[QUOTE=cheesehead;225712]A book review, from [I]American Scientist[/I], September-October 2010:[/QUOTE]:ignore:

Someone had to do it.

Tempt me not, O Satan!
 

Don't think that I haven't thought of this: sink a few thousand into a fax machine, a couple of land lines, and a P.O. box or maybe a trailer somewhere in some suburb, and start cranking out the pretty .pdf's, axis-shifted graphs, and un-citeable references in exchange for a few grand each year from a number of conventional energy giants.

Several people have already done this: create XYZ Institute for Climate Analysis with a low-six-figure grant of seed money from Exxon-Mobil, and off you go.

It's easy money, and there is always room for one more mouthpiece to create the illusion of controversy.

well I hope the hurricane headed towards us according to the predictions dies off if not it will be the strongest in memory to hit my area of the world right now it's a category 4 and we've had a warm trend recently. Highest storm before this would be hurricane Juan at strong category 2. if this isn't something to talk of global warming I have no idea about it lol.

Global warming is about decadal trends, not individual weather events or individual years. A hurricane is just one data point among thousands on climate charts.

Climate Change and the Tea Party
 

I found an interesting link to the politics of climate-change in this NYT article about the moneyed interests behind the not-quite-as-grassroots-as-they-claim Tea Party:

[url=http://www.nytimes.com/2010/08/29/opinion/29rich.html?src=me&ref=opinion]The Billionaires Bankrolling the Tea Party[/url]. [i]ANOTHER weekend, another grass-roots demonstration starring Real Americans who are mad as hell and want to take back their country from you-know-who.[/i]
[quote]There’s just one element missing from these snapshots of America’s ostensibly spontaneous and leaderless populist uprising: the sugar daddies who are bankrolling it, and have been doing so since well before the “death panel” warm-up acts of last summer. Three heavy hitters rule. You’ve heard of one of them, Rupert Murdoch. The other two, the brothers David and Charles Koch, are even richer, with a combined wealth exceeded only by that of Bill Gates and Warren Buffett among Americans. But even those carrying the Kochs’ banner may not know who these brothers are.
...
When David Koch ran to the right of Reagan as vice president on the 1980 Libertarian ticket (it polled 1 percent), his campaign called for the abolition not just of Social Security, federal regulatory agencies and welfare but also of the F.B.I., the C.I.A., and public schools — in other words, any government enterprise that would either inhibit his business profits or increase his taxes. He hasn’t changed. [b]As [i][New Yorker columnist Jane][/i] Mayer details, Koch-supported lobbyists, foundations and political operatives are at the center of climate-science denial — a cause that forestalls threats to Koch Industries’ vast fossil fuel business.[/b] While Koch foundations donate to cancer hospitals like Memorial Sloan-Kettering in New York, Koch Industries has been lobbying to stop the Environmental Protection Agency from classifying another product important to its bottom line, formaldehyde, as a “known carcinogen” in humans (which it is).

Tea Partiers may share the Kochs’ detestation of taxes, big government and Obama. But there’s a difference between mainstream conservatism and a fringe agenda that tilts completely toward big business, whether on Wall Street or in the Gulf of Mexico, while dismantling fundamental government safety nets designed to protect the unemployed, public health, workplace safety and the subsistence of the elderly.

Yet inexorably the Koch agenda is morphing into the G.O.P. agenda, as articulated by current Republican members of Congress, including the putative next speaker of the House, John Boehner, and Tea Party Senate candidates like Rand Paul, Sharron Angle, and the new kid on the block, Alaska’s anti-Medicaid, anti-unemployment insurance Palin protégé, Joe Miller. Their program opposes a federal deficit, but has no objection to running up trillions in red ink in tax cuts to corporations and the superrich; apologizes to corporate malefactors like BP and derides money put in escrow for oil spill victims as a “slush fund”; opposes the extension of unemployment benefits; and calls for a freeze on federal regulations in an era when abuses in the oil, financial, mining, pharmaceutical and even egg industries (among others) have been outrageous.[/quote]
[i]My Comment:[/i] The original article has lots of embedded links which I did not bother to add to the above excerpt - go there if you want to do any link-following.

Here's an example of a nontotalitarian and probably-inexpensive way to mitigate anthropogenic global warming. It's the sort of thing one finds when one genuinely tries to look for solutions instead of denying that the problem exists.

