Just forgot to add yesterday:

Protecting the environment and searching for more effective and less pollutive production methods does not need to be a job killer. In fact it could be (and is already to some degree) a job motor especially since jobs in the industry sector are continously on a decline. But this sector has way more potential...

One brief positive example for the Christmas illuminations that are strung up along a few miles of the streets here:

The local council has used mainly LEDs rather than the 100-years-old incandescent filament bulbs. They have saved over 80% on costs, and used greatly less electricity.

Very pretty and very easy.


(Ofcourse, there are still a few old luddites longing for the 'good ole round bulbs'...)

Congrats to MAC & Partner and little-'n!

Merry Christmas,
Martin

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See new freedom: Mageia Linux
Take a look for yourself: Linux Format
The Future is what We all make IT (GPLv3)

It was 25 years ago that eminent scientist first started to get together to talk about 'climate change'.

Actually it was before that. In 1975 there was a doomsday article in Newsweek about Global Cooling.

It was 25 years ago that eminent scientist first started to get together to talk about 'climate change'.

Actually it was before that. In 1975 there was a doomsday article in Newsweek about Global Cooling.

Ah yes, I remember Global Cooling. Before that we were in imminent danger of a mini Ice Age.

I wonder what scare will come when Global Warming is found not to be producing all the predicted calamities? I expect it will be Global Wobbling. Too many people living in China will cause the Earth to Wobble out of orbit around the Sun.

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flaming balloons

It was 25 years ago that eminent scientist first started to get together to talk about 'climate change'.

Actually it was before that. In 1975 there was a doomsday article in Newsweek about Global Cooling.

Well there was problem with Global Dimming which has masked the greenhouse effect. The other pollutants that we used to pump out (heavier particulates) helped block the sun's rays. It caused the monsoons to move north and thereby caused the famine in Ethiopia back in the 80s. The West have since cleaned up those pollutants which were helping to protect us from some of effects of global warming...which is why in the past we saw a smaller increase in global temperature than expected.

Of course there is the other extreme effect of global warming where the Gulf stream will be switched off due to decreased salination levels from the melting of the ice caps. That will plunge the Northern Hemisphere into an ice age.

So basically, the weather system is not linear. One small change can have dramatic consequences and push the whole system into a totally different equilibrium. Probably at huge cost to human life (eg..the famine in Ethiopia).

For example..a pencil balanced on it's tip...one tiny push in any direction has a drastic effect on it's state.

Global Warming is generally considered a misnomer. We should call it Climate Change...which most scientists do.

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Reality Internet Personality

It was 25 years ago that eminent scientist first started to get together to talk about 'climate change'.

Actually it was before that. In 1975 there was a doomsday article in Newsweek about Global Cooling.

Well there was problem with Global Dimming which has masked the greenhouse effect. The other pollutants that we used to pump out (heavier particulates) helped block the sun's rays. It caused the monsoons to move north and thereby caused the famine in Ethiopia back in the 80s. The West have since cleaned up those pollutants which were helping to protect us from some of effects of global warming...which is why in the past we saw a smaller increase in global temperature than expected.

Of course there is the other extreme effect of global warming where the Gulf stream will be switched off due to decreased salination levels from the melting of the ice caps. That will plunge the Northern Hemisphere into an ice age.

So basically, the weather system is not linear. One small change can have dramatic consequences and push the whole system into a totally different equilibrium. Probably at huge cost to human life (eg..the famine in Ethiopia).

For example..a pencil balanced on it's tip...one tiny push in any direction has a drastic effect on it's state.

Global Warming is generally considered a misnomer. We should call it Climate Change...which most scientists do.

Es, can you direct me to the research data that supports your claims made above?

Thank You

Es, can you direct me to the research data that supports your claims made above?

Thank You

Couple of easy summaries:

Global Dimming

European climate could change rapidly, over decades rather than centuries


Edit: I left out the word 'fail' from my earlier post. The monsoons 'failed' to move north.

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Reality Internet Personality

Polar bears could be on threatened species list

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me@rescam.org

[size=20]REGULATING GREENHOUSE GASES

Should the Supreme Court force the Environmental Protection Agency to impose restrictions on greenhouse gases linked to global warming?

