and India experience more growth and have their economies grow they will be brought under scrutiny by the international community also...

Pollution is the slavery type issue of this century...200 years ago some countries abolished slavery and others continued with slaves...And the international community frowned upon it and put pressure on the countries with slaves until it became abolished worldwide... The same thing will happen with rampant unchecked out of control pollution and emissions.

It is very sad that people in America are opposing responsible change in the way we use resources and pollute the earth... our excuse is the equivalent to a 4 year old arguing with their mother...
But mom, everyone else is doing it... what about susy johnson....

And then your mom says... if susy johnson jumped off the bridge would you?

Where is our moral consciousness?  Cleaning up america is the right thing to do.... period... Cleaning up the world is the right thing to do... period... People are looking at this all wrong...taking steps to greener america will pay dividends forever in this country..having cleaner air and water will lower medical bills and mean less money spent in the future to clean water and air for consumption...More trees means better more regular weather patterns...it means cooler temputures cleaner air...Less desertification and so on and so forth

Why is it people in this country are opposed to cleaning up america when we as americans will directly benefit from cleaning up the air and water we consume?...Conserving energy and using more efficient appliances and vehicles means lower fuel and energy charges it means less dependency on foreign oil...It will drive the economy getting more for less.. meaning everyone will have more money to spend on other goods with their energy needs being met...

going green does not have to be something that hurts us at all..It can be very beneficial ecologically and economically...But we are so damned concerned about what some other country is doing we cannot do what is right and what needs to be done to protect our health and well being.

It sickens me

[Sassy]

Now, now, Benevolance - I think the individual - you & I are making steps to decrease pollution - I don't need a foreign gov't to tell me to keep my "nest" clean...  I use very little power when I'm at our house in the valley, we have solar & wind power in the mountains & use it to pump our water & run everything else, unless, of course, the gov't has been spraying chemtrails all over the skies & have blocked the sun like they do almost everyday!  What pollution is that causing?  What is happening to our ionosphere?  The holes in the ozone layer have been at the arctic & antarctic points where the magnetic pull is stronger & closer to the earth's surface than anywhere else - that's where they have the big High Frequency Active Auroral Research Programs - Russia has lots of them, they started them in the 50's, we have our share... 

If we were following gov't regulations, we would be required to hook up to the grid because the citizen isn't capable of taking care of himself "if you won't take care of yourself, the state of California will take care of you" per the local building & safety office & California law... If we were following all the laws & regulations in place right now we couldn't have afforded to build our cabin with basically the dirt beneath our feet & fallen trees, recycled windows, appliances & the sweat of our brows (ok, we did use some machinery, but they were older, repaired machines) it would have been AGAINST THE LAW! Oh, BTW, even though our ground perked well, we probably would have been required to install a $25-$30,000 engineered septic system per the county's clean water regulations...  shall I go on?  Normally, most people who own their own land, take care of it.  Heck, even when I rented, the places looked a lot better when I left them than when I moved in!  People who don't care, aren't going to care if there are laws in place, either...  re the trashing of our country by illegal aliens while our illustrious leaders stand by & watch.

All the pure water, pure air laws & regulations will not help if billion $$ corporations are slapped on the hands when they pollute (cheese factory) - all the Kyoto treaties/agreements in the world are not going to stop them... 

I am not deviating from the point - I understand what you are saying - what I'm trying to point out is the letter of the law doesn't necessarily work - you've railed against the many laws & regulations on countless occasions...  if we want to live in a totally regulated, totalitarian gov't, put everyone in the Halliburton Camps the gov't is preparing right now for those who think & do for themselves...

The gov't's, handlers, controllers, whatever you want to call them, will charge the carbon tax, regulate away private land, close down the national parks & public lands so no one can use it because they might leave a footprint or use too much toilet paper...  then only allow big corporations to build cities where we can all be corralled & monitored while these very same people continue with their weather manipulations, mass pollution & so on - but you & I will be under control 

Good thoughts but bad outcomes on life & liberty - that's not selfish - that is living on God's earth - He said to take care of it...  most of the big corporations certainly don't care about anything more than the bottom line - profits... most of our gov't leaders don't care about much more than power, looking good & what it profits them. 

