A small reminder of a very significantly big effect of all our industrial scale industrial and farming pollution:


Why species matter

... "We are astonishingly ignorant," Lord May told the programme, "about how many species are alive on earth today, and even more ignorant about how many we can afford to lose while still maintaining the vital ecosystem services that humanity ultimately depends on."

That may be why so many biologists believe the biodiversity crisis is actually a much more profound threat to our future than global warming.


This is our only planet,
Martin

---

See new freedom: Mageia Linux
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...
When CO-2 gets anywhere near those concentrations then I will join the cry that we are affecting the world's weather adversely; probably cooling it too much and heading into another ice age. A sort of Nuclear Winter as predicted if we were to have a doomsday confrontation on an atomic scale.

You would think that with today's advanced knowledge of world-wide weather and some good,honest,hard headed climate Physicists we could put the question to rest about the effect of CO-2. Until then we laymen can argue as we do about the existence of an afterlife.

It has been known for nearly a century that the "greenhouse" effect is due to heating the air trapped in the greenhouse not due to "trapped" IR. Replace the glass with something transparent to long wave IR and the temperature increase is the same.

To make it more interesting, lets say the air does get warmer because of CO2 increase. That means the air expands increasing the radiating surface area decreasing the temperature. So even if there is a measurable increase for a fixed volume of air that increase never materializes as the volume and radiating surface of the air is not fixed.

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Unvarnished
Haaretz
Jerusalem Post
The origin of the Yahweh Cult

...
In stark contrast, CO2 lingers in our atmosphere for a few hundred years before getting broken down or recycled elsewhere. Hence, the heat absorbing effect of CO2 continues to accumulate as the CO2 concentration accumulates...

A long time ago I remember having to explain to you that atmospheric CO2 is the ONLY source of carbon for plants. Do you need to google the word ONLY?

It's the only planet we have,
Martin

I am still waiting for you to post your scientific credentials. Or do you think it is unfair to expect people issuing such dire pontifications to know what they are talking about? Your credentials please!

---

Unvarnished
Haaretz
Jerusalem Post
The origin of the Yahweh Cult

Speaking of people who are unaware of the earth's inclination to the sun and who missed the movie "30 Days of Night" and ignored literally hundreds of scientific, geographic and cultural references to the day and night in the polar regions ...

IT WAS seen as one of the most distressing effects of climate change ever recorded: a polar bear dying of exhaustion after being stranded between melting patches of Arctic sea ice.

It was a picture. That meant the sun was up. That means it was summer. Ice is supposed to melt in the summer.

If that is not bad enough, the photographer was on land. A polar bear dying of exhaustion only a hundred yards from a tasty photographer. What a cruel world this is.

Thus the (literally) incredible fact that people will believe a caption about a picture over the contents of the picture itself. We look at beliefs in the past, Medieval, Dark Ages, Roman, Greek and even more ancient times and wonder how people could believe things and act on beliefs that were to clearly contrary to every day experience and what should have been common knowledge. Here is a modern example of exactly the same thing.

---

Unvarnished
Haaretz
Jerusalem Post
The origin of the Yahweh Cult

... It was a picture. That meant the sun was up. That means it was summer. Ice is supposed to melt in the summer.

If that is not bad enough, the photographer was on land. A polar bear dying of exhaustion only a hundred yards from a tasty photographer. What a cruel world this is. ...

Good to see you are as eloquent as ever with your jaundiced view and FUD and denial of reality.

Enjoy your hotter summers. You seem to have earned it!

Shame your hotter summers also fuel a greater intensity for such as hurricane Irene... For just one small change.


Meanwhile... There is the rest of the world. It's the only one we have.

Regards,
Martin

---

See new freedom: Mageia Linux
Take a look for yourself: Linux Format
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And so the ice melts ever earlier and to an ever greater extent:


Arctic sea routes open as ice melts

... This summer's melt could break the 2007 record for the smallest area of sea ice since the satellite era began in 1979.

Shipping companies are already eyeing the benefits these routes may bring if they remain open regularly.

The two lanes have been used by a number of small craft several times in recent years.

