Scientist sees dire climate-change impacts

Fix the transcontinental pollution from China. Else, it is only the sky that is falling, take cover.

With the universe’s constant expansion, the earth’s climate has been in constant change for 100’s of millions of years. Humans are surprised every time a ‘natural disaster’ occurs, because we have built things in mother nature’s way. Wishful thinking that a treaty will have a sufficient impact when human rights issues can’t even be resolved elsewhere. We are the fly on the bull’s horn in Aesop’s fable.

Steve, I will be glad to see your American flag on a Hybrid. But tell me, where you live as the majority of CA electricity is generated from hydroelectic generators, not fossil fuels? Tell me what you will do with all the batteries in your hybrid as the recycling technology for those is still in the infancy stages. Are you aware of the Sierra Club’s law suit against the Army Corps of Engineers stopping the upgrades of the levee system in Lousianna PRIOR to Katrina?

Why contribute to organizations that do nothing to stop the human trafficking on the peninsula or women’s rights in the middle east? How many hours have you read to children in lower income schools whose parents speak no English? Help the planet by stopping ‘the fighting’ and start loving your local neighbors. Equal education is the answer not exclusive, aloof affiliations.

Exercise caution if interchanging climate change (in the article) with global warming.

Bradley –
I’m a PG&E customer so, at your suggestion, I looked at what their fuel mix is for the electricity they provide. I found that for PG&E hydro provides only about 16% of their electrical generation – not 50% as you claim. This is roughly the same amount as their renewable energy program (wind, solar, biomass, etc.). Nuclear is 24% and fossil fuels about 22%. Fossil fuel is actually probably much greater than that since they lump the remaining 22% under “unspecified source”, which is probably power they buy from out of state and don’t control as to generation. Full info at http://www.pge.com/about/environment/pge/cleanenergy/
You’re right that global warming and climate change are not the same thing, though in this context it’s largely a semantic issue. Global warming occurring today – largely because of human use of fossil fuels – is causing climate change. Or, as EPA summarizes: “Global warming can be considered part of climate change along with changes in precipitation, sea level, etc.” http://www.epa.gov/climatechange/downloads/Climate_Basics.pdf
If you weren’t at the talk last night you should watch the video linked above. Then let’s talk.

Here we go again.

Feel free to talk past each other for the next few days.

Tom –

The speaker showed one slide that should give you pause. It showed CO2 concentrations in the atmosphere for the past 1,000 years.
For the first 850 years the concentration was stable at around 280ppm. Then in the early 1800’s, coinciding with the beginning of the industrial revolution, the concentration started increasing and it has continued to increase at accelerating rates ever since, reaching the current level of 395ppm. To put it another way, the EPA reports that “In 2005, global atmospheric concentrations of CO2 were 35% higher than they were before the Industrial Revolution.” http://www.epa.gov/climatechange/emissions/co2.html
Coincident with the increase in CO2, the average global temperature has increased nearly 1 degree Centigrade. As with the CO2 concentrations, the rate of temperature change is increasing such that by the year 2100, the temperature is projected to be between 2 and 4 degrees C warmer than it was in 1850, depending on what steps nations of the world take to limit GHG emissions.
The relation between the increased burning of fossil fuels and the increased CO2 concentrations since the industrial revolution seems clear to me, as is the increased temperatures in response to increased CO2. What part of these well documented observations doesn’t make sense to you? The evidence is conclusive pretty much everywhere you look.
As for the scientific controversy, there really is none. As reported in USA Today, a recent study of nearly 1400 scientists found that “97 percent of scientific experts agree that climate change is “very likely” caused mainly by human activity. . . As for the 3 percent of scientists who remain unconvinced, the study found their average expertise is far below that of their colleagues, as measured by publication and citation rates.” http://content.usatoday.com/communities/sciencefair/post/2010/06/scientists-overwhelmingly-believe-in-man-made-climate-change/1#.T21wWNX0-g5
Let’s get on with fixing the problem and stop sticking our heads in the sand while pretending to believe that 97% of the experts are wrong. If we don’t control global warming, he consequence to my kids and all future generations are too dire to contemplate.

As anyone who has taken the most basic science course knows, there is a difference between correlation and causation. Causation must be proved.

There is little dispute about the existence of climate change although time durations that demonstrate major climate changes are probably best measured over decades versus years.

While the data give me pause, citing man as the principal cause of climate change is unproven. That does not mean we shouldn’t take actions to reduce man’s impact. But the United States has done a tremendous amount of mitigation and has lost its unenviable position as the principal contributor (per capita or absolute) to man-made pollution. Our skies and shores are pristine compared to those developing nations in Eastern Europe, Asia and Africa.

At a time when our economy is so fragile, it’s hardly a time to handicap our businesses by imposing new taxes and costs that competitors will simply ignore.

Look, I believe the majority of the science community when they say the earth is warming because of CO2 and that man is the cause; you have to be a conspiracy theorist of the highest order to believe Heartland and the big oil thinktanks to be convinced otherwise.

But statements like this “The real point is that mankind might be able to save itself from extinction”

are INSANE!!!!

Extinction??????

Lots of pain for certain populations, sure. Greater hunger in poor countries, yes. Rising sea level being quite a problem, almost unimaginable that we’d have to build a levy around the bay, okay.

Shifting agricultural areas due to climate change won’t lead to extinction. Hunger, huge costs, but we will grow food where we can.

The hyperbole on both sides is off the charts. As Pogo stated – here we go again.

Please re-read what I wrote. It isn’t insane at all.

Natural resources are finite. Humans are consuming finite resources at an alarming rate. If humans don’t change behavior and think about long-term sustainability, yes humans will go extinct. Sure not soon, but problems of scarcity can arise quickly and probably already have begun. So, whether you believe in human role in exacerbating climate change, it’s still a good idea to conserve resources.

