Global Warming

[oboe]

I just don't think the entire world's economy is at risk.   As you correctly point out, we've been dealing with gloom and doomers for a long time.
The globalcoolingologists didn't accomplish anything in the 70s, I guess because the world refused to panic.    So I refuse to panic WRT global warming.

What exactly are the spending projects that will take all of this money?    Which projects are going to have the trillion dollars poured into them?

IIRC, we've spent (borrowed, actually) nearly 1/2 a trillion dollars for the Iraq War.

[Mace2004]

Originally posted by oboe
I just don't think the entire world's economy is at risk.   As you correctly point out, we've been dealing with gloom and doomers for a long time.
The globalcoolingologists didn't accomplish anything in the 70s, I guess because the world refused to panic.    So I refuse to panic WRT global warming.

What exactly are the spending projects that will take all of this money?    Which projects are going to have the trillion dollars poured into them?

IIRC, we've spent (borrowed, actually) nearly 1/2 a trillion dollars for the Iraq War.

Here

Impact on the U.S. Economy. The implications of the proposed climate change commitments for the U.S. economy are grave:

Some analysts have estimated that meeting the admin-istration's proposal have to cut emissions to 10 percent below 1990 levels would reduce U.S. gross domestic product by $200 billion annually.

A DRI/McGraw Hill study projected that over the next 14 years more than 500,000 Americans annually would lose their jobs if the 1992 Rio commitments were implemented.

The study also estimated that the government would have to increase gas prices by more than 60 cents a gallon and double the price of heating oil just to hold carbon emissions at 1990 levels, and more than double those increases to reduce emissions another 10 percent.

A study of the proposed commitments by Constad Research, Inc. estimated that the changes would kill off 1.6 million jobs over the next nine years and put another 3.5 million or so "at risk," primarily in Texas, California, Ohio, Michigan, Pennsylvania and Louisiana.
In addition, the price of food and transportation would rise dramatically. In Geneva, Wirth dismissed these costs by saying ". . . in a world of change, not everyone can remain advantaged." Yet those most disadvantaged by the policies would be low-income families who spend a higher proportion of their incomes on food and energy.

Without any offsets or credits, U.S. GDP would be 3.6 percent to 5.1 percent lower in 2010, representing a loss of $330 billion to $467 billion or about $1,100 to $1,600 per capita.

Using offsets and credits, compliance would cost the U.S. from 3 percent to 4.3 percent of GDP, representing a loss of between $921 and $1,320 for every man, woman and child in the country.

Remember, this is only talking about the US, it doesn't even begin the costs of implementing draconian environmental "fixes" in other countries and where that money would come from.  For instance, there are hundreds of thousands of coal-fired plants in developing countries...where's the money going  to come from to fix them?  Also though, I really like the comment that "not everyone can remain advantaged."  That pretty much goes to the point of a lot of globalwarmingists, this seems to be aimed more at the US than anyone else.  The idea that the US is somehow "advantaged" pretty much dismisses reasons why we may be so.  It's because we have a system that works.  Typical leftist approach to "fairness", don't raise everyone up to the same level, let's bring everyone down to the lowest common denominator.


Here's  another report.  

Stern's horrific specter distills many of the most terrifying guesses, including some imagined for the 22nd century, and implies they're imminent. The idea is to scare people while reassuring them that policies to avert calamity, if started now, would be fairly easy and inexpensive.

Here and here are a couple more takes on the costs.

[Elfie]

Last April, in the most devastating outbreak of tornadoes ever recorded, 148 twisters killed more than 300 people and caused half a billion dollars' worth of damage inthirteen U.S. states.

That doesn't seem to accurate to me. Iirc there was a day where over 1000 tornado's were recorded over *Tornado Alley* in the US. I remember seeing a map with all the tornado's tracks marked in black. Those tracks were all over the place. That happened some time ago.

Seems like more propaganda to me.

[oboe]

Mace,

That first report is dated 1996.   It is quite out of date - not only is the evidence for global warming FAR more compelling now than it was then, but we've already endured some of the increased costs they claim would break the economy.   A 60 cent per gallon increase in the cost of gas?   Let's see, what was gas back in '96?    $1.50 or so per gallon?   I'll take that - its still better than the $3.14 I paid to fill up my boat last summer.
I was sure the economy would tank last summer but I was wrong.

Sounds to me like scaremongering, except it's economists doing it instead of scientists.

One of the articles did say this:

The history of capitalism and technology tells us that what starts out expensive and arduous becomes cheap and easy over time.