But the Northern Sea Route has been free enough of ice this month for a succession of tankers carrying natural gas condensate from the northern port of Murmansk to sail along the Siberian coast en route for Thailand. ...

... "The Northwest Passage is probably the less reliable becaise you've got so many small passages in it where chance variations in wind will pile ice up and block it," he said.

"But so long as the ice retreats from the coast of Siberia, you'll have a route there."

Some computer models forecast that the Arctic could be completely clear of summer sea ice within a decade, though others recently published say there may be high years and low years en route to the final disappearance.

Canada and Russia are among the governments jockeying for position as new areas of the seabed open up for exploitation.


Mark Beaumont completes Arctic pole row

A rowing expedition has reached the 1996 location of the magnetic North Pole in a bid to highlight the effect of climate change in the region. ...


Also note that ice and snow reflect most of the sun's light and heat, whereas an ocean surface free of snow and ice absorbs most of the sun's heat...


This is our only world,
Martin

---

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

... It was a picture. That meant the sun was up. That means it was summer. Ice is supposed to melt in the summer.

If that is not bad enough, the photographer was on land. A polar bear dying of exhaustion only a hundred yards from a tasty photographer. What a cruel world this is. ...

Good to see you are as eloquent as ever with your jaundiced view and FUD and denial of reality.

Enjoy your hotter summers. You seem to have earned it!

Shame your hotter summers also fuel a greater intensity for such as hurricane Irene... For just one small change.


Meanwhile... There is the rest of the world. It's the only one we have.

Regards,
Martin

Martin,

I just do not understand the paranoia behind the man made global warmest brigade. Quite frankly I'm embarrassed by it especially by those whom coming from the scientific fraternity should know better. But you have absolutely nothing to worry about regarding man bringing his world to an end because he is suspected to have created this current global warming phase. A phase is all that it is and it will have ended by the turn of this century if not sooner. This current global warming phase is in it's peaking cycle and on peaking so will the next global cooling phase start. So once this cooling phase starts so will scientist claim this was created by man too. Wholly relying on ignorance to the facts behind natures reoccurring warming/cooling cycles that the general public are totally unaware off. There is absolutely no proof that global warming has ever caused strife on this planet over millions of years, including those occasions where the warming was much higher than we have experienced today. All evidence points to the opposite and that global cooling is always the most devastating to this planet and it's population. This next global cooling phase to come will produce some major problems for those living in the Northern Hemisphere.

Fascinating Michael, and completely without scientific merit.

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Janice

Fascinating Michael, and completely without scientific merit.

Intriguing Soft^spirt, intriguing indeed?

... I just do not understand the paranoia behind the man made global warmest brigade. Quite frankly I'm embarrassed by it especially by those whom coming from the scientific fraternity should know better.

That's a big problem...

Those unaware are very happy in their world of exponentially increasing consumerism and blinded by warm and happy messages from Marketing and the reassuring murmurs from the politicians.

Those that are aware are genuinely very worried for our future.

But you have absolutely nothing to worry about regarding man bringing his world to an end because he is suspected to have created this current global warming phase. A phase is all that it is and it will have ended by the turn of this century if not sooner. This current global warming phase is in it's peaking cycle and on peaking so will the next global cooling phase start. So once this cooling phase starts so will scientist claim this was created by man too. ...

And how do you know that? All just a 'warm fuzzy feeling'?


There are indeed natural cycles. They are being closely studied. However, those natural cycles are just mere small undulations when compared to the monumental sheer cliff face that we've just slammed into from our exponential increase in industrial output of pollution since the 1940s.

An exponential increase is never sustainable. Something always catastrophically breaks very soon. In our case, amongst a swarm of problems of unsustainability, the most significant is CO2 pollution changing the way our atmosphere operates.

The concentration of CO2 in our atmosphere is measurably increasing, rapidly, faster than this planet has ever witnessed in its entire existence. Is that in itself not worrying? We're already into uncharted territory...

Note that the sun radiates most of its heat as what we see as sunlight. That's why we have evolved to see the wavelengths of light that we do. That light heats the ground, and the ground is nicely warmed. To keep a balance so that we do not suffer an infernal oven, that heat must re-radiate to keep the ground down to a comfortable temperature. The ground heat is radiated at the longer wavelengths of infra-red light. Which is where CO2 becomes significant. The sun's light and heat pass through CO2 unaffected. Whereas, the infra-red light radiating to cool the earth is absorbed by CO2 and trapped, so getting us heated more as we pump more CO2 into the atmosphere.

