I'm generally of the tree-hugger persuasion, but I did not like the way the EU did its first carbon permits. It made too many, and handed them out for free. That gave an immediate financial windfall for companies who emitted under their limit; which rewarded not only virtue in scrubbing but also not being in a particularly carbonaceous industry to begin with. If we are to go the cap and trade route, these things have to be better designed.

1 & 7. I did not intend to imply that you need to explain every aspect of your position, but it seems odd to talk about the money as an incentive for poorly paid scientists while ignoring the wealthiest corporations with the wealthiest executives. I'd find Big Oil's position to be much more credible if they'd just come out and say:

A) These scientists are wrong.
B) Here's why we think so.

Instead, they quietly fund opposition groups and scientists to sew seeds of doubt. It's all too much like what Big Tobacco did for 50+ years.

2. Agreed.

3. 500 million years is plenty of time for coral to evolve. We're talking about 100 to 150 years. This is relevant because the CO2 levels of 500 million years ago would likely be extremely harmful to today's coral reefs.

4. There certainly is, but why make it worse? If your car slipped out of gear and were rolling down a slight incline towards a cliff with your children inside, would you push it towards the cliff, or try to stop it?

I don't think that you're implying that we shouldn't do something about human causes of warming, but you should be aware that many who make this argument are doing just that.

5. I see no conflict here with Global Warming, because the name is incorrect. It should be something like Global Extremes. It is possible that rapid warming may cause an Ice Age.

6. Thousands of scientists represent a small percentage of the total, and this is especially true considering the money that Big Oil has to influence people.

I don't know what the effect of human actions will be, but I think it's certain that we do have an effect. Most disturbingly, it's highly likely that our effect on the environment is not and will not be good for humans. This is all the more worrisome because we know what we need to do to fix things, but we're just beginning to take baby steps towards doing them.

I don't expect that I'd ever see a system I liked. Big Business makes the rules, so they're going to make them in their favor. All we can do is hope to get something that has some impact in place, and slowly put more teeth in it.

Humans have always dreamed about controlling the climate. We use to have and in some places still have, shamans dancing for rain or reading chicken entrails and other few assortment of incantations to predict or control our inclement weather. Farmers will use difference moon phases to plant crops fisherman will try to read the sun and the tides but good old nature does what nature does best. we can not control nature. Cap and trade is just another one of those futile dances. In 1900 New York city was worried about the mountains of Horse manure they would be leaving behind for the next generation..then came the Car and the Poop problem was taken cared off. The Themes in the 1700 was so polluted the English government buildings could not have it' s windows open. Then a new way of disposal was introduced and today the river is clean again. .. wow two poop stories! :eek:
It is hard to come with a concrete suggestion to a non existing problem. If we take away the Emotional science what is left?

I know I really shouldn't.... but since we've been on the subject of cap and trade, I can't resist posting something I wrote a couple of years ago.

The high rates of American teen pregnancy should be combatted by Cap and Trade. To begin with, all schoolchildren should be issued intercourse licences, and those who wish to keep their virginity can trade their licences to those who wish to have sex. There will thus be a financial incentive to abstinence, which will be more effective than top-down moralising and the unstable piety of adolescents. Chastity-related efficiencies will be rewarded. Of course, there will be an enforcement problem; a mechanism will be required to sanction those who sell their permits and have sex anyway, but this can be modelled on the apparatus that checks to see whether factories are actually releasing more CO2 more than their permits allow. If there is such a control, that is; we never seem to hear about this part. The EU has been criticised for issuing too many permits for free, which gave irrational windfall profits to producers in inherently clean industries; so we must beware of issuing free permits to nerds. Everyone is now agreed that the future lies with auctions of a decreasing number of licences. The system does not even need a new name; if the permits are issued to the boys, ‘emissions-trading’ will continue to serve.

how many changes do we need?
 

Today, aides in Obama’s Council on Environmental Quality will meet with a research and marketing group that is promoting an alternative to the phrase “global warming,” which some pollsters say fails to capture the idea of greenhouse gases threatening the environment.

“There is value in trying to get the messaging right,” said a senior White House environmental aide, who was not authorized to speak on the record. “Because at the end of the day this is tricky policy. . . . We want to make sure we’re talking in a way that the public understand...:)
Here we go again! First we had Cooling then it got warm so they changed it to global warming then nature decided to cool? now we have Climate change and since climate does not stay the same it should be a shoe in right? wrong!the public is not as gullible as first though..after all , unless one live in La la land one knows ice does not melt at -60C. Move the goal posts till you win the game. There is no such thing as a green job or green energy.

http://www.latimes.com/news/nationwo...,6330691.story

young people should be educated, not propagandized
 

Letter To the British Columbia School Boards


I admit that I am not a climatologist on the issue of global warming. However; I support the principle that young people should be educated, not propagandized -- and I know something about what that means.

