Auto Motor und Sport (via Just-auto [sub]) reports that Toyota is withdrawing the Land Cruiser from their Eurozone dealerships after this model year. The move comes as ToMoCo seeks to trim its entire fleet's CO2 averages to 140g per kilometer, as per voluntary European Union (EU) regulations. As the heavyweight SUV wasn't exactly a stellar seller and a new, more environmentally friendly Land Crusher Cruiser is about to debut, it's no biggie. More interestingly, Toyota plans to increase the price of their hot-selling, recently redesigned RAV4 in order to curtail demand– and meet the CO2 target. The changes to Toyota's lineup illustrate the difficulty faced by smaller manufacturers like Porsche, who don't sell low CO2 machines that "average out" their gas guzzlers' emissions. Hence German manufacturers' campaign to get the EU to set CO2 limits based on vehicle size, rather than fleet averages. Just-auto figures that idea's a non-starter. Next question: can a brand under a corporate umbrella (i.e. Volkswagen's Bugatti) rely on the meta-group's high mileage cars to meet the regs? And even if they can, will the detrimental effect on the larger brand encourage the corporate mothership to jettison the CO2-spewing boutique brands?
Find Reviews by Make:
Read all comments
increase the price of the RAV4 so they will sell less? wow…if they didn’t want people to buy their cars they should have started a rumour that they shared a platform with a Chrysler.
The euro twits have swallowed the CO2 lie hook, line and sinker – and wow, are they all going to pay and pay and pay and pay over the next few decades. Hopefully we Americans stick to the truth and give this a miss. Asinine. Finally, the tide is starting to turn (except in Europe) and a majority of scientists are saying – this CO2 global warming stuff is nonsense!
If the man-made CO2 myth were real, then why, perchance, are the ice poles on MARS melting at the same rate, in the same timeframe as ours?
And just to put anyone in their place who are ready to skewer me as a greedy SUV driving anti-environmentalist –
I drive a 2008 Prius, previously had a 2005 Prius, I was way ahead of the game in buying fluorescent screw in light bulbs, putting a timer on my furnace to lower the house temp at night, bought a house with massive amounts of insulation (and had it built on 3 acres of hardwoods so as to shade it – our A/C bills are miniscule – whole house of 1350 square feet – itself “small” by US standards – is cooled by 2 window A/C units).
Oh yeah, for several years now, my wife & I have carpooled in our Prius 95% of the time, before that I carpooled when I could with others…
It’s nice to see that Toyota, instead of lobbying the EU to change the (voluntary) law, they adapt their fleet to meet it. The Germans, however, have a different approach. Mind you, what have they got to worry about? They have loads of lovely diesels engines, that should sail them through the 140gm/km2 limit, surely…..(?)
On a more sad note, it’d be a shame if Bugatti go. As much as I’m an environmentalist, imagine if these regulations came into force 10 years earlier? We’d have never seen the likes of the Bugatti Veyron, a truly epic car. A car built to push boundaries of what can be done. A real concorde moment.
So the Eurozone (minus Germany) seems to be getting what they want. Reducing the number of SUVs by reducing the amount of choice of SUVs for the consumer. Methinks the Pathfinder, X5 and other mid-size to large SUVs are not long for this world. I don’t personally see the point, because in the U.S. this is happening naturally.
While I am not advocate of the global warming hype, I also don’t believe that the quality of anyone’s life is going to be seriously impacted by this development. European roads and parking spaces are sufficiently narrow and gas prices high enough that large vehicles are a pain anyway. I was driving a 5 series BMW last time I was in Germany and it seemed too big for for the roads in most of the smaller towns.
Also, what’s the problem – lower oil demand in Europe leaves more for everybody else.
Good point, carguy. I had a Vauxhall Zafira minivan / mpv “thing” with a horrid clattery, gutless and smelly diesel last time I went to the UK as my rental car, and while it had lots of room inside for the four of us and luggage and UK family member to go out and about, on the B-roads and smaller, it was way big. I can only imagine what it might be like trying to drive an SUV through those tiny country lanes.
Be that as it may – if the EU want to reduce the size of the fleet, they should do it “honestly” instead of all the hype about CO2 and global warming which is being shown to be a lie by more and more unbiased scientists every day.
I understand soon the Pope is going to speak out about the issue, and he’s been apparently bamboozled into thinking that mankind has screwed up the planet with CO2 as well.
