The newest trend in Airline Fees...Al Gore dream come true!

[Lebowski]

This is from the NOAA web site:

What is the greenhouse effect, and is it affecting our climate?

The greenhouse effect is unquestionably real and helps to regulate the temperature of our planet. It is essential for life on Earth and is one of Earth's natural processes. It is the result of heat absorption by certain gases in the atmosphere (called greenhouse gases because they effectively 'trap' heat in the lower atmosphere) and re-radiation downward of some of that heat. Water vapor is the most abundant greenhouse gas, followed by carbon dioxide and other trace gases. Without a natural greenhouse effect, the temperature of the Earth would be about zero degrees F (-18°C) instead of its present 57°F (14°C). So, the concern is not with the fact that we have a greenhouse effect, but whether human activities are leading to an enhancement of the greenhouse effect.

Are greenhouse gases increasing?

Human activity has been increasing the concentration of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere (mostly carbon dioxide from combustion of coal, oil, and gas; plus a few other trace gases). There is no scientific debate on this point. Pre-industrial levels of carbon dioxide (prior to the start of the Industrial Revolution) were about 280 parts per million by volume (ppmv), and current levels are about 370 ppmv. The concentration of CO2 in our atmosphere today, has not been exceeded in the last 420,000 years, and likely not in the last 20 million years. According to the IPCC Special Report on Emission Scenarios (SRES), by the end of the 21st century, we could expect to see carbon dioxide concentrations of anywhere from 490 to 1260 ppm (75-350% above the pre-industrial concentration).

Is the climate warming?

Yes. Global surface temperatures have increased about 0.6°C (plus or minus 0.2°C) since the late-19th century, and about 0.4°F (0.2 to 0.3°C) over the past 25 years (the period with the most credible data). The warming has not been globally uniform. Some areas (including parts of the southeastern U.S.) have, in fact, cooled over the last century. The recent warmth has been greatest over North America and Eurasia between 40 and 70°N. Warming, assisted by the record El Niño of 1997-1998, has continued right up to the present, with 2001 being the second warmest year on record after 1998.

Read it all for yourself at:

http://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/oa/climate/globalwarming.html

 

[Phaedrus]

...and your going to listen to airline pilots opinions on global warming?
It's pretty much unanimous among people much more qualified than any of us that global warming is a problem.

Brilliant deductive reasoning! Can you please enlighten me as to just how you came to this conlusion DanRoman? Clearly your mental acuity is fantastic since I never said I consult pilots on this forum to determine my views on ecological matters. It must be something more, perhaps tone or a slip of the keyboard that allowed you to deduce my source of information. Please let me in on it!

 

[STL717]

Beware the Eco-Industrial Complex

Beware the Eco-Industrial Complex
Sunday , January 28, 2007

By Steven Milloy

President Dwight D. Eisenhower famously warned Americans in 1961 against the growing and unwarranted influence on our government of a “military-industrial complex.” The 2007 version of this concern should focus on the looming eco-industrial complex.

Just this week the so-called U.S. Climate Action Partnership (USCAP) announced its presence and called for “the federal government to quickly enact strong national legislation to require significant reductions of greenhouse gas emissions.”

USCAP members include: Alcoa, BP America , Caterpillar Inc., Duke Energy, DuPont, Environmental Defense, FPL Group, General Electric, Lehman Brothers, Natural Resources Defense Council, Pew Center on Global Climate Change, PG&E Corporation, PNM Resources, World Resources Institute.

USCAP is obviously a politically and economically formidable group that plans to press Congress and the Bush administration hard for global warming regulation, including the ever-dubious cap-and-trade of greenhouse gas emissions.

At face value, USCAP comes off as a mutually beneficial partnership between big business and environmental groups. If successful, the environmentalists get the economy-controlling global warming regulation they have been working toward since the late-1980s. The companies plan to profit (at least in the short term) from either the cap-and-trade provisions or from selling high-priced, politically-favored (if not mandated) so-called “green” technology to the rest of us -- whether we need it or not and regardless of whether it produces any environmental or societal benefits.

