"see also; ""I shall do a minor evil to achieve a greater good." or
"My aim for greater good makes all the evils I have done right."

Or, "don't think, just do as you are told"

this is a very dangerous path to head down when it comes to governments and public policy.

It works well for totalitarians of course and is a very popular argument strategy employed by the leftists worldwide to control people."

It's not just leftists, it's all major political parties in most of the world. Do you really think the Bush administration told America the *truth* about invasions of Afghanistan or Iraq?? Like it or not, lying, deception, secret classifications or dead silence are used everyday to manipulate the populace. Sometimes it really may be for the 'good' of the country, other times it serves some other hidden agendas. So all I'm saying is that if the government chooses to manipulate the people with global warming scares, especially if the government truly believes it, and it turns out that human CO2 emissions are NOT the problem, but still gets folks to think more about their environmental footprint and change the way they live, lessening their impact on the planet, has done no real harm, and may in fact do good (for the planet, and hopefully for mankind).

David says:
Ski areas, military planners, water resource managers,
all are planning for potential consequences of climate
change. This shouldn't stop. Taxation etc. may be a
different issue.
When Bangladesh or N'oleans floods, there should be a plan in place about what to do then and plans
of a preventative measure. Plant more mangroves, check
d i k e s (BPL's profanity checker at work here), etc.

CO2 has increased. No doubt. What will happen due to this
increase needs to be thought about.

It's convenient to blame New oleans on global warming, when the real reason for the flooding was the failure to maintain the levees. The fact is that total cyclone energy is lower now than 25 years ago, and the exceptional hurricane season that year was a one in a hundred or so year event. Planners have to weigh up probabilities against consequences when deciding where to spend resources.
http://pajamasmedia.com/blog/what-happened-to-all-the-hurricanes-al/

Bangladesh has a greater land area now than 10 years ago.

The rate of sea level rise has dropped significantly in the last seven years, due to the fall in ocean heat content and slowing of glacial melt.

Co2 levels maintain their steady upward plod, but nature is going against the hypothesis.

Edited by tallbloke on 10/20/2010 16:59:45 MDT.

"The fact is that total cyclone energy is lower now than 25 years ago, and the exceptional hurricane season that year was a one in a hundred or so year event. Planners have to weigh up probabilities against consequences when deciding where to spend resources."

Is that true for the Southern Hemisphere or just Northern. La Nina has so far dredged up a huge storm south of us, force 5 typhoon, Megi, and forecasts for NZ are for a very stormy summer with more, and stronger, cyclones than for a long time. Just curious...

"Up to 12 tropical cyclones could affect the South Pacific this summer, with New Zealand more likely to be hit.

A meeting of meteorological experts from both sides of the Tasman, the United States and around the South Pacific concluded that more tropical cyclones are likely from next month until the end of April.

The heightened risk is due to a strong La Nina phenomenon, which pushes warm water farther west in the tropics.

La Nina also brings more subtropical north-to-northeasterly winds to New Zealand, allowing low-pressure systems and decaying tropical cyclones to swing closer.

There could be nine to 12 major tropical cyclones, say New Zealand's National Institute of Water & Atmospheric Research (Niwa) and the MetService, the Australian Bureau of Meteorology and Pacific Islands national meteorological services.

"Most countries west of the dateline, including Papua New Guinea, the Solomon Islands, Vanuatu, New Caledonia, and New Zealand, are at higher risk than normal from ex-tropical cyclones."

"The rate of sea level rise has dropped significantly in the last seven years, due to the fall in ocean heat content and slowing of glacial melt."

Not according to the University of Boulder:

http://sealevel.colorado.edu/

Or are they also fudging their results to support the climate change conspiracy? They clock the rise at a pretty steady 3mm per year (+/-).

"Bangladesh has a greater land area now than 10 years ago"

Of course, thanks to sediments brought down from the Himalayas by flooding, being in excess of the land that would be lost to sea level rise without the sediment. How much more land would they have if sea level had stayed constant?? The same could be said of NZ after a major earthquake in the mountains...we gain new land along the coast. This doesn't make either situation (sea level rises or earthquakes) desirable, though both are pretty impossible to prevent!