These “climateologists” who spew out this nonsense are in the same vein of people who stand in front of a TV camera and can’t properly predict next week’s frickin’ weather – why on earth would I think they can say whether my choice of a Prius is better than my neighbor’s choice of a conventional car, in global warming?
Ridiculous.
Also not forgetting (and I’m old enough to remember) that these self-same brainiac “climateologists” were declaring imminent wholesale ruination of our planet from a new DEEP FREEZE in the early 1970’s.
Give me a break….
glenn126 :
September 26th, 2007 at 1:05 pm
The euro twits have swallowed the CO2 lie hook, line and sinker – and wow, are they all going to pay and pay and pay and pay over the next few decades. Hopefully we Americans stick to the truth and give this a miss. Asinine. Finally, the tide is starting to turn (except in Europe) and a majority of scientists are saying – this CO2 global warming stuff is nonsense!
I’m looking forward to your citing the primary scientific journal articles that have convinced a “majority” of scientists that global warming is not happening.
You won’t do so because such citations don’t exist.
the Pope is going to speak global warming? For crying out loud. I’m not even a Catholic and I am ashamed. When did environmentalism become a religious issue? ..Oh wait, that’s what it has always been. I am all for conservation (of our money, resources, etc.), but this stuff has been proven time and again that it is not based in fact.
bfg9k:
and I look forward to you citing that “majority” of scientists your entire argument is based on. Did you (or your source) go out and poll all of the environmental scientists? Did you discount those who will have to look for new grants/jobs if there is not climate crisis?
# RyanK02 :
September 26th, 2007 at 2:40 pm
bfg9k:
and I look forward to you citing that “majority” of scientists your entire argument is based on. Did you (or your source) go out and poll all of the environmental scientists? Did you discount those who will have to look for new grants/jobs if there is not climate crisis?
You can for starters go here, which is a review of publications:
Naomi Oreskes (December 3, 2004 (Erratum January 21, 2005)). “Beyond the Ivory Tower: The Scientific Consensus on Climate Change”. Science 306 (5702): 1686. DOI:10.1126/science.1103618
The 2007 IPCC report, which is worth a read, involved 600 climate scientists from around the world and has been endorsed by the national academies of science of Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, Russia, UK, USA, Brazil, China, India, Mexico and South Africa.
Other US bodies that have issued statements supported the global warming consensus include: the American Meteorological Society, the American Geophysical Union, the American Institute of Physics, the American Astronomical Society, the 2006 Federal Climate Change Science Program, the American Association for the Advancement of Science, the Geological Society of America, and the American Chemical Society.
Anyway, I think it’s clear where the scientific consensus is.
glenn126:
I’m all for having an informed debate on the global warming issue. It is a complex and inexact science with many stakeholders with agenda on all sides.
However ill-informed comments like yours are not helpful. I trust you were simply trolling and not serious hmm?
Sorry to disappoint you, but I’m not trolling. I simply don’t drink the current “kool aide” dejour.
http://www.washingtontimes.com/article/20070919/NATION02/109190067
http://www.sitewave.net/news/s49p1523.htm
http://calsun.canoe.ca/News/Columnists/Corbella_Licia/2007/03/14/3748254.html
Three is as many “links” as I can generally successfully put onto comments here at TTAC.
But if you’d like to be a little more open-minded, folks, and look around online, http://www.ask.com is a good place to start.
I simply searched under “global warming debunking”.
Sorry I cannot locate the excellent link my sister sent to me from Long Island a few weeks ago – can’t find it in my email memory anywhere…
If I can get her to resend it I’ll post it. It was really interesting.
The names were compiled by Avery and climate physicist S. Fred Singer, the co-authors of the new book Unstoppable Global Warming: Every 1,500 Years, mainly from the peer-reviewed studies cited in their book. The researchers’ specialties include tree rings, sea levels, stalagmites, lichens, pollen, plankton, insects, public health, Chinese history and astrophysics.
“We have had a Greenhouse Theory with no evidence to support it-except a moderate warming turned into a scare by computer models whose results have never been verified with real-world events,” said co-author Singer. “On the other hand, we have compelling evidence of a real-world climate cycle averaging 1470 years (plus or minus 500) running through the last million years of history. The climate cycle has above all been moderate, and the trees, bears, birds, and humans have quietly adapted.”
from http://www.earthtimes.org/articles/show/news_press_release,176495.shtml
But the great majority of those scientists only comment on or contribute to a few pages of the much larger report. They expressly do not endorse the overall reports or the claims that appear in the “Summary for Policymakers,” which they do not help write or approve. Many of the scientists who participate in the IPCC process are, in fact, outspoken skeptics of man-made global warming.
