[BartSimpson]

This is just rich. Read this and then see my comment at the end.

From http://apnews.myway.com/article/20081214/D952LKP00.html

Quote:

Dec 14, 2:07 PM (ET)

By SETH BORENSTEIN

WASHINGTON (AP) - When Bill Clinton took office in 1993, global warming was a slow-moving environmental problem that was easy to ignore. Now it is a ticking time bomb that President-elect Barack Obama can't avoid.

Since Clinton's inauguration, summer Arctic sea ice has lost the equivalent of Alaska, California and Texas. The 10 hottest years on record have occurred since Clinton's second inauguration. Global warming is accelerating. Time is close to running out, and Obama knows it.

"The time for delay is over; the time for denial is over," he said on Tuesday after meeting with former Vice President Al Gore, who won a Nobel Peace Prize for his work on global warming. "We all believe what the scientists have been telling us for years now that this is a matter of urgency and national security and it has to be dealt with in a serious way."

But there are powerful political and economic realities that must be quickly overcome for Obama to succeed. Despite the urgency he expresses, it's not at all clear that he and Congress will agree on an approach during a worldwide financial crisis in time to meet some of the more crucial deadlines.

Obama is pushing changes in the way Americans use energy, and produce greenhouse gases, as part of what will be a massive economic stimulus. He called it an opportunity "to re-power America."

After years of inaction on global warming, 2009 might be different. Obama replaces a president who opposed mandatory cuts of greenhouse gas pollution and it appears he will have a willing Congress. Also, next year, diplomats will try to agree on a major new international treaty to curb the gases that promote global warming.

"We need to start in January making significant changes," Gore said in a recent telephone interview with The Associated Press. "This year coming up is the most important opportunity the world has ever had to make progress in really solving the climate crisis."

Scientists are increasingly anxious, talking more often and more urgently about exceeding "tipping points."

"We're out of time," Stanford University biologist Terry Root said. "Things are going extinct."

U.S. emissions have increased by 20 percent since 1992. China has more than doubled its carbon dioxide pollution in that time. World carbon dioxide emissions have grown faster than scientists' worst-case scenarios. Methane, the next most potent greenhouse gas, suddenly is on the rise again and scientists fear that vast amounts of the trapped gas will escape from thawing Arctic permafrost.

The amount of carbon dioxide in Earth's atmosphere has already pushed past what some scientists say is the safe level.

In the early 1990s, many scientists figured that the world was about a century away from a truly dangerous amount of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere, said Mike MacCracken, who was a top climate scientist in the Clinton administration. But as they studied the greenhouse effect further, scientists realized that harmful changes kick in at far lower levels of carbon dioxide than they thought. Now some scientists, but not all, say the safe carbon dioxide level for Earth is about 10 percent below what it is now.

Gore called the situation "the equivalent of a five-alarm fire that has to be addressed immediately."

Scientists fear that what's happening with Arctic ice melt will be amplified so that ominous sea level rise will occur sooner than they expected. They predict Arctic waters could be ice-free in summers, perhaps by 2013, decades earlier than they thought only a few years ago.

In December 2009, diplomats are charged with forging a new treaty replacing the 1997 Kyoto Protocol, which set limits on greenhouse gases, and which the United States didn'tratify. This time European officials have high expectations for the U.S. to take the lead. But many experts don't see Congress passing a climate bill in time because of pressing economic and war issues.

"The reality is, it may take more than the first year to get it all done," Senate Energy Committee Chairman Jeff Bingaman, D-N.M., said recently.

Complicating everything is the worldwide financial meltdown. Frank Maisano, a Washington energy specialist and spokesman who represents coal-fired utilities and refineries, sees the poor economy as "a huge factor" that could stop everything. That's because global warming efforts are aimed at restricting coal power, which is cheap. That would likely mean higher utility bills and more damage to ailing economies that depend on coal production, he said.

Obama is stacking his Cabinet and inner circle with advocates who have pushed for deep mandatory cuts in greenhouse gas pollution and even with government officials who have achieved results at the local level.

The President-elect has said that one of the first things he will do when he gets to Washington is grant California and other states permission to control car tailpipe emissions, something the Bush administration denied.

And though congressional action may take time, the incoming Congress will be more inclined to act on global warming. In the House, liberal California Democrat Henry Waxman's unseating of Michigan Rep. John Dingell - a staunch defender of Detroit automakers - as head of the House Energy and Commerce Committee was a sign that global warming will be on the fast track.

Senate Environment and Public Works Chairman Barbara Boxer, D-Calif., vowed to push two global warming bills starting in January: one to promote energy efficiency as an economic stimulus and the other to create a cap-and-trade system to reduce greenhouse gas emissions from utilities. "The time is now," she wrote in a Dec. 8 letter to Obama.

Mother Nature, of course, is oblivious to the federal government's machinations. Ironically, 2008 is on pace to be a slightly cooler year in a steadily rising temperature trend line. Experts say it's thanks to a La Nina weather variation. While skeptics are already using it as evidence of some kind of cooling trend, it actually illustrates how fast the world is warming.

