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Politics : Manmade Global Warming, A hoax? A Scam? or a Doomsday Cult? -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Don Hurst who wrote (3373)	11/18/2013 3:57:11 PM
From: longnshort	1 Recommendation Recommended By Hawkmoon Respond to of 4326

how many 100s of millions go to grants for GW studies ? maybe billions. if people like Chu don't keep that scam up those billions will dry up. look at Penn state, they get what millions a year and they found Mann not guilty lololol Penn State Probe into Mann's Wrongdoing a 'Total Whitewash' How thoroughly did Penn State University investigate a top climate scientist who brought hundreds of thousands of dollars in grants to the school? A growing number of critics say they hardly looked at all. Penn State ended a two-month probe into the work of Michael Mann, a top climate scientist whose "hockey stick" graph of climbing world temperature helped galvanize support for the climate change movement, on Wednesday. The probe stemmed from the release of thousands of hacked e-mails from a server at the Climate Research Unit at the University of East Anglia in England that showed the internal debate and, some say, the manipulation of data, to support the scientific underpinnings of the case for global, man-made warming of the planet. Mann's e-mails were among those released and critics charged that he used "tricks" to make his data match studies that confirmed warming trends. A three-person board of inquiry cleared Mann of three of four charges brought by the university that he falsified or tried to destroy data, and recommended further study on the fourth charge that his methods "deviated from accepted practices" of the scientific community. They wrote in their report that "that there exists no credible evidence that Dr. Mann had ever engaged in, or participated in, directly or indirectly, any actions with intent to delete, conceal or otherwise destroy e-mails, information and/or data." Click here to read the full report. But the findings and, more importantly, the focus have set off a wave of criticism accusing the university panel of failing to interview key people, neglecting to conduct more than a cursory review of allegations and structuring the inquiry so that the outcome -- exoneration -- was a foregone conclusion. On Friday, Rep. Darrell Issa, the ranking Republican on the House Investigations Committee, charged that the Penn State's failure to settle all the charges and called into question professor Mann's work. He is demanding that all grants to the noted scientist be frozen. Mann, according to published reports, has gotten a grant almost $550,000 in stimulus money to study climate change and is part of a nearly $2 million grant to Penn State to study the impact of climate change on various diseases. "Until the investigation is completed," Issa said, "the National Science Foundation should immediately freeze all grants and funding, including the $541,184 stimulus grant, to Professor Mann." Criticism directed at the conduct of the investigation is being spearheaded by Steven Milloy, a former Fox News contributor and publisher of Junk Science, a Web site dedicated to debunking global warming research. "It was set up to be a total whitewash and the panel made no effort to investigate," Milloy said. "They didn't even interview the recipients of the e-mails. It is ridiculous." He charges that the panel did little more than look at the e-mails Mann sent and that, despite claims that "hundreds of hours" of time had been put into the investigation, only two people were actually interviewed. "None of them had any direct knowledge of the e-mails," he said. "The only interviews cited in the report other than Mann's are with Jerry North and Donald Kennedy," he said. "Both are Mann's supporters and none have anything to do with the charges. Kennedy was the editor of Science magazine, and North helped Mann defend the 'hockey stick' graph. Yet Phil Jones, who got the e-mails, wasn't contacted." Steve McIntyre of the Web site Climate Audit also charged that the panel looked at papers that were already publicly available. "They did not examine any of Mann's correspondence that was not already in the public record," he said. In effect, he argued, the panel didn't use any of its investigatory powers to plumb deeper. Pennsylvania's Commonwealth Foundation, a conservative research and educational institute, proposed that the state legislature conduct an independent investigation of the charges and Mann's research. A spokesman for the foundation said it was a "conflict of interest" for Penn State to investigate itself. Republican State Rep. RoseMarie Swanger also called for a separate investigation to be conducted by the state. Graduate School Dean Henry C. Foley, who headed the investigation, referred all calls on the subject to media representatives for the school, who failed to return phone calls.