All readily demonstrated.

All very real, all happening very ever more quickly, all with ever more disruptive and deadly consequences.


Industry and farming are by far the major sources of CO2 dumped into our atmosphere. Is that not Man-made?

It's our only planet,
Martin

---

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

... I just do not understand the paranoia behind the man made global warmest brigade. Quite frankly I'm embarrassed by it especially by those whom coming from the scientific fraternity should know better.

That's a big problem...

Those unaware are very happy in their world of exponentially increasing consumerism and blinded by warm and happy messages from Marketing and the reassuring murmurs from the politicians.

Those that are aware are genuinely very worried for our future.

But you have absolutely nothing to worry about regarding man bringing his world to an end because he is suspected to have created this current global warming phase. A phase is all that it is and it will have ended by the turn of this century if not sooner. This current global warming phase is in it's peaking cycle and on peaking so will the next global cooling phase start. So once this cooling phase starts so will scientist claim this was created by man too. ...

And how do you know that? All just a 'warm fuzzy feeling'?


There are indeed natural cycles. They are being closely studied. However, those natural cycles are just mere small undulations when compared to the monumental sheer cliff face that we've just slammed into from our exponential increase in industrial output of pollution since the 1940s.

An exponential increase is never sustainable. Something always catastrophically breaks very soon. In our case, amongst a swarm of problems of unsustainability, the most significant is CO2 pollution changing the way our atmosphere operates.

The concentration of CO2 in our atmosphere is measurably increasing, rapidly, faster than this planet has ever witnessed in its entire existence. Is that in itself not worrying? We're already into uncharted territory...

Note that the sun radiates most of its heat as what we see as sunlight. That's why we have evolved to see the wavelengths of light that we do. That light heats the ground, and the ground is nicely warmed. To keep a balance so that we do not suffer an infernal oven, that heat must re-radiate to keep the ground down to a comfortable temperature. The ground heat is radiated at the longer wavelengths of infra-red light. Which is where CO2 becomes significant. The sun's light and heat pass through CO2 unaffected. Whereas, the infra-red light radiating to cool the earth is absorbed by CO2 and trapped, so getting us heated more as we pump more CO2 into the atmosphere.

All readily demonstrated.

All very real, all happening very ever more quickly, all with ever more disruptive and deadly consequences.


Industry and farming are by far the major sources of CO2 dumped into our atmosphere. Is that not Man-made?

It's our only planet,
Martin

Martin, thank you for your reply.

In our case, amongst a swarm of problems of unsustainability, the most significant is CO2 pollution changing the way our atmosphere operates.

The concentration of CO2 in our atmosphere is measurably increasing, rapidly, faster than this planet has ever witnessed in its entire existence. Is that in itself not worrying? We're already into uncharted territory...

When the earth cooled sufficiently to first get an atmosphere it was mainly composed of CO2, with concentrations of over 90% (similar to Venus today, with it's runaway greenhouse).

Over the millenia, as life developed and climbed on to land, the plants reduced the atmosphere to the one we see today.

So, the earth has seen CO2 many many times the concentration we see today, and that which the panicking climate experts (expert on something they are studying but don't really know) predict will come.

Regarding hitting the precipice suddenly ...

Where I am typing this from was the bottom of a shallow tropical sea about 200 million years ago, where the surface temperatures were similar to Death Valley (50C at mid day). Then, not long after the land rose tectonically, we ran in to a series of catastrophic ice ages. The last being 20,000 years ago, and where there was 2 miles of ice above where I am currently typing.

Yes!

We should reduce our CO2 output, and new technology should be more environmentally sustainable than the technology it replaces. However, get a life and get real.

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It's good to be back amongst friends and colleagues

We should reduce our CO2 output, and new technology should be more environmentally sustainable than the technology it replaces. However, get a life and get real.

