| Author | Message | ||
     Ferris_von_bueller |
Lorne Gunter: Thirty years of warmer temperatures go poof In early September, I began noticing a string of news stories about scientists rejecting the orthodoxy on global warming. Actually, it was more like a string of guest columns and long letters to the editor since it is hard for skeptical scientists to get published in the cabal of climate journals now controlled by the Great Sanhedrin of the environmental movement. Still, the number of climate change skeptics is growing rapidly. Because a funny thing is happening to global temperatures -- they're going down, not up. On the same day (Sept. 5) that areas of southern Brazil were recording one of their latest winter snowfalls ever and entering what turned out to be their coldest September in a century, Brazilian meteorologist Eugenio Hackbart explained that extreme cold or snowfall events in his country have always been tied to "a negative PDO" or Pacific Decadal Oscillation. Positive PDOs -- El Ninos -- produce above-average temperatures in South America while negative ones -- La Ninas -- produce below average ones. Dr. Hackbart also pointed out that periods of solar inactivity known as "solar minimums" magnify cold spells on his continent. So, given that August was the first month since 1913 in which no sunspot activity was recorded -- none -- and during which solar winds were at a 50-year low, he was not surprised that Brazilians were suffering (for them) a brutal cold snap. "This is no coincidence," he said as he scoffed at the notion that manmade carbon emissions had more impact than the sun and oceans on global climate. Also in September, American Craig Loehle, a scientist who conducts computer modelling on global climate change, confirmed his earlier findings that the so-called Medieval Warm Period (MWP) of about 1,000 years ago did in fact exist and was even warmer than 20th-century temperatures. Prior to the past decade of climate hysteria and Kyoto hype, the MWP was a given in the scientific community. Several hundred studies of tree rings, lake and ocean floor sediment, ice cores and early written records of weather -- even harvest totals and censuses --confirmed that the period from 800 AD to 1300 AD was unusually warm, particularly in Northern Europe. But in order to prove the climate scaremongers' claim that 20th-century warming had been dangerous and unprecedented -- a result of human, not natural factors -- the MWP had to be made to disappear. So studies such as Michael Mann's "hockey stick," in which there is no MWP and global temperatures rise gradually until they jump up in the industrial age, have been adopted by the UN as proof that recent climate change necessitates a reordering of human economies and societies. Dr. Loehle's work helps end this deception. Don Easterbrook, a geologist at Western Washington University, says, "It's practically a slam dunk that we are in for about 30 years of global cooling," as the sun enters a particularly inactive phase. His examination of warming and cooling trends over the past four centuries shows an "almost exact correlation" between climate fluctuations and solar energy received on Earth, while showing almost "no correlation at all with CO2." An analytical chemist who works in spectroscopy and atmospheric sensing, Michael J. Myers of Hilton Head, S. C., declared, "Man-made global warming is junk science," explaining that worldwide manmade CO2 emission each year "equals about 0.0168% of the atmosphere's CO2 concentration ... This results in a 0.00064% increase in the absorption of the sun's radiation. This is an insignificantly small number." Other international scientists have called the manmade warming theory a "hoax," a "fraud" and simply "not credible." While not stooping to such name-calling, weather-satellite scientists David Douglass of the University of Rochester and John Christy of the University of Alabama at Huntsville nonetheless dealt the True Believers a devastating blow last month. For nearly 30 years, Professor Christy has been in charge of NASA's eight weather satellites that take more than 300,000 temperature readings daily around the globe. In a paper co-written with Dr. Douglass, he concludes that while manmade emissions may be having a slight impact, "variations in global temperatures since 1978 ... cannot be attributed to carbon dioxide." Moreover, while the chart below was not produced by Douglass and Christy, it was produced using their data and it clearly shows that in the past four years -- the period corresponding to reduced solar activity -- all of the rise in global temperatures since 1979 has disappeared. It may be that more global warming doubters are surfacing because there just isn't any global warming. | ||
| Glitch |
Global warming causes global cooling Global cooing causes global warming What are we to do, we simply can't sit idly by and do nothing, we have to get the Earth to do what we want it to do! | ||
| Brumbear |
Global cooling  Global Warming  | ||
| Madduck |
For those of us that grew up in Minnesota, there is a simple rule: Cold Bad -- Warm Good | ||
| Edgydrifter |
A minor dig at the Manhattan Declaration: several of the signers, including Dr. Easterbrook, are retired and no longer doing research in the field. In any case, either they're right or they're wrong. There probably isn't much chance of us doing anything about it either way, so we should all hope for the best and prepare for the worst. | ||