It went on to say wind power is competitive with COAL - the most inexpensive (and dirty) form of power generation there is.   Whatever has been spent to get wind power generating technology to that level, I'd say it was money well spent.

Not sure why, but neither side of this debate is gone get me whipped into a frenzy.    Maybe my anger and frustration at Osama Bin Laden getting away while we messed around in Iraq wore me out.   Half a trillion dollars spent and what did we get?   And that money was borrowed so we'll be paying interest on it for near an eternity.  To China.  

[Mace2004]

Originally posted by oboe
Mace,

That first report is dated 1996.   It is quite out of date - not only is the evidence for global warming FAR more compelling now than it was then, but we've already endured some of the increased costs they claim would break the economy.   A 60 cent per gallon increase in the cost of gas?   Let's see, what was gas back in '96?    $1.50 or so per gallon?   I'll take that - its still better than the $3.14 I paid to fill up my boat last summer.
I was sure the economy would tank last summer but I was wrong.

Sounds to me like scaremongering, except it's economists doing it instead of scientists.

One of the articles did say this:

It went on to say wind power is competitive with COAL - the most inexpensive (and dirty) form of power generation there is.   Whatever has been spent to get wind power generating technology to that level, I'd say it was money well spent.

Not sure why, but neither side of this debate is gone get me whipped into a frenzy.    Maybe my anger and frustration at Osama Bin Laden getting away while we messed around in Iraq wore me out.   Half a trillion dollars spent and what did we get?   And that money was borrowed so we'll be paying interest on it for near an eternity.  To China.  

The fact that the first report was 96 just shows the consistency in expectations of excessive costs.  

The $0.60 increase in gas was in '96 dollars and would have been on top of the costs we have now not instead of because the reasons for the recent rise in the price in gas has nothing to do with global warming.  If they started these "global warming" fixes back in '96 then gas would probably have spiked at over $4.50 a gallon this past year instead of $3.50.  

I forgot to include the link but the second set of quotes is from 1999. There's plenty more, I just don't want to spend two hours googling it.

Again, you claim scaremongering because someone points out the cost of what the globalwarmingests want to do. There is a huge difference in someone proposing something expensive and a skeptic  pointing out the potential costs of these proposals.  It's called a cost/benefit ratio.  If you have some idea of the cost but no idea what the benefit will be (or even if there will be a benefit) then what action are you going to take???  

Evidence is FAR more compelling now?  Nonsense, if anything there's more evidence contrary to their predictions.  Even the latest UN study had to back off of it's predictions this year.  The tip of the antarctic peninsula is slightly warmer while the rest of the continent is cooler.  Polar bears are dying off?  Actually they're increasing in numbers.  Excessive hurricanes one year, none the next.  Record heat wave last summer?  Ah...not as hot as the one in the 30's.  Global sea temperatures were slightly higher, now they're slightly lower.  All that's become FAR more compelling now is the argument that the models are not reliable.

Last, the fact that you bring up UBL in a discussion on global warming kinda proves that this is more of a political than scientific issue.

[Mace2004]

Originally posted by Elfie
That doesn't seem to accurate to me. Iirc there was a day where over 1000 tornado's were recorded over *Tornado Alley* in the US. I remember seeing a map with all the tornado's tracks marked in black. Those tracks were all over the place. That happened some time ago.

Seems like more propaganda to me.

The largest outbreak ever recorded up until then was 148 and was called the "super outbreak" in 3-4 April 1974 and killed 315.  That's the outbreak mentioned in the Newsweek article and attributed to "global cooling" by "experts".  There was also an outbreak of over 400 in May of 2003 but this, of course, was some time after the article was written.  I'm sure that someone's running around saying the 400 were caused by global warming.

[oboe]

The five warmest Januarys on record all occurred within the last 6 years.   The 10 hottest years on record all occurred in the past 12 years.   Your 1996 report wouldn't have been able to include that data, and I would call that compelling.

I'm just trying to give examples of incredible cost increases that this economy has weathered without breaking.   The gas spike was painful but it didn't break the economy, and the increase of 60 cents per gallon is on par with the price spike we went through last year.   I'm not talking about causes, I'm just saying the economy survived.

One side says global warming will cost us billions or trillions in storm damage, flooding, etc.   The other side says trying to address global warming will break the economy.   Its both scaremongering to me.    The truth is probably somewhere in the middle, but that doesn't raise heartrates as much or sell more papers.