There is only one empirical study ever done that appeared to support the claim of a consensus that global warming is man-made. It is a widely cited (but seldom examined) study by Naomi Oreskes, a professor of gender studies at the University of California – San Diego.
Oreskes examined abstracts of 928 articles published from 1993 to 2002 and found “none of the papers disagreed with the consensus position” that the recent warming of the Earth was due to human activities. Note that she didn’t claim a consensus in support of the idea that warming would be severe or harmful, or even that all of the papers agreed with the consensus position. No survey of the literature or of scientists has ever shown consensus on those claims.
When other researchers tried and failed to replicate Oreskes’ findings, she was forced to admit she had mis-identified the search terms used in her study. One scientist, Benny Peiser, reported that his own analysis of the scientific abstracts supposedly studied by Oreskes found only 13 (1 percent) explicitly endorse what she called the “consensus view” while 470 (42 percent) of the abstracts include the keywords “global climate change” but do not find or endorse any link to human activities.
from http://www.globalwarmingheartland.org/article.cfm?artId=21911
The C02 issue is not an unreasonable means to legislate fuel mileage. And whether or not global warming is a theory or a fact, it is a fact that our thirst for oil only serves to arm many people whose ideas of “quality of life” are vastly different from our own; a few of these are even sufficiently upset to make trouble out of it.
So in the end, if we as a world require better fuel economy and truly think about weaning our “oil addiction” (Pres. Bush’s terminology), it seems we’re doing a good thing. And if C02 limits promote better technologies (as obviously happened with CAFE limits), we all win from the group expenditure. Sadly, when the issue of global warming becomes politicized, as it has in this country, reason leaves the room and emotion seems to take over on both “sides” of the issue.
Glenn126 may have his own views on global warming, but his actions suggest an enlightened level of personal responsibility about the world he envisions for the future. The Prius may well only be a stopgap to fuel cell or hydrogen-powered cars, but it does make a powerful statement in light of the quantity of single-passenger SUV’s around who never tow anything larger than a Venti latte from Starbucks. Good on you, Glenn 126.
I’m curious, whippersnapper, as to why you consider my comments “not helpful.”
Not helpful to what end, or for whom?
Not helpful because I am bringing out an (obviously) different point of view from your own?
Not helpful because we all should think the same thing despite genuine differences of opinion, and just “who” decides what we should all think?
Perhaps you consider comments like mine “not helpful” because it might make some folks in Europe think twice about following along like sheep while their governments take away more and more rights, privileges, and freedoms – such as the freedom to waste, if they have the money to do so? Not that I like waste – I personally abhore it.
I’m just curious about your comment. I’m not flaming or hating or anything. I’d genuinely like to know where you’re coming from, here.
I’ll be incognito for awhile – gotta go get mrs (we carpool in the Prius, remember) and go do some shopping on the way home (so we don’t have to make a 2nd trip back into town).
The IPCC report is certainly worth a read because the IPCC took the time to lay it all out, including many things considered and rejected and the reasons why. Caution: May cause drowsiness.
Most of the “skeptics” (read: paid shills for the fossil fuel industry) use data that’s out of date or, in some cases, wrong or even falsified.
Read the Wiki entry on “The Great Global Warming Swindle.” Key portions of the data presented on that program were crap and for no apparent reason. The producer put up a significantly out of date temperature chart that ended in 1988 and “inadvertently” skewed it so that it appeared to include data through 2000. He got it from a 15 year old medical journal. Why that source? Why stop at 1988? You can download the most recent graph, including 2006 data, for free, from a variety of respected sources.
There’s another interesting Wiki article, titled “List of Global Warming Skeptics” (or some such – the TGGWS article has a link), you could read. Since the criteria for inclusion on the list include doing actual research somewhere in the field, the list is very short. Read the discussion page, too, to see who the nominees and rejects are.
Now back to the important part…
No Land Cruisers for the EU? Does this mean we get more in the US? My 10 year old one will need replacement in another 5 years, and I would love if there were plenty of used ’08’s to choose from when I go to get a new one.
PS. For you all concerned with the environment, I fully expect that my Land Crusher will not be in a junk yard, but will instead be rebuilt by a more serious off road enthusiast.