| Cyclonemduece |
mad duck its the other way around for this mn native | ||
| 2008xb12scg |
My take on global warming-do my part and ride the Xb more. For the enviroment of course. | ||
| Mikef5000 |
My understanding is that there is ALWAYS global warming and cooling happening. The climate on earth goes in cycles. THE MAIN QUESTION... is whether we, as humans, are effecting these cycles... in a negative way. | ||
| Froggy |
You do know motorcycles pollute more than cars right? | ||
| Garyl |
"You do know motorcycles pollute more than cars right?" Please elaborate. | ||
| Greenlantern |
You do know motorcycles pollute more than cars right? Emissions wise mile for mile,yes. Average mpg vs. per vehicle makes it a bust or leans towards the motorcycle in some cases. Non emissions consumables, the motorcycle wins hands down. ( Oil, Coolant, Brake and transmission fluids). | ||
| Spiderman |
Don't forget tires, we go through tires a lot faster than cars do... | ||
| Greenlantern |
Don't forget tires, we go through tires a lot faster than cars do... Not all of us ride like you do.  But seriously, I call that a bust too if not in the bikes favor considering 2 motorcycle tires use about the same amount of materials to manufacture 1 to 1 1/2 car tires. My opinion anyway. | ||
| Spiderman |
I call that a bust too if not in the bikes favor considering 2 motorcycle tires use about the same amount of materials to manufacture 1 to 1 1/2 car tires. My opinion anyway. It's all relative, from size of tire to material used. Much like when they say what is the approx distance of car lengths you should follow another car. A car length is not a set unit of measurement. :-P | ||
| Chellem |
I don't understand. Aren't most motorcycles held to roughly the same emissions standards as cars? Unless someone has installed aftermarket pipes and/or screwed with performance mods, shouldn't a stock bike be comparable to a car emission-wise? And maybe a high percentage of Harley folk do performance mods, but does your average Honda rider? I'm asking - I really don't know. Plus, the gas mileage kicks ass, plus, even if we go through tires faster (depending of course on riding style), we only use the two compared to four on cars. Bikes are lighter, so I assume they create less road-wear, meaning if there were only bikes, roads wouldn't need to be repaired as often, creating fewer chemicals blah blah blah. Footprint-wise, I would think bikes would win hands-down. BUT I have very few facts to back this up, so please, tell me if I'm wrong. ->ChelleM | ||
| Greenlantern |
Anyone got a Magic 8 Ball so we can settle this once and for all? | ||
| Aeholton |
And maybe a high percentage of Harley folk do performance mods, but does your average Honda rider? I'm asking - I really don't know. I would like to guess that sportbike riders upgrade pipes and install power commanders in similar percentages to Harley folk with performance mods. | ||
| Swordsman |
Not to mention, a lot of sportbikes (especially the liter+) actually get rather low MPG when comparing the engine/weight ratio to that of cars. A Yaris gets better MPG than a 'Busa, for example. ~SM | ||
| New12r |
We are not saving the planet anyway, we are saving ourselves.... The planet and cockroaches will still be here long after we are gone. | ||
| Xl1200r |
I don't understand. Aren't most motorcycles held to roughly the same emissions standards as cars? No, they are not. I wrote a paper on this in college, and I was actually very surprised by my research. The emissions limits (at the time, this was in 2006) were muchg more lax for bikes than for cars, and got more relaxed the smaller the engine was. Essentialy, a 125cc scooter was allowed to pollute more than a 1200cc Buell. Even more apalling, was that my research showed that a typical Harley-Davidson (or any other "heavy-weight" motorcycle) was less strict emissions requirements than a full-sized SUV like a Suburban. Most of this was related to technology - catalysts and other emissions-regulating devices just weren't feasible on a bike for size and weight reasons, but this is changing. I think the near future, you'll see the regs for bikes start to drop where they will be better for the environment than cars are. Rules are already tightening. | ||
| Ratbuell |
Like Carlin said..."the Earth is just gonna shake us off like a bad case of fleas..." If we piss the planet off enough, it'll get rid of us. But these minor temperature shifts are cyclical - been happening for millenia. True, the question is, are we contributing / altering them at all...but they've been here longer than we have, and will continue to be here long after we're gone. | ||
| Xl1200r |
Some food for thought - In a geological historical sense, Carbon levels in the atmosphere right now are at the second lowest they've been in something like 200 million years by a factor of 15 fold (going off memory here, but we are by NO means setting any records). In fact, the CO2 rise we're in now, while more aggressive than it was in years past, began 7,000 years ago - long before anyone fired up their 6 MPG SUV to go to the grocery store. | ||
| Garryb |
I would suggest anyone who hasn't seen glacier bay national park make plans soon. (Message edited by garryb on October 22, 2008) | ||
| Xl1200r |
I would suggest anyone who hasn't witnessed a planet coming out of an ice age, look outside. |
