Its always cold at these things

conifermtman wrote: theweek.com/article/index/210181/irony-a...lobal-warming-summit

Irony alert: The unusually chilly global-warming summit
Cancun is hosting the U.N. conference on man-made climate change — amid record cold temperatures

When will these so called scientists learn? They look like fools every time they have a summit.

Yes, because local seasonal air temps mean so much more than global averages of lower atmosphere, and ocean temps, and ocean acidification, over the last 150 years. By the way, we've just started what may be the strongest La Nina since 1955-56, which generally causes cooling and may keep 2010 from beating 1998 as being the hottest year in a decade and a half.
http://www.reportingclimatescience.com/ ... guide.html
While you're at it, why not cite this Polish tabloid story too? http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/ar ... 80%93-not/
Coldest Winter in 1000 Years Cometh - Not.
4 Dec 2010

SS109 wrote: In the 70's the climate scientists were warning us the Ice Age was coming back, it is overdue, maybe global warming is holding back the glaciers?

Dude, haven't you brought this up before?
http://journals.ametsoc.org/doi/pdf/10. ... BAMS2370.1
http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/ar ... ling-myth/
http://climateprogress.org/2008/11/10/k ... consensus/
http://www.project-syndicate.org/commen ... f1/English

In 1824, Fourier discovered why our planet’s climate is so warm – tens of degrees warmer than a simple calculation of its energy balance would suggest. The sun brings heat, and earth radiates heat back into space – but the numbers did not balance. Fourier realized that gases in our atmosphere trap heat. He called his discovery l’effet de serre – the greenhouse effect.

Then, in 1897, Svante Arrhenius, who earned a Nobel Prize for chemistry six years later, calculated how much global warming a doubling of CO2 in the atmosphere would cause.

in the late 1950’s, when Charles Keeling started to measure CO2 with unprecedented accuracy in Antarctica and on Mauna Loa in Hawaii, far away from any sources. By 1960, he was able to prove that CO2 was indeed on the rise.

It then took only a few years until, in 1965, an expert report – the first of many – to US President Lyndon B. Johnson warned of global warming. In 1972, a more specific prediction was made in the leading science journal Nature , namely that temperatures would warm by half a degree Celsius by 2000. And, in 1979, the US National Academy of Sciences issued a stark warning of impending global warming.

It wasn't scientists who were making a big deal out of it - it was mass media. We know how accurate and credible they are - are you really going to use them as a source for your argument? For a first-hand, unique account of this phenomenon, read Stephen Schneider's Science As A Contact Sport - he became one of the biggest activists for doing something about AGW, yet one of his very own papers published in the '70s showed possible global cooling, which later turned out to have been missing key variables that skewed the temps negatively. His description of how deniers still use it today to try to show how "uncertain" scientists are is eye-opening/enlightening.

Nobody that matters wrote: Then we've got no problems. Just watch the weather on the TV when they show the record highs and lows - Most of 'em are really old records. That must mean we're stabalizing, not swinging wildly.

http://theweek.com/article/index/205871 ... te-records

97 degrees is nothing compared to September 28. That day, downtown L.A. registered at 113 degrees, besting the old mark of 112 set in 1990.
While searing weather is common in Sudan, the 121-degree temperature recorded on June 25 in the city of Dongola was the hottest the country has ever seen. The previous record was set in 1987.

You are seeing a skewed sample - they only show the U.S. records on our weather channels. Look globally and look at all record-breaking temps and then break it down by how many years since they were broken. And then look at the frequency of record-breaking recently versus in the past 100 years.

SS109 wrote: So if you believe energy company scientists have an agenda, why can't we also consider that climatoligists also have an agenda? Cry wolf and you are likely to get more funding than if you say the increased warming has happened centuries earlier and it wasn't the end of the world.

Remember when the Avian flu was going to kill us all? Another science fueled disaster story that failed to live up to the hype.