These, of course, are reasons enough to be concerned about USCAP -- but the sub-surface view of what USCAP represents is even more ominous.

As described in a 2004 book entitled, “Biz-War and the Out-of-Power Elite: The Progressive-Left Attack on the Corporation,” left-leaning environmental groups, labor groups and human rights groups have been quietly working to harness (hijack?) the influence, power and resources of large publicly-owned corporations in order to implement the Left’s social and political agenda.

Since the election of Ronald Reagan in 1980, it has been increasingly difficult for the Left to advance its social agenda through the public political process. This has certainly been true with respect to environmental issues, in general, and global warming, in particular.

Environmentalists, for example, tried and failed to impose the Kyoto Protocol on the U.S. --despite the active support of the Green-friendly Clinton administration. Other Kyoto-like legislation -- such as the so-called McCain-Lieberman bill – also failed the political test.

But just as the political prospects for global warming regulation seemed to be fading, the environmentalists’ long-standing efforts to capture the corporation began to gain traction, thanks to successful pressure campaigns against the CEOs of financial service companies.

The Rainforest Action Network’s campaign against Citigroup chairman Sandy Weill resulted in the bank agreeing to give environmentalists a say in the bank lending process. The capitulation of Citigroup, America’s largest bank, was quickly followed by similar surrenders by the next largest U.S. banks, Bank of America and JPMorgan Chase & Co.

At about the same time, the General Electric Company apparently made peace with environmentalists over the company’s long-standing headache involving the clean-up of PCB sediments spilled decades ago in the Hudson River. Coincidentally (or not), at about the same time that GE’s PCB problem went away, the company very publicly teamed up with environmental activists in May 2005 to champion global warming regulation.

Through a combination of coaxing and coercion, the Greens have now successfully insinuated themselves into corporate boardrooms to the point where they’ve gained critical mass in the form of USCAP.

The significance of the Greens’ capture of big business is readily apparent.

America is on the verge of committing economic and political suicide by enacting global warming regulation. What’s the reason? Al Gore’s hyped movie notwithstanding, there is no new or compelling science to support the notion that humans are harming global climate or that humans can control climate to any discernible extent.

What’s changed is the new pressure from big business for global warming regulation. This pressure even forced President Bush to acknowledge, however briefly, the problem of global warming in this week’s State of the Union address.

And this pressure is only likely to increase. Perceiving that the global warming regulation train is moving, businesses naturally will seek to craft the process to their advantage. General Motors and Ford, for example, have fought against mandatory global warming regulation in the past. But their businesses are being crushed by retiree health care costs. It’s possible that the companies might support global warming regulation in exchange for some form of legislative relief from their health care burdens.

Can both the Greens and business get what they want? Is this a win-win? Are there any losers? It’s possible that businesses may benefit in the short-term. But in the longer-term, only the Greens will win. Any global warming regulation implemented today will most likely only become more stringent tomorrow. If big business helps the Greens start the global warming regulation boulder rolling down the hill, it is only a matter of time before it gets out-of-control and turns into a crushing burden.

Moreover, remember that the Greens’ goal is to capture the corporation as a means to implement their social agenda, which goes far beyond the distraction of global warming to an unpalatable political vision that most of us would regard as socialistic.

In that case, businesses won’t be the only losers.

Steven Milloy publishes JunkScience.com and CSRWatch.com. He is a junk science expert, and advocate of free enterprise and an adjunct scholar at the Competitive Enterprise Institute.

 

[jayme]

Do you always believe in conspiracy theories, or just this one?

Do you trust NOAA when it comes to weather? How about NASA when it comes to studying the atmosphere? It's their satellites, after all that are tracking the changes in the earth's atmosphere.

How about the National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR)?

Guess what all of their official stance is on global warming?

 

[Lebowski]

This is from the NASA website:

Global warming is an increase in the average temperature of Earth's surface. Since the late 1800's, the global average temperature has increased about 0.7 to 1.4 degrees F (0.4 to 0.8 degrees C). Many experts estimate that the average temperature will rise an additional 2.5 to 10.4 degrees F (1.4 to 5.8 degrees C) by 2100. That rate of increase would be much larger than most past rates of increase.

