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Gold/Mining/Energy : Big Dog's Boom Boom Room -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: whitepine who wrote (78163)	1/17/2007 12:21:46 PM
From: Think4Yourself	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 206334

I grant that GW was political in the 90's. Wasn't sure I believed in it myself when that book was published in 1992, BUT The ten warmest years in the history of weather recordkeeping have been recorded since then, and every year since 2000 is in that list. It's not about politics anymore. Even GWB has stopped saying the evidence isn't conclusive. It IS happening.

To: whitepine who wrote (78163)	1/17/2007 7:04:49 PM
From: Metacomet	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 206334

Everybody has an agenda. This cat just happens to be a whore. "Dr. Patrick Michaels is possibly the most prolific and widely-quoted climate change skeptic scientist. He has admitted receiving funding from various fossil fuel industry sources. His latest book, published in September 2004 by the Cato Institute, is titled: Meltdown: The Predictable Distortion of Global Warming by Scientists, Politicians, and the Media. Michaels is the Chief Editor for the "World Climate Review," a newsletter on global warming funded by the Western Fuels Association. Dr. Michaels has acknowledged that 20% of his funding comes from fossil fuel sources: mtn.org Known funding includes $49,000 from German Coal Mining Association, $15,000 from Edison Electric Institute and $40,000 from Cyprus Minerals Company, an early supporter of People for the West, a "wise use" group. He recieved $63,000 for research on global climate change from Western Fuels Association, above and beyond the undisclosed amount he is paid for the World Climate Report/Review. According to Harper's magazine, Michaels has recieved over $115,000 over the past four years from coal and oil interests. Michaels wrote "Sound and Fury" and "The Satanic Gases" which were published by Cato Institute. Dr. Michaels signed the 1995 Leipzig Declaration. In July of 2006, it was revealed that the Intermountain Rural Electric Association "contributed $100,000 to Dr. Michaels." abcnews.go.com exxonsecrets.org

To: whitepine who wrote (78163)	1/17/2007 10:10:46 PM
From: ChanceIs	Respond to of 206334

>>>GW? Over what time frame? Always caused by man?<<< Several thoughts: 1) I do believe that this discussion is relevant to the BBR because of the impacts of policy on "da biz." (eg Pelosi seizing GOM revenues to fund Green alternative projects; TXUs 11 new coal plants being sidetracked because of global warming GHG - my favorite because Texas will be forced to burn more NG/got CHK?) 2) On pet science: I have the greatest respect for the late Richard Feinman (physicist - member of Oppenheimer bomb design team - key figure in Challenger disaster investigation (think frozen O-rings)). When offered, he rufused a "Knighthood" from the very prestigious National Academy of Science. Tell you anything? 3) On hype for science funding: NASA wanted to put up a new satellite. There was no funding for it. Suddenly a new ozone hole was appearing over the North Pole (similar to the one over the South Pole). The satellite got funded. 4) On scientific terror: I used to do engineering assessments on the buildings and architecture for the weapons facilities side of DOE. I sat in on countless meeting where the operating contractors would come to Washington and say "unsafe and highly radioactive." The projects no matter how unnecessary would get funded w/o any further investigation - good for jobs at the site, but not the taxpayer. As in any area of human endeavor, there are hills and valleys when it comes to integrity. In case I haven't made my point about lack of integrity in science check out the NY Times editorial from Sunday. I could have written this, or it could have been written about me. (I don't agree with the last paragraph - super liberal tripe.) (BTW - I am not convinced that CO2 or man causes warming. I am sure that the ice caps are getting smaller. I am not convinced that that is a bad thing. I am convinced that there is nothing we can do about the CO2 already in the atmosphere. If it is causing the warming at current levels, then we better do something besides reducing future emissions - like wearing reflective bennie caps on summer days or wrapping your automobile in aluminum foil. I am convinced that there have been periods when CO2 has been up and temperatures down.) ____________________________________________________ January 15, 2007 Editorial Busywork for Nuclear Scientists The Bush administration is eager to start work on a new nuclear warhead with all sorts of admirable qualities: sturdy, reliable and secure from terrorists. To sweeten the deal, officials say that if they can replace the current arsenal with Reliable Replacement Warheads (what could sound more comforting?), they probably won’t have to keep so many extra warheads to hedge against technical failure. If you’re still not sold, the warhead comes with something of a guarantee — that scientists can build the new bombs without ever testing them. Let the buyer beware. While the program has gotten very little attention here, it is a public-relations disaster in the making overseas. Suspicions that the United States is actually trying to build up its nuclear capabilities are undercutting Washington’s arguments for restraining the nuclear appetites of Iran and North Korea. Then there’s the tens of billions it is likely to cost. And the most important question: Nearly two decades after the country stopped building nuclear weapons, does it really need a new one? The answer, emphatically, is no. This is a make-work program championed by the weapons laboratories and belatedly by the Pentagon, which hasn’t been able to get Congress to pay for its other nuclear fantasies. The Rumsfeld team’s first choice was for a nuclear “bunker buster” to go after deeply buried targets. The Pentagon got concerned about “aging” warheads only after it was clear that even the Republican-led Congress, or at least one intrepid House subcommittee chairman, considered the bunker buster too Strangelovian to finance. One crucial argument for the new program took a major hit in November when the Jason — a prestigious panel of scientists that advises the government on weapons — reported that most of the plutonium triggers in the current arsenal can be expected to last for 100 years. Since the oldest weapons are less than 50 years old, supporters of the new warhead have fallen back on warnings that other bomb components are also aging, and that the nuclear labs need the work to attract and train the best scientists. But the labs are already spending billions on studying and preserving the current arsenal. Then there’s that guarantee that there will be no need for testing — one of the few arms-control taboos President Bush hasn’t broken yet. While experts debate whether the labs can really build a weapon without testing it, the more important question is whether any president would stake America’s security on an untested arsenal. America would be much safer if the president focused on reducing the number of old nuclear weapons still deployed by the United States and the other nuclear powers. The new Congress should stop this program before any more dollars are wasted, or more damage is done to America’s credibility.