To: Don Hurst who wrote (3373)	11/18/2013 6:06:53 PM
From: Maurice Winn	1 Recommendation Recommended By Feathered Propeller Respond to of 4326

Steven Chu's vested interest <Under Chu's leadership, the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory has been a center of research into biofuels and solar energytechnologies. [11] He spearheaded the laboratory's Heliosproject, an initiative to develop methods of harnessing solar power as a source of renewable energy for transportation. [23]> That's cash flow to his projects. If CO2 is not a problem, then his projects will have to be economic without government protection or subsidies. I see you are thinking BIG OIL and Steven Chu are on opposite sides of some theoretical divide. But look: <Chu was instrumental in submitting a winning bid for the Energy Biosciences Institute, a BP-funded $500 million multi-disciplinary collaborative project between UC Berkeley, the Lawrence Berkeley Lab and the University of Illinois. This sparked controversy on the Berkeley campus, where some fear the alliance could harm the school’s reputation for academic integrity> As I explained, during my time in BP Oil International [in the 1980s] I was promoting within BP that the company move towards being a capital investor in whatever is a good idea in BP's areas of expertise, to improve profits for shareholders and to provide the environmental benefits to the public and politicians that they are willing to pay for. BP in fact did that and there is another $500 million as evidence. There was also BP Solar which was a big producer of photovoltaics before the intense recent competition destroyed margins and resulted in BP Solar being closed. BP has invested in many alternative forms of energy including fusion reactors. Steven has swallowed whole the CO2 mantra. That's understandable and if he wasn't a true believer, he would not have got his big shot job with Obama and would not be in the vanguard as he has been in developing alternatives. I have no vested interest in CO2 being either a problem, or not a problem, or a benefit. I do in that I'm a person who wants a good and better world in which to live and which will supply my descendants and those of others who will still be alive and wanting a good world in which to live 100 years from now, and 500 years from now. My vested interest is in getting to the truth of what CO2 will mean. Steven Chu, Obama and Al Gore are much more invested in CO2 as a problem than me. I had the great advantage of being paid to learn about environmental matters related to oil combustion, and along with that various other matters in the alternatives technologies. BP did not require me to be anti-environmental. On the contrary, my job was to get things good. As you might have noticed from the Macondo disaster, environmental damage is an enormous risk to BP. I was warning BP of such extreme hazard back in the mid 1980s, because the USA would sue BP for everything if something went wrong or they made some mistake, such as including lead in gasoline and then being found in a class action suit to be liable for $trillions in damage to people's brains from lead poisoning. BP realized the risk and started doing something about it. Obviously not enough in the right place. As you say, coal miners and hydrocarbon producers are vested in maintaining demand for their products so one should be circumspect about their claims regarding the effects of CO2. But that doesn't mean that CO2 is a problem. It simply means any claims by them that CO2 production is inconsequential should be evaluated carefully. In fact, I came up with a sequestration process, subsequently patented by Mitsubishi, to liquefy CO2 and pipe it below 400 metres deep where it would sit in huge puddles on the ocean floor, gradually dissolving. That would actually be GOOD for the fossil fuels industry because it would mean demand for 25% more energy to run the process, meaning even more coal, tar and oils would be required. Woohoo - increased profits while cutting CO2 emissions. There are now existing CO2 liquefaction techniques which have been developed. But they are uneconomic since CO2 in air is not a problem, but is a benefit, at levels we are likely to reach over the next 50 years, which is the lifetime of thermal power stations and exceeds the lifespan of most living people. Wouldn't it be ironic if your worries about CO2 resulted in your dreaded fossil fuel industry boosting production of fossil fuels to avoid CO2 emissions? They'd make more money at the expense of consumers of the electricity, or the taxpayers and citizens. That was the reason I was promoting such research to BP = if you really, really want no CO2 emissions, then here's a way for BP to provide you that result. But make sure before you commit your money that you really, really do want to pay more money to avoid CO2 going into the air. You