An illogical conclusion. Because they don't need funding to study "global warming" - there are plenty of climate topics still to research and receive funding. Frankly, the scientists aren't crying for more funding for research, the ones who are speaking out as activists are saying that money needs to be spent doing something - and that wouldn't be given to them, but to energy companies and energy research, not climate research. So how exactly would that directly benefit climate scientists?
Science fueled disaster story? rofllol Maybe you should start reading Science or Nature instead of mass media and you'd get a more accurate story. We got lucky with the most recent strain of H1N1 in that it wasn't as lethal as it could have been; but, it was still one of the most highly contagious of recent times - it spread around the globe faster than any other previously circulating strain, and displaced the usual seasonal strains as the dominant infectious strain within one season. It is still circulating in farm and wild animals, recombining with other flu strains, and still has the capability to mutate into a high mortality strain. Would you rather that they err on the side of caution, or wait and see how bad it is before making a vaccine against it, a process that currently takes 9 months?

Martin Ent Inc wrote: No one is discounting scientists, just the fact that some are looney. Even their own associates disagree.

Look at the Black hole theory, not a hole at all.

Life needs water, phosphorous, etc to exist. Guess not with the new discovery.

Science is all about coming up with new ideas to explain observed phenomena, disagreement, and competing theories, until one emerges that fits best with all previous observations. Find me some documentation showing that scientists suffer higher rates of mental illnesses versus general population, then it'll be more than just opinion. Just disagreeing doesn't equal being "loony"

Of course a black hole isn't a "hole" - it's effects are felt 3 dimensionally - the event horizon is a sphere. Guess what? I'd wager that your understanding of the timing of the Big Bang isn't what scientists understanding of it is either, or where on our tongue we taste sweet, salty, bitter, and sour. Doesn't mean that they're wrong, just that you don't know what they do. Don't get me wrong, I'm not blaming you as there's so much info in each specialty now that it must be your field of expertise to be current on everything. It's just that you can't blame scientists, or call them names, for your ignorance.

The story of arsenic is just beginning... http://news.sciencemag.org/scienceinsid ... tml?ref=hp But it seems that you are accepting it unequivocally, while dismissing the credibility of previous hypotheses like black holes based on competing/conflicting data? Which path are you choosing - accept it or doubt it?

You just have to wonder sometimes whether, if the IQs of all scientists were added together they would reach double figures.

A story published in the New York Times last week produced new, "more positive scientific proof that climate change is actually accelerating" than any previous evidence.

Well that's nice, I thought having campaigned to raise awareness of climate change for thirty years. Imagine my dismay when I learned the NYT had been compelled to print a full retraction admitting the article had violated every principle of journalism.

http://machiavelli.blog.co.uk/2009/05/0 ... b-6052293/

It wasn't a retraction, it was a correction, and it's from 2009. Shocker, another mass media article makes a mistake, just imagine! And the correction in no way diminished the support for AGW, it merely made more clear that there was dissent between industry scientists and academic scientists concerning how much change was coming.

In a May 2, 2009 post titled “A Climate Correction”, Revkin and the New York Times wrote: “The article cited a ‘backgrounder’ that laid out the coalition’s public stance, published in the early 1990s and distributed widely to lawmakers and journalists. However, the article failed to note a later version of the backgrounder that included language that conformed to the scientific advisory committee’s conclusion. The amended version, which was brought to the attention of The Times by a reader, acknowledged the consensus that greenhouse gases could contribute to warming. What scientists disagreed about, it said, was ‘the rate and magnitude of the ‘enhanced greenhouse effect’ (warming) that will result.’”

Bear Mtn HIB wrote: "Extreme cold keeps British global warming expedition from reaching North Pole"
"We’re sad to report that the trio of British ecological explorers who’ve been trying to reach the North Pole had to give up their global warming expedition because – are you ready? – it was too cold.

The Catlin Arctic Survey team had to be rescued this week after finishing less than half their trek. In fact, they fell short by more than 300 miles.

WattsUpWithThat.com summarizes the hilarious results:

Due to horrifically cold weather, hypothermia and frostbite, they made it less than half way to the pole."

http://www.ihatethemedia.com/cold-keeps ... north-pole

Again, another one of those, local, seasonal variations that mean nothing to the long-term trend in data.
http://www.pewclimate.org/arctic_qa.cfm
Global Warming and the Arctic FAQs
http://www.csmonitor.com/Innovation/200 ... f-the-sand

Residenttroll wrote: Scientists don't have sex while completing experiments on first year ice. The heat generated could skew their efforts.

