Global Warming ..

[George Bahto]

 
     OK you nuts - explain this theory to me again!

[redanman]

Global warming, HELL!    

It is hubristic to think that we mortals understand the "normal" variance of weather in a short century or two.
Georgie-Boy, we got about 15"-18" in my part of PA, maybe, but drifts to 5 feet.  Hoyd-ya-do in Joisey?

[Tony Ristola]

Aye.  And since December, continental Europe is seeing one of its most miserable winters in some years.

[George Pazin]

The wonderful thing about global warming is that absolves a person of the necessity to think.

Too hot? GW
Too dry? GW
Too cold? GW
Too wet? GW
Too much snow? GW
Too little snow? GW

Wonderful brainwashing by the eco crowd. Wish we could have the same effect on the golf world. Heck, I'd settle for even just influencing Pat.

[Jim_Kennedy]

Dr. Bahto,
Check out the EPA website at
http://yosemite.epa.gov/oar/globalwarming.nsf/content/index.html

A pretty fair assessment of what is really happening, minus the hype from either camp.
I am not a scientist nor do I have any training in a meteorological discipline, I stick my head out the window to check the weather.

[Michael Dugger]

The crux of the biscuit is.......are we humanoids directly CAUSING the climate to change?  As redanman implied, none of us are in a position to make broad claims about global warming based on our short stay here on the planet....yet, we aren't exactly the dumbest species to walk the earth, either.

Check this out.  A couple years back when I was still going to school I took an environmental studies/statistics class.  We all know how irrational environmentalists can be, making broad claims about HOW THINGS ARE without any basis to back up their claims.  It was very good for me to learn about the nuts and bolts of these issue--examine data, etc.--look at this stuff from a scientific standpoint.  

One of the exercises we did was to examine rainfall, something we have plenty of here in Oregon.  In the mid 90's, I think '94 and '95, we got absolutely pounded.  People in downtown Portland were sand bagging the waterfront preparing for the river to crest.  If you've ever been to Portland you will understand how much water it would take to crest the banks.  Anyways, when we took the data from these two years and compared it to everything else that we have gathered over the past 75-100 years, we discovered that we had TWO 1 in 10,000 year occurances BACK TO BACK.  I'm no Einstein, but this seems to be quite a rare thing to have happen.  Maybe when you stretch the timeline out further, as redanman implied, it will not appear to be such a big deal, or a significant event......but are we to ALWAYS believe that it was just a fluke?  Are we always to believe that we ARE NOT changing our climate, simply because we cannot put all of the pieces to the puzzle together???

Do me wrong once, bad on you
Do me wrong twice, bad on me

[Mike Vegis @ Kiawah]

How can they claim "once in 10,000 year" occurrences when weather records only go back less than 200 years in that part of the country...?  Hmmmmm?

[George Bahto]

BillyV: we're getting about what your getting out there - glad I don't have to go anywhere for the next couple days

MikeV: so did you play golf down there today? - hah

and of course Jimmy Kennedy there at the Hotchkiss School (NW Conn) ....    well he won't see the ground til about June this year

[Keith Williams]

Good Point Mike,

One should point out that most of the very largest rainfall events, the real outliers, are merely calculations:  scientific extrapolations of existing data.  Rainfall events are calculated and judged from various different data sources, primarily intensity, duration and frequency and as the event size gets larger the difference in those criteria gets much smaller; meaning that the difference in a one year and a five year storm is pretty large, while the difference in a 100 year and a 200 year storm is very small.  Couple this with the environmental difficulties of actually measuring the stated criteria and the fact that immense storms like the ones mdugger mentioned haven't ever before been experienced and recorded, therefore no precedent had been set, and one finds that recording large storms is really one of the most inexact sciences.  Also remember that event frequencies are constantly changing as rainfall events are not static entities; if you have twelve fifty year storms in one year then statistically that size event no longer classifies as a fifty year event.  The statistical data, as a result of those strorms would change and a fifty year event would become slightly different.  I am not necessarily saying that a fifty year event has to only come along once every fifty years, but the calculations are based on the largest storm PROBABLE in a fifty year period.  It is actually very common to have events at a greater frequency than what their name indicates.  I remember in college one of my professors used to always stress that a five, ten or hundred year storms or whatever were always IMAGINARY events.  No real storm actually keeps an exact rainfall intensity for an exact time period to be classified as a certain storm event.  In reality storm events aren't real events, they are just measuring sticks and design standards for those of us in the fields that deal with stormwater.