Or prove it and lets get on with the killing of 9 out of 10 humans for the crime of carbon so the population is small enough to be sustainable. After all we are so close to the tipping point we can't invent carbon free tech fast enough to prevent the tipping point. Massive reduction requires massive reduction. Got another solution, love to hear it.

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Yes!

We should reduce our CO2 output, and new technology should be more environmentally sustainable than the technology it replaces. However, get a life and get real.

John, I take my hat off to you...

We have only been effectively studying this planet scientifically for about 125 to 150 years now. You would think this was sufficient to enable us to to understand fully how this planet formed, grew and behaved under certain environmental conditions. Not so, what took multi-millions of years to form is not going to be mastered by scientist in such a short length of time. But what is becoming apparent is that through my studying of meteorological data going back from the late 1700's through to the early 1900's (200 years) that there was then very strong evidence of global warming in action and recognised so by several meteorologists by the turn of the 1900's. To date this global warming is still going on but the vexed question is, "How much is man contributing to it and how much is he compounding upon it's effects"? So critics, who are naturally worried about mans affects towards global warming, continually cite Co2 as the main offender here generated by us humans in excessive amounts. If you really wont to know how gasses in the atmosphere really alter the planets climate wait for the next large volcanic eruption. We are due one very soon, when that occurs
you will experience what mother nature can do to our climate within a few months what man has not achieved since the beginning of the first industrial revolution. Excessive Co2 in the atmosphere I'm not too worried about for mother nature has handled this situation admirably many times in the past contrary to many peoples beliefs that to date Co2 in the atmosphere is the highest it has ever been. For those interested, keep your mind open to the effects tectonic plate movement has on our climate also the effects continental plate movement, the movement of the continents, have on changing our climate too. Will scientist ever resolve this issue of what effect man is currently having on his climate. Yes, I expect they will but not until years after the worry about it all has long passed over.

... We have only been effectively studying this planet scientifically for about 125 to 150 years now. ...

We've had 'philosophical studies' documented since the days of the ancient Greeks. Hence the "PhD" for gaining a doctorate.

... but the vexed question is, "How much is man contributing to it and how much is he compounding upon it's effects"? So critics, who are naturally worried about mans affects towards global warming, continually cite Co2 as the main offender here generated by us humans in excessive amounts. If you really wont to know how gasses in the atmosphere really alter the planets climate wait for the next large volcanic eruption. ...

Nothing vexed there at all. Mankind far outstrips anything present day volcanos add to the CO2 concentration.

Excessive Co2 in the atmosphere I'm not too worried about for mother nature has handled this situation admirably many times in the past contrary to many peoples beliefs that to date Co2 in the atmosphere is the highest it has ever been. ...

Indeed so... However, life as we know it did not exist in those times. We live in the here and now, not many millions of years ago.

Also note that it is the rate of change that has never been seen before. Then again, there has never been Man on planet Earth before burning thousands of years of fossil carbon in just a few years. It is the never-before-seen rate of change that is the real killer... You grow your crops for a lifetime fine, only to find the rains have moved a few hundred miles north the next year, and yet further north the following years...

It is happening now.


It is all our only planet,
Martin

---

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

Excessive Co2 in the atmosphere I'm not too worried about for mother nature has handled this situation admirably many times in the past contrary to many peoples beliefs that to date Co2 in the atmosphere is the highest it has ever been. ...

Indeed so... However, life as we know it did not exist in those times. We live in the here and now, not many millions of years ago.

Also note that it is the rate of change that has never been seen before. Then again, there has never been Man on planet Earth before burning thousands of years of fossil carbon in just a few years. It is the never-before-seen rate of change that is the real killer... You grow your crops for a lifetime fine, only to find the rains have moved a few hundred miles north the next year, and yet further north the following years...

It is happening now.

As witnessed:

Texas fires: Bastrop blaze prompts Rick Perry warning

Texas Governor Rick Perry said it was not a time for politics as "people's lives and their possessions are in danger"


Quite an opportune example. Note that as a "one off", that event says nothing about global warming and the associated/consequent climate change.

HOWEVER, added in with the measured continuing increase of CO2 in our atmosphere and the known effects of that, and with the ever increasing observations backing that up from all around the world, you get a very significant story.

