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Paddy_Walker
Guest
heres a more sciency treatment… onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1046/j.1469-8137.2001.00057.x/full
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wittgenstein
Guest
Response to post 14
The petition was proven to be a fraud. All it took was a BS degree to be listed as a scientist. Many “signers” turned out to be dead. Many denied ever signing. Look at the signature, “Edward Teller” the man “Dr. Strangelove” was modeled after. Plus the petition was created by the organization that “proved” that cigarettes are good for you.
The fact is that EVERY legitimate scientific organization in the world supports AGW. As do 98% of climate scientists. Of course the anti-AGW conspiracy enthusiasts will claim a conspiracy. Is it reasonable to claim that EVERY scientific organization ( NASA, American Meteorological Society, Scientific American, National Geographic…) is part of a conspiracy?
The petition was proven to be a fraud. All it took was a BS degree to be listed as a scientist. Many “signers” turned out to be dead. Many denied ever signing. Look at the signature, “Edward Teller” the man “Dr. Strangelove” was modeled after. Plus the petition was created by the organization that “proved” that cigarettes are good for you.
The fact is that EVERY legitimate scientific organization in the world supports AGW. As do 98% of climate scientists. Of course the anti-AGW conspiracy enthusiasts will claim a conspiracy. Is it reasonable to claim that EVERY scientific organization ( NASA, American Meteorological Society, Scientific American, National Geographic…) is part of a conspiracy?
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Ridgerunner
Guest
No oil spill is good, but this is fairly minor. At one time oil flowed to the surface in Pennsylvania naturally, and did (and does) in other places as well.Here’s something in your neck of the woods, Ridgerunner, that relates to many issues – the bitumen oil spill in Mayflower, AR. I only heard about it from the Env Awareness Club on my campus. The media aren’t really covering it, like they hardly covered the Tennessee coal ash spill of 2008 at all (which at the time was declared the worst env disaster in the U.S.). The club also said that Exxon is forbidding journalists to come in, so the photos are from the residents.
http://tcktcktck.org/wp-content/uploads/2013/04/Tar-sands-spill-Arkansas-Facebook-350org2013.jpg
There are several issues here. Bitumen is heaver than oil and sinks instead of floats on water, so when it spills into a water body, it sinks and is nearly impossible to clean up – and there have been plenty of spills in the US already. Also it is more acidic, so it eats thru pipes. And it is extremely energy and resource intensive. I think it requires about one part energy to produce 2 parts energy. But I wouldn’t be surprised if it turned out to be a boondoggle – with subsidies it could actually require the same or more energy than it produces, and people wouldn’t realize it; their economy would just keep getting worse and worse, and they’d blame it on the foreigners.
Then there is the issue of why Canada needs a pipeline thru the US, when it could just refine it there and sell it to the US. And I’ve heard it’s bec they want to ship it abroad from the Texas ports, probably to China. So the US lets them build their pipelines over sensitive ecological areas, like the Ogallala Aquifer, and the frequent spills lead to ecological harm for millennia – and no one can drink the water, including the cattle, so they have ship it in from elsewhere, so China can drive around in their ever less efficient cars.
Another issue is bec that source of energy is itself so energy intensive, there are tremendous more GHGs and other pollutants emitted into the atmosphere – more health problems, including miscarriages from both production and consumption of product.
I’m glad I’m doing my very tiny part. We drive our Chevy Volt nearly all on wind-generated electricity, and to our surprise have found out it too will be saving us $$ long-run, first paying for the difference between it and the car hubby wanted within 6.5 years, then going on to save and save. We did drive it to Houston last month to see our niece (and did mainly use gasoline); it only got about 35 mpg, but that’s because we got a very late start and drove at 73 mph during the night with the AC on much of the way.
In July we’re installing solar panels on our roof to off-set about 45% of our electricity use, even though we’ve been on 100% wind power these past 12 years – because it’s a wise investment that will save us $$$ in our upcoming retirement.