"Unusual feed supplement could ease greenhouse gassy cows"

[url]http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2010-09/ps-ufs090710.php[/url]

[quote] Cow belches, a major source of greenhouse gases, could be decreased by an unusual feed supplement developed by a Penn State dairy scientist.

In a series of laboratory experiments and a live animal test, an oregano-based supplement not only decreased methane emissions in dairy cows by 40 percent, but also improved milk production, according to Alexander Hristov, an associate professor of dairy nutrition.

The natural methane-reduction supplement could lead to a cleaner environment and more productive dairy operations.

"Cattle are actually a major producer of methane gas and methane is a significant greenhouse gas," Hristov said. "In fact, worldwide, livestock emits 37 percent of anthropogenic methane."

...[/quote]

It doesn't necessarily mean we have to ramp up oregano production, either.

[quote]Hristov said that some compounds that are found in oregano, including carvacrol, geraniol and thymol, seem to play a more significant role in methane suppression.

Identifying the active compounds is important because pure compounds are easier to produce commercially and more economical for farmers to use.

. . .[/quote]

I think the title of this thread used to be "Global Warming: Hoax or Real Threat?" or something like that. Does anyone know why it was changed? :unsure:

[QUOTE=MooMoo2;231410]I think the title of this thread used to be "Global Warming: Hoax or Real Threat?" or something like that. Does anyone know why it was changed? :unsure:[/QUOTE]
I don't know but I certainly approve of changing the title of a thread to adequately reflect its content as it develops. This thread contains a wealth of extremely important scientific evidence, provided by several knowledgeable people who have taken a great deal of trouble to present it. It's progressed far beyond the facile level suggested by its original title.

[QUOTE=Uncwilly;106911]True believers in global warming should take personal action and stop having children, and advocate for population limits in the industrialised countries. They should carry DNR orders with them. And there are many other very radical things that true believers should do,[/QUOTE]
[QUOTE=Uncwilly;175157]Again, I will advocate that the main, [U][I]long term[/I][/U] solution for the GW problem is severely restricted global scale human population, to about 1/3-1/2 current levels. 1 child per couple policy, incentives for verified sterilisations (of adults), incentives for adoption vs. birthed single child would all help.[/QUOTE]
A nice little bit of vindication here:
[url]http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/greenspace/2010/10/global-warming-overpopulation-climate-change.html[/url]
[QUOTE=Los Angeles Times]And while scientists warn that humanity must dramatically slash future carbon-dioxide emissions to avert extended droughts, floods and other climate catastrophes, they have generally avoided a rigorous examination of how slowing population growth would help. Now, an international team of scientists has done the math.

If global population were to grow by less than a billion by midcentury, instead of by more than 2 billion, as expected, it would be the equivalent of cutting as much as 29% of the emissions reductions needed by 2050 to keep the planet from tipping into a warmer, more dangerous zone. By the end of the century, it could cut fossil fuel pollution by 41%.[/QUOTE]

In addition to what I posted before, use of fertility helps (in vitro, etc.) should be severely cut.

I agree with what you say Uncwilly. But the problem is that is conflicts with the perma-growth, our children will pay our pensions vision of the powers that be. Strong disincentives to having more than two children need to be put in place. And contraception and abortion should be freely available. But you know the can of worms the last two open!

[QUOTE=garo;222783][QUOTE=cheesehead;222619][QUOTE=garo;222523]In other news, Jeremy Grantham lays out a beautifully argued essay in his latest quarterly missive.[/QUOTE]

Essay 4 in [URL]http://www.gmo.com/websitecontent/JGLetter_SummerEssays_2Q10.pdf[/URL], I think
[/QUOTE]
Indeed. I presumed people would know how to get Grantham's quarterly missives :smile:.[/QUOTE]garo,

The link I gave earlier doesn't work now. [strike]Do you know of any other link to that Grantham essay or the PDF, or have a copy of the PDF?[/strike]

I've now found Ritholtz's quotation at [url]http://www.ritholtz.com/blog/2010/07/grantham-everything-you-need-to-know-about-global-warming-in-5-minutes/[/url]

Do you know whether Ritholtz's quote was complete -- the entirety of Grantham essay?