Try that with you Prius, greeny boys.
glenn126 I bow to you in respect. For building a house that meets your needs and living responsibly and not in the name of some stupid global warming BS trend but because it is the right way to live. We should all follow that lead. Well not the hybrid for me, I prefer to use my motorcycle 99% of the time, 60 mpg, less space, less initial cost, very little manf impact especially since it’s a 27 years old kick start thumper.
glenn126: Those are pretty cruddy links.
In your earlier post, you’ve got one reference to a mistake a single colleague of Hansen’s made in 1971, one Polish “multidisciplinary” researcher (who happens to agree with the conclusion of that 1971 mistake – check HIS Wiki entry for more laughs), and a reporter’s ringing endorsement of a TV program that’s built on a foundation of crap (she repeats the line about volcanoes producing more CO2 than man, which is easily checked and thoroughly wrong and was even removed from subsequent airings of the program – how’s that for a solid reporting job?).
Yes, I really looked at the Washington Times article, even though the WT is owned by a guy who claims he’s the Returned Son of God. Yeah, that’s the kind of source I like to direct people to.
I also got a laugh out of your repeated links to the Heartland Institute wrt surveys of scientists. In all seriousness, much information is left out – like who was surveyed and any kind of analysis of which subgroups answered what how.
The laughs start with the idea of an unbiased survey coming out of Heartland. Find someone who’s really unbiased and then a survey can be considered.
I continue to chuckle when I consider how “skeptical” “scientists” are of AGW, as revealed by the Heartland Institute, yet, when these people all get together, they all collectively lose their nerve and a very gloomy – and direct – IPCC report results. Sorry – that doesn’t add up. If there’s that many skeptics, the IPCC wouldn’t produce the report that it did.
And there’s plenty of information about Oreske’s study and it looked very solid to me. The research is all pointing in one direction.
I also giggled a bit when I read about your deleted e-mail and lost link from your sister. Are you the last guy on Earth running on a 10MB hard drive and just don’t have room for those hefty e-mails containing links? Should we take up a collection to get you upgraded to 20MB?
I got an additional laugh, by the way, out of Zbiegniew Unspellable’s $5 billion figure for “global warming research.” That’s hilarious. If you look at the atmospheric and climate research being done, most of it is very mundane (i.e., studies to refine various measurements) and most of it results in information that is entirely neutral with respect to the AGW theory; it simply provides more reliable information that could be used by AGW proponents or AGW opponents. Grants pro or con are a much smaller piece of the pie. Most of this stuff would probably get done anyway, to improve forecasting or general understanding of the eartch sciences in one form or another.
I imagine the Bush Administration would be all over themselves to divert funds to AGW debunking research, if anybody could figure out what that might be. They’re certainly not above ham-fisted attempts to shut the technical people up. Google “Phil Cooney.”
However, it is the case that more and more reliable information simply strengthens the AGW theory (which is why its opponents really, really, really like stale data).
Finally, you will not be “incognito” for a while, unless you put on a wig and false moustache and, if that’s the case, I’d recommend a switch to a less noticeable vehicle. You will be “incommunicado.”
Any so called scientist that will use the term “Global Warming” is willingly displaying his/ her level of stupidity!
First of all the issue is Climate Change, which the history of this planet tells us is an act of nature and not man.
Are we warming the planet by burning fossil fuels? If you believe we are than explain to all of us why the temperature of this planet has risen and fallen any number of times that we have been able to document.
If it is our excess CO2 emissions that are warming the planet today what caused the warming in the past? I guess it was all of those farm animals passing gas out in the fields! Or maybe the earth didn’t have enough trees to absorb all that CO2. Ok, I have it the earth briefly moved closer to the sun!
All of that sound pretty lame, right. (maybe not the last part)
Better yet, please explain that Ice Age this planet went through 50,000 to 60,000 years ago?
I guess all of those Mamouths were not farting enough to keep earth nice and warm.
Please explain to me why sea levels and climates have changed a number of times right here in North America alone during the last 500 years?
If you never explore the past climate history of this this planet and the region that you actually live in the whole Global Warning debate makes perfect sense.
When you actually look at the average yearly temperatures from even only 100 to 150 years ago You start to say wait a minute here, why do we have cliamte change in the past without humans burning fossil fuels at the level we are burning them today. Why did this planet also go through “Global Cooling” periods?