Scientists worry that human societies and natural ecosystems might not adapt to rapid climate changes. An ecosystem consists of the living organisms and physical environment in a particular area. Global warming could cause much harm, so countries throughout the world drafted an agreement called the Kyoto Protocol to help limit it.

Causes of global warming
Climatologists (scientists who study climate) have analyzed the global warming that has occurred since the late 1800's. A majority of climatologists have concluded that human activities are responsible for most of the warming. Human activities contribute to global warming by enhancing Earth's natural greenhouse effect. The greenhouse effect warms Earth's surface through a complex process involving sunlight, gases, and particles in the atmosphere. Gases that trap heat in the atmosphere are known as greenhouse gases.

The main human activities that contribute to global warming are the burning of fossil fuels (coal, oil, and natural gas) and the clearing of land. Most of the burning occurs in automobiles, in factories, and in electric power plants that provide energy for houses and office buildings. The burning of fossil fuels creates carbon dioxide, whose chemical formula is CO2. CO2 is a greenhouse gas that slows the escape of heat into space. Trees and other plants remove CO2 from the air during photosynthesis, the process they use to produce food. The clearing of land contributes to the buildup of CO2 by reducing the rate at which the gas is removed from the atmosphere or by the decomposition of dead vegetation.

A small number of scientists argue that the increase in greenhouse gases has not made a measurable difference in the temperature. They say that natural processes could have caused global warming. Those processes include increases in the energy emitted (given off) by the sun. But the vast majority of climatologists believe that increases in the sun's energy have contributed only slightly to recent warming.

Read it all for yourself at:

http://www.nasa.gov/worldbook/global_warming_worldbook.html

 

[ex j-41]

Go start your car in your garage with the door closed. Wait 15 min and get out of your car. Now tell me that is a smart thing to do. Now start 154 million cars and see what that does to our enviroment. Doesn't take a rocket scientist to see how bad the gasses are. Get your head out of your ass and think big. The melting ice caps is an indication or symtom of what is to come. Bush wants you to buy gas, make his buddies rich, show me a texan that cares about the enviroment and i will show you a philly ramper that isn't lazy.

 

[Skyboy722]

Go start your car in your garage with the door closed. Wait 15 min and get out of your car. Now tell me that is a smart thing to do. Now start 154 million cars and see what that does to our enviroment. Doesn't take a rocket scientist to see how bad the gasses are. Get your head out of your ass and think big. The melting ice caps is an indication or symtom of what is to come. Bush wants you to buy gas, make his buddies rich, show me a texan that cares about the enviroment and i will show you a philly ramper that isn't lazy.

You said exactly what I was thinking. I won't go into "how bad" or conspiracy theories or politics or any thing else, but you have to agree, it ain't good. It CAN'T be. Otherwise, locking yourself in a running car in the garage wouldn't be suicide...

 

[dalegribble]

http://www.wecnmagazine.com/2007issues/may/may07.html

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/17997788/site/newsweek/

Warming yes, but don't be so arrogant as to assume you or I as humans can stop it. Gross polution is horrible, and should we do something to eliminate it, yes. Should we learn to conserve, yes. But most enviro types are going on emotion, feelings and NOT the facts.

 

[Skyboy722]

http://www.wecnmagazine.com/2007issues/may/may07.html

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/17997788/site/newsweek/

Warming yes, but don't be so arrogant as to assume you or I as humans can stop it. Gross polution is horrible, and should we do something to eliminate it, yes. Should we learn to conserve, yes. But most enviro types are going on emotion, feelings and NOT the facts.

I ask you this: you agree that it is "horrible", and that we "should do something to eliminate it", and that we should "conserve". Why are we arguing about what everyone is "going on"? Who cares if they are going on "emotion, feelings," or "facts"? Isn't the end result the same? Isn't gross pollution still "horrible", shouldn't we still "do something to eliminate it", and shouldn't we still "learn to conserve"?

 

[HoursHore]

Who cares if they are going on "emotion, feelings," or "facts"? Isn't the end result the same?

This is pretty much why we are doomed as a species.