I just can't get too worked up about it either way.

[Holden McGroin]

Originally posted by oboe
The five warmest Januarys on record all occurred within the last 6 years.   The 10 hottest years on record all occurred in the past 12 years.   Your 1996 report wouldn't have been able to include that data, and I would call that compelling.

Not only that, 150 of the last 150 years have been the hottest on record!

[Jackal1]

We`ve been getting below normal temps for a week or so here according to the weather reports.
I fear Global Weathermanism.

[lazs2]

OK oboe..  so we have had ten hot years...  If we are the cause.... "massive" and "significant"   why is it that there has been no overall gain in global temp since good records were kept by satalite data (1999)?  not feral cat dung studies on ancient cats..  no core samples of some ice pack in santa clauses front yard but real measurements.

by the doom and gloomers scientific reconning..  we should have gotten steadily hotter..   Are we staving off the ice age with our "massive" contribution to global warming?   were the "scientists" of 1975 right after all????

If we drop a hundredth of a degree for the next year or two then I guess the ice agers were right huh?   Whatever we are doing is a good thing...

I think that the real "inconvienient truth" here is that...

ITS THE SUN STUPID.

going to get some bumper stickers made up.

I can't help but think that most of the panic is driven by world socialism and jealousy... envy and hate.  I also think it is a power grab by organizations that are otherwise ignored because they are worthless like the UN and some climatoligists.

lazs

[straffo]

Originally posted by Holden McGroin
Not only that, 150 of the last 150 years have been the hottest on record!

This sentence has no sense.

[oboe]

Laz,

You misunderstand - I am not claiming "we" are the cause.   I am just saying the evidence for global warming (whatever the cause may be) is compelling.    And I do not base my conclusions on one or two years of data, or in your ice cube example, a couple of months of backyard temperature observations.     There's gotta be a trend of more than a few years IMO.    And with a complicated system like global climate, a few anomalies in the data could be expected.    

If you got links to about satellite temperature data contradicting ice core samples then by all means share them.    

Human nature being what it is, no doubt there are greedy people licking their chops on both sides of this issue.

[Bodhi]

oboe,

I would be overwhelmingly behind stopping global warming if the scientists would present something a bit better than what you did.  (Not intended to be an insult, but you are not a scientist)  If they could show conclusive evidence that it was happening, and we were the cause and we could stop it, then anyone against it would not be sane in the head.  

BUT,

I am against rampant polution for the sake of my and my family's, friend's, and loved one's health.  That is soemthing I believe we haev overwhelming evidence to prove and should do our best to curb.  By this effort alone, I feel we could make a difference in the over all enviroment to begin with.

[oboe]

No offense taken, Bodhi.   You're right, I am not a scientist.    The stuff I presented was a small slice of the large body of evidence that the globe is warming.   (Remember I am not talking about causes - just the observation that the earth is undergoing a warming trend).

Few things in science are 100% certain however.    Sometimes you have to let logic lead you to the conclusion.   For example, I don't think there is conclusive proof that ciagrette smoking CAUSES cancer, but the evidence is so overwhelming most people now accept it as fact.

As far as man-induced global warming - we are not going to get 100% certainty.   The latest, most authoritative report on the subject stops at "very likely" that we are the cause.     Its not even certain we can do anything effective to stop the warming that is underway.

I believe in reducing pollution too, and being as efficient as possible.    A lot of the actions we take to reduce pollution can also help with reducing greenhouse gas emissions.    My last car purchase was a fuel-efficient Toyota Corolla, and I have started replacing incandescent bult in my house with flourescent bulbs.   I keep the thermostat turned down in the winter adn wear extra clothes around the house.    Most of my actions are in response to the insane prices of natural gas and gasoline though, not necessarily because I'm an environmentalist.

[EagleDNY]

This planet goes through natural cooling and warming cycles all the time, and the reasons for this are nowhere near fully understood.  Besides the natural variations in solar output, we also have variations in the orbital eccentricity of the earth around the sun, precession of the axis, and variations of the axial tilt of the earth.

IMHO a 1 degree average variation over a hundred year period is meaningless.  Does this mean that we shouldn't be watching our emissions into the air and water of our environment?  No - but when some panel of international scientists comes out and says that they are 90% sure that man is the cause of global warming, I have to laugh.  They aren't sure what causes the natural variations in the first place, and they know that the planet was much warmer in the past, but they are 90% sure that man is causing the changes we are seeing now - yeah, right.

EagleDNY
$.02