And all our free and cheap env measures also keep saving us $$ year after year.
Going green means saving green.If you seek first the kingdom of God and His righteousness, all things will be added unto you. Alleluia!
There are a lot of pipelines in the U.S. already, carrying all sorts of things. If refineries were built in Canada to process their oil, how would you prefer that the distilled products be brought here? By truck? By train? By pipeline? Perhaps not at all?
There is a major pipeline not far from here that carries distilled products; gasoline, diesel, from Texas and Oklahoma. There is no particular reason to believe the Keystone Pipeline would be any more hazardous than the many pipelines criscrossing the U.S. already.
I’m glad you are able to get all the power you want to use from wind and solar. But not many would be able to do that. It’s a bit like me, who has access to all the wood I could possibly ever use, declaring that henceforth all people must burn wood for their home heating or do without heat. Obviously, a lot of people would freeze to death if I had the power to decree that, and did.
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lynnvinc
Guest
Not for the people’s whose property has been ruined.
As mentioned bitumen could very seriously pollute the Ogallala aquifer, the largest in the US. We can find ways to reduce our oil consumption, but we all need potable water to drink.
There’s lots and lots we can do – our going solar is just the last thing after 43 yrs of doing many many other things.
One thing is “hypermiling” (you can google it and find many more tips):
- light on the accelerator & break (cars have lots of weight & momentum)
- driving below 60 mph (unlike what we did to get to Houston in a hurry )
- keeping tires inflated, car tuned
and other measures – apparently it can save 20% to 50% of fuel costs.
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lynnvinc
Guest
Yeah for Norway spruce – it might possibly be able to adapt quickly enough to our rapidly climate change to survive.
Perhaps not so good for other trees, though, as the article points out. “Adaptation to varying temperatures revolves around the trade-off between utilizing the full growing season and minimizing frost damage through proper timing of hardening in autumn and dehardening in the spring. In the face of global warming, the evolutionary change in these traits may be too slow to compensate for the anticipated increase in temperature, especially for those species exhibiting a long time between generations.”
As for people and their fruit trees, GW may be bad news. Certain trees, like apple trees, need cold winters (which are warming faster than the summers) to fruit. Also here is what happed to cherry trees fooling into thinking spring had come.
(Please Note: This uploaded content is no longer available.)
wnmufm.org/post/michigan-crops-more-risk-climate-change
I think the trees were fine – only their fruit was spoiled.
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lynnvinc
Guest
Here’s some insight into the purveyors of anti-green philosophy, which so many people eagerly buy into, bec it helps them maintain an unblemished self-image and wards off threats from their (anti-Church) Enlightenment-rooted world view and ideology.
CC skeptic myths and how the various ACC skeptic sites and people who twist the science re funded by fossil fuel companies:
CC skeptic myths and how the various ACC skeptic sites and people who twist the science re funded by fossil fuel companies:
- realclimate.org/wiki/index.php?title=RC_Wiki
- skepticalscience.com/argument.php
- desmogblog.com/
- An extensive database of individuals involved in the global warming denial industry - desmogblog.com/global-warming-denier-database
- Koch Industries funding CC denial: greenpeace.org/usa/en/campaigns/global-warming-and-energy/polluterwatch/koch-industries/
- Exxon funded orgs: exxonsecrets.org/html/listorganizations.php
Koch, Exxon, Scaife funded denial - desmogblog.com/denial-a-palooza-4th-international-conference-climate-change-heartland - Religious orgs & people who are funded by fossil fuels and spewing climate disinformation (note: these are wolves in sheeps clothing; they sound like they are pro-environment, but their agenda is quite nefarious to dissuade folks from mitigating GW): Acton Institute (headed by Fr. Sirico, who appears on WorldOver) - fossil fuel funded - exxonsecrets.org/html/orgfactsheet.php?id=5 ,
Cornwall Alliance for the Stewardship of Creation (formerly the Interfaith Stewardship Alliance) - fossil fuel funded: exxonsecrets.org/html/orgfactsheet.php?id=142
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Paddy_Walker
Guest
yes. there is a sequence in nature when it begins populating new land in the cold north. nobody runs before they can walk, and neither does mother nature.