The average global temperature in 2008 is likely to wind up slightly under 57.9 degrees Fahrenheit, about a tenth of a degree cooler than last year. When Clinton was inaugurated, 57.9 easily would have been the warmest year on record. Now, that temperature would qualify as the ninth warmest year.

Did you see it? Did you?

Ironically, 2008 is on pace to be a slightly cooler year in a steadily rising temperature trend line. Experts say it's thanks to a La Nina weather variation. While skeptics are already using it as evidence of some kind of cooling trend, it actually illustrates how fast the world is warming.

That temperatures are actually falling now illustrates how fast the world is warming.

Shit. I used to joke that the AGW alarmists would eventually blame cold weather on global warming but it was really just a jab at the AGW religionists and now here it is.

Global cooling is caused by global warming.

As I have said many-a-times before, it must be nice to have a hypothesis that's proven by any and all evidence.

[Zipperfish]

If the skeptics are correct, and the increase in carbon dioxide is the result of, as opposed to the cause, of global warming, then why is the concentration of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere increasing, if it's been cooling since 1998?

Shouldn't the concentration of CO2 be dropping?

[hwacker]

Yep gore and all the other crazies will be the laughing stock in 5 years. I hope they ask for the Nobel prize back.

[BartSimpson]

So what? CO2 is increasing and it's getting cooler. I guess we're both wrong.

[Zipperfish]

So to what do you attribute the rise in concentrations of CO2 then?

[Chumley]

An over abundance of people and livestock?
Perhaps increased volcanic activity?

[N_Fiddledog]

Zipperfish wrote:

If the skeptics are correct, and the increase in carbon dioxide is the result of, as opposed to the cause, of global warming, then why is the concentration of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere increasing, if it's been cooling since 1998?

Shouldn't the concentration of CO2 be dropping?

I don't understand the total complexity of that, but the feeling I'm getting is CO2 shouldn't be dropping, it should be leveling. It has to do with ocean temperatures, I think. There's controversy as to whether, or not ocean cooling is happening. There's also controversy as to how C02 is measured. There's also this business of a 10 year lag time between what happens in the atmosphere, and what happens in the oceans.

If CO2 levels do start to level out though, it will be interesting. There will also be a lag time before the time the information filters out, and it becomes so indisputable it will be picked up by the mainstream media, so I wouldn't expect to hear about it anytime soon. If it does happen though that will be a major nail in the coffin for the warmists' argument.

[BartSimpson]

The Global Warming Rock (tm) is the perfect Global Warming indicator, it never fails.

The Global Warming Rock is 100% correct, 100% of the time.

How to use the Global Warming Rock

Place your Global Warming Rock in the location that you would like to check the Global Warming (usually outside).

How to read your Global Warming Rock

Rock dry – Global Warming

Rock wet – Global Warming

Rock swaying – Global Warming

Rock has shadow – Global Warming

Rock no shadow - Global Warming

Rock white – Global Warming

Rock bouncing – Global Warming

Rock under water – Global Warming

Rock flashing - Global Warming

Rock missing - Global Warming


Your Global Warming Rock also indicates the seasons

Rock cold - Global Warming Chilly

Rock wet - Global Warming Rainy

Rock hot - Global Warming Sunny

Rock covered by leaves - Global Warming Killed all the trees

[Zipperfish]

N_Fiddledog wrote:

Zipperfish wrote:

If the skeptics are correct, and the increase in carbon dioxide is the result of, as opposed to the cause, of global warming, then why is the concentration of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere increasing, if it's been cooling since 1998?

Shouldn't the concentration of CO2 be dropping?

I don't understand the total complexity of that, but the feeling I'm getting is CO2 shouldn't be dropping, it should be leveling. It has to do with ocean temperatures, I think. There's controversy as to whether, or not ocean cooling is happening. There's also controversy as to how C02 is measured. There's also this business of a 10 year lag time between what happens in the atmosphere, and what happens in the oceans.

If CO2 levels do start to level out though, it will be interesting. There will also be a lag time before the time the information filters out, and it becomes so indisputable it will be picked up by the mainstream media, so I wouldn't expect to hear about it anytime soon. If it does happen though that will be a major nail in the coffin for the warmists' argument.

Yes, I agree that dropping CO2 concentrations will be the end of the AGW theory.
As for the measurement controversey--there's a controversy over the measure of anything. Usual the magnitude of the controversey is proportional to its political sensitivity.

The way I see it, if you have increasing CO2 temperatures, you should have correlated higher temperaratures (whether they lead or lag), all other factors being equal. If you have increasing CO2 with decreasing temperatures, that is a disparity that needs explaining.

[N_Fiddledog]

And me, I'm not sure it is that black and white, and with the lag, I don't see how the leveling of the line on the graph is due yet.

[jason700]

BartSimpson wrote:

Did you see it? Did you?

Ironically, 2008 is on pace to be a slightly cooler year in a steadily rising temperature trend line. Experts say it's thanks to a La Nina weather variation. While skeptics are already using it as evidence of some kind of cooling trend, it actually illustrates how fast the world is warming.

Yep, I saw it. Steadily rising global temperatures. Can you deny that?