Polar Bear Endangered. Sort of.

You really are a piece of work.

"Now, I know some of you might say, "I did look it up and that's false." But that's because you looked it up in a book. Next time, look it up in your gut!"

No.


P.S., you really are begging for a spanking courtesy of Vicksburg's finest, aren't you?

NASA Study Links Earth Impacts to Human-Caused Climate Change


...and...


The whole Polar Bear link may be bullshit, I know...but they should have protected status. Especially from this asshat.

But honestly, I'm going to wait for the God Almighty and Jesus Christ Climate Change results to be announced until I accept anything. But you know them two, haven't made a peep in over 3,000 years or more.

Keep me posted SDW when you hear something.

Good luck, he's probably left this thread already, like so many other threads.

Reminds me of the AP photo of the polar bears... floating on ice... as some sort of evidence of AGW. As if, uh, polar bears don't, well, float on sea ice. It was almost like CNN could have used cuts from Waterworld as their stock footage.

Complete sophistry.

Secretary Kempthorne Announces Decision to Protect Polar Bears under Endangered Species Act

Rule will allow continuation of vital energy production in Alaska


Carry on...

We need to get guys that think like you out of government soon!

Probably.

John McCain outlines a plan to tackle global warming



\

Did they show the location of the ice, and its distance from more ice? Ice melts as it heads south and the image obviously shows melting (unless the bears dug the hole just for fun - look ma, we made a jungle gym). Sure, they swim, too, but they have to swim long distances to find solid ice. If they float on ice that then floats south, then they move south, too, where they can't live. If the ice moves away from other ice, they have to swim further, sometimes possibly not making it.

Why are some people (like our current government) so opposed to actually trying to help make a better world and thus country for us to live in?

Imagine a news story 100 years from now:

Last century, people had the knowledge to recognize global warmer and had the ability to do something about it but rather chose to focus on their own short-term well-being as they understood it, meaning they primarily focused on the economy and ignored the few polar bears that were seen here and there struggling for survival. A few people increased their wealth over the next several years and patted themselves on the back for a job well-done.

Today, many years after those great leaders have passed away, their legacy remains: the project to move the White House to its new location in order to avoid the rising seas finally got underway after years of planning and heckling over budgeting. Construction of the Manhatten Dike was completed last year slightly under budget, so the spare funds are being diverted to the White House move. To secure funds for the WH project, cuts to education and veterans benefits were slashed and taxes raised, again. Sadly, the NY dike is only expected to hold for 50 years, so people continue to move from the Big Wet Apple to higher land. GDP has dropped another 3%, making for a total drop of just under 25% in the past decade due largely to mass evacuations from the county's coastal areas. Martial law continues to be in effect.

Because the things being proposed will only make a "better world" in the view of people who are completely in love with telling others how to live their lives.

You've swallowed the premise that global warming is all our fault, and that anyone who does not buy that premise hook, line, and sinker must "not want a better world." Horse shit. If you wanted to stop global climate shifts, or create them, and were given any power you wanted to achieve the goal... you'd fail. You don't control the sun. You don't control volcanoes. You don't control water vapor. And come to think of it, you had nothing to do with climate shifts for millions of years before Albert Gore found a new way to push his central planning wet dreams.

The global warming hysteria is the new home for the 60s left... and anyone who dares to challenge their usurpations of personal freedom is labeled as a "planet hater" and tarred accordingly. (Sure to follow in responses to this very post... )

wow, berg... that could happen... however that doesn't really help the discussion...

The religious right? what do they have to do with global warming?



it doesn't have to be our fault. climate change modeling doesn't depend upon source of heating drivers, just that they exist. these models are telling us that we should have been doing *something* for years now...

What flavor was that Kool Aide? At least you have your talking points and fear-mongering tactics straight.

Do you mind if I get in on this "news story from the future" thing? I have a few I'd like to write while we are vacationing in la-la land.

That was almost funny. It seems to be the professional self-appointed do-gooders who want to tell me what to drive, what to eat, how to raise my kids, what light bulbs to use, when to use my fireplace to warm my family, when it's OK to use my AC in my home... shall I go on?

Beware, planet hysteria masturbators... empowering government in this way WILL come back to haunt you. (Remember how the government you guys worshipped got SOOOOOoooooo out of control in violating people's rights under Bush? Of course, then you scream, because the power you've handed the government is not being used in the way you intended, but now, you guys are doing it yet again.)