heres life in the north, you can imagine this belt pushing further north as the temperatures increase during an interglacial period. the southern part of the belt, as temperatures rise, changes to hardwood forests then temperate rainforests, if they get the rain, then subtropical, then tropical rainforests - as there were in alaska during the eocene.
don’t forget the vikings followed the warming climate 1000 years ago to greenland and newfoundland. and farmed there, but were forced to leave 400 years later when temperatures had dropped by 1 degrees C. the vikings arrived and began farming 50 years after the medieval warm period began, which raised temperatures by 1 degree.
yes, but nobody is really expecting to wait around for trees to evolve. trees have already evolved for every possible habitat, from mature 1 inch tall beech trees in the siberian tundra to swollen baobab trees native to anywhere where heat and drought is normal.
forests change themselves naturally to suit the changing environment. where i am sitting exactly, now, 13,000 years ago was covered with ice 2 kilometers high. for about 5,000 years after that, perhaps, this place was at the bottom of a vast almost country-wide lake. the lake drained away when the ice had retreated away far enough then this place became a vast bog. as the bog grew higher it began drying out and shrubby trees like willow grew on it. the willow helped dry the bog more and other trees like hazel colonized the area. oak forests followed and by the time the neolithic people had arrived here 5,000 years ago the oak forests were all over the country and too thickly growing to travel through easily.
it is all a natural cycle and people are more than able to adapt to change. there are people making a living in every environment on earth.
look up. for every 300 feet in altitude the temperature drops 1 degree C, roughly. orchards will simply move uphill a bit to get the winter frost. seed potatoes are always grown at altitudes over 600 feet to keep them free of blight.
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Paddy_Walker
Guest
heres an interesting thing i found about co2;
(Please Note: This uploaded content is no longer available.)
so the plants when dormant during winter stop using much of the co2, and that unused co2 builds up, then, when they wake up in spring they use up all of that stored winter co2.
so co2 stays in the atmosphere for only a few months.
to see this effect visually;
(Please Note: This uploaded content is no longer available.)
so the plants when dormant during winter stop using much of the co2, and that unused co2 builds up, then, when they wake up in spring they use up all of that stored winter co2.
so co2 stays in the atmosphere for only a few months.
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lynnvinc
Guest
That’s great that you’re really into this. Are you volunteering to help move (or plant) the trees?
Sort of reminds me of beehive collapse (in which GW may or may not be partly implicated). People think, who needs bees anyway. They sting, etc. There are places in China where they have to pollinate entire orchards by hand… I guess that does away with any spare time they may have had to watch TV or rear children…
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Paddy_Walker
Guest
no you can’t move mature trees, orchards would just be planted further up if it was necessary. apple trees have a lifespan and are constantly being replanted somewhere or other.
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Ridgerunner
Guest
Not all apple trees do. There are southern varieties. Northern varieties, for example, have always had difficulty in places like where I live.
It isn’t uncommon for fruit trees to bloom too early and get hit by frost. That’s one of the hazards of growing peaches here, and always has been. Peaches bloom in response to ground temperature, not air temperature. Thus they might bloom too early and get hit by a hard frost.
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Ridgerunner
Guest
It is not permitted here to question the faith of other posters, many of whom do not agree with your point of view.
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Ridgerunner
Guest
As I have mentioned before, not wasting is good policy. Nobody argues with that.Not for the people’s whose property has been ruined.
As mentioned bitumen could very seriously pollute the Ogallala aquifer, the largest in the US. We can find ways to reduce our oil consumption, but we all need potable water to drink.
There’s lots and lots we can do – our going solar is just the last thing after 43 yrs of doing many many other things.