Pogo –
For a guy who just wrote “At a time when our economy is so fragile, it’s hardly a time to handicap our businesses by imposing new taxes and costs that competitors will simply ignore.” you seem awfully cavalier about the tremendous costs that will be incurred as consequences of global warming.
There was just an article in the NYT today about the projected costs to San Francisco in the Ocean Beach area from the expected 14-inch rise in sea level by 2050. They’re estimating costs of $650 million for just this one area of the city if nothing is done to protect it from the expected erosion and storm wave surge. And that’s just one small part of one city. Multiply that by all the towns along the coast and around the Bay and you’ll have some idea of what “tremendous costs” really are.
And those are just some of the costs we’ll all be paying to try to cope with the consequences of global warming(or more accurately, the costs all our kids & grandkids will be paying; we’ll mercifully be dead by then).

To borrow the words from the Bard of Baltimore H.L Mencken

“The whole aim of practical politics is to keep the populace alarmed (and hence clamorous to be led to safety) by menacing it with an endless series of hobgoblins, all of them imaginary.”

It wasn’t that long ago on Christmas Eve 1979 when the darling of the liberal left — Time Magazine had a cover article on global cooling. This is when Jimmy Carter was president and the liberal establishment was swooning over the revelation of global cooling. IT GAVE THEM ANOTHER EXCUSE TO CONTROL OUR LIVES.

http://www.time.com/time/covers/0,16641,19791224,00.html

Now the latest scare is Carbon Dioxide. Yes carbon dioxide without which every single tree in Menlo Park would die. But we have to promote the United Nations “Agenda 21”– the latest kool aid promoted by international socialists like George Soros to subvert capitalism.

The global warming Hoax is becoming more apparent. “The science of global warming has been unraveling for years, but one of the most glaring revelations came in 2007, when a UK High Court judge considered the science behind the 2006 Academy Award winning movie “Inconvenient Truth.” The judge ruled the movie contained nine significant errors and ruled it was a “political” movie, not a science movie”.

To read more on the United Nationals and America’s liberal left subterfuge read this

http://www.canadafreepress.com/index.php/article/31319

and read this:
http://www.americanthinker.com/2011/07/the_global_warming_hoax_how_soon_we_forget.html#ixzz1q8vuni8s

Funny, I went to US Geo. a couple of years ago and this same guy showed that global warming would raise temperatures but (much to his chagrin) the models showed that it would have no effect on our water. In fact, out into the distant future it would help.

I have to guess that the ‘no disaster’ scenario didn’t sit well so he had to ‘rejuggle’ his models.

Also, when I pointed out to him that in the ‘hot urban zone’ of Chicago the temperature graph over 100 years showed no increase in temperature he just sluffed it off as an ‘anomaly’. I’ve later found out that the temperature in North America hasn’t increased in 75 years. What is their explanation for this?

Norman –
You wrote “I’ve later found out that the temperature in North America hasn’t increased in 75 years. What is their explanation for this?”
Again, I have to ask what your source was? A quick Google search came up with an EPA summary of the effects of global warming and found, among other things, that
“Average temperatures have risen across the lower 48 states since 1901, with an increased rate of warming over the past 30 years. Seven of the top 10 warmest years on record for the lower 48 states have occurred since 1990”

Time magazine had a double issue abour global cooling which it has conveniently purged from its archives. That’s what liberals do when they contradict themselves– they bury the evidence. But Time was n ot good enough. Click here to see the cover of the infamous double issue

http://state-of-the-nation.com/2828/time-magazine-april-1977-survive-coming-ice-age-global-warming/

There has been global cooling since 1998

http://www.prisonplanet.com/articles/april2008/040408_cools_off.htm

But liberals have a way out. They just call it global climate change. Guess what the climate is always changing. Always has and always will. THAT PESKY SUN JUST WON’T COOPERATE WITH LIBERALS.

Mitch –
If you want to find out the facts behind the 1977 Time article, read this paper from Skeptical Science http://www.skepticalscience.com/What-1970s-science-said-about-global-cooling.html where they actually looked at all the scientific papers published from 1965 to 1979 that dealt with the question of cooling vs warming. They found only 7 papers that predicted global cooling while during the same period there were 42 papers predicting global warming. So even at the time, the majority of scientists were convinced that global warming was likely.

Thrush –
Thanks for the link to the real 1977 Time Magazine cover.

Interesting that they had an article on the crisis in the US Post Office, predicting they’d have to end Saturday deliveries. It could almost have been written today:

“”The Postal Service is going to cost more and provide less service, with larger subsidies. There isn ‘t much happy about it from now to the end of the century.”

That was the somewhat despairing word last week from David Minton, the executive director of a blue-ribbon commission that Congress set up last year to determine what, if anything, could be done to increase the efficiency of the U.S. Postal Service and reduce the burden it places on taxpayers. The commission will transmit its findings to Congress this week.”

The more things change, the more they stay the same!

One last comment for POGO if he’s still tuning in.
You wrote: “citing man as the principal cause of climate change is unproven”
If you go fastforward to 12:45 in the talk http://online.wr.usgs.gov/calendar/2012/mar12.html you’ll see a slide that shows global carbon emissions measured since 1960 showing emissions increasing from less than 3 billion tons/yr in 1960 to 9 billion tons/yr in 2010. It’s a generally uniform increase with a few deviations where emissions flatten and even decline for a while. It turns out that these deviations correspond to global financial crises where fossil fuel declined because of reduced economic output. If the carbon emissions were due to some natural cycle, these declines would not have occurred or at least would not have correlated with economic activity.
This seems to me to be convincing evidence that man’s activities are the principal cause for carbon emissions and, hence, for global warming/climate change.