One of the most important differences between education and propaganda is how they deal with great controversies.

In education, students are taught about the controversies. In propaganda, they are shielded from them.

In education, students are taught both sides of the important debates. In propaganda, they are taught only one.

In education, students are taught both the strengths and the weaknesses of the officially favored theory. In propaganda, they are taught only its strengths.

In short, education is the training of minds, while propaganda is the training of prejudices. In a democracy, the public schools should not propagandize, but educate.

As we find in the science section of these guidelines, students must learn to "analyze, review, and critique scientific explanations, including hypotheses and theories, as to their strengths and weaknesses using scientific evidence and information.

The issue is that although students should be taught about both sides of a scientific theoretical controversy, your assignment, based on the description in your permission request, appears to only present one side and are shielded from the weaknesses. contained in. BC Science 10.

How can a student write a critique about assertions made on global warming without having anything to compare and contrast the assertions to? Your permission/assignment sheet gave no indication as to how, if any, the views to counter Anthropogenic Global Warming would be taught.

In addition, it is not clear what alternate assignment is available to the student/teachers should they choose to Learn from a climatologist instead from a television show hosted by a journalist with no science degrees.

If the "theory" of global warming is to be taught in your classroom, I urge that the topic should be taught like the other sciences and like other controversial theories -- with honesty about both . When classroom activities and/or textbooks are biased, you(the school board)) are the check and balance.
Statements are made in Science 10 that are assertions that mix cause and effect: "climate change is affecting our planet right now. Ice is disappearing earlier in the spring, trees are budding earlier, and extreme weather events are causing more outbreaks of disease than 20 years ago." They are not only inaccurate but also dishonest.

I urge The school board to require that the scientific data to both sides of this controversy be taught and that not one side be suppressed.

To do so would be not only be good training in science, but good education in citizenship.

As a parent I could not sit back and be quiet once I read what they were teaching in school today. A child need to have goals and hope in life so them goals can be reach. Teaching that we destroy the planet is not education! I had enough and had to make a stand.
Am I right?
http://www.bcscience.com/bc10/pgs/links_u1.html

Ugh. you know, what bugs me most about this whole 'climate change' debate is that it involves a debate style I don't expect from adults. On one side you have people pointing out all the various things that can go wrong if we continue to dump endless loads of waste into the environment (the way parents try to explain the bad points of leaving toys strewn across the floor), while on the other side the response is "it's not really a problem, and it's too much trouble to deal with, and I don't really care" (classic pre-teen 'butIdonwanna' stuff). so, maybe greenhouse gasses will increase global temperatures, melting the ice-caps, driving more frequent and more powerful storms, causing flooding, crop loss, massive displacement and starvation of populations around the world. or maybe the melting ice caps will pour fresh water into the ocean, disrupting the currents and heat exchange systems to spawn a new ice age, causing glaciation, crop loss, massive displacement and starvation of populations around the world. or maybe some equally ugly third thing will happen, or (heaven willing) nothing much will happen at all. Most of us are smart enough to take basic precautions against our house getting burned down or flooded out, and are willing to shell out hundreds or thousands a year for insurance against the remote possibility it might happen anyway, and yet when it comes to the world outside of our houses we turn into scrooges? we're all very good about the Not In My Backyard, thing, but don't seem to give a flying fruitcake about other people's backyards.

Newsflash, kiddos: globalization and industrialization means there's only one backyard. get used to it.

this is win-win for me, really. I'm old enough so I probably won't see the worst effects (assuming anything bad happens) in my lifetime, and I've got no kids so I don't have to worry about them. If nothing bad happens I'll be happy, and if it does, well... at least I'll know it's not my fault, and I'll get to have the last laugh. :o

wilbert:
I merged your new thread about bcscience and education into this one since it is the same general topic of discussion and I'd prefer to keep this all in the one place.

The basic idea behind climate change being unrelated to human activity is that in comparison to our vast climate, we're just too small to make a difference. This is as anti-science as Creationism, and neither belongs in a Science class. We know that humans have an effect on the Earth's climate and we know what we need to to to reverse that effect, whatever it may eventually turn out to be. We also know that change when it comes to the environment, will not be good for humans.