One thing is “hypermiling” (you can google it and find many more tips):
- light on the accelerator & break (cars have lots of weight & momentum)
- driving below 60 mph (unlike what we did to get to Houston in a hurry
- keeping tires inflated, car tuned
and other measures – apparently it can save 20% to 50% of fuel costs.
There are already pipelines across the Oglalla Aquifer.
Peoples’ property can also be ruined by someone putting a wind farm or even a single major wind generator next to their property.
And by the way, I am sure you did not intentionally call those who do not follow the “green” agenda anti-Catholic or inspired by the Englightenment. But it did appear that way, undoubtedly by inadvertence.
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lynnvinc
Guest
I am thinking that a lot of Catholics and other Christians here in America, at least, are more into some non-Christian streams of thought, perhaps without being aware of it.
Since I was a small kid going to Protestant Sunday school I’ve understood that people are hypocrites (as an adult I realized I was one too
).But as a teen and young adult I came to understand that Americans were not hypocrites to the Christian faith; they were following some other ideology & were being true to it. I’ve come to understand that it is an Enlightenment-rooted ideology.
However – this is interesting – both the politcal right and left follow this non-(or anti-)-Christian ideology, but in different ways. And I’ve been strongly impacted by it.
If I hadn’t married a Catholic from India, I may not have become as aware of it as I am. Our American culture is heavy founded on Enlightenment thinking, more than Europe where the ideas originated.
There are lots of good things about this thinking, but there is also some down side. Like there are lots of good things about industrialization, but also some down side.
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Ridgerunner
Guest
I’m not sure I would characterize the U.S. as more 'Enlightenment affected" than Europe.I am thinking that a lot of Catholics and other Christians here in America, at least, are more into some non-Christian streams of thought, perhaps without being aware of it.
Since I was a small kid going to Protestant Sunday school I’ve understood that people are hypocrites (as an adult I realized I was one too
But as a teen and young adult I came to understand that Americans were not hypocrites to the Christian faith; they were following some other ideology & were being true to it. I’ve come to understand that it is an Enlightenment-rooted ideology.
However – this is interesting – both the politcal right and left follow this non-(or anti-)-Christian ideology, but in different ways. And I’ve been strongly impacted by it.
If I hadn’t married a Catholic from India, I may not have become as aware of it as I am. Our American culture is heavy founded on Enlightenment thinking, more than Europe where the ideas originated.
There are lots of good things about this thinking, but there is also some down side. Like there are lots of good things about industrialization, but also some down side.
Enlightenment principles are, indeed, shared by a lot of our “elites”. But that’s true in Europe as well, and was even more true until very recently.
America has even been said by some to have “missed out” on the Enlightenment. Rather, it was more affected by occasional upsurges of protestant evangelical thinking. Because protestantism encourages “self-determination” of conscience, it can certainly remind one of Enlightenment thinking, but is not really the same thing.
Right now, of course, we’re in an era in which protestant evangelical thinking is on the wane in favor of a secular paganism that is sold so incessantly and forcefully that it’s difficult for people to resist. In that, it is not greatly different from Enlightenment thinking that actually created “temples to reason” and other symbols of the deification of the “non serviam” to which all are tempted. Paganism may reasonably be characterized as a religion or ideology that seeks to “manipulate the gods” to what our concupiscence wants them to be and do. And so it is with the ideological gospels of our home-grown “enlightened”. Nothing is truly new under the sun.
Just as it was with rulers and conquerers throughout history who insisted on subjects’ worship of the “gods” they were pushing, so it is with many politicians and other “elites” today. It is, of course, characteristic of paganism that typically the posited “gods” are actually something natural or a perversion of something natural; not evil in themselves. But certainly not transcendant. To some it may be money. To some it may be some social arrangement. To some quite frankly (and not including you) it might be “Gaia worship”; environmentalist excess that sees humans themselves as an evil.
Paganism’s taint is very difficult for humans to resist. Say what one wants about the Enlightenment, but it’s really just paganism with a different name, and will always be at war with the transcendant God.
