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Re: [OM] Warmer? Cooler? [was IMG: March 1st Snow in Mid-South]

Subject: Re: [OM] Warmer? Cooler? [was IMG: March 1st Snow in Mid-South]
From: ws <omls@xxxxxxxx>
Date: Tue, 03 Mar 2009 20:15:02 -0500
Not sure what you conclusion is, as you have a way of avoiding
saying anything directly. I've been an engineer solving and
debugging problems for years. My conclusion is that most of the time
circumstantial evidence often points to wrong conclusions.The real
problem is often not what you suspected, and often not what
management/people want to hear.

At the same time, ignoring blatant evidence can equally be
a problem, especially due to political BS opinions, or religious
persuasions, or to propaganda. So who has a clear mind about
such matters?

I tend to trust those who have spent time studying the problem the
most. What disturbs me now is the indication that the accumulation
of greenhouse gases is not reversible. Whereas previous
pollutants, once removed, tended to decrease their detrimental affect
over time, but greenhouse gases may not respond to a corresponding
decrease in their production.

I don't think it takes much to conclude that man's impact on the earth's
environment is significant. And when you have had to battle cancer or
some other environmentally induced problem personally, your perspective
changes a lot. As long as people can get by unscathed, denial is a very
easy out. But if you have less than a year to live because of
some environmental cause, your perspective quickly changes.

It is unfortunate that it takes tragic personal experience to create
real change in peoples behavior and choices. It is easy to take a
detached attitude until it hits home personally.

Wayne


At 05:38 PM 3/3/2009, you wrote:
>Bob Whitmire wrote:
>
>> Y'know, the politics of climate notwithstanding, 
>
>Something I've found from spending over six decades paying modest 
>attention is that there are certain repeating patterns that seem pretty 
>reliable. One I've noticed is that any theory that starts to become 
>politically successful, gathers a large number of true believing 
>adherents, primarily based on how it aligns with their political and/or 
>religio-spiritual agendas, and moves into general public acceptance, is 
>almost bound to turn out to be somewhere between over-simplistic and 
>just plain wrong.
>
>I was wondering about the global cooling theories starting a few years 
>ago, when the term started to become a catch phrase. I found at least 
>one serious scientist, an emeritus professor of astronomy in the UK, who 
>was worrying about something else entirely. His life-long field of study 
>was solar activity cycles. What with all the relatively recently 
>available data on long term temperatures and solar radiation, he had 
>found a very strong correlation between sun spot activity and 
>temperatures on Earth.
>
>His concern was that, if past solar activity behavior was indicative of 
>future behavior, it looked a lot like we might be heading into a period 
>of global cooling. He admitted no expertise on global warming from other 
>factors, but thought if it were true about human created greenhouse gas 
>caused warming, there was a possibility it might save our ass/arses from 
>freezing off in the not distant future. A fair number of other 
>scientific folks tend to agree with him about the distinct possibility 
>of a period of global cooling from changes in solar radiation.
>
>The non-thinking believers pounce on any source of greenhouse gases, and 
>would like to attack air travel. However, measurements during the days 
>after 9/11 in the central US showed a significant increase in surface 
>temperatures. It appears that the ice crystals created in the atmosphere 
>by jet traffic create enough increase in Earth's albedo to reflect 
>enough additional solar radiation to lower global temps. How might that 
>balance their CO2 output, I have no idea.
>
>Now comes the latest data on global temperatures for 2008: 
><http://www.dailytech.com/Temperature+Monitors+Report+Widescale+Global+Cooling/article10866.htm>
>
>"All four major global temperature tracking outlets (Hadley, 
>NASA's GISS, UAH, RSS) have released updated data. All show that over 
>the past year, global temperatures have dropped precipitously.
>
>A compiled list of all the sources can be seen here.  The total amount 
>of cooling ranges from 0.65C up to 0.75C -- a value large enough to wipe 
>out most of the warming recorded over the past 100 years. All in one 
>year's time. For all four sources, it's the single fastest temperature 
>change ever recorded, either up or down."
>
>I'm not coming down on any simple side. My guess is that global 
>temperatures are a result of many systemic processes pulling in various 
>directions, only some of which we are aware of and even fewer of which 
>we come close to understanding.
>
>At a far more simplistic level, I recall the hoorah about DDT. My father 
>was a pesticide researcher. When proposals came up to ban DDT, he 
>generally agreed that was a good idea, based on his very expert 
>knowledge. He though there were a few very limited, specialized uses 
>that should continue, but knew that was politically impossible.
>
>However, he was sure that much of the "scientific evidence" for 
>environmental damage from DDT/DDE was in fact, caused by something else. 
>He told me the rapid proliferation of inexpensive gas chromatographs in 
>the hands of biologists with insufficient training and expertise in 
>organic chemistry was leading to a lot of wrong results.
>
>He asked if I had ever heard of polychlorinated biphenyls, PCBs - nope. 
>He told me about them, what they were used for and why they were a major 
>environmental poison. He quite accurately predicted that they would soon 
>pop up in the news and require major changes in many products and 
>extensive environmental clean-up. His experience was that sloppy 
>technique could lead to PCBs being misanalysed as DDE, the major 
>breakdown product of DDT, and the major environmental contaminant from it.
>
>Lots of stuff ain't simple, no matter how much we would like it to be.
>
>A. Pensive Moose
>
>
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