There was most definitely a Time Magazine article on this subject titled “Another Ice Age?”: http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,944914,00.html

There was also a Newsweek article titled “The Cooling World”:http://www.wmconnolley.org.uk/sci/iceage/newsweek-coolingworld.pdf

I’m not saying they are right or wrong… but they most definitely existed and were published back in the mid-1970’s.

POGO –
Yes, no one’s denying that there were short articles in both magazines about global cooling back in the 70’s. The problem was that Mitch was claiming Time had put out a double issue on global cooling which was bogus. Someone had Photoshopped the April 2007 double-issue on global warming to give the impression that scientists were strongly divided on the issue, which they’re emphatically not.
The more interesting thing is that both 70’s articles on cooling were based on only a handful of papers that had come to this conclusion. Even at the time they were outnumber by 6:1 in the numbers of papers concluding that global warming was more likely. But we all know how the media likes to milk the controversy to sell more copies.
So if you’re not willing to say it, I will: scientists in the 70’s who predicted future global cooling WERE WRONG then and have been shown to have been DEFINITELY WRONG in the years since as more and more data has been collected that shows just the opposite.
To repeat myself: “As reported in USA Today, a recent study of nearly 1400 scientists found that “97 percent of scientific experts agree that climate change is “very likely” caused mainly by human activity. . . As for the 3 percent of scientists who remain unconvinced, the study found their average expertise is far below that of their colleagues, as measured by publication and citation rates.” http://content.usatoday.com/communities/sciencefair/post/2010/06/scientists-overwhelmingly-believe-in-man-made-climate-change/1#.T3H37rScx8G

Please read enclosed Wall Street Journal Article about the global warming myth written by William Happer a Princeton University Professor of Physics. Princeton has the top rated physics department in the United States and is where Albert Einstein taught.

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052702304636404577291352882984274.html

If Co2 is a “pollutant” then I guess the early earth was “polluted.” From what I have read, the reason the oceans are salty is because of the high concentration of Co2 in the earths’s early atmosphere which caused the rain to be acidic, thus washing mineral salts into the ocean. Hardly a “pollutant.” Just a natural component of our earth.

Maybe Mr. Happer and Norman should try refuting the work of over 6,000 scientists embodied in the IPCC Fourth Assessment before inflicting their opinions “that there really isn’t any evidence of global warming” on the world.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IPCC_Fourth_Assessment_Report

Mr. Happer has been challenged to do so for some time, and has shied away from offering anything but opinion.

To read more on the unethical behavior by the global warming zealots please click here

http://www.appeal-democrat.com/articles/gleick-114287-institute-heartland.html

“what’s bad for polar bears is good for alligators.”

And if the sea levels rise a foot or two, hundreds of millions of refugees will wish they could swim like either the bear or the gator.

But no worries, we’re all well above sea level around here, so yippee-skippy!!

Frosty: any comment on the actual CONTENT of the Gleick documents, or are you just terribly, terribly offended that they became public?

So Frosty, you add another post a mere 20 minutes after your were asked a question on the content of the released documents and you post essentially a duplicate link.

Because you’ve not read the content of the released docs?

For shame, Frosty. Rather incurious, one might say. Perhaps it disrupts your narrative to find out how Heartland, ALEC, the Kochs, Exxon, etc.. are playing the deniers as foolish conspiracy theorists.

Heartland doles out millions a year to stoke the fears of Frosty’s around the world, such as paying pseudo-experts to challenge the foremost authorities on climate change. (link above http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IPCC_Fourth_Assessment_Report )

Perhaps you should give them a call. They will gladly fund an expert such as Frosty T. Snowman to be on their side.

Get in on the gravy train! Pick up a couple bucks for each posting, not a bad sideline for Frosty T. Snowman.

Until the spring thaw arrives.

Everything is so uncomplicated for you, Pogo. I think that might be a flaw in your thinking.

“There will always be those who challenge disturbing facts no matter how good the science. Many Americans don’t believe in evolution; some geologists don’t accept plate tectonics, and some think the NASA Moon missions were a hoax.
Self-interest can also create cogitative dissonance between what one wants to believe and what is. Some smokers kept insisting smoking doesn’t cause cancer or heart disease after the Surgeon General’s Report. An African leader who perhaps can’t afford proper drugs holds that the HIV virus doesn’t cause AIDS.
Should people die from disinformation and delusions? So what if some don’t believe in global warming? They’re wrong. Survival of high tech civilization is at stake. Time to stop dithering and get serious about policies that could make a difference.”

MARTIN HOFFERT, interview, Aug. 22, 2007

Again, no one seems to answer my question. What makes today’s climate and average temperature so ideal? Our earth has been hotter and colder and we seemed to do fine.

By the way, Steve, our civilization is most assuredly doomed. It would take a pretty arrogant scientist to think we are immune to extinction.

That said, I’m certainly not trying to speed it up. I think we should take all REASONABLE steps to reduce pollution… and I believe we do. We can always do more, of course, but the damage overregulation may do to our economy today – in terms of unemployment, poverty, loss of revenues, etc. – outweighs the benefits that may – MAY – come later. I oppose the unilateral imposition of new costs on American industries that are finding themselves increasingly noncompetitive.

Jody – I’m well aware of other people on this earth who live in low lying areas and would suffer with raised sea levels. Every year, millions of people find their homes inundated by floods or ravaged by storms (or even tsunamis) and their societies manage to survive.

And so will we. There will still be waterfront property, it will just be in a different place. By the way, it was in a different place before we arrived, too.

Jody –

First, I’m hardly a “denier.” Climate change is real and undeniable. With regard to man’s contribution to this change, I’m less certain. I said LESS certain, not uncertain.