wouldn't want to pay for all that investment and extra fossil fuel only to find you'd rather have the CO2 in the air than deep in the ocean. If CO2 in the air turns out to be a problem, rather than a benefit, I'm happy to tax CO2 production which is not sequestered, such as by way of a carbon tax, with countervailing tax cuts elsewhere, which I suggested to my BP boss Nelson Cull way back in 1984 or 1985 [I forget which year it was] . You might find yourself whining "Don't be so worried about it Mq, it's not that bad". I'd be happy on a bicycle [which I already have and use] and wouldn't need to burn carbon. You might be more reluctant to go skinny on CO2 production. Don't assume that people are scientific illiterates or evil-doers with vested interests because they disagree that CO2 emissions are a problem. From what I read, and hear from people, the illiteracy and vested interests are in the anti-CO2 brigade. Religions are notably not amenable to reason. CO2 has become a religion. Just because the high priests of the religion dress it up in superficially scientific blarney doesn't make them right. The beautiful raiment of the emperors of CO2 is wondrous, but the king isn't actually wearing any clothes. Mqurice

To: Don Hurst who wrote (3373)	11/19/2013 4:43:10 AM
From: Jorj X Mckie	3 Recommendations Recommended By Bob FJB Sweet Ol Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 4326

Maurice, I am not that naive but thanks for your concern re the digging and fracking part. OK, maybe fracking is causing some minor local "earthquakes" and maybe even serious water issues but...? It is the burning part that is the very real concern to me although I must admit I have now and then wondered what happens to those dry holes in the upper part of the earth's crust that contained all that vegetation turned into oil that has been removed. I know, I know...you are a geologist also and have the answer. I may be able to answer your question with a little experiment that you can do in your kitchen. 1. Get a typical transparent glass from your cupboard. 2. Fill it half full with sand or even pebbles 3. Put enough water into the glass such that all of the sand is saturated with water. 4. Draw a line on the side of the glass that corresponds to the top of the sand 5. this next step will take a little while to complete. You need to drain the water from the sand without removing any of the sand. You may be able to get rid of some of it by tipping the glass or dabbing the surface with a dry paper towel. You can let the glass stand in a sunny window for a while so that the water evaporates. You can help it along by stirring the sand and exposing wet sand. Given enough time, the water will evaporate completely such that the sand is now dry. 6. When the sand is dry, compare the level of the saturated sand with that of the dry sand. Is it different? more or less? Petroleum is found in porous rock or sediments. Not in giant underground open pools or lakes. Think of it like ground water. If you dig a well down to the water table, that well will fill with water that saturates the surrounding layer of permeable earth. That's not to say that some subsidence in oil fields doesn't occur on occasion. It can and does in some places. When it does, it can be mitigated by pumping salt water into the well and capping it to normalize the pressure. Subsidence in natural gas fracking locations is rare enough or insignificant enough to have no examples that have caused any negative effect on manmade structures or geologic features. The whole point of fracking is to break up the natural gas bearing rock such that the gas can escape up the borehole. Again, the gas is not hanging out in giant underground caverns. But enough of that....your real concern is the harmful effects of global warming caused by CO2 that was released by manmade processes. My take is that we are smart enough today to take care of our energy needs with renewables which ok, eliminates the digging part but goes after the most serious issue; the rapidly expanding atmospheric pollution which is causing climate change (global warming) and more and more identified problems in the seas. We need to get really serious about it now. But first, let's eliminate some of the distractions. 