Not for nothing but many (and I mean many) in the scientific community have staked their reputation on a theory that is full of holes. The problem is the whole Global Warming theory was accepted by too many before it was proved. Now the science is being twisted by many in an attempt to prove their already forgone conclusions.
As much as we would like to control this planet, we need to face facts and admit that we just CANT! The earth controls us. It is scary to think that we can undergo another Ice Age or some other uncontrollable act that could wipe us all out. But that is reality. Today Science is bringing to our attention issues that humans never wasted time thinking about in the past; whether it be Climate Change or a Massive Meteor Impact. Today we have not the means to prevent either from harming us so sit back and enjoy life already!
We are insignificant rats in the grand scheme of things. The human ego, always thinking we can control everything, even the planet.
I wonder if the dinosaurs got big headed about there existance 65 million years ago.
WhatdoIknow – It is possible that you never visited the Los Angeles of the 1970’s, but the air was quite clearly visible. Technology has changed this a great deal, and one can certainly argue that it ain’t perfect these days, it’s a hell of an improvement.
Again, if we collectively are forced to view climate change as a political issue, and a force we are powerless to influence, we are simply cheating our children. It might be argued that not all of the technology applied to automobiles in the U.S. was necessary, and that much of it would not be necessary if people simply did a better job of maintaining their cars, but the net result is that we all have cleaner air to breathe and it seems that none of us went bankrupt in the process.
I am insufficiently schooled in the subject to know which side of the scientific argument over the degree to which climate change is caused by humans, but it seems apparent every time I sit in a line of cars at a long traffic light that all of the heat and chemical emissions do not simply evaporate into space. The issue needn’t be polarized by politics or corporate desire to make me wish I could do my part to lessen the heat and chemical output of the vehicle I choose to use as a transportation device. Like Redbarchetta, I try to get by with a motorcycle as much as possible and don’t need global warming or any other issue to make it seem appropriate to just take a little less room on the road, and produce a little fewer chemicals while making my daily drive.
We are not insignificant rats. We have fire and we make tools. We amplify our impact.
What other animal wraps itself in 5000lbs of steel and moves the entire mass at 75mph to get a snack?
What other animal creates dwellings of hundreds of square feet and then heats or cools that dwelling to be comfortable inside it?
What other animal makes light, rather than just sleep at night or prowl unassisted in the dark?
We have greatly (25%) changed the concentration of an important atmospheric gas worldwide. Most pollution is a local phenonmenon. This one is global. To think it can’t possibly matter is foolish.
Climate Change and Global Warming aside, we still do not have the right to abuse this planet considering that each generation of humans has on average only about 65 to 75 years to live on it. This is such a miniscule amount of time that we need to accept just how insignificant each of us are to the grand scheme of things.
Living to excess is a self-defeating proposition!
The amount of time that humans have been seriously burning fossil fuel is by my count less than 250 years. A mere grain of sand on the beach of earth’s history.
The point that many of those that do not total buy the “Global Warming” theory is that it is impossible to identify a trend buy looking at 0.0000000000001% of the data.
Quite simply before you can successfully claim that human actions are the cause of the current rise in temperatures you need to successfully determine why we have had serious climate change (up and down)in the past. Too many folks are running forward with the GW argument without dealing with those other known “facts”.
And, yes the northern polar ice cap is rapidly melting today, but guess what it has done so many time in the past! As it has also expanded. I like to stress the issue of “climate change” because a significant drop in sea level would have as devestating effect on us as a rise in sea level.
The fact of the matter is the CLIMATE WILL CHANGE AGAIN! And it just might happen in our lifetime. It is the height of stupidity to remotely entertain the idea that we can perserve the current climate conditons of this planet, or more correctly our region of it. For example Africa has undergone major climate change in the last century and continues to undergo climate change that is has been having a devestating effect on that continent. Somehow all those polluting westerners could not having given a damn about that over the last 100 years.
glenn126, redbarchetta: I hope you’ll take a short time to read this somewhat lengthy post.
I normally avoid the global warming debate whenever it appears because one side usually has an ulterior motive to believing in what they beleive and no amount of objectivity or scientific evidence could persuade them from what they have already chosen to be the truth. But I’ll jump in real quickly on this one because you both seem like reasonable people who live consciously in regards to the environment.