Second, you still didn’t answer my question. A thousand years ago, it was far warmer than it is today. Did people survive? Do people survive in climates that are 1 or 2 degrees warmer than ours. Yes, of course. And we will, too.

Climate patterns change for a variety of reasons, not all man-made. In our lifetimes, the “pollution” from at least two volcanic eruptions dramatically changed the sunlight exposure (and temperature) over huge parts of the world for months. Stuff happens.

We didn’t always grow grapes in Napa. Now Chile and Australia are huge producers. We base our economy on convenience. If it’s easier to grow grapes in Canada, so what. It’ll be easier to grow avocados here. Stuff changes.

And I wouldn’t bet on building levees around San Francisco or New York to try to preserve them unless you’re filming a James Cameron film. Fortunately, there is plenty of space for us to relocate and plenty of time to do it. People who own property inland may benefit economically and those on beaches may get hurt. It may take a couple of hundred years and, in the meantime, perhaps an unexpected earthly or cosmic event (think Krakatoa, major earthquake, unexpected comet, etc…) may reverse or exacerbate the impacts of our warming problem.

Who knows?

For now, I’d focus on getting our economy back on it’s feet so we can afford our elected officials.

Thrush –

But it’s been both warmer and colder during the past century and we survived just fine. Again, what makes today’s mean temperature so ideal? (Hint: it’s a rhetorical question, there is no answer.)

In the worst case, it would seem that farm land would move South where it would be a few degrees cooler or we would develop strains of crops that more tolerant to heat.

Inconvenient, yes. But not insurmountable.

It is not only a matter of conservation it is also a matter of developing more energy efficient automobiles and devices.

The electric car is not the answer until we build up the electric grid to handle higher outputs of electricity; build grids in parallel so if one grid goes down the others will stay up; safeguard the grid against terrorist attacks; build nuclear power plants to provide energy for electric cars that will soon be on the highway; bring to market cars that use compressed natural gas; and develop safe battery technology so when they reach EOL and go to the landfill we aren’t trading one source of pollution for another.

LED lights are very promising. I have some in my home. I also have CFLs. But how can we justify trading Hg(heavy metal) pollution for more energy efficiency?

The USG was mistaken in its mandate for the incandescent light bulb. It should have just mandated energy efficiency standards for light bulbs and impose a energy tax, much like the gas guzzler tax, for light bulbs that don’t meet the energy standards. Government can never be as efficient as private industry.

Every advance the Government has made with the exception of the atomic bomb is due to private industry contractors and I am not so sure there weren’t ptivate contractors involved in that as well. There would have been no space program without private industry contractors

POGO –
Your question about the optimum temperature was answered in the talk – did you even watch it?
Dr. Suchanek showed a slide of the average global temperature since the end of the last ice age that showed a very narrow range of variability – no more than +/-half a degree – up until the industrial revolution when average temperatures started rising sharply along with CO2 levels. Wherever did you come up with the “fact” that “a thousand years ago, it was far warmer than it is today.?” Any references? Yes, the Medieval warming period raised the average temp by 0.2 degrees, followed by the little ice age that saw it drop by about 0.5 degrees – both within the range of variability that’s been observed since the glaciers retreated. This is different than the nearly 1.0 degree increase seen since the mid-1800’s and vastly different than the 3 to 6 degree increase forecast over the next 100 years if greenhouse gas emissions aren’t more quickly brought under control.
And to answer your question (again). It seems to me that yes, that was the optimum setting for the global thermostat – a temperature range that existed on the planet through the 10,000 years that saw humans establish civilizations around the world without serious climatic variability – not to mention the millions of other species that adapted to the relatively stable climate & sea levels.
Suggesting that average global temperatures varied widely in recent times is flat out wrong. And further suggesting we can simply adapt to a climate that is 3 to 6 degrees warmer than it has been in the past 10 years is simply pollyannaish and ignores the vast suffering and extinctions that will result.
You also ignore the increased acidification of the world’s oceans as CO2 levels rise and the stress this places on all the ocean critters with CaCO3 structures, not mention those that feed on them.
Get real man! This is not an academic exercise.

Correction:
The line should read: “And further suggesting we can simply adapt to a climate that is 3 to 6 degrees warmer than it has been in the past 10 THOUSAND years is simply pollyannaish and ignores the vast suffering and extinctions that will result.”

Steve –

With all due respect, you are arguing against points that I’m not making. As you know, temperatures vary widely on our planet – arctic, tropics, high mountains, low desert. We seem to have adapted to all. No, it would not be convenient, but it’s difficult for me to believe a change of a degree or two will be fatal. It is more likely to make New Hampshire more like New Jersey. (Then again, maybe that would be fatal! <- joke) Six degrees? That would probably be a very major problem, but that’s a worse case projection which could be impacted by other unanticipated events (such as aerosols which mitigated the impacts of Mt. Pinatubo’s eruption).

Again, I do not deny climate change. I do have doubts about man being the principal cause and I do understand the CORRELATION of CO2 emissions. As you know, correlation isn’t CAUSATION.

A final note. Although it was quite some time ago, my undergraduate degree was in chemistry so I so have a vague familiarity with the sciences. I think it was twelfth grade physics teacher that said skepticism should never be ridiculed and responding to it with proof is the hallmark of good science. So just because a lot of people believe something is true doesn’t make it right – there are other very well credentialed, serious scientists (admittedly a minority) who have doubts. Majority opinions do not equate to proof.

I suspect we are in more agreement than disagreement. The principal area of dispute appears to be what we need to do to remedy the situation. I say the United States does MORE than it’s fair share. I seem to recall an administration official (from the EPA, I think) who recently said that even passing the most stringent “cap and trade” law will not impact the current climate change a bit. Without China, India and the rest of the developing world on board, it is useless.