If you want to empower the government to tell your fellow citizens how to live their lives, then you need to be prepared that the government will, at some point in the future, have the power to tell you how to live yours. The saddest part is that some of you (especially one I can think of in Hong Kong) are perfectly fine with ceding your liberty for the illusion of "security" or the so-called "common good."


Um... if the sun increases its output we get hotter. And apparently that should translate into higher carbon taxes, et al? See what I am getting at here? YOU DON'T CONTROL THE SYSTEM.

Well the sun hasn't been getting hotter, so try again?

Maybe you don't realize how much we do affect changes in the environment. Tomorrow, just to help you envision it, imagine what your neighborhood looked like 100 years ago, 1000? Perhaps this task is daunting, but if you really try you would realize that we, in our own little carpenter ant fashion have refashioned the world to make it easier for us to live. There is nothing wrong with that per se. Unfortunately, we seem to be unable to admit or even fathom that some of those changes could be bad for us in the short and long term... We have brains, let's start planning sustainability... if you have an actual intellectual argument against sustainability, i would love to hear it, otherwise shut your mouth...

Why thank you, hardee... I missed your particular style. And sorry, I will not "shut up" because that is exactly what you want people to do, after you throw out some strawman attempt like "sustainability."

I'm referring to AGW, that's what we've been discussing, not "sustainability."

Go ahead and define "sustainability" so that I know we are on the same page. That particular word is ideologically loaded... I mean, who is against the dictionary definition of "sustainability"?

I have said it many times but will say it again.

If GW isn't really our fault and we do nothing, nothing is lost and we keep the same dirty planet.
If GW isn't our fault and we do something, we get a cleaner planet.
If GW is our fault and we do something, maybe our grandkids can live peaceful lives.
If GW is our fault and we do nothing, then everybody gets screwed because of our selfishness.

Dictionary definition here.

And discussion of AGW is no different than discussion of GW, causation isn't of concern... solving associated issues, and projecting changes that can be made by people is... so perhaps you want to argue that we can't do anything to the environment (that seems to be what you are arguing), and well, that argument is more horse shit than anything anyone has ever attempted to pass off on this forum before.

First of all, our planet is not "dirty." Second, please show me how all that has been done for "global warming" to this point has had a single, demonstrable result.


I hate to break this to you, but your grandkids and mine will not live peaceful lives. Nor free ones, if the kind of crap we've tolerated and is being proposed to expand happens.


My favourite liberal word- "selfishness." I asked tonton about this a long time ago... at what point is there a line where you respect the individual and don't try to control them through the "you're being selfish" argument?

All the blabbing about the economy is interesting because it assumes a permanent continuation of the status quo. Business and tech and lifestyles change and adapt over time. New opportunities arise and people jump in and manage to make fortunes. Striving to do something about GW will do just that: create new opportunities.

A housing reform company down the street from me advertises that they can improve a home's energy efficiency, not just make it look better. This is adaptation.

Drunk any unfiltered water from a local lake recently?

Didn't think so.

The planet is very dirty.

I am for sustainable food production methods. I am for sustainable... well, everything. I think you'd be hard pressed to find anyone who does not want to conduct things in a way that is not destructive. The reason you guys have chosen "sustainable" is the same reason that you put the term "reasonable" and "common sense" in front of whacko policy proposals. I mean, who is against "reasonable" and "common sense" and "sustainable." I need to see what you call "sustainable" to decide if that is what it is really about... or just the predictable rhetorical usage of such terminology.

And please, hardee, stop spinning my statements. I have not said that we cannot affect the environment (more moving the goalpost here)... I stated that, if you wanted to melt every glacier on the globe and were given a trillion dollars to do it, you'd have one hell of a time getting it accomplished, absent a normal climate cycle. Can we cause localised damage, like the Exxon Valdez? The Cuyahoga River? Sure. But changing the entire global climate, when it changed so many times without us here as the cancer on the planet, is an altogether different thing.

Well... not in the states certainly... in a pristine piece of costa rica, from a mountain stream, sure...

however, i wouldn't drink water from a lake in costa rica, even a pristine one... there is a significant difference in the sorts of microbial nasties that you get from flowing water and from sitting water...

And I replied that it's when the damage done to yourself by not doing what you want is greater than the collective damage done to others by doing it.

For instance, it doesn't do you any damage to not smoke in public places, or it does little damage, the greatest of which being "makes you feel uncomfortable, itching for that drag". Meanwhile, it does damage to others, like increasing their chance of getting cancer. Therefore it's crossed the line.