1. Rising oceans/Coastal threats. Sea levels have gone up and down both locally and globally and for both brief and prolonged periods of time throughout the existence of the oceans. They are in constant flux. And sometimes the sea level hasn't really changed, but the relationship between the coastal land and the sea has changed due to the land either rising or subsiding. The point is, building your home or city on a coastal boundary comes with inherent risk. The risks include hurricanes, tsunamis, landslides, storm surges, erosion and I am sure quite a few others. The current "sea level" is arbitrary and defined as "good" based on the fact that it is where humans decided the optimum sea level constant should be in the context of providing the least amount of risk for the greatest amount of benefit to humans. As far as the planet and the various resident life forms are concerned, 10 feet lower or higher doesn't really matter. Assuming the worst case scenario of the global warming gang, you can't build your house on Carbon Beach in Malibu and claim that you didn't understand that there was going to be a risk of the pacific ocean ending up in your living room. And you also can't build your city below sea level in an area that is so prone to tropical storms that the local favorite alcoholic beverage is called a "hurricane", and then claim that you didn't understand that there was some risk to your business and home. 2. The polar bears were never in any danger. Polar bears go out on to the ice flows with the intent of hunting. They don't go to where the ice is so thick that a sea lion or other related animal can't get through the ice to breathe. The polar bears are there to hunt. And their hunting grounds necessarily have to be in some state of melt. They are not going to be surprised by a big flash of global warming that melts all of the surrounding ice and leaves them a thousand miles from shore with no place to climb out and rest. 3. We are not worried about droughts or desertification caused by global warming. Warming causes increased evaporation from the oceans. This will cause more rain....fewer droughts. 4. We are not actually worried about the CO2. CO2 is not a pollutant. Plants need it to live. Humans exhale a little less than 2000lbs of CO2 annually. And even with that high number, CO2 is still just a non-toxic trace gas. It is a natural by-product of the respiratory process of animals and it is what plants breathe. Plants need and love CO2. The more CO2 we have, the better they grow (along with their ability to remove CO2 from the atmosphere while replacing it with O2). If CO2 is a pollutant, the only way that man can stop polluting his environment is to commit suicide. And even then, the decomposition process will release CO2. So, if we remove the noise, it basically defines our concerns for global warming as those effects that are net harmful to humans. I'll leave the details to you on this one since I believe that global warming is likely net positive for humans. Assuming that your worst case global warming scenarios are real, you still can't take a position on this until you have done a cost/benefit analysis. If the elimination of fossil fuels shuts down global warming and you are able to definitively show that it saves the lives of 20,000 coastal dwellers, 10 polar bears and two African tigers, but at the same time the policies eliminate 80,000 jobs in the Mining, Oil and Gas industry, thus increasing the number of poor people who cannot afford the new higher priced power or the products whose prices have gone up due to the higher fuel costs. And of course, since the grid is now powered by unreliable solar and wind energy that is pretty much useless for baseload power, many millions of people will be without power whenever there is any slight hint of extreme weather. What happens when the power doesn't come on and the stores don't open four days after a big storm goes through the northeast metropolitan areas? Not only would you see people dying from the elements, after three days, most people will start to panic and we would see riots where many people are killed or injured. Assuming that all of the worst case scenarios of global warming are real (which I don't), until there is an honest assessment of the costs ,in human terms, of eliminating fossil fuels and then an honest comparison that convincingly shows that the benefits of eliminating fossil fuels clearly outweigh the cost of keeping them, there is absolutely no justification for creating policy that is hostile to the fossil fuel industry. An example of where policy was implemented based on half of the equation and the half that was used to justify the policy was erroneous, is that of how to handle forest fires. It was obvious to everyone that forest fires are bad. So the policy was to stamp them out immediately. So the benefit was that our forests didn't burn down and we had lots of pretty green trees. But the cost was that the undergrowth and forest detritus built up over time and created hotter longer lasting fires that actually burned the trees beyond recovery. In addition, the naturally occurring periodic fast moving forest fires were needed for some evergreen seed cones to release their seeds. Without the natural fires, undergrowth took over the forest floor and no new trees were sprouting anyway, since the seeds were still stuck in their cone. Most government solutions have similar one sided perspectives where the costs and unintended consequences are never considered.