That doesn’t mean we can’t do more, but we need to weigh the benefits with the harm it may cause to our economy. Try telling people who are unemployed and can’t pay for their gasoline that you want to raise prices or you want to increase taxes to subsidize Chevy Volts so their great grandchildren will live in a climate that’s a quarter degree cooler.

Get China and India on board and you’ll really move the needle (literally).

None of the area covered by this paper is more than a few miles away from Stanford, one of the best schools in the world, and with very strong programs in geosciences, climate, energy. The Woods Institute has regular events open to the public, who can attend, listen to world-class experts and learn. http://woods.stanford.edu/events.php

Very few other places in the world have such a concentration of knowledgeable and accessible experts.

Sometimes Nobel physicists like Burt Richter give great talks like Gambling the future, http://www-group.slac.stanford.edu/do/brichter/presentations/2004_10_05.htm
He gave a shorter version ~2005 at P.V. Ranch. That was fun: in Q&A 2 guys confidently repeated some of the same wrong ideas mentioned here. Burt kept answering them then finally got tired and said something like “You’re repeating junk created by physicists I know personally and don’t think much of.”
The 2 guys cringed in their chairs and then slunk out, having made fools of themselves in front of their neighbors.

Burt would have been referring to Seitz, Jastrow, Nierenberg of the George Marshall Institute, of which Will Happer, mentioned earlier, is Chairman. Happer and his friends in 2009 petitioned the American Physical Society to change its position on climate change from standard to ~”we know nothing.” They got less than 0.5% of the membership, heavily skewed towards older males. Most physicists know better, including almost everyone in the fine Princeton physics department. Of 60+ faculty, 3 {Austin, Happer, Torquato} signed the silly petition,

Of course, real conservatives of the old sort (not the ersatz modern flavor) actually accept science and worry about real problems.
Whether one agrees with Hoover Institution in general, one might listen to an effort with George Shultz, William Perry, Burt Richter, Larry Goulder, etc. http://www.hoover.org/taskforces/energy-policy/members

Jody –

Despite the fact that your post is way off subject and has zero to do with my questions (consistent, at least!), I’ll respond briefly.

Having worked in healthcare for the past 35 years, I do know a little about this space. The VA is different from the commercial market in several key respects. The VA is (1) the insurer, (2) the provider, (3) tax exempt, (4) non-profit and (5) pays employees – including on-staff physicians and surgeons – on government graded wage scales. Those five elements give them a huge cost advantage over almost every other provider. I suppose that if I could run a business like that, I would have a cost advantage over my competitors, too. And while the VA system has improved greatly over the years, there are still many VA hospitals that are in deplorable condition where care isn’t quite as state-of-the-art as our lovely VA Palo Alto. http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/03/04/AR2007030401394.html

That said, I do think that private business GENERALLY provides more efficient services than government. I tend to be libertarian and think that government should only do things that people cannot do (or easily do) for themselves – defense, police, fire, infrastructure, dispute resolution to name the obvious. I don’t they should be responsible for feeding our children, entertaining us or providing for our retirement. But that’s just me.

But, as I said, this is hardly on topic.

Jody,

I beg to disagree with you regarding the quality of VA health care.

Walter Reed Army Medical Center, the hospital complex in the nation’s capital long seen as the crown jewel of military health care, is where allegations of mice-infested buildings and neglected patients first surfaced.

The lugubrious wife of a wounded National Guardsman testified before Congress that her husband received “treatment … a dog wouldn’t have deserved”. Another wounded soldier described how Army officials ignored his complaints about black mold in his room for months — until photos of his mildewed walls appeared in the Washington Post.

The scandal at Walter Reed Hospital, and similar contretemps at other VA facilities across the nation, are a national embarrassment.

Rather than being honored for their sacrifice overseas, some veterans and their families now face financial and psychological suffering, as their claims sit in a pile while they try to figure out a complex system of benefits.

Lawmakers noted that injured soldiers and veterans are flooding their offices with phone calls and e-mails complaining of similar conditions at military medical facilities and veterans’ hospitals nationwide.

While some VA facilities have made gains over their aptly described “hell hole” status, the scandal at Walter Reed Hospital revealed the limitations of a government-managed health care system.

As I said on my TV show “Come on stupid, don’t play dumb with me!”

Really tired of the politicizing of science. Yes, humans are responsible for climate change. To what degree is just guesswork. What really bothers me is the right wingers view that climate change science is a liberal conspiracy, no doubt fueled by big money from the oil companies. The liberals exemplified by the Sierra Club are not innocent either shown by their hysterical opposition to nuclear power, the only technology that is carbon free with the potential to replace fossil fuel power.

Chronology of Veterans Administration Hospital Abuse

2008

The brachytherapy program at the VA Medical Center in Philadelphia was shut down, after it was learned that many veterans had received incorrect radiation doses over a six-year period.

2009

VA centers in three cities were accused of reusing colonoscopy and endoscopy equipment without properly sanitizing the equipment. At least 50 veterans tested positive for blood borne pathogens.

The VA sent letters to about 600 veterans with potential neurological diagnoses, but who do not have ALS—Lou Gehrig’s disease—telling them they were diagnosed with this debilitating and deadly disease.

VA Infections
In November 2008, the VA Medical Center in Augusta, Georgia sent a letter to more than 1,200 patients who were treated for ear, nose and throat, warning them they may have been exposed to infections.

Following a December 2008 investigation at the VA clinic in Murfreesboro, TN, officials discovered that clinic workers were not properly maintaining the medical equipment used to conduct colonoscopies. More than 6,000 patients were notified and offered free testing.

In March 2009 VA officials announced that veterans in South Florida may have been exposed to Hepatitis and HIV after being examined with contaminated medical equipment.