So, I have to again, politely disagree with your methods of regulation   

[Sassy]

Global Warming, Inc.  Carbo-gedden, the Conclusion

"As populist and conspiratorial as this may seem, I really do believe that America's petroleum policy has been shaped in large part by the avarice and selfishness of a few. Lately, this assertion is made flesh in the form of the world's greatest global warming profiteer: Al Gore, Inc.

Despite his reception of the Nobel Peace Prize and incessant fawning praise from the mainstream media, the fact remains that before adopting climate change as his cause celebre`, Al Gore was nothing more than your run-of-the-mill American career politician whose run was over. And with only a degree in Government to fall back on after the 2000 election, he desperately needed a new gig...

This isn't to say that Gore hasn't been consistently at the vanguard of the climate-change issue since it first came on the scene, or rather, since he first forced it there. Indeed, this may be the only constant thread of rhetoric, and perhaps belief (you'll see what I mean in a minute), in his political life. Gore held Congressional hearings on CO2 and climate change in the late 1970s and again in the '80s, wrote numerous articles and editorials on the subject, published 1992's Earth in the Balance — and of course, starred in 2006's hugely successful "documentary" on climate change, An Inconvenient Truth, for which he also wrote a companion book in that same year.

However, I maintain that it's easy to "believe" in something that's profitable — either in terms of political image or in monetary terms. For me, the proof is in whether someone walks like he talks. You decide if The Reverend of Gaia (Gore actually attended divinity school in the early '70s) is "living the word" or just profiting from it:

    *
      According to BusinessWeek and other sources, Al Gore's 20-room, 8-bath Nashville mansion drained more electricity from the grid per month than 20 average American households combined in 2006 — the same year his book and "documentary" called on Americans to conserve electricity. This represents an increase in consumption of 13.5% over the previous year.
       
    *
      Not ashamed enough at merely over-consuming electricity, habitants of Gore's home and guesthouse sucked an average of nearly $1,100 a month worth of natural gas in 2006.
       
    *
      Instead of walking to save greenhouse gases, Gore and his entourage drove five cars the roughly 500 yards from his hotel to the screening of An Inconvenient Truth at the Cannes Film Festival.

Aside from this kind of hypocrisy, Gore has leveraged his pet cause to morph himself from a public servant who, according to Newsweek, barely made the millionaire list on paper in 2000 into a "green" consulting juggernaut now worth an estimated $100 million or more. Consider also:

    *
      Gore claims to offset his mammoth personal carbon footprint by buying carbon credits from a company, Generation Investment Management (an institutional asset management firm specializing in opportunities positioned to cash in on global-warming-driven policy changes), of which Gore himself is the Chairman and Founding Partner. To say he stands to gain financially, as this firm's global clean-energy investments pay off, would be an obscene understatement. He's not buying pollution absolution, he's simply funneling that money into investments that are poised to ripen on the strength of his own hot air.
       
    *
      Last November, Gore was named as a new partner in a famously successful venture-capital firm, Kleiner, Perkins, Caulfield and Byers, symbolically leading their "Greentech" division — a strategic alliance with Gore's firm, Generation Investment Management. Though Gore has stated that his entire upfront salary will go to the non-profit Alliance for Climate Protection (which he Chairs, coincidentally), he stands to rake in tens, maybe hundreds of millions down the road as KPCB claims its 30% profit stake as "green" start-up firms that Gore helps them cherry-pick for funding go public or are sold.   

If you look at all this from a certain point of view (an objective one), what we've basically got here is a politician with a flair for opportunism shrewdly pre-positioning himself to profit from climate change hysteria that he may or may not believe in — then collaborating with Hollywood big-shots in making a high-profile movie that, along with a willing media, pumps such hysteria to a fever pitch. Obscene profit, accolades, Nobel prizes and freedom-robbing legislation ensues... "
Jim Amrhein
Freedoms Editor, Whiskey & Gunpowder  http://www.whiskeyandgunpowder.com/Archives/2008/20080116.html

[MountainDon]

Maybe I didn't make myself clear before. I do believe CO₂ is causing some or even the greatest amount of the warming climate. I do believe greenhouse emissions should be reduced. But I also believe that a few fear mongers in conjunction with the media have exaggerated the rapidity of the increase to come. I also believe by rushing headlong into Kyoto we will be spending much more money than we'll ever see returned in the form of benefits to worldwide humanity.