The fact that we don't know all of the bad things that will happen, or when they will occur, is not an indication that any given opposing viewpoint is valid. To be valid, it must first be scientific, and it takes more than a few scientific studies funded by people opposed to the policies that naturally rise from the acceptance of Global Climate Change to make it so. This is not to say that scientists have Climate Change exactly right. Only that the movement — largely funded by industries whose incomes derive from fossil fuels — is not the correct group to challenge them. On the contrary, from a political perspective, their opposition should give us all reason to believe what the vast majority of scientists are saying: Man made Global Climate Change is real.

TW that's only speculations.. could be might be etc.. The "more storms" is one example . Before 2002 storms were named at 74 mph. The AMS needed more storms to prove GW was causing more storms as predicted by the Models. So they moved the bar down and storms were named at 35mph and overnight we had more storms as predicted.The AMS spokesperson is Antonio Socci and the president is Tom Karl both have no science degrees or any climate science experience. Nominated to those post by AL Gore when he was VP.
Another point.. Ocean currents are controlled by the earth rotation and wind pouring water in the ocean does not change the currents.

If I use your logic then what does that says about the David Suzuki foundation who also received money from the Fossil fuel industries and nuclear? :eek: How about Standford University and the over 500 million donated by the fossil fuel energy ( Exxon) to study alternative energy and improving emission standard in internal combustion engines. The list goes on... are these wrong studies? are the scientists getting paid to do these studies to be vilified or called shills? ;)

Thank you!

What it says is that you should question any study or anyone that purports to debunk a scientific theory without providing a valid competing theory. You cannot argue against Man Made Global Climate Change without arguing that humans do not cause climate change, and no one has offered any scientific theory to back up that argument. All they've done is try to muddy the waters enough to stop changes in public policy.

Please check your facts before posting. Your assertions above are completely wrong - both of those men have advanced science degrees in relevant fields and extensive climatological experience.
See, for example:
http://www.ametsoc.org/amsnews/bios/karl.html
http://www.linkedin.com/pub/5/7a8/232

science is speculation backed by evidence. that's what science is, and it was designed that way to overcome the normal human tendency to believe that what we want to be true has to be true. without speculation we'd still be at the level of chimpanzees; without evidence we'd still believe that the sky is a big bowl hung with lanterns. Scientists looking at global warming are making speculations and examining them according to the available material evidence. People arguing against global warming are merely making speculations, because they want it not to be true. If you want to believe them, that's fine - there's no law saying you have to understand or follow the rules of science - but your position is purely rhetorical, and lacks credibility.

remember, even the Catholic Church at the height of its power couldn't effectively silence scientific evidence. modern corporations won't succeed either; it's just a matter of time, and of how much damage occurs before they give it up.

to your other point - this is not really a matter of contention. ocean currents may be driven by the rotation of the earth, but their paths are influenced heavily by salinity and water temperature. colder water sinks, fresher water floats, and the path of least resistance is followed. a large infusion of cold fresh water into the seas around Greenland might easily redirect the warm saline North Atlantic current westward, which would cause a precipitous decline in European north-east American temperatures, and an increase in warm, wet weather in the Caribbean and central Americas. This isn't a bathtub we're talking about.

I think this is the animation you are referring to:
http://www.bjerknes.uib.no/pages.asp...&kat=97&lang=2

Thank you, Hayne! :)

That is indeed the animation.
I for one find this rather startling.

.

You're not alone!

I can't see how increased Solar activity could account for greater warming in the north than in far sunnier places.

The sun is unusually inactive
 

Pretty hard to ascribe this to solar activity.
Especially as the sun is at its most inactive in almost a century!

.

in a word, water. water is a great heat-sink - it absorbs and releases heat slowly and evenly. land is much more volatile and varies according to terrain. since what's being measured is ambient air temperature, you're going to see much more pronounced variations in temperature over land masses than over oceans. the gradual shift from blue to orange over the equatorial regions is actually more indicative of warming than the dark red regions over the Polar regions.

I actually don't like this presentation; it's overly dramatic, and that can be misleading. the seasonal temperature variations in equatorial oceanic regions, for instance, probably don't extend past a handful of degrees, but the color-shift is huge, perceptually. it's like saying "Ants can lift 50 times their own weight!!!" without noting that 50 times an ant's weight is somewhere around an ounce. hyperbolic...