According to reports, more than 3,200 veterans who received colonoscopies at the Miami VA medical clinic between May 2004 and March 12, 2009 are at risk of exposure to both Hepatitis and HIV.

For the recent VA Hospital scandal in Dayton Ohio please click below

http://www.veteranstoday.com/2011/04/25/update-dayton-va-medical-center-scandal/

The Sun has a far greater impact than man. After the sun comes Earth’s volcanoes. Greenland was once green. There have been periods of warmth in our planet’s history that have been far warmer than what we have now.

Mars and Jupiter’s relative warming and cooling is highly correlated with Earth’s. The only common variable is the sun, unless you count all those pesky Martians creating Global warming. AGW has a minor effect. But the AGW disciples of Al Gore (who happens to be one of the largest creators of a carbon footprint) got caught with their pants down when the University of East Anlia was caught trying to manipulate the numbers. In other words LYING!

The Earth has not seen any Global Warming since 1998. Now the latest craze is to try to limit Carbon Dioxide, the most necessary ingredient for photosynthesis. You AGW crackpots need to provide proof.

To see the 35 errors in Al Gore’s Movie :An Inconvenient Truth” click here

http://scienceandpublicpolicy.org/monckton/goreerrors.html

You have got to be kidding. Jody is full of beans. There is no business that can get by with a 5% overhead. This is sheer liberal fantasy. She put out a bunch of claims and did not substantiate one of them. Occasionally she would reference a leftist fantasy web site that has about as much credibility as Barack Obama. I can’t wait until the voters give him the old heave ho.

I have got to go. talk to you tomorrow.

Frosty –
Would you consider the opinion of Business Week just another leftist fantasy reference? Check out their July 17, 2006 article “The Best Medical Care in the Nation – How Veterans Affairs transformed itself — and what it means for the rest of us”
They make the point that overhead is indeed much lower in the Government single payer VA system:
“Cost of overhead and administration is another issue that makes VA a better system. Our country’s private insurance model results in insurers eating up a great deal of their premium income in unproductive overhead costs. It is estimated that private insurers spend anywhere from 20% to 30% of their premium income on advertising, agent commissions, insurance administrative oversight costs, expensive claims and records tracking systems, taxes, profit, and dividends for shareholders. VA has none of these additional cost burdens except for administrative costs associated with maintaining the system.”
I hear crow goes down better with a little mustard.

Jody predicted Frosty’s only defense of his baseless claim – he would keep heaping anecdotal stories as proof. She could see it coming a mile away.

Frosty: we could swap horror stories of medical mishap all day.

Jody made several claims you haven’t disputed:

1. Vets, as much as they would like to see improvement, love the VA, and as she said, would fight for it. They have, in fact:

2. The VA is more cost effective and efficient than Medicare and the for/profit insurance systems, rebutting your claim that free market solutions are always more efficient that government systems.

Someone else mentioned that the VA has negotiated drug costs, Medicare does not because a GOP congress forbid Medicare from getting volume discounts in the Medicare part D bill ten years ago as a payoff for GOP political contributions.

I do love one thing though – your anecdote that you called “the latest in a series”? It’s five months old. How many medical mishaps do you think Jody could find in the last five months worth of news form for-profit, community or training hospitals?

Seriously, really.

Holy Toledo, Frosty!!

Lowering yourself now to 6 year old anonymous blog posts on dormant libertarian blog sites?

“Posted by: drlivipr on November 13, 2006 6:18 PM” http://www.janegalt.net/archives/009534.php

Your anonymous blogger you use as an expert responds to a post that starts:

“Since the Veterans Administration, since its reform under Bill Clinton, now has the best medical-records system going and produces high-quality health care at a reasonable cost… ”

Given all the pablum and random anecdotes you use over studies and fact, one has to wonder – do you hate our Veterans? Hate the medical profession? Or just hate America in general?

Frosty, go back to rightie Gore bashing. He’s a very successful man in the private sector, with a successful background in the public sector, a millionaire many times over since the Google boys recognized his ability and brought him on board. He can take your lies, innuendo and the rest.

Quit picking on our Vets and their support system/safety net.

Frosty –
Perhaps your opinion of the VA was formed before the system was reformed under Clinton. When was the last time you visited the VA for any treatment? All recent reports indicate it’s achieved amazing improvements, including surveys of vets themselves who have received VA care.

Here’s a couple items from a CBS news story on recent studies http://www.cbsnews.com/2100-18563_162-2243606.html:
“In studies, including one by Harvard, and in six straight years of patient satisfaction surveys, the VA earned the highest health care quality rating in the country. It’s also the least expensive.”

“The VA is also a bargain for taxpayers, and not just because of the computers. Doctors are salaried employees, which saves on labor. Drugs are cheaper because of negotiated discounts. Even with its older population, VA care overall costs 30 percent less than the national average.”
Seems to me that you really owe it to yourself to try it again

Steve – there ya go again, posting facts.

Colbert said it a long time ago, you know damn well that facts have a well known liberal bias.

Well, there ya go again. (love Ronnie’s line!)

Get your point slammed and just reached deeper to dig out another Clinton era claim. Honestly, I don’t know about that one – always thought overseas deployment used absentee ballots and service members voted where they were registered, but frankly, am not aware of current election restrictions, if any, on our military. Have any links? A quick search on “Clinton banned voting on Military bases” doesn’t refer to much else except DADT and abortion.

Want to go down the path of military voting, then start a new thread – otherwise let’s get back to Climate Change, now that Jody, Pogo, Steve and others have debunked your claim about government *always* being inefficient.

“Too aggressive? ”

April first was a couple days ago.

Not a bad post but I just don’t see how you can make progress given the state of today’s GOP: anti-science, doesn’t believe in facts like, oh, say, evolution, nor have the cajones to consider moving in the right direction. Evidence?