Firstly, it is simply a fact that contemporary, peer-reviewed scientific articles overwhelmingly support global warming. I am not saying this makes global warming more or less true, I am only stating this because glenn126 stated in his first post that “the tide is finally starting to turn” and that a “majority of of scientists are saying – this C02 global warming stuff is nonsense!” Again, I can’t emphasize enough that I am NOT bringing up this point to illustrate that global warming is definitely true. I am only bringing this up because to have any sort of reasonable debate we need to at least agree on the fundamental facts. Again, it’s possible in ten years we’ll look back and say, “Wow, all those scientists back in 2007 were on crack!” Entirely possible. But this does not change the fact that an overwhelming amount of peer-reviewed scientific articles support global warming. To state that a majority of scientists now beleive that global warming is false is a lie. Whether or not this is relevant to the debate on global warming is irrelevant, I only want glenn126 to realize that this statement is as false as: “A majority of the people at Yankee Stadium are in fact, Red Sox fans.” Of course, there are a few Red Sox fans at Yankee Stadium, but the overwhelming number are Yankee fans.
Now, the matter of global warming itself is a much more complicated issue. It is true that the average global temperature constantly fluctuates up and down. Sometimes it gets hot, sometimes it gets cold. And that to the best of our knowledge, this fluctuation has happened LONG before homo-sapiens roamed the Earth and long before SUV’s existed. No scientist, nor any rational person, even one who fervently believes in the theory of global warming, denies this very evident fact.
I often hear this as the first argument as to why global warming does not exist. Even if it is not the first argument, it is invariably present as the primary argument.
The problem with this argument is that while the temperature on Earth has often fluctuated, it has always (to the best of our knowledge) fluctuated within a range, even the absolute coldest periods of the ice age was not that much colder than the other very cold periods in Earth’s history. I like to compare it to a good baseball player’s batting average (though I’m sure there are many other good analogies that will fit). More recently however, and especially over the past fifty years, this temperature has reached unprecedented highs with unprecedented quickness of change.
Is it possible that we humans have nothing to do with this? Yes, quite possibly. A reasonable explanation could be that perhaps, the Earth is changing naturally and this new fluctuation, though new to us now, will simply become the norm over the next 1000 years.
But, when we ask ourselves, “Wait… is it at least POSSIBLE that WE caused this record high of global temperatures? And if so, what could we have possibly done to cause such a thing?” The reasonable answer to the former question, at least initially, should be yes for all rational people involved. As for the latter question, the original scientists posed a hypothesis given their knowledge of environment and the greenhouse effect. They said. “Well, IF we did anything to cause global warming it would probably be because we’re putting all this C02 gas into the air.”
Now, simply find a chart of the average global temperature over the last fifty years to that of the average atmospheric carbon dioxide. (I would provide a link to these charts, but I’m afraid anything I link will be regarded as biased.) An unbiased examination of each chart, without commentary from either side of the debate, will lead one to see the undeniable (though unspecific) overall general correlation between them. Does this mean that C02 gas is the CAUSAL reason for global warming? No, because correlation does NOT always equal causation. But given our knowledge of C02, the sun, and the greenhouse effect, it is very very very probable that atmospheric C02 and global temperatures have a causal relationship.
Until someone comes up with a hypothesis for another reason, tests it, and then has it peer reviewed by a scientific journal, we should all regard global warming as being a man-made phenomenon.
Anyways, I hope those of you who are skeptics of the idea has kept an open mind about the facts and not gone in with a predetermined conclusion. If we all do that, I think, at least eventually, we’ll all end up believing the same thing.
glenn126:
What Qusus said.
Your comments were not helpful simply because it is difficult to have a worthwhile debate when your opening comments indicate ignorance of the few pieces of the climate debate that are incontrovertible
whatdoiknow1: “The amount of time that humans have been seriously burning fossil fuel is by my count less than 250 years. A mere grain of sand on the beach of earth’s history.”
All the more reason to be concerned. In the geologic blink of an eye, we’ve driven CO2 25%higher than it has been in 650,000 years.
Carbon cycle fluctuations are usually on the order of 150K years.
It is certainly the case that the climate will change without us. But it is folly to say that all change is independent of us.
glenn126 :
If the man-made CO2 myth were real, then why, perchance, are the ice poles on MARS melting at the same rate, in the same timeframe as ours?
Do you have a credible source for this? The poles on Mars grow and shrink yearly as their exposure to the sun changes, but I’ve seen nothing credible in accord with your statement.