Convictions are more dangerous enemies of truth than lies.

Friedrich Nietzsche



P.S.

All truly great thoughts are conceived while walking

Ibid

Religions die when they are proved to be true. Science is the record of dead religions.

-Oscar Wilde

Los Angeles 2019


IMO the movie Blade Runner is the future for most of the population. Remember the top whatever percent have left the "building". Cheaper and cheaper labor and technology causing problems. However the very end of the video is where the backpackinglight folks will dwell.


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C9KAqhbIZ7o&feature=related

"All truly great thoughts are conceived while walking"

I think St Augustine beat him to the punch by a few centuries: "solvetarum ambulando" (it is solved by walking). ;)

Lynn says:
La Nina has so far dredged up a huge storm south of us, force 5 typhoon, Megi, and forecasts for NZ are for a very stormy summer with more, and stronger, cyclones than for a long time. Just curious...

"Up to 12 tropical cyclones could affect the South Pacific this summer, with New Zealand more likely to be hit.

La Nina brings cold conditions to the Pacific sea surface. The warming alarmists need to decide on a straight story about whether it's warm conditions that cause more cyclonic events or not.

A similar forecast was made for the Northern Hemisphere for the Hurricane season just ended, but the big storms didn't show up. Making scary forecasts is one thing, reality is another.

Lynn says:
"The rate of sea level rise has dropped significantly in the last seven years, due to the fall in ocean heat content and slowing of glacial melt."

Not according to the University of Boulder:

http://sealevel.colorado.edu/

Or are they also fudging their results to support the climate change conspiracy? They clock the rise at a pretty steady 3mm per year (+/-).

There's that word conspiracy again. The malaise seems to be infectious. I'm saddened that you too want to try to score debating points by casting aspersions on the character of the person on the other side of the debate. I would have thought it was beneath you. Especially after Miguel sang your praises yesterday.

I downloaded the actual data from colorado.edu (situated in Denver not Boulder) and plotted it, with regressions for the period up to late 2002 when the sun dipped below it's long term average output, and for late 2002 to date. Here is the result:

.

As you can see, the rate of rise has dropped by around a third since the sun went quiet in late 2002.

This coincides with the drop since 2003 in ocean heat content. That drop proves there is no "heat in the pipeline" and that solar influence on Earth's temperature is greater than has been assumed in the alarmist computer models. That means they have overestimated the Earth's sensitivity to increases in co2.

That is scientific logic, and all the bluster and attempted character assassination in the world isn't going to change it.

The only way the alarmists are going to get around that one is to claim that the extra co2 in the atmosphere is somehow puttting extra energy into the ocean below the level the ARGO network measure to and bypassing the top 700m while it does it. Good luck with that. Extraordinary claims require extraordinary proof, and they don't have any.

They don't even have a concievable hypothesis for it, since longwave radiation from the atmosphere can't penetrate the ocean further than a few nanometers. Sunlight on the other hand, penetrates the ocean to several tens of meters, and very effectively warms it.

Edited by tallbloke on 10/21/2010 01:12:32 MDT.

Sometimes it's worth looking at how we got to this point and how far we have come. Has burning all that petroleum been worth the chance that we are accelerating a naturally occurring and inevitable global warming trend?

Consider life a hundred years ago. Would any of us want to turn back the clock? Life must have been pretty good before global warming right?

Well, consider the following and think about how essential burning fossil fuels has been to get from there to the here and now.

Some is good, some is bad but it's good for a bit of perspective at least.