How many GOP candidates would answer yes about a question on deficit reduction, with the spending cuts/tax increase ratio at 10/1?

None raised their hand for a ten to one deal.

ten to one = no go; in a time when taxes on the wealthiest Americans are lower than they’ve been in fifty years, and our deficit is higher than ever.

ten to one.

How does a sane person work with that kind of insanity?

Gotta run. Good luck with Frosty.

And the earth.

Great article in the WSJ about AGW. The liberals desparately want you to believe theat AGW is significant whereas the smart money is on the sun. These eco-control freaks want to:

1. Control your lives, and

2. Want to crush capitalism

For the WSJ article click here

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052970204301404577171531838421366.html

“that Socialist out of office and repair the near irreparable damage he has done to this country. ”

Incredible. Hey Frosty didja hear? Mitt’s new talking point is that Obama is, imagine the horrors – a secular atheist! Guess Mitt never got the Fox talking points of Kenyan Socialist Fascist Muslim Radical Christian, blah blah blah….

Frosty has no memory of what it was like in January 2009 when the President Obama took office. Consecutive months of 700,000 job losses per month under Bush. 3 or 4 million jobs lost in a year. Negative GDP. Obama needed a year to turn that around and now we’ve had 2 years of consecutive monthly private sector job growth.

The horrors!

Regarding your 3 month old WSJ opinion piece and the 16 skeptics who signed it – it’s well refuted with actual data.

The 16 skeptics are the usual group: Happer, already discussed above as being funded by Heartland to deny on behalf of Exxon and the Kocks; de Claude Allègre, laughed at in his country http://bellaciao.org/fr/spip.php?article99206 ; six of them have never even published climate research: Armstrong Cohen David Happer Schmitt and Nichols – yet all six take Heartland or Exxon money. Two others on that list have also taken Exxon money. Someday we’ll find out how much the others are funded by big oil.

Hey Libs,

Did you notice how cool it was outside today. You should read this book:

Watermelons: How the Environmentalists are Killing the Planet, Destroying the Economy and Stealing Your Children’s Future.

Here is a book review synopsis by someone who did not have a liberal crapfastic epiphany:

The shocking story of how an unholy mix of junk science, green hype, corporate greed and political opportunism led to the biggest and most expensive outbreak of mass hysteria in history. Watermelons explains the Climategate scandal, the cast of characters involved, their motives and methods. He delves into the background of the organisations and individuals who have sought to push global warming to the top of the political agenda, showing that beneath their cloak of green lurks a heart of red. Watermelons shows how the scientific method has been sacrificed on the altar of climate alarmism. Delingpole mocks the green movement s record of apocalyptic predictions, reveals the fundamental misanthropy of green ideology, and gives a refreshing voice to widespread public skepticism over global warming, emphasising that the crisis has been engineered by people seeking to control our lives by imposing new taxes and regulations. Your taxes will be raised, your liberties curtailed and your money squandered to deal with this crisis, he writes. Delingpole argues that climate change is an ideological battle, not a scientific one. Green on the outside, red on the inside, the libertyloathing, humanity-hating watermelons of the modern environmental movement do not want to save the world. They want to rule it.

Libs, do not fret. There is only 27 days until May Day. You can all celibrate it. I understand theat the SEIU is trying to move the labor day holiday from the first Monday in September to May 1. Workers of the world unite!

fats = faCts

Baby its cold outside

Climate change forecasts have for years predicted that carbon dioxide would trap heat on Earth, and increases in the gas would lead to a planetwide rise in temperatures, with devastating consequences for the environment.

But long-term data from NASA satellites seems to contradict the predictions dramatically, according to a new study.

“There is a huge discrepancy between the data and the forecasts that is especially big over the oceans,” said Dr. Roy Spencer, a research scientist at the University of Alabama in Huntsville and U.S. science team leader for the Advanced Microwave Scanning Radiometer — basically a big thermometer flying on NASA’s Aqua satellite.

“The satellite observations suggest there is much more energy lost to space during and after warming than the climate models show,” he said. The planet isn’t heating up, in other words.

James Taylor, a senior fellow for environment policy at conservative think-tank The Heartland Institute, wrote at Forbes that the meaning of the new research is clear — and it compromises what he called a “central premise of alarmist global warming theory.”

“Real-world measurements … show far less heat is being trapped in the Earth’s atmosphere than the alarmist computer models predict, and far more heat is escaping into space than the alarmist computer models predict,” Taylor wrote.

Baby its cold outside.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=009kRJKf9rg

For a moment I thought Frosty might actually have a link that would support the claims he’s making. No such luck. His link takes you to YouTube video of Bing singing “Baby it’s cold outside”.
Wishful thinking on the part of Frosty, given the real data still show mean global temperature hovering around 0.8 degrees C above what it was less than 100 years ago. No sign of any cooling here. http://data.giss.nasa.gov/gistemp/graphs_v3/Fig.A2.gif
Frosty – aren’t you bothered that your claims don’t seem to have any facts behind them?

Dr. Ivar Giaever, Nobel prize winner for physics in 1973, resigned as a Fellow from the American Physical Society (APS) on September 13, 2011 in disgust over the group’s promotion of man-made global warming fears.

In addition to Dr. Giaever, other prominent scientists have resigned from APS over its stance on man-made global warming.

Dr. Giaever was featured prominently in the 2009 U.S. Senate Report of (then) Over 700 Dissenting International Scientists from Man-made global warming. Now more than 1,000 dissenting scientists from around the globe have now challenged man-made global warming claims made by the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) and former Vice President Al Gore.

