[Bioconversion] Global Warming (was Conserve -- Even the Air Force Wants to Cut Oil's Role)

[Kevin Chisholm]

Dear Harmon

Actually, in Cape Breton, we are experiencing localized cooling in the 
summer and warming in the winter. My Rhodenderons have just started to 
bloom yesterday, which is about 2 to 3 weeks later than 2 years ago. 
Last winter was much milder than normal. Snow was much less than normal 
also. I had the driveway plowed only twice, but I could have easily 
shoveled it. In previous years, I would need the plow about 5 times.

Best wishes,

Kevin

Harmon Seaver wrote:
>    Myself, I find the whole discussion/controvery/whathaveyou re global
> warming to be quite irrelevant at this point. Anyone who thinks that
> very significant warming isn't happening is either not paying attention
> or pretty much braindead. Whether it's man-made or not is pretty much
> irrelevant also, because there is very, very little that anyone could do
> at this point to reverse course in a significant enough way to matter
> before the glaciers were all melted.
>     If every car in the world were turned off permanently today, and
> every powerplant and factory smokestack and every household boiler --
> would that even stop the process at this point? Slow it down a little
> maybe? Is that going to happen? Is it possible to even shutdown 1/3 ??
> Or even 10%???
>    Not likely.
>      And is the developed world going to say to China and India and all
> the rest who are all now buying cars, etc --"We've got ours but you all
> can't have the same." ???  And no politician is even going to propose
> rationing or anything meaningful. Heck, if you put it to a referendum in
> the US it would never pass.
>     So do you have any reality based solutions for it?
> 
> 
> David Neeley wrote:
>> By positing those who are skeptics as "deniers" you immediately
>> emotionalize the issue.
>>
>> An extremely good resource is the Cambridge Conference Network
>> newsletter, which contains articles and commentary on all sides of the
>> issue.
>>
>> One problem in the discussion is that there are actually very few
>> scientists actually qualified to discuss climate change. For example,
>> there are only about 80 individuals in the U.S. (and a similar number
>> elsewhere worldwide) who actually have Ph.D. degrees in climatology.
>> Quite a few of these, in fact, are people much more skeptical than you
>> may imagine.
>>
>> "Global Warming" is presently very much in the status of a
>> religion--we are asked to accept much by faith that cannot be
>> conclusively proven, and even that subject to other factors that may
>> in fact describe the problem far better.
>>
>> I have found no links between carbon concentrations and warming, for
>> example. In fact, rising carbon levels generally come after
>> significant warming measurements, not before. The only direct
>> correlations that have been found thus far are between sunspot
>> activity and warming, from what I can determine.
>>
>> However, intelligent discussion of these issues is very hard to find
>> on most fora. Many people simply accept what they are told is
>> "scientific consensus" as some sort of holy writ without challenge.
>> That, I'm afraid, is not scientific method.
>>
>> My position is simple: I don't accept at face value many
>> unsubstantiated claims--especially the hysterical ones such as Al
>> Gore's over the top predictions based upon nothing I can find except
>> his own investments in carbon offset brokers. His dire warnings of
>> "twenty foot sea level rises" for example far exceed even the most
>> pessimistic forecasts of those who are proposing global warming
>> catastrophe--by a factor of ten or more, in fact.
>>
>> David
>>
>>
>