At 17:14 18-10-07, Tom Rauch wrote:
> > Ahh, but then why don't the Al Gore's of the world come
> > out and say "Right
> > now these hybrid cars emit more total pollution per unit
> > that do the
> > conventional gasoline automobiles. However, some day
> > technological
> > improvements may change that."
> >
> > Another Inconvenient Truth
Tom, W8JI, raises some issues that are really not all that
relevant to RFI but they cannot remain unchallenged.
Since my post is therefore also off topic I will only make
this ONE public post. Anyone interested in these issues is
welcome to contact me off the reflector.
Comments (below) are interspersed to make it easier to follow.
--John W0UN
>Just because a person claims the total birth to grave
>emissions are higher in an internet chatroom doesn't mean it
>is factual.
Right you are Tom. And just because someone makes a movie
doesn't mean the premise is factual either. You seem to be
correctly cautioning us all not to make a mistake that you then
immediately make yourself. This does not lend any credence
to you "argument".
>There is pretty much universal agreement all around the
>world that at least a significant part of global warming is
>caused by humans, but there is virtually nothing to be found
>showing the total impact of any vehicle from birth to grave.
Well, Tom, there you go again, making an assertion without backing
it up. Actually MANY people in the scientific community take
great issue with man-caused global warming. The argument is
that when the CO2 goes up so does the temperature. While that
is true on a grand scale, more careful observations show that the
temperature goes up FIRST and THEN the CO2 levels go up.
Making CO2 the RESULT of global warming and not the CAUSE.
>People always have a tendency to accept what they want to
>hear without questioning the validity of it. That's why we
>are in so much trouble. We are easily manipulated to support
>people we would never support if we looked objectively at
>their history or actions because we believe what we want to
>regardless of fact.
WOW, did you ever get that RIGHT. There are way too many
people accepting what they hear or see without questioning the
validity of it. MANY people are easily manipulated because of
their limited knowledge in technical issues. And when an issue
is part of a political agenda and is media driven it becomes very
difficult to get to the truth. So one needs to be very careful not
to fall into this trap that you seem to have fallen into as well.
>CFL bulbs have a low reliability factor, but so do the light
>dimmers and everything else I buy from China. They have high
>power factor compared to the unity power factor of an
>incandescent lamp. They certainly cause more pollution in
>manufacture and disposal. The exact numbers vary widely, but
>in general they do save energy. They do NOT save money. They
>won't save the world.
I guess I would want to see where they save energy to be convinced
of this. There are many high-tech materials used in the manufacturing
of the relatively more sophisticated materials used in a CFL than used
in a tungsten/glass incandescent light bulb. I'd really want to see
the total cost of ENERGY to produce and then properly dispose of a
CFL compared to an incandescent.
>Most of our energy waste is in needlessly large houses and
>vehicles and our habits. Not in light bulbs. A 100kW vehicle
>engine can't be corrected for by reducing the peak electric
>light demand by 500 watts.
While that may be true to a great extent, it is much more difficult
to make the case that global warming is caused by mans' generation
of CO2 -- which is what you have claimed as a premise for this statement.
Glacial Melting is often cited as the most "obvious" evidence of
climate change and anthropogenic greenhouse gasses are stated
as the cause.
The following three references are good summaries of the current
debate on just the one issue of glaciation, providing information without
information-overload.
They address three aspects of glacial melting.
1) How special interests groups and the media have manipulated the science.
2) One example of the current state of glacial melting science.
3) Background and overview of arctic climate-change science.
1) The Economist and the Greenpeace glacier photo stunt:
http://ff.org/centers/csspp/library/co2weekly/20060920/20060920_17.html
-------------------------------------------
2) Latest Scientific Studies Refute Fears of Greenland Melt:
http://onesmallvoice.townhall.com/g/17dbc042-51d0-4899-b08d-62aba7a52617
-----------------------------------------
3) Overview Of Arctic Climate Change -- Senate Committee Testimony:
http://www.iarc.uaf.edu/news/news_shorts/akasofu_4_26_06/written_testimony.php
Note that the above references only cover a single issue on the global warming
debate and there are MANY issues that will show that CO2 is not the CAUSE of
the warming. There are numerous sources that use the scientific method to
debunk global warming due to CO2 production and two of these sources are very
well-done, but popularized, works on the entire topic and both are
highly recommended.
If you are video-oriented the documentary shown on the UK Channel 4 last spring
is excellent. It features a number of the world's top scientists speaking on
global warming, including Dr. Akasofu (mentioned above in the US
Senate Testimony
reference). I recently had the pleasure of speaking with Dr. Akasofu
during the
HAARP rededication ceremony in Alaska. And, now that he has retired from
his post as Director of the International Arctic Research Center, he
was very candid
about his position on global warming. The UK documentary has now been expanded
greatly (doubled in size) and the US NTSC version has just become available and
can be obtained from this site.
http://store.demanddebate.com/great-global-warming-swindle-dvd.html
Based on my work in atmospheric science I know a number of the people in this
documentary either personally or by reputation or by knowing some of their
students. They are mainstream scientists who do not believe in man-made
CO2 production as the cause of the increase in temperature. In fact
Dr. Akasofu
(who BTW has written 10 books and has over 550 refereed published papers --
and cannot be dismissed as a "quack".) makes the case that most of the warming
we are currently seeing is mostly just the slope of the curve as we
recover from the
Little Ice Age. This warming is in no way unusual and it has been
warmer at many
times during recorded history, both recently and in Roman times in the UK when
northern UK had numerous vineyards.
If you want your entertainment and education to take the form of an exceedingly
well documented book then you should purchase "The Politically Incorrect
Guide to Global Warming and Environmentalism" by Chris Horner. It provides
not only the scientific basis for the challenge to the Al Gore movie
but also the
historical perspective as to how this travesty of scientific method
has come about
based on a political agenda. Thirty pages of references provide
adequate support
for the arguments. I was initially put off by the title but my wife
bought me the
book and it provided a lot of information that I was not familiar with on the
history of the politically motivated environmental movement.
http://www.amazon.com/Politically-Incorrect-Global-Warming-Environmentalism/dp/1596985011/ref=pd_bbs_sr_1/103-7909439-9887023?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1192798214&sr=1-1
There is a huge amount of information on the fallacy of man-caused
global warming
and I will be working on a list of reference sources in the coming
days. What I
do know is that of all of the atmospheric scientists that I know,
only one of them
believes in CO2 as being the root cause for global warming. I blame that on
the fact that his administrative duties as the chairman of the Earth
Sciences Dept
of a major university have kept him from keeping up with the
debate. But he seems
to be changing his position as I continue to send him references.
Here are just a few of the points to consider.
1) Mars is warming simultaneously and it is very hard to make the
case that MAN has
caused that as well.
2) Many of the NWS weather stations are suffering from
urbanization. ie They are
no longer located in benign places where they measure the true air
temps. They measure
things like the exhaust air of an air conditioner and the pavement
temperature at an airport.
This is so bad that NWS has removed the list of locations of their
2000+ weather station sites
just so that it is not so obvious that the instruments are no longer
impartial "observers".
3) Due to funding constraints the former Soviet Union has dropped
many of their weather
sensors in Siberia -- suddenly removing this data set from the global
average and since
it is generally cooler in Siberia it has artificially changed the averages.
Global Warming is real. Its magnitude is in debate. And its
man-made CAUSE is totally
questionable, and probably incorrect.
--John W0UN
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