> THE YEAR IS 1910
>
> This will boggle your mind, I know it did mine!
>
> ************ ********* ***********
>
> The year is 1910.
> One hundred years ago.
> What a difference a century makes!
> Here are some statistics for the Year 1910:
>
> ************ ********* ************
>
> The average life expectancy for men was 47 years.
>
> Fuel for this car was sold in drug stores only.
>
> Only 14% of the homes had a bathtub.
>
> Only 8% of the homes had a telephone.
>
> There were only 8,000 cars and only 144 miles of paved roads.
>
> The maximum speed limit in most cities was 10 mph.
>
> The tallest structure in the world was the Eiffel Tower!
>
> The average US wage in 1910 was 22 cents per hour.
>
> The average US worker made between $200 and $400 per year.
>
> A competent accountant could expect to earn $2000 per year,
> A dentist made $2,500 per year, a veterinarian between $1,500 and $4,000 per year,
>
> and a mechanical engineer about $5,000 per year.
>
> More than 95% of all births took place at HOME.
>
> Ninety percent of all doctors had NO COLLEGE EDUCATION!
>
> Instead, they attended so-called medical schools, many of which
>
> Were condemned in the press AND the government as 'substandard.'
>
> Sugar cost 4 cents a pound.
>
> Eggs were 14 cents a dozen.
>
> Coffee was 15 cents a pound.
>
> Most women only washed their hair once a month and used Borax or egg yolks for shampoo.
>
> Canada passed a law that prohibited poor people from entering into their country for any reason.
>
> The Five leading causes of death were:
>
> 1. Pneumonia and influenza
> 2. Tuberculosis
> 3. Diarrhea
> 4. Heart disease
> 5. Stroke
>
> The American flag had 45 stars.
>
> The population of Las Vegas, Nevada was only 30!
>
> Crossword puzzles, canned beer, and iced tea hadn't been invented yet.
>
> There was no Mother's Day or Father's Day.
>
> Two out of every 10 adults couldn't read or write and
>
> Only 6% of all Americans had graduated from high school.
>
> Marijuana, heroin, and morphine were all available over the counter at the local corner drugstores.
>
> Back then, pharmacists said, 'Heroin clears the complexion, gives buoyancy to the mind,
>
> Regulates the stomach and bowels, and is, in fact, a perfect guardian of health'.
>
> Eighteen percent of households had at least one full-time servant or domestic help.
>
> There were about 230 reported murders in the ENTIRE U.S.A.!
>

Rog writes, "As you can see, the rate of rise has dropped by around a third since the sun went quiet in 2003."

Now who in their right mind would ever consider that the big old ball of fire out there might have something to do with conditions here on earth? Surely it makes more sense to blame mankind and my personal choice in light bulbs? Could it be that humans just are not that important? Say it ain't so Rog, say it ain't so.

What an inconvenient truth.

Sometimes I wonder what the statistical correlation is between believers in global warming and believers in ufos.

Seems they would go hand in hand. But I digress....what else is new.

Jeff says:
Now who in their right mind would ever consider that the big old ball of fire out there might have something to do with conditions here on earth?

The official alarmist line is that since Total Solar Irradiation (TSI) only varies around 0.1% over the solar cycle, there is no way the Sun can have a big influence on variation in Earth's climate. However, what they haven't taken account of in their computer models is that the amount of solar radiation arriving at the top of the atmosphere (TOA) is not what actually affects the amount of solar energy going into the ocean and thus the resulting climatic variation.

In an important peer reviewed paper by physicist Nir Shaviv at Tel Aviv university, he found that the variation in TSI is amplified by 7-10 times at the surface.
http://www.sciencebits.com/calorimeter

This is most likely due to changes in cloud cover caused by solar activity, which keeps more cloud seeding cosmic rays away from the inner solar system when the sun is more active. Les clouds - more insolation at the surface - less heat reflected back into space.

The Sun was more active in the latter part of the C20th than it has been for thousands of years, according to Sami Solanki, cheif solar physicist at the Max Planck institute...

For those interested in the uncertainty around the detection and attribution of global warming, Dr Judith Curry has a couple of new posts on her blog which may be of interest.
http://judithcurry.com/2010/10/17/overconfidence-in-ipccs-detection-and-attribution-part-i/

Edited by tallbloke on 10/21/2010 06:29:05 MDT.

IPCC Assessment Report AR4 page 754

“Since the ensemble is strictly an ‘ensemble of opportunity’, without sampling protocol, the spread of models does not necessarily span the full possible range of uncertainty, and a statistical interpretation of the model spread is therefore problematic.”