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GEddie
Guest
America was still being cut out of the primeval forest at at the time of the Enlightenment, so yeah, we missed out on a lot of it. We didn’t fail to grab onto the ideas when they reached us, though.
ICXC NIKA
ICXC NIKA
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lynnvinc
Guest
We made a trip to the DC last fall, the 1st time we’ve been able to do some sight-seeing there, and we got passes to see the Capitol Building.
I know America was founded on rights; it follows a rights-based code of ethics, which is pretty much the core of Enlightenment thinking, along with the idea of individualism, people as self-contained, autonomous beings, originally free of society and its restrictions (and requirements, duties, responsibilities) – different from:
- Traditional cultures that stressed human inter-human and even human-nature relationships, interdependence and connection, along with duty-based code of ethics. It was the Ten Commandments, not the Ten Rights; dharma, Li, Tao – the righteous path and upright conduct, responsibilities, duties (as something positive r/t a negative chore).
- And also different from modern science and social science (since the 19th c) that also finds much greater human-nature and human-human interconnectedness.
As for the Capitol, our founders were against religion or much against bringing it into the public sphere (there was also a lot of anti-Catholicism back then, as well, I think bec Catholicism more closely adheres to this tradition, pre-Enlightenment duty-based code of ethics and a deeper sense of interpersonal connections and responsibilities), but it seems they still had a need for “religion,” so it is almost like a pantheon, and they had to craft a “goddess” – Lady Liberty (on top of the Capitol Dome).
It is very very interesting…more later
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lynnvinc
Guest
(continuation) Now what does this all have to do with the environment and an anti-green philosophy?
I think it is this Enlightenment view of nature that leads if not to anti-environmentalism, at least non-environmentalism (lack of environmental awareness). The Enlightenment view of the environment or “nature” was of passive resources for our consumption. I don’t think they saw (or saw clearly) the dynamism and interconnections – the ecology, or human ecology. And today this sort of translates into “useful for self aspects of nature” (qua resources) and “useless for self aspects of nature” – wild species in wilderness areas, perhaps cute or even magnificent in beauty, etc, but expendable.
With humans viewed as autonomous, self-contained beings, concerned about their own freedom, well-being, and rights, the environment or “nature” are not salient in a person’s thinking, even other people are not very salient – they are more like objects that become salient if found useful to the individual in bringing material or psychological benefit.
[Please correct me if I am wrong]
Another focus in Enlightenment thinking was of human progress – material progress & happiness/pleasure in worldly terms. It’s not enough just to do with the basics or the material status quo of one’s life, even if all basic life needs are being met; one must be progressing. And “the sky’s the limit.”
The combining of these 2 – the view of nature and the focus on material progress – leads to a world view that cannot countenance any indication that we may be harming the environment and the environment (from our actions) could be harming us. The environment is viewed apart from us, beyond the fringes of civilization. This view cannot grasp it as the air we breathe, the water we drink, the food we eat, the materials with which we make our products and build our homes and buildings, the chemicals which permeate our skin, and the climate in which we grow our crops.
If some modern scientists and social scientists, philosophers, ethicists, and church leaders point out that we are harming the environment, which is boomaranging back to harm us, and we need reduce this harm, people holding the strong Enlightenment-rooted view of autonomous individuals, the environment, and material progress, there is a tendency to reject what they say, even form complex ideological stances (anti-green philosophies) to reject what they say at all costs, or at the very least downplay what they say…“oh, it is nothing,” or “it’s a very small price to pay for progress,” or “it’s not happening.”
Or “there’s no such thing as global warming,” “or anthropogenic global warming,” or “global warming is actually very good for us,” and “there’s no acid rain, no local pollution, no depletion of finite resources, no peak oil, etc.”
Or at the least – “All these are very small issues, a very small price to pay for progress.”