Yes: The court must conclude that global warming gases are a real danger

By Joseph M. Feller

Feller is a professor of law at Arizona State University and a member scholar of the Center for Progressive Reform, a network of university scholars seeking creative and workable policy solutions that protect the global environment.

December 27, 2006

President Bush has often criticized “activist judges” for allegedly shaping the law to fit their own policy preferences instead of enforcing it as written.

Now, Bush's own appointees to the Supreme Court have an opportunity to show that they will enforce a law that Congress enacted more than 30 years ago, rather than bending that law out of shape to avoid a result that they would rather not reach.

The law involved is the Clean Air Act, enacted in 1970 and still very relevant today. Although the Clean Air Act is long and complicated, at least one of its requirements is clear and simple. It requires the administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency to issue standards limiting automobile emissions of any air pollutant “which in his judgment causes, or contributes to, air pollution which may reasonably be anticipated to endanger public health or welfare.”

This provision is mandatory. If a pollutant “may reasonably be anticipated to endanger public health or welfare,” then the EPA must act.

In 1999 a group of parties petitioned the EPA to issue emission standards for carbon dioxide, methane and other “greenhouse gases” emitted from auto tailpipes that contribute to global warming.

There can be little doubt that such gases “may reasonably be anticipated to endanger public health or welfare” within the meaning of the Clean Air Act, because the act defines endangerment of public welfare to include harmful effects on the Earth's climate. Since global warming is likely to, among other things, raise sea level by melting the polar ice caps, thereby inundating hundreds of square miles of valuable and heavily populated coastal areas, it is certainly a threat to public welfare.

The EPA denied the petition. Interestingly, however, the agency did not deny that automobile emissions contribute to global warming, or that global warming endangers public welfare. Instead, it offered two justifications for its refusal to act. First, it claimed that greenhouse gases are not air pollutants within the meaning of the Clean Air Act. This denial, however, is simply not credible. The act defines “air pollutant” to include “any substance or matter which is emitted into or otherwise enters the ambient air.” Since greenhouse gases are substances, and they enter the air, they are air pollutants.

The EPA's second reason for denying the petition was subtler, but equally arrogant. The EPA argued that, as a matter of policy, automobile emission standards are not a good approach to solving the problem of global warming. Claiming such standards would not be “effective or appropriate,” the EPA declared that it “disagrees” with their use to combat global warming.

In early December, the Supreme Court heard arguments in a lawsuit brought by 12 states that have asked the courts to overturn the EPA's decision. The EPA's lawyers urged the court to affirm the EPA's refusal to act on the grounds that the agency's decision was “reasonable.”

The problem with the EPA's defense is that it asks the court to second-guess a judgment that Congress made more than 30 years ago when it created the Clean Air Act. It is not up to the EPA, or the courts, to decide whether automobile emission standards are a wise, reasonable or economical way to control air pollution. Congress decided that automobile emission standards are a good idea, and instructed the EPA to issue them for any air pollutant that endangers the public's health or welfare.

If Bush's EPA doesn't agree with the Clean Air Act, it can ask Congress to change it. Until then, to paraphrase Donald Rumsfeld, the EPA should implement the law that Congress wrote, not the one that it wishes Congress had written. And if the EPA refuses to follow the law, then the courts should order it to do so. After all, that's their job.

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me@rescam.org

Es, can you direct me to the research data that supports your claims made above?

Thank You

Couple of easy summaries:

Global Dimming

European climate could change rapidly, over decades rather than centuries


Edit: I left out the word 'fail' from my earlier post. The monsoons 'failed' to move north.

You misunderstood my request. I was asking for a link to the data, not a "popular press" article. I have read the articles and they make claims without ever pointing to any specific data. Very entertaining, but not science.

REGULATING GREENHOUSE GASES

Should the Supreme Court force the Environmental Protection Agency to impose restrictions on greenhouse gases linked to global warming?

No: Any greenhouse gas limits must be imposed by Congress

By Jonathan H. Adler

Adler is a professor and director of the Center for Business Law & Regulation at the Case Western Reserve University School of Law.

December 27, 2006

A number of states and environmentalist groups are asking the Supreme Court to force the Environmental Protection Agency to impose regulations on greenhouse gas emissions – the most ubiquitous byproducts of modern industrial society. Yet Congress has never given the EPA such authority. In other words, these petitioners are seeking to obtain in court what they have not been able to achieve through the political process.