Keith.

[Jim_Kennedy]

George,

AAAAAAAAAAAAARRRRRRRRRRRRRRRGGGGHHHH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!  

[Daryl "Turboe" Boe]

Come on Mike,
you aren't fighting fair.

You used facts.  And if I have learned one thing in my 14 years of dealing with environmentalists on a professional basis it is this they dont consider that fair.  It isnt fair for you to use facts or to prove anything they say to be as ridiculous as it usually turns out to be.  What is "important" in their eyes is what they had in their hearts when they make up these baseless claims.  And since they mean well you are a meany (and probably even a bigot, and homophobe, and hate clean air and water for that matter) for even calling something so "Important" into question.

Shame on you.  For penance you must become a member of the Sierra Club for 5 years.

[Jim_Kennedy]

Gee, on second thought George, that means I'll have more time to come down there and watch you waving your arms around.    

[A_Clay_Man]

If I were a living breathing planet what would I do to counteract any warming?

Even if the eco-nazi's are wrong I see no reason not to better ourselves as a planet. Bettering, being having the wisdom to be efficeint with resources and wisdom to know that one does not deficate where one dines.

What so wrong with that?

[Daryl "Turboe" Boe]

If I were a living breathing planet what would I do to counteract any warming?

Even if the eco-nazi's are wrong I see no reason not to better ourselves as a planet. Bettering, being having the wisdom to be efficeint with resources and wisdom to know that one does not deficate where one dines.

What so wrong with that?

Clay, Of course nothing is "wrong with that", but it is typical of the Eco-Nazi (your term not mine) to try to frame the arguement that way.  "Why how could you be against clean air?"  Obviously no one in their right mind would be.  But lets face it they frame the discussion in such a manner that it would appear that if you do not agree with them you are against clean air and water.  

What they do under those auspices is that they push to make ridiculuous regulations punishing capitalism which is their real goal anyway.  It just doesnt sound nearly as knoble as the mantra that they parrot publicly.

You mention "we should not deficate where we dine" and again I would comment that anyone in their right mind knows that, but I would submit that to use the typical Environmental Extremists view "We cannot trust people to know where or where not to deficate, we have to protect them from their own ignorance, therefore we should just outlaw defication entirely."   That would be their answer again to use one of their favorite lines that I have heard numerous times in my professional dealings.  "We do not have sufficient data to prove our position that (insert your favorite environmental cause here) is actually happening, but that is exactly why we must act now and act swiftly to make sure that (insert your favorite activity here) does not happen."

It is an easy postition to take, because it makes you feel so good, and you arent actually required to do any thinking to take it.

[Brian_Ewen]

Guys
I have said it before , this subject will never be taken seriously until it affects YOU .

Brian Ewen

[Jim_Kennedy]

At this time I would like to thank that great environmentalist,  and republican by the way, Theodore Roosevelt, who made preservation of wilderness a major part of his presidency.

George's humorous observation has inadvertently warmed up this little part of the globe. Perhaps actually learning something about the situation and not castigating a group of people who choose to worry about such things, as the environment, is more beneficial. Here is a NAS paper that is available free to download from their website. There are others, all free, if interested.

 http://books.nap.edu/books/0309058767/html/42.html

[DMoriarty]

Thanks to those who have helped me to finally grasp the scientific shortcomings of global warming theories.  We need more such well-reasoned, articulate, and factually based perspectives.  

Now I truly understand . . . we should dismiss global warming because "hubristic," "extremist," "brainwashing," "eco-nazi's," "have absolved persons of the necessity to think." Not only that, but they've refused to support their "baseless" claims with facts, instead they've had the audacity to resort to name calling and stereotyping.  How dare they!   All this to mask their real goal, which is to "punish capitalism."
  
Just a couple of questions though. . .
Does anyone else see any irony in the fact that you guys are criticizing scientists for basing their Global Warming theories on too small a window of time, while simultaneously dismissing global warming based on the fact that your neighborhood is having a rough February, weather-wise?