I think it is this Enlightenment view of nature that leads if not to anti-environmentalism, at least non-environmentalism (lack of environmental awareness). The Enlightenment view of the environment or “nature” was of passive resources for our consumption. I don’t think they saw (or saw clearly) the dynamism and interconnections – the ecology, or human ecology. And today this sort of translates into “useful for self aspects of nature” (qua resources) and “useless for self aspects of nature” – wild species in wilderness areas, perhaps cute or even magnificent in beauty, etc, but expendable.
With humans viewed as autonomous, self-contained beings, concerned about their own freedom, well-being, and rights, the environment or “nature” are not salient in a person’s thinking, even other people are not very salient – they are more like objects that become salient if found useful to the individual in bringing material or psychological benefit.
[Please correct me if I am wrong]
Another focus in Enlightenment thinking was of human progress – material progress & happiness/pleasure in worldly terms. It’s not enough just to do with the basics or the material status quo of one’s life, even if all basic life needs are being met; one must be progressing. And “the sky’s the limit.”
The combining of these 2 – the view of nature and the focus on material progress – leads to a world view that cannot countenance any indication that we may be harming the environment and the environment (from our actions) could be harming us. The environment is viewed apart from us, beyond the fringes of civilization. This view cannot grasp it as the air we breathe, the water we drink, the food we eat, the materials with which we make our products and build our homes and buildings, the chemicals which permeate our skin, and the climate in which we grow our crops.
If some modern scientists and social scientists, philosophers, ethicists, and church leaders point out that we are harming the environment, which is boomaranging back to harm us, and we need reduce this harm, people holding the strong Enlightenment-rooted view of autonomous individuals, the environment, and material progress, there is a tendency to reject what they say, even form complex ideological stances (anti-green philosophies) to reject what they say at all costs, or at the very least downplay what they say…“oh, it is nothing,” or “it’s a very small price to pay for progress,” or “it’s not happening.”
Or “there’s no such thing as global warming,” “or anthropogenic global warming,” or “global warming is actually very good for us,” and “there’s no acid rain, no local pollution, no depletion of finite resources, no peak oil, etc.”
Or at the least – “All these are very small issues, a very small price to pay for progress.”
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GEddie
Guest
Don’t worry about it; these things go on a pendulum.
No doubt the 2100s version of the CAF will be full of whining about how the Church of that time will be full of the nature-worship that will then be part of the general society
ICXC NIKA
No doubt the 2100s version of the CAF will be full of whining about how the Church of that time will be full of the nature-worship that will then be part of the general society
ICXC NIKA
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lynnvinc
Guest
I’d be a happy camper if people simply acknowledged the goodness of God’s creation and our duty-based code of ethics not to harm it, our human brethren, and others of God’s good creation.Don’t worry about it; these things go on a pendulum.
No doubt the 2100s version of the CAF will be full of whining about how the Church of that time will be full of the nature-worship that will then be part of the general society
ICXC NIKA
I think nature-worship is as dangerous as this anti-green philosophy I’m talking about. If we truly believe in anthropomorphic-deified forces of nature, e.g., it is angry Gaia who is causing global warming due to all our sins, etc., then we won’t be looking for or accepting scientific explanations. We won’t understand the problems, and we won’t be able to mitigate them.
Our only way out (in my view, since I don’t see nature as anthropomorphic-deified forces) is to understand issues and problem thru science…which I believe (correct me if I’m wrong) was only able to come about because of our Judeo-Christian belief in a transcendent God, a God who created creation and the laws of nature, but who is not the forces of nature, who is not like Zeus in the thunderbolt striking out of some anthropomorphic motive or emotion etc.
Of course by 2100, there may be no schools so people may be left to figure things out on their own and start out with animism, animatism, and pantheism, etc…and if we survive and later thrive, we may come to discover the true God again.
A great novel is A Canticle for Leibowitz, by Miller (1960) – which should have been made into a movie or mini-series. It is about nuclear post-apocalyptic world, but says lot about our headlong engagement in environmental destruction of today as well. See en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Canticle_for_Leibowitz
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