A basic principle of our governmental structure is that all legislative powers of the federal government are vested in the Legislature. As a consequence, federal agencies, including the EPA, possess only those powers given to them by Congress. Controlling greenhouse gases would be the greatest regulatory undertaking ever contemplated in environmental law. As such, it is simply implausible that Congress would have delegated such authority to the EPA without saying so, yet nowhere does the Clean Air Act explicitly delegate authority to adopt such rules.

The petitioners are claiming that the EPA has ample authority to regulate greenhouse gases under the act, and that it would be arbitrary for the EPA to fail to regulate such emissions. A careful reading of the Clean Air Act, however, makes clear that Congress never sought to regulate carbon dioxide or other greenhouse gases under the act. Under the act, the term “air pollutant” is defined to include “any physical, chemical, (or) biological . . . substance or matter which is emitted into or otherwise enters the ambient air.”

It says the EPA “shall” issue regulations governing new vehicle emissions of pollutants that may be “reasonably anticipated” to harm public health or welfare.

The clear intent of the act when first enacted in 1967 and as subsequently amended in 1970, 1977 and 1990 is to control local and regional air pollution, such as soot and smog. Every time Congress has sought to address a broader environmental concern, such as ozone depletion or acid rain, it has explicitly authorized the EPA to act. Moreover, if carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases are pollutants for the purposes of Section 202, they are almost certainly air pollutants for the Clean Air Act's “non-attainment” provisions as well, as the language is virtually identical.

Yet the regulatory measures that are required by these provisions – the creation and enforcement of national ambient air quality standards – are fundamentally incompatible with the regulation of greenhouse gases as such. There is also a question whether the petitioning states and environmentalist groups should even be able to bring their case.

Under Article III of the Constitution, plaintiffs must have “standing” before a federal court can hear their claims. “Standing” requires that a plaintiff show that he or she has suffered an actual or imminent, concrete injury that is particular to him or her.

This is easy to do when pollution harms a specific property or environmental resource, but much more difficult in the context of nationwide emissions anticipated to have global effects over many decades.

The fact that climate change is a global concern that affects us all is yet one more reason to leave the question to elected legislators and treaty negotiators, rather than to force it on the judiciary. Current claims of injury from global warming are quintessential generalized grievances that courts are not competent to address.

However serious or urgent the threat of climate change may be, such concerns are best resolved through the political process. To thrust them upon the courts, absent the direction – let alone acquiescence – of the political branches undermines both the separation of powers and the democratic legitimacy of climate change policy.

Global warming is a serious concern, but this does not mean that courts should – or even have – the authority to consider legal claims that seek to direct U.S. policy on the subject.

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me@rescam.org

Es, can you direct me to the research data that supports your claims made above?

Thank You

Couple of easy summaries:

Global Dimming

European climate could change rapidly, over decades rather than centuries


Edit: I left out the word 'fail' from my earlier post. The monsoons 'failed' to move north.

You misunderstood my request. I was asking for a link to the data, not a "popular press" article. I have read the articles and they make claims without ever pointing to any specific data. Very entertaining, but not science.

The sources are quoted..the scientists and the institutions are mentioned there.
So yes...it is science, Bill. I believe the Horizon progam mentions the data and the scientist involved.

The second link I gave you was an academic link to a university/government research site. You are aware aren't you that most research is done by universities?

Sadly all I can give you are links to the 'popular' press (although Horizon is a recognised science program here). Most of the articles and data I have seen on this have been published in scientific journals. You'll have to go to your library or pay a subscription fee to see it. There is no one source as there is more than one scientist conducting research into this area.

If you are actually interested I suggest you take out a subscription to Nature, the New Scientist or Scientific American. You may get some idea then just how well accepted Climate Change is amongst the scientific community.

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Reality Internet Personality

From "New Scientist"

"Climate change is with us. A decade ago, it was conjecture. Now the future is unfolding before our eyes. Canada's Inuit see it in disappearing Arctic ice and permafrost. The shantytown dwellers of Latin America and Southern Asia see it in lethal storms and floods. Europeans see it in disappearing glaciers, forest fires and fatal heat waves."

Imagine what will happen next...