Translation:

Our computer models give meaningless results, but we'd better not say that in plain language, certainly not in the definite and confident 'Summary for Policy Makers' back on page 1.

Where we are told:

"Best-estimate projections from models indicate that decadal average warming over each inhabited continent by 2030 is insensitive to the choice among SRES scenarios and is very likely to be at least twice as large as the corresponding model-estimated natural variability during the 20th century. For the next two decades, a warming of about 0.2°C per decade is projected for a range of SRES emission scenarios. Even if the concentrations of all greenhouse gases and aerosols had been kept constant at year 2000 levels, a further warming of about 0.1°C per decade would be expected."

very likely is defined as 90% confidence...

Fantasy land stuff.

Edited by tallbloke on 10/21/2010 05:58:21 MDT.

"I think St Augustine beat him to the punch by a few centuries: "solvetarum ambulando" (it is solved by walking). ;)"

That's the story of my life.

"I'll repeat the question: EXACTLY how would Deutsche lose money?

And so once again attempt to deflect the primary issue."

Not really: at issue is some of the wild claims you are making in support of your main thesis. As it happens I am a finance lawyer currently working for a bank so I'm happy to call you on claims like that. If you can't support the claims you make - like the one about LNG - why make them? There's no point lecturing us about truth, veracity and the scientific method if you're going to then make unsupportable claims.

"I can't tell you EXACTLY how Deutsche would lose money, though it's fairly obvious a good deal of the $60billion Green portfolio would evaporate if the climate alarm was officially found to be the falsehood the majority of the public already know it is."

$60 billion Green portfolio - so you think Deutsche owns $60 billion in carbon somethings? When its total market capitalisation, after a recent capital raising, is e38 billion? Do you think the German banking regulators would be happy about that? And you're wrong in thinking that a fall in carbon prices would mean making a loss: a fall in the value of carbon would MAKE huge profits for any bank that shorted them. So not "fairly obvious" at all.

"> The average life expectancy for men was 47 years."

I was talking about this the other day: that statistic doesn't mean that most men died at 47 - it meant that some died very young and others (potentially) lived very long lives. My great-great-great-great-great grandfather was Irish, survived the famine and various plagues, worked on the land all his life - and lived to be 91.

Arapiles says:
As it happens I am a finance lawyer

Ahhh, you're a lawyer.

That explains a lot. Thanks.

wild claims...so you think Deutsche owns $60 billion in carbon somethings

Did I say Deutsche owned the $60billion Green portfolio?

No I did not.

What did I say? Well, nothing actually, but I did quote someone who said.

"The bank has a $60+ billion Green portfolio, which it wishes to assure investors is safe"
Which, if you remember, was mentioned because Lord Oxburgh sits on Deutsche Bank's climate advisory panel in a paid position, along with Choo Choo Pachauri, the disgraced head of the IPCC. You'll recall he was made chair of the 'Independent Inquiry' into the activities of Phil Jones, Director of research at the Climate Research Unit at East Anglia University, who had been avoiding dealing with freedom of information requests concerning temperature data and "using Mike's 'Nature' trick to hide the decline" on some rather important graphs which are costing the taxpayer billions. Lord Oxburgh is the man who allowed Jones himself to decide which of his climate papers would be scrutinized.

You're a lawyer Arapiles. If you were prosecuting counsel, would you be ok with it if the Judge allowed the defendant to decide which pieces of evidence were to be admitted? Do please give us a professional opinion.

a fall in the value of carbon would MAKE huge profits for any bank that shorted them

Well you're the finance lawyer Arapiles, you should know how to game the system. Anyway, how much lower can the value of carbon fall? Not far in Chicago given it's currently $0.05/ton down from $7.23 a couple of years ago, that's for sure. That's how much confidence the money jugglers have in the correctness of the Gore-Pachauri owned carbon pyramid scheme on the Chicago Carbon Exchange CCX.

Edited by tallbloke on 10/21/2010 07:30:36 MDT.