I'd worry that first year ice isn't stable enough, it could crack and I'd fall in - much more worrisome than ruining an experiment! And does this mean that there are too many people having sex and adding to global warming? Well, since the world population is growing too well, and heat from sex is bad, we should start a campaign to stop all sexual contact immediately - kill two birds with one stone! :thumbsup: Great thinking RT! You'll be a hero for saving the world! :woo hoo:

Wanted to put this separately, since I have more text to quote and my last post probably made your eyes glaze over as is.

Martin Ent Inc wrote: Well my theory is that China will take over the world.
They believe the country with the most educated young will do this.
They start them young, teach them English and look at their #'s.

Ours play to many video games.

They will, not because we're too busy playing video games, but because we waste our time arguing instead of doing, because we've lost our hunger and motivation and drive. Because we think we're entitled whether we've earned it or not, and we must be protected from ourselves.
http://www.greenbiz.com/blog/2010/12/07 ... as-us-beat
http://www.thedailygreen.com/environmen ... ments-0329
http://chinalawandpolicy.com/2010/08/31 ... ech-giant/

My former boss, who left science to become the Director of the Bard Center for Entrepreneurship at CU Denver's Business School had this to say after a trip to China for work at the beginning of this year - quoted in its entirety with her permission. She posted much more info and insightful comments on her two week trip, if you're interested I'll send you the link to her blog.
May 30, 2010
Where did our hunger go?

Happy Memorial Day. I am still thinking about my trip to China in January.

As you might recall, I spent the first few weeks of 2010 touring China (Shanghai, Hangzhou, Guangzhou, Shenzhen and Hong Kong) learning how they approach entrepreneurship and economic development. Everywhere there were signs of patriotism and the desire to be not just the best in their nation but the best in the world. I was struck for example by the sign "Excellence Pursuer, Prevail Forever" over a toll booth outside of Hangzhou. The people we met were willing to work 11 hour days, 6 days a week, for the hope of some new better future.

I worry that our complacency is killing us as a nation. We are fat both literally and figuratively. I came home with an image of the USA in my mind of us as a land of Homer Simpsons: fat, beer in hand, sitting on the couch in front of the TV. We may be the current Global leader but I worry that we will fast lose that status unless we get our hunger, tenacity, creativity and pride back. Some on my trip were more optimistic. They felt that while China was terrific at manufacturing and improving production processes that they did not know how to innovate. Surely, we as Americans are known worldwide for our outstanding educational system and ability to innovate.

Unfortunately, extensive data shows that we are rapidly falling behind in the USA. Recently there was on Op-Ed piece by Thomas Friedman in the New York Times on this same topic. http://www.nytimes.com/2010/03/03/opini ... ml?_r=1&em He wrote in part, "It gets worse. Otellini noted that a 2009 study done by the Information Technology and Innovation Foundation and cited recently in Democracy Journal “ranked the U.S. sixth among the top 40 industrialized nations in innovative competitiveness — not great, but not bad. Yet that same study also measured what they call ‘the rate of change in innovation capacity’ over the last decade — in effect, how much countries were doing to make themselves more innovative for the future. The study relied on 16 different metrics of human capital — I.T. infrastructure, economic performance and so on. On this scale, the U.S. ranked dead last out of the same 40 nations. ... When you take a hard look at the things that make any country competitive. ... we are slipping.”

I remain optimistic, but we cannot delay action. It is critical that institutional silos and political battles and turf wars be set aside so that we can remain leaders in innovation, technology and biomedical research. We can learn from the business models of several international successes such as Biopolis in Singapore or Cyberport in Hong Kong which so far are wildly successful public-private partnerships supporting innovation, interdisciplinary research, new technology development and of course economic development. Now more than ever it is critical for us to focus on innovative high-risk, high-reward projects. We may be slipping but we have not yet lost. How do we get our hunger back? Our pride?

I hope our veterans did not give their lives in vain.