Meanwhile, driving your kids to their soccer match in a Volvo station wagon instead of a Humvee doesn't harm you or your kids at all (makes them less "cool"?) Meanwhile it increases gas prices and pollution, as well as danger for other cars on the road in the event of a collision. Therefore it's crossed the line.

While having gay butt-sex in your kitchen does no harm to anyone, so it's not a selfish thing to do.

Yep, I did. And swam in it. And kayaked in it. I do it every weekend. (There's your smug "didn't think so" there in the rubbish.)
Hows about you guys go fix your lakes and watersheds, and leave me and my drinkable, swimmable, and enjoyable water alone?
(Don't worry... there is already an army of Sierra Club idiots here that want to keep us out of the river we've enjoyed in our community for 200+ years, because we might "harm the environment")

The planet is not "very dirty." You need to come the US, where our capitalist system has created technologies that clean up messes created by people across the globe, and where free people who enjoy private property have a stake in keeping up the value of said property.

BTW... what part of Germany are you in?

I am not so sure you understand our impact... I wouldn't even know where to begin to suggest you start learning... from desertification to reductions in rainfall due to deforestations, i don't see how it is even possible for anyone to believe that we cannot affect the global environment...

i mean, you were alive for the whole ozone fiasco, and no, that wasn't hysteria, it is a profound testament to our ability to help the environment correct itself by stopping something that is directly harming it..

this is the same goal post setting of the anti-evolutionists, micro-environmental changes but not macro... you and dmz should compare notes...

That statement is a thing of beauty... unfortunately it is very difficult to quantify, and where it will ultimately fail. Good in theory though.

Ahhhh HA! Caught you (in a logical problem, not gay butt sex )

I think I can say that gay butt sex is a behaviour that creates a higher than average risk of transmission of HIV, and the costs of treating that person with HIV may fall on the public system, which means that gay butt sex can be argued to damage the, er, whole.

Remember kids... Gay Butt Sex is Selfish!

Use a condom! And heterosexual butt-sex is just as dangerous. Vaginal sex a little less so, but still more dangerous than abstinence or protected sex.

In fact, Catholic condoned unprotected vaginal sex is more dangerous with regard to HIV and other diseases than protected gay butt-sex.

I haven't looked at the most recent images, but as others have already indicated, the growth is in current year old ice (i. e. this winter). It will almost certainly to disappear by the late summer/early fall (August/September) timeframe.

Once we reach the summer solstice, with the Earth's North Pole fully exposed 247, that year old ice will disappear very quickly, so that what was an albedo ~1 (almost full reflection), now becomes an albedo ~0 (almost full absorption).

The polar regions (particularly the North Pole are most sensitive to increasing CO2 "thermal blanket" simply because there is no permanent land mass at the North Pole like there is at the South Pole.

But even adjacent to the perimeter of the South Pole and adjacent regions of South America there are dramatic increases of summer temperatures and extensive glacial losses. Heck once you are away from Antarctica, it's mostly ocean waters, since there is very little land mass in the Southern Hemisphere (i. e. dark oceans with an albedo ~0).

This is the range of Polar bears (taken from wikipedia);

[CENTER][/CENTER]

And this is the USGS (I almost ended up working for them, but then I ran off to grad school) Prediction of habitat loss;

[CENTER][/CENTER]

This USGS projection makes sense when you look at the sea ice images, since most of the multi-year ice is concentrated near the land masses closest to the North Pole between Greenland and Alaska (the most pronounced blue band).

This is just off the top of my head stuff, as I just started reading this thread, so I may not have all the pertinent facts stated correctly.

If things are so clean, then why does the government have a special program to monitor beach closings due to pollution?

http://oaspub.epa.gov/beacon/beacon_...t_beacon#about

And we wouldn't need to have programs like this:

http://video.nationalgeographic.com/...ter-pollution/

And we wouldn't be worried about cleaning up the Great Lakes:
http://video.nationalgeographic.com/...ter-pollution/

This site is interesting:

http://www.scorecard.org/env-releases/us-map.tcl

The US has 2262 watersheds (which provide us with our drinking water).
Of these, 36% are labeled to have "less serious quality problems" and 23% are labeled as having "more serious quality problems" by the EPA.
http://www.scorecard.org/env-release...us.tcl#summary

Then there is smog and areas of "non-attainment":http://www.scorecard.org/env-releases/cap/

Quite a few on that list.