And speaking of the small window of time, what makes you guys think that scientists are limited to a couple of centuries when examining past climate changes.  We didn't have a thermometer reading to confirm the last ice age-- do you doubt that it happened?   Could there perhaps be other scientific ways to study past climate changes, besides the local weather station's records?  If we can accurately date dinosaur bones, what makes you think we can't accurately estimate past climate changes?  

[Joe Hancock]

DMoriarty,

Are you positive we have the ability to accurately date dinosaur bones? Any eyewitnesses?

Joe

[Keora]

Yeah, the tobacco manufacturers also used to say that their cigarettes aren't bad for you. I wonder who is being brainwashed.

I believe that much global warming is due to carbon dioxide from vegitation and methane from animals. We can't control this, however. What we can control is the amount of needless energy that is wasted by humans (I am a human, by the way). I don't mean to have a dig at America, but per capita, average Americans use 3 times as much energy to do the same things as the average European.

[Amish Abe]

Cigarettes are bad for you?  

Keora
You have to admit our economy is pretty productive which has a direct effect on energy use per human. I don't see us slowing down our economy, deliberately, someone has to make this crap.

[Keora]

Well if Americans use 3 times as much energy to do the same thing as Europeans, that would suggest it is not very productive. There are economic rewards for this, admittidely.

The truth is that people believe who it suits them to believe.

And yes, cigarettes are bad for you, unless they are part of a balanced diet of whisky and beer.

[JohnV]

For those who choose not to believe in science, more power to you.  I remember my roommate in college got religion and became convinced that the universe was only 4000 years old because someone added up everyone's age from Jesus back to Adam.  This mean that all scientific data such as Carbon-14 dating etc must be wrong.  Tree rings, carbon dating and other methods can determine that a year of heavy rains can be a 10,000 year flood or the age of the dinosaur's bones.

Just as some people here assume that there is a greater than straight line extrapolation between swing speed and the distance that a ball travels and the USGA is part of the conspiracy that doesn't tell us, they will also believe that there all the scientists in the world who have done the studies and the written papers on global warming are part of a greater conspiracy to take their precious SUVs away.

That being said, I do have a problem with a lot of the environmental groups who exaggerate the scientific data and claim the sky is falling, when it isn't.  Groups like the Sierra Club have lost my support over the years for that kind of thing.

"Eco-Nazis" are no worse than slash-and-burn forest-cutters or those who spout the silly terms that Rush Limbaugh came up with.

A few months ago, there was the 40th anniversary of the disaster at Denora, PA where hundreds of people died or were severely disabled by a killer cloud of pollution that was being emitted by the factories there.  This lead to many of the clean-air laws today.  But, the owners of those factories were just as anti-eco-nazi as many of you appear to be.  Thank goodness the environmentalists win some of the time (and unlike many of them, I don't think they should win all the time.)

[Amish Abe]

Brother Keora
There are aproximately 280 million Americans and 730 million Europeans. America's GDP is greater than all of Europe combined. It makes sense to me. You've also got aproximately 300 million living in underdeveloped...by Western standards... E.Europe. They would feel more at home in my neighborhood than in yours.

I love my lifestyle, Horse, buggy and such, and need for petro....but I can't see American city folk joining me out here in the sticks.

[Mike Vegis @ Kiawah]

Turbo--

Sierra Club!!!  

George--

Hitting the low to mid-60s today here on beautiful Kiawah Island Golf Resort.  A bit chilly for my taste.  Time to throw another log on the air conditioner.  I'll wait until tomorrow to play when it hits the mid-6os...  By the way, how's the weather up there...  I hear there might have been a bit of snow... eh?

[keora]

Abe

I should have said the EU and not Europe. This is the actual statistic, which will change when the EU expands. There are comparatively few 3+ litre cars in western Europe. We are only allowed travel at a certain speed so the extra capacity is useless.

America is the richest country in the world, but this is not a testomony to its energy policies. Unfortunately, scientifically, the energy burned in the States may have a more serious effect on countries with poorer infrastructures who are at the mercy of the weather.

You would have to ask the Eastern Europeans where they would prefer to live, I can't say for sure. Most seem very comfortable when they move within the EU.

I hope I don't sound like I'm having a go at America, because I don't mean to. It's one of the greatest countries in the world... maybe even in my top 10. Olé!