Posted on February 15th, 2010 by admin
Bill Nye ‘The Science Guy’ was on MSNBC’s Rachel Maddow show this past Wednesday, discussing the latest round of snowstorms and if climate change is responsible. Nye told Maddow that the people who are saying that the snowstorms around Washington D.C. disproves climate change are almost ‘unpatriotic’.
Nye also said that he felt from his experience that global warming denial could be attributed to generational factors, like his personal observations that older people have a much harder time grasping how billions of people could affect the thin atmosphere. He felt that younger generations are more accepting of this possibility. Read more... (406 words, estimated 1:37 mins reading time)
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Filed under: Politics, The ridiculous!, Weather science
Posted on December 1st, 2009 by admin
The names in the leaked emails of East Anglia CRU are probably not familiar with many readers of this site. While most know of Mr. Al Gore, former Vice President of the United States and Nobel prize winner, and James Hansen of NASA, few scientists in this field get much notoriety.
MagicJavaTV put out a slide show in the form of a YouTube video. It is a great overview of the people involved in this recent revelation.
ClimateGate Who’s Who
Popularity: 1% [?]
Permanent link to this post (85 words, estimated 20 secs reading time)
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Filed under: Politics, Weather science
Posted on November 24th, 2009 by admin
Most people that read this site have likely heard of the emails that were stolen from the University of East Anglia’s Climate Research Unit (CRU). I would like to offer a few of my thoughts on the subject.
First, catch the people responsible for breaking into the property of the University of East Anglia. Prosecute the offenders to the fullest extent of the law. I am not versed in the laws of the UK but I would assume that each document and email that was illegally stolen from those servers would be an individual count of theft, so the parties involved would be liable for several thousand counts of theft. No one should ever break the law to further their political interest (and remember there was nothing purely scientific in these emails – they are simply emails with opinions and, as such, are not facts). Breaking the law is simply not a way to discuss the scientific relevance of information. So just as I condemn Mr. Al Gore, former Vice President of the US, for suggesting civil disobedience, I condemn the stealing of information from the University. Read more... (2189 words, estimated 8:45 mins reading time)
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Filed under: Politics, Technology, Weather science
Posted on November 4th, 2009 by admin
This is absolutely unbelievable. It now appears that Mr. Al Gore, former Vice President of the United States and Nobel prize winner for his theories on global warming, may be stepping back from some of his strong beliefs.
“Over the years I have been among those who focused most of all on CO2, and I think that’s still justified,” Gore told Newsweek . “But a comprehensive plan to solve the climate crisis has to widen the focus to encompass strategies for all” of the greenhouse culprits identified in the Nasa study.” Read more... (527 words, estimated 2:06 mins reading time)
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Filed under: Uncategorized
Posted on July 30th, 2009 by admin
If you read this site often, you will know that I am an engineer by training (even though I don’t currently practice). I tend to respect this profession a great deal as being fairly straight-forward and hard working. As a group, they also tend to be a pretty smart bunch.
One of the major trade rags in engineering is C&EN (Chemical and Engineering News). It is edited by Mr. Rudy Baum. If you aren’t in that trade, you would probably never pick up an issue so you may not be familiar with it. I haven’t read the publication in a long time but was recently made aware of a bit of controversy by Climate Depot. While the readers of C&EN are likely not climatologists, the science of CO2 and its affect on the atmosphere is very steeped in chemistry which their target market knows a bit about. Read more... (1165 words, estimated 4:40 mins reading time)
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Filed under: Greenhouse gas, Technology, Weather science
Posted on July 16th, 2009 by admin
There is an article in the USAToday (that is based on an article in Nature Geoscience) that is getting a lot of web traffic lately.
While few people would call me a global warming alarmists, I do think it is important to have relatively balanced perspective on all of this. In fact, that is the essence of this blog.
Most reputable scientists without an agenda (which likely excludes anyone associated with Al Gore) had concluded long ago that it wasn’t the CO2 concentrations that would deliver the doom and gloom of the alarmists. Rather, the concern was a feedback loop that would be accelerated by a fairly rapid expansion of carbon dioxide. One theory is that this CO2 increase would cause temperatures to increase slightly which causes an increase in H2O in the atmosphere which further increases the temperature in an escalating fashion. Read more... (460 words, estimated 1:50 mins reading time)
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Filed under: Getting warmer, Greenhouse gas, Natural, Weather science
Posted on June 26th, 2009 by admin
Funny title. You may have to read it a couple times to get it. I didn’t create it – I am not that creative.
Kim Strassel has an opinion in the Wall Street Journal where she does a fair amount of reporting on the difficulties that politicians are having in dealing with the coming global warming catastrophe. It seems that politicians are a lot like many of my readers, when scientists can’t agree on what is happening (and not just little disagreements but violently opposed to each other) one should probably wait to spend trillions of dollars on which side is correct.
Here are some highlights from Ms. Strassel’s article: Read more... (523 words, estimated 2:06 mins reading time)
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Filed under: Not getting warmer, Politics
Posted on June 17th, 2009 by admin
If you read this site often, you will think that title implies something about statements that former US Vice President Al Gore made regarding global warming. If you so thought, you are only partially correct. I just read an article about another scientific issue that EVERYONE thought was true.
For years, it has been assumed that one or two drinks of alcohol per day were good for you. I am sure the vintners of the world helped to increase that belief. Now, the NY Times (and I saw it on Lifehacker) is reporting that this may not be true. It seems that just because healthy people drink an occasional glass of wine, the wine itself is not making them healthy! Read more... (233 words, 1 image, estimated 56 secs reading time)
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Filed under: Uncategorized
Posted on May 19th, 2009 by admin
I am shocked and dismayed! (Not really – just being a bit sarcastic and melodramatic)
One of the foundations of predicting the climate is that we have some idea of how water moves around the planet. That water can be in the form of water vapor or liquid water that is flowing in streams, lakes and the oceans. Since the Earth is approximately 2/3 water and water vapor is the single largest greenhouse gas, the way it acts is very important for understanding climate and predicting the future of climate. Read more... (708 words, estimated 2:50 mins reading time)
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Filed under: Greenhouse gas, Weather science
Posted on April 25th, 2009 by admin
Today is World Malaria Day. While this site is dedicated to global warming issues, many have said the the increase in global warming will cause an increase in malaria deaths. While it may be true that warmer regions will allow a greater infestation of malaria carrying insects, the conclusion that there will be more deaths is preposterous!
Malaria is one of the easiest to control diseases. Unfortunately, it tends to occur in areas that are poverty stricken so the simple measures that can prevent outbreaks don’t get taken care. Rather than cost the economy in the US billions of dollars in cap and trade, we could eradicate malaria at a fraction of the cost. This is one of the reasons that I contend that fighting global warming using inefficient methods actually inadvertantly causes the deaths of thousands. Read more... (481 words, estimated 1:55 mins reading time)
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Filed under: Politics