For example, yet another recent example:

'Gob-smacking' scale of Petermann Glacier break-up

New pictures have revealed the extent to which a huge glacier in northern Greenland has broken up in just two years, claims a glaciologist.

[...]

The glacier is 186 miles (300km) long and 3,280ft (1000m) high - over three times the height of the Eiffel Tower.

Last year, it shed a piece of ice measuring 77 square miles (200 sq km). ...



Shame that quote from Texas Governor Rick Perry is not being heeded by the rest of politics and the rest of the world...


It is all our only planet,
Martin

---

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

... It was a picture. That meant the sun was up. That means it was summer. Ice is supposed to melt in the summer.

If that is not bad enough, the photographer was on land. A polar bear dying of exhaustion only a hundred yards from a tasty photographer. What a cruel world this is. ...

Good to see you are as eloquent as ever with your jaundiced view and FUD and denial of reality.

Reality says polar ice melts in the summer. Join my reality. You will be better for it.

Enjoy your hotter summers. You seem to have earned it!

More people die of cold winters than hot summers.

I admit there are Londoners who would like to see the Thames freeze over again for winter festivals.

Read you own propaganda and it is "hotter" in degree days. The change is not in degrees but days. Summers in England are now as long as they were in the first half of the 20th c. Longer growing seasons and shorter winters are a good thing.

Shame your hotter summers also fuel a greater intensity for such as hurricane Irene... For just one small change.

Credibility is not enhanced by pointing to a fizzle.

Meanwhile... There is the rest of the world. It's the only one we have.

I find it odd the claim that this is the best of all possible worlds has resurfaced seven centuries after it was ridiculed out of public discussion. On top of 13 years of LIES about the impending melting I should have expected it to be revived out of desperation.

---

Unvarnished
Haaretz
Jerusalem Post
The origin of the Yahweh Cult

We should reduce our CO2 output, and new technology should be more environmentally sustainable than the technology it replaces. However, get a life and get real.

Or prove it and lets get on with the killing of 9 out of 10 humans for the crime of carbon so the population is small enough to be sustainable. After all we are so close to the tipping point we can't invent carbon free tech fast enough to prevent the tipping point. Massive reduction requires massive reduction. Got another solution, love to hear it.

Solution? That would ruin the indulgence in apocalyptic visions. What would their lives be like without the Schadenfreude of watching others suffer?

There is a simple solution for the US. One new nuclear power plant per week for the next twenty years. It is as simple as that. Of course the mere risk of nuclear power is worse to them (for some reason) than the certainty they believe in so that is unacceptable. Sure there is a risk of a few thousand dying of nuclear accidents every now and then but to them that is worse than the hundreds of millions they know for certain will die.

Therefore they enjoy the image of hundreds of millions dying rather than adopt the only known solution.

Of course one a week for twenty years (or two a week for ten years or whatever) is barely practical and would take at least five years to gear up to it. Fact is it is more practical and cheaper than any other green (yes, green) energy and can be installed faster than any of them and is the only proven technology. But they refuse to consider it. So again their indulgence is in sado-masochistic visions of apocalyptic death and destruction.

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Unvarnished
Haaretz
Jerusalem Post
The origin of the Yahweh Cult

As witnessed:

Texas fires: Bastrop blaze prompts Rick Perry warning

Texas Governor Rick Perry said it was not a time for politics as "people's lives and their possessions are in danger"

Headline: Global Warming prevents Dustbowls!

Pass it on.

Of course the weather has never been as bad as it was yesterday. The Dustbowl of the 1930s? Forget it. It is hotter and drier today so it prevents dustbowls.

In what year was the best of all possible climates? I want a year so we have a CO2 target not just guesswork.

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Unvarnished
Haaretz
Jerusalem Post
The origin of the Yahweh Cult

I have not found any physical evidence for this scenario but it was from an academic source. I know, I should have taken notes but it was just amusing at the time but absent evidence who cares what the source.

The claim is that early African humans started fires to burn off scrub and promote savannahs because they hunted herd animals. Herd animals eat grass not scrub, cattle versus deer for example, grazers v browsers.

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Unvarnished
Haaretz
Jerusalem Post
The origin of the Yahweh Cult