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flaming balloons

From "New Scientist"

"Climate change is with us. A decade ago, it was conjecture. Now the future is unfolding before our eyes. Canada's Inuit see it in disappearing Arctic ice and permafrost. The shantytown dwellers of Latin America and Southern Asia see it in lethal storms and floods. Europeans see it in disappearing glaciers, forest fires and fatal heat waves."

Imagine what will happen next...

They be serving Mai Tai's with those little pink umbrellas in the Yukon?
Well, you said to have fun...

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Account frozen...

From "New Scientist"

"Climate change is with us. A decade ago, it was conjecture. Now the future is unfolding before our eyes. Canada's Inuit see it in disappearing Arctic ice and permafrost. The shantytown dwellers of Latin America and Southern Asia see it in lethal storms and floods. Europeans see it in disappearing glaciers, forest fires and fatal heat waves."

Imagine what will happen next...

They be serving Mai Tai's with those little pink umbrellas in the Yukon?
Well, you said to have fun...

Yes, your imagination is perfectly sound. I'll have a White Russian with you, with iCe :)

[edit] don't worry if all the ice has gone and there is no energy available to make some, I'll just have my White Russian neat ;)

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flaming balloons

pdf article from 'Nature' on the North Atlantic Conveyor and it's effect on climate:

Risk of Sea Change in the Atlantic

Abstract from a paper on the effect of decreased salinity on climate:

Strong hemispheric coupling of glacial climate through freshwater discharge and ocean circulation

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Reality Internet Personality

pdf article from 'Nature' on the North Atlantic Conveyor and it's effect on climate:

Risk of Sea Change in the Atlantic

Abstract from a paper on the effect of decreased salinity on climate:

Strong hemispheric coupling of glacial climate through freshwater discharge and ocean circulation

There is a long standing discussion in BBC Climate Change Experiment on the North Atlantic conveyor. The evidence is that it is slowing down and that temperatures for the UK in particular with be moderated "down" (I use the term moderated generally :) So the UK is likely to go to Siberian temperates (which is what it would be without the moderating effect of the N.A. conveyor) while the rest of the world, in the main, warms up.

Imagine that.

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flaming balloons

Article on Global Dimming from University of East Anglia:

Global Dimming

I cannot access the scientfic articles on Global Dimming online. There is a Guardian article here: Goodbye sunshine

Which lists the papers published on the research that Bill needs to read:

Global Dimming: A Review of the Evidence, G Stanhill and S Cohen Agricultural and Forest Meteorology Volume 107 (2001), pages 255-278

The Cause of Decreased Pan Evaporation Over the Past 50 Years, M Roderick and G Farquhar Science Volume 298 (2002), pages 1410-1411

Observed Reductions of Surface Solar Radiation at Sites in the US and Worldwide, B Liepert Geophysical Research Letters Volume 29 (2002), pages 1421-1433

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Reality Internet Personality

For those that don't know what Global Dimming is - it is the notion that there is less sunlight hitting the Earth's surface, for whatever reason. Therefore, it follows that things are getting colder. But the Greenhouse effect is warming us up. So what is happening with Climate Change gets more complicated. Add the North Atlantic Conveyor, and genrally the seas effect on climate, and other observations now being made, and it all becomes a very interesting merry go round; with perhaps not a happy outcome if it all goes wrong for life on this planet.

Or will it just be the dinosaurs that die out this time?

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flaming balloons

Govt. Sees Polar Bears As 'Threatened

By JOHN HEILPRIN


WASHINGTON (AP) - Polar bears are in jeopardy and need stronger government protection because of melting Arctic sea ice related to global warming, the Bush administration said Wednesday.

The Interior Department cites thinning sea ice as the big problem; outside the government, other scientists studying the issue say pollution, overhunting, development and even tourism also may be factors. Greenland and Norway have the most polar bears, while a quarter of them live mainly in Alaska and travel to Canada and Russia.

Interior Secretary Dirk Kempthorne on Wednesday proposed listing polar bears as a "threatened" species on the government list of imperiled species. The "endangered" category is reserved for species more likely to become extinct.

"Polar bears are one of nature's ultimate survivors, able to live and thrive in one of the world's harshest environments," Kempthorne said. "But we are concerned the polar bear's habitat may literally be melting."

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