Qusus,
Thanks for what is likely the most level-headed post regarding AGW on the ‘net.
glenn126 :
If the man-made CO2 myth were real, then why, perchance, are the ice poles on MARS melting at the same rate, in the same timeframe as ours?
Duh, it’s because of the mars rovers–the baddest of the badd SUVs
@ Qusus
Thank you for that – as the saying goes, it is possible that the house self combusted, but the kid with the book of matches and sooty face warrants a look.
We’re that kid.
@ WhatdoIknow1
Seriously, when regurgitating your rhetorical points to raise doubts about man made global warming, at least have the rhetoric carry some speck of correlation with the facts. That will help your argument. Almost every single one of your “Please explain to me …” is tangential to a possible counter argument, but not factual – i.e. the period of the latest ice-age, etc.
Yes, there have been changes – we’re living on a planet that has spent a lot of time reaching a quite precarious balance. During the last 200 years (actually beginning with the industrial revolution, so not quite 200 years yet) a species ironically named homo sapiens has grown exponentially because of its ability to harness energy in a manner that freed us from having to do manual labor.
To get some perspective: One barrel of oil contains the equivalent energy of 25.000 hours of hard physical work performed by one man. (1 barrel = 42 US Gallons).
And that’s just the oil. We’ve been on a rampage as far as releasing energy and its byproducts are concerned. That’s a lot of freed energy we’re returning to the atmosphere, both as heat, and as the CO2 and other gases that serve to trap that heat, thus at least hypothetically disrupting the balance that keeps average temperatures reasonably stable.
The correlation, as Qusus points out, is clear to see: Growth of human activity relative to releasing energy and its byproducts : Growth in average temperatures.
Have we reached the point where the balance is irrevocably disrupted, leading to a significant phase shift before we achieve a new balance?
Someone mentioned Mars above, maybe it was you. We’re still speculating as to the cause of the particular erosion patterns on the surface of Mars – many scientists attribute these to the flow of water across the surface. Where did the water go? Speculation has it that it is trapped underground, and we have rovers there “looking” for it.
Seasonal variations in the ice-caps of Mars are interesting, and I’m going to look into the claim that these are at co-variance with the cycle change observed here on Earth. But a much more interesting puzzle is: What caused the Martian balance to shift from a state with (hypothetically) free flowing water to what we can observe today?
Well, I think we can be certain it wasn’t manmade, that it must be a natural phenomenon. Here on Earth, in contrast, we do have man made activity equal to that of a volcanic eruption at full blast, continuously. It’s worth looking into. Instead of going into obtuse denial to preserve a questionable lifestyle which rational thought clearly sees is unsustainable.
As another commenter stated here: in the 70s you could see (and taste) the air of LA. For a similar experience today go to Beijing. It’s almost regrettable that the effort to clear up LA air was so successful, early on. If it had taken a little longer then US car majors would be building electric and hybrid vehicles ahead of the curve, instead of sticking with Mammoth SUVs until they face(d) extinction.
Well, I did find one of the two articles I was looking for re: global warming PCness/falsehood.
Canadian Climatologist Says Sun Causing Global Warming
By Dennis T. Avery
MichNews.com
Jul 9, 2007
Another scientist has added his voice to the Global Warming debate. Canadian climatologist Tim Patterson says the sun drives the earth’s climate changes—and Earth’s current global warming is a direct result of a long, moderate 1,500-year cycle in the sun’s irradiance.
Patterson says he learned of the 1,500-year climate cycle while studying cycles in fish numbers on Canada’s West Coast. Since the Canadian West had no long-term written fishery records, Patterson’s research team drilled sediment cores in the deep local fjords to get 5,000-year climate profiles from the mud. The mud showed the past climate conditions: Warm summers left layers thick with one-celled fossils and fish scales. Cold, wet periods showed dark sediments, mostly dirt washed from the surrounding land.
Patterson’s fishing profiles clearly revealed the sun’s 87 and 210-year solar cycles—and the longer, 1500-year Dansgaard-Oeschger cycles found since the 1980s in ice cores, tree rings, and fossil pollen.
“Our finding of a direct correlation between variations in the brightness of the sun and earthly climate indicators is not unique,” says the climatologist from Carleton University. “Hundreds of other studies, using proxies from tree rings in Russia’s Kola Peninsula to water levels of the Nile, show exactly the same thing: The sun appears to drive climate change.”