From: Kevin Trenberth
To: Michael Mann
Subject: Re: BBC U-turn on climate
Date: Mon, 12 Oct 2009 08:57:37 -0600
Cc: Stephen H Schneider , Myles Allen , peter stott , "Philip D. Jones"

, Benjamin Santer , Tom Wigley , Thomas R Karl , Gavin Schmidt , James Hansen , Michael Oppenheimer

Hi all
Well I have my own article on where the heck is global warming? We are asking that here in
Boulder where we have broken records the past two days for the coldest days on record. We
had 4 inches of snow. The high the last 2 days was below 30F and the normal is 69F, and it
smashed the previous records for these days by 10F. The low was about 18F and also a
record low, well below the previous record low. This is January weather (see the Rockies
baseball playoff game was canceled on saturday and then played last night in below freezing
weather).
Trenberth, K. E., 2009: An imperative for climate change planning: tracking Earth's global
energy. Current Opinion in Environmental Sustainability, 1, 19-27,
doi:10.1016/j.cosust.2009.06.001. [1][PDF] (A PDF of the published version can be obtained
from the author.)
The fact is that we can't account for the lack of warming at the moment and it is a
travesty that we can't. The CERES data published in the August BAMS 09 supplement on 2008
shows there should be even more warming: but the data are surely wrong. Our observing
system is inadequate.
==================================================

Oh yes Kevin, it must be the data that's wrong. It couldn't possibly be your theory could it...

As a counterbalance to Jeff's post about how tough 1910 must have been, let's think of some of the wonderful things that technology has brought us.

Off the the top of my head:
-The threat of nuclear, chemical, and biological weapons wiping out the population of the Earth a few hundred times over. All at the whim of of a couple governments.

-Whether or not we are more or less susceptible to disease pandemics today is up for debate. But the potential of a threat rapidly going global is far higher today, thanks to technology.

-While our technological civilization has brought us the cures for many diseases of the past, let's have an honest look at the diseases of technological civilization and its accompanying abundance. You can bet the farm you'll die of one of these (or complications brought by one of these): heart disease, cancer, diabetes, and obesity...all of which are beginning to occur at increased rates amongst our children. Not to mention the 45,000 people a year killed in car accidents. *It took nearly ten years of jungle warfare to kill that many Americans in Vietnam.

-Toxification of the landscape. Radioactive waste, PCBs in breast milk, mercury in our fish, carcinogens in the air we breathe, and a world of chemicals that we do not fully understand the effects of, let alone how to dispose safely. Skyrocketing asthma rates, especially amongst children living in proximity to freeways or in the inner city.

-Pharmaceuticals as one of the USA's leading industries with antidepressants and sleep aids being some of the biggest sellers. Not to mention an entire generation of children now exposed to prescription antidepressants and stimulants. What does this say about us?

-While not necessarily linked to technology, but certainly an issue in contemporary society, the US has one of the largest populations of incarcerated adults and children ever seen in history.

-For all the benefits of our technology, how many are so utterly dependent upon it that we'd have major chaos and death worldwide if the electricity were to simply go out for only a month?


______________________________________

By this estimation, life looks peachy compared to 1910.

Edited by xnomanx on 10/21/2010 08:59:50 MDT.

"It's convenient to blame New oleans on global warming, when the real reason for the flooding was the failure to maintain the levees. The fact is that total cyclone energy is lower now than 25 years ago, and the exceptional hurricane season that year was a one in a hundred or so year event. Planners have to weigh up probabilities against consequences when deciding where to spend resources.
http://pajamasmedia.com/blog/what-happened-to-all-the-hurricanes-al/

Bangladesh has a greater land area now than 10 years ago.

The rate of sea level rise has dropped significantly in the last seven years, due to the fall in ocean heat content and slowing of glacial melt.

Co2 levels maintain their steady upward plod, but nature is going against the hypothesis."

---

The real reason New Orleans flooded was because they had
the hubris to build below sea level, remove much of the
wetlands protecting the coast and relying on levees and the
oversight of those levees by others.

Every action effects other things. Do you really think
rising co2 levels will not cause some other issues? Changes
in flora and fauna? Changes in weather?

I do agree planning needs to have a broader focus, but
climate change needs to be taken into account as a possibility with dire consequences.