ITexas water body info:
http://www.scorecard.org/env-release...ode=48#ranking
Over 90 water bodies in Texas are ranked Medium or higher on the need for regulation.
64% are affected with pathogens, 19% with metals, and 8% with pesticides.

I would be careful where I drank, but I guess things aren't as dirty as it seems.

OK... let me back that out a little...

Sex is selfish! It can lead to pregnancy, and pregnancy costs the public health system billions each year... so sex is selfish! Put some of this into practice, especially with the issue of "sustainability" and shazzam!- China's One Child policy.


(I'll now celebrate a selfish after sex smoke as a finisher to my selfish sex)

One might suggest looking at photos:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/tags/pollution/

http://images.google.com/images?um=1...=Search+Images

Spend a few moments flipping through either set and if you come away with a sense the planet is clean then you need to adjust your glasses.

Those are some valuable links... some good data in there.

Rather than reposting, one piece at a time, my take on many of these issues... here's a post from the other AGW thread.

I do not have a problem with environmental regulations. I have a problem with someone dictating to other people, with the unimpeachable mantle of "scientist," how they should make the most basic decisions in their lives.

I just wonder if we turned on this energy we've somehow found to "fight AGW" on real environmental issues that are hurting people, right here, right now, with little outrage by comparison. Things like GMO. Things like international food production standards (fertilizer and pesticides) that allows international corporate agriculture to put outlawed poisons on our family dinner tables with no alternative we can afford. Fluoride lowering IQs of our kids. I find the self-evident things we are doing to ourselves and our populations on a daily basis is much more urgent and relevant to human survival than 1 degree in who-knows-how-many-decades that we cannot be sure would not have been there had we not ever existed.

Right now fluoridated water is making your kid dumber... but hey... "Save the Polar Bears!"

Volcanic eruptions are short term (short of a megavolcano, in which case all bets are off, as in run for the hills on the next continent)) and overall don't contribute significantly relative to GHG emissions of human origin.

Water vapor is a given, it's already part and parcel with the carbon cycle, the atmosphere can hold only so much water vapor, and then you know, it kind of rains.

The sun? D'oh! That's what's known as a non sequitur. I happen to have done a lot of recent work with sun spot data and solar irradiation empirical data, so the first thing to realize is that there are no predictive models for solar variations, it's simply too complex, anyone that suggests otherwise is simply blowing smoke up their own arse.

Also sun spot cycles are on a ~22-year cycle, not 11-year as suggested by laypeople, simply because the Sun changes polarity north-south-north, but sun spot numbers, in and of themselves, make no distinction as to the sign of this polarity. I know what I'm talking about, as I've analyzed literally thousands of ocean wave gage time series.

So basically, the historic sun spot data is unsigned positive, with a minimum of zero, so that when looking at historic sunspot data and attempting to correlate it to instrumental irradiance data, the sun spot data shows zero correlation to the instrumental record as it approaches zero.

But please skip over the above, and ask yourself this question;

How does one put a metric to the Sun when there are no sun spots? Oh, look no sun spots, but my thermometer and my toes say the Earth is freezing, therefore let's give the Sun a -100 sunspots.

Anyway, approximately 30-years of instrumental data shows that for that period of record, solar fluctuations are something like 1 part in 1,400 parts (I would have to confirm that, since it's been a while).

As to the rest of your "argument" (it's the basic talking points incoherent rant hoisted upon it's own petard), how should I say it?

Basically it doesn't hold water.

[CENTER][/CENTER]

Seriously, SDW needs to go see a shrink, or SDW is female, and it's you know, that time of the month.

Because SDW starts one of these nonsense threads with 28 day clockwork like precision.

Would somebody please put this AGW contrarian n00b lacking a brain into a straight jacket.

You could only say this if you haven't actually travelled to the 'planet' to see it, because 'the planet' is filthy. This is why when you go travelling to 'wilderness' places you take water tablets to make your water potable and why there's a great big swamp of plastic granules in the central Pacific, and the reefs are dying, seahorses are rare and it hurts your eyes to go out in the afternoon in Lagos, Beijing, Cairo, Mumbai, Mexico City and probably some places in North America too.

Also the planet is over-populated and over exploited, which is why it's filthy.

Also, climate change is our fault and to deny it is like denying the age of the universe or that slavery ever happened and stuff, and you're going to feel like such a bell-end in thirty years, Jubelum.