But there was a problem. By themselves, the variations in solar irradiation were too small to account for the big variations his research team found in the Canadian fish catches.
“Even though the sun is brighter now than at any time in the past 8,000 years, the increase in direct solar input is not calculated to be sufficient to cause the past century’s modest warming on its own. There had to be an amplifier of some sort for the sun to be a primary driver of climate changes. Indeed, that is precisely what has been discovered,” says Patterson.
“In a series of groundbreaking scientific papers starting in 2000, Vizer, Shaviv, Carslaw and most recently Svensmark et al., have collectively demonstrated that as the output of the sun varies . . . varying amounts of galactic cosmic rays from deep space are able to enter our solar system. . . . These cosmic rays enhance cloud formation, which, overall, has a cooling effect on the planet.”
“When the sun is less bright, more cosmic rays are able to get through to Earth’s atmosphere, more clouds form and the planet cools. . . . This is precisely what happened from the middle of the 17th century into the early 18th century, when the solar energy input to our atmosphere . . . was at a minimum and the planet was stuck in the Little Ice Age.”
The Canadian expert concludes, “CO2 variations show little correlation with our planet’s climate on long, medium and even short time scales.” Instead, Earth’s sea surface temperatures show a massive 95 percent lagged correlation with the sunspot index.
Patterson says climate change is the most complex field we’ve ever studied. He notes that a 2003 German poll of 530 scientists from 27 countries found two-thirds of the respondents doubted that “the current state of scientific knowledge is developed well enough to allow for a reasonable assessment of the effects of greenhouse gases.”
Attempting to stop global warming with the Kyoto Protocol, he warns, could be as useless as King Canute commanding the tides to cease.
Copyright by Dennis T. Avery
You guys seem to be missing the point on GW.
Most science today is questioned because no one with any skepticism really believes in academia anymore. Academia started digging this hole for themselves fifty years ago, and if anyone is to blame its them. They have become the same medieval church that they denounce for attacking Galileo.
I haven’t seen a believable study since grad school. Many of the stupid little studies we did to learn how to do studies were honest inquiries. Most of the ones published today, are not. Seriously, no one publishes or makes available enough information to truly discern their studies.
Reporters aren’t asking tough questions either, just reporting and quoting as if digging for truth wasn’t part of their mandate.
Then, the government takes all of this and uses it to line someone’s pockets at the expense of someone else by mandating a solution even though we KNOW FOR SURE, that we are better off not all using the same solution.
Seriously, what major initiative has government taken that has really ever worked?
glenn125, Don’t you google your sources? Do you think I won’t?
When Dennis T. Avery writes, “Another scientist has added his voice…” are we supposed to presume that “added” implies a conversion? A new recruit who abandons the witchcraft of a liberal coven of those who would enslave us via worship of Anthropogenic Global Warming Religions to join the forces of Reason and Light?
Patterson is not a new recruit, that’s for sure; he’s been noisily rejecting AGW for years.
But I can see why Avery would like to give the impression that things are tilting away from AGW when, in fact, they are not.
I see he also references the Heartland’s survey, too. It surely would be interesting to know more about it.
By the way, fron an ad on the Hearland site, I see that Vaclav Klaus will be “debunking” AGW (the ad makes it look like it will be a debate – that ad is misleading. I see Mr. Klaus likes to to play the “political correctness card,” a sure mark of a loser). I also note the ad’s caption warns us that “Freedom, Not Climate, Is At Risk.” Funny… if freedom’s their main concern, I would think they should get on down to the DOJ and protest the current Administration’s practice of holding people incommunicado and indefinitely without trial.
Climate change can be resisted with tax policy. Shifting taxation and economic incentives is hardly going to erode our freedom in any significant way, as it’s already an established practice. Buy a giant, gas-sucking SUV – get a tax deduction for your support of Detroit and Exxon-Mobil! Does that put my freedom at risk?
And before I forget… you used “falsehood,” in your post, to refer to AGW theory and its supporters and you’ve referred to lies before. Got any proof of any of that?
We *know* that Martin Durkin used a variety of delightfully erroneous charts in TGGWS, when there was no reason, whatever, to do so. He could have gotten up-to-date information right off a NASA web site but chose, instead, to use a 1988 journal from a field having little to do with climate science. I’m still waiting for someone to explain, why would Durkin do that?
so Porsche gets with VW and you’ve got your CO2 problems solved.