Too much is blamed on global warming without proper scientific backup. Media and those wishing to make a name latch onto anything that is fearful and run with it. Like I said before not all warming may be bad.

The whole greenhouse gas thing is rife with inaccuracies and half truths. That's what sickens me. A warmer world will produce more rainfall. It may be distributed differently than today, the south of the US getting less, but there being more in other areas.

There has been some melting of coastal shelf ice in one area of Antarctica, but have you read that as a whole the continent of Antarctica is getting colder, the temperature at the south pole has been declining since record keeping began in 1957. Scientific studies indicate Antarctica is soaking up water at a higher rate than Greenland is melting. And the breakup of that ice shelf did not raise ocean levels as the ice was floating. Melting floating ice does not cause a rise in water level. Try it with a glass of water and an ice cube or two.

Contrary to Al Gore the penguins as a whole are not in grave danger either. Their situation is much like the polar bear situation I previously mentioned. One population of penguins had a sudden decrease in the 70's, but has remains stable since. Another even larger population has increased more than 40% over the past 20 years.

It's been said that occurrences of malaria will increase and there will be many more deaths, all due to global warming. Not true. There will be more people at risk of malaria as the world warms. But we in the USA have basically eradicated malaria here. People used to die from malaria in the USA. In the 1920's 2% of the US population got malaria. We don't have to worry about malaria anymore because of better health treatment, better nutrition, increased city population over rural and mosquito control. We've proved that malaria can be controlled, eradicated, so in a warming world malaria is a non issue. Or at least it can be dealt with as we've shown.

There are many more inaccuracies, fallacies, omissions and outright distortion of the facts concerning climate warming.

So I'll finish today by saying that I believe, and there are many real scientists in agreement, that the popular image of the effects of climate warming are massively exaggerated toward scary scenarios. Yes, there are damages but there are also benefits. I'd like to see more balanced coverage, more common sense and less hysteria.

Oh...

...international community gets together to agree on matters of pollution control...replacement of leaded gasoline with unleaded gasoline..

The USA and Canada took the lead out of gasoline under their own initiative, not from any pressures from other countries. Last I knew leaded gasoline is still used in some countries in Africa, Middle East, Asia, Latin America and Eastern Europe. It wasn't until 2000 that it was totally illegal to sell leaded fuel in most European countries. I believe those countries still using lead are phasing it out. But the USA and Canada did it first. The last time I was in Mexico (2 - 3 years) leaded fuel was still being sold.

The basics of this is that cleaner water and air are good...

Absolutely true. And in the USA both are cleaner in most respects today than 20-25 years ago, and we have more people.

[Sassy]

Ice returns as Greenland temps plummet     

Residents insist Greenland's freezing temperatures don't mean global warming has been called off

While the rest of Europe is debating the prospects of global warming during an unseasonably mild winter, a brutal cold snap is raging across the semi-autonomous nation of Greenland.

On Disko Bay in western Greenland, where a number of prominent world leaders have visited in recent years to get a first-hand impression of climate change, temperatures have dropped so drastically that the water has frozen over for the first time in a decade.

'The ice is up to 50cm thick,' said Henrik Matthiesen, an employee at Denmark's Meteorological Institute who has also sailed the Greenlandic coastline for the Royal Arctic Line. 'We've had loads of northerly winds since Christmas which has made the area miserably cold.'

Matthiesen suggested the cold weather marked a return to the frigid temperatures common a decade ago.

Temperatures plunged to -25°C earlier this month, clogging the bay with ice and making shipping impossible for small crafts, according to Anthon Frederiksen, the mayor of the town of Ilulissat, where Disko Bay is located.

http://www.cphpost.dk/get/105114.html