The chorus of skeptical scientific voices grew louder in 2010 as the Climategate scandal — which involved the upper echelon of UN IPCC scientists — detonated upon on the international climate movement. “I view Climategate as science fraud, pure and simple,” said noted Princeton Physicist Dr. Robert Austin shortly after the scandal broke. Climategate prompted UN IPCC scientists to turn on each other.

The Earth’s temperature has changed from ~288.0 K to ~288.8 K in about 150 years, which means that the temperature has been amazingly stable, and both human health and happiness have definitely improved in this so called ‘warming’ period’.

Dear Mac Farm,

It seems as if some of your colleagues disagree with you with regard to AGW.

“We‟re not scientifically there yet. Despite what you may have heard in the media, there is nothing like a consensus of scientific opinion that this is a problem. Because there is natural variability in the weather, you cannot statistically know for another 150 years.” — UN IPCC‘s Tom Tripp, a member of the UN IPCC since 2004 and listed as one of the lead authors.

Sorry there has been no global warming since 1998 and man’s contribtion to what we previously had is a gnat on a Donkey’s ass.

Pointless –

You’re correct, no matter how many times the erroneous claims of deniers like Frosty are pointed out, they just paste another one they find from another website. No check or simple research, just a quick paste and they guffaw and hit ‘submit’.

And neverr bothers refuting the proof showing he was wrong, just pastes another baseless rant.

That’s playing exactly into the strategy that Exxon and big oil use in funding denier thinktanks like Heartland and the rest, knowing that the Frosty’s of the world are so committed, with their blinders on… then the marketing pukes at Exxon and Heartland have a REAL laugh at the expense of the Frosty’s of the world, doing their work for them.

Yes Frosty, the guys that paid for the noise you post are laughing at you, too. Unless you’re getting a paycheck from big oil or big coal, they’re laughing at you. All the way to the bank.

That’s what compels me to answer his baseless, unsubstantiated claims with a link or two exposing the absurdity of his position.

It’s not for him, he’s got his blinders on and will until he’s underwater, wondering what happened.

It’s for someone who may be inclined to believe his drivel and may not spend the time to google about facts.

whooaaaa…. ya mean Obama WASN’T born in Kenya?!?!?!!? Shall I google that?

😉

Geez, Frosty, ya didn’t even copy the quote correctly.

Who’s next, Mike Hulme?

You’re really grasping at straws. Also from your probable source of denier drivel…

“Contrarian scientists, fossil-fuel corporations, conservative think tanks and various front groups have assaulted mainstream climate science and scientists for over two decades. The blows have been struck by a well-funded, highly complex and relatively coordinated denial machine.”

From yesterday’s CS Monitor: http://www.csmonitor.com/Environment/2012/0405/Ice-age-study-delivers-blow-to-global-warming-skeptics

“Ice age study delivers blow to global-warming skeptics

A new study finds that rising levels of carbon dioxide drove rising temperatures at the end of the last ice age. The findings contrast with previous studies, which skeptics of human-triggered global warming said showed that CO2 levels weren’t an important factor. “

And a wonderful Passover and Good Friday to you, as well… not addressing the study released yesterday? http://www.csmonitor.com/Environment/2012/0405/Ice-age-study-delivers-blow-to-global-warming-skeptics

You post yet another denier, this one doubts the existence of black holes.

Odd that you copy a denier quote “Climate is beyond our power to control” and then you say you are going to effect AGW by “going to put another log in the fireplace and create some AGW”

<smiley face>

Spend more time on music selection – it’s clearly your best contribution to this thread.

“In essence, the jig is up. The whole thing is a fraud. And even the fraudsters that fudged data are admitting to temperature history that they used to say didn’t happen…Perhaps what has doomed the Climategate fraudsters the most was their brazenness in fudging the data” — Dr. Christopher J. Kobus, Associate Professor of Mechanical Engineering at Oakland University, specializes in alternative energy, thermal transport phenomena, two-phase flow and fluid and thermal energy systems and has published peer-reviewed papers.

Baby its cold outside

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SmWvR-kdnCo&feature=related

“has published peer-reviewed papers”

Great!

Mechanical Engineering???

Care to list any of his published peer-reviewed papers on CLIMATE?

Steve’s already addressed the alleged fraud, it’s been reduced now to just another rightie fantasy without facts.

“The energy mankind generates is so small compared to that overall energy budget that it simply cannot affect the climate…The planet‟s climate is doing its own thing, but we cannot pinpoint significant trends in changes to it because it dates back millions of years while the study of it began only recently. We are children of the Sun; we simply lack data to draw the proper conclusions.” — Russian Scientist Dr. Anatoly Levitin, the head of geomagnetic variations laboratory at the Institute of Terrestrial Magnetism, Ionosphere and Radiowave Propagation of the Russian Academy of Sciences who has published numerous peer-reviewed studies about the interaction of solar radiation with the Earth‘s magnetic field.

Baby its cold outside

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9frFggnz4P0&feature=fvsr

Frosty –
The first comment from your quote shows this “expert” doesn’t understand global warming: “The energy mankind generates is so small compared to that overall energy budget that it simply cannot affect the climate”.
No one’s arguing that it’s mankind’s input of energy that causes global warming – everyone knows that the energy that drives the climate system comes from the Sun. It’s the production of excess greenhouse gasses that increasingly traps this energy within the atmosphere that is causing the temperature rise that we call global warming.
Like most of the experts you quote, this guy isn’t addressing the problem.

All you “Chicken Littles” take notice. Yesterday, April 24 Somerset County, PA had a record 14 inches of snow. The record for this date. Yet the Global Warming hysteria continues unabated. This is much like the hysteria that took place in 1692 that led to the Salem Witch trials. Liberals, get a grip! The sky is not falling and the Sun is responsible for all but an insignificant amount of global warming

Check out this web link

http://www.mnn.com/earth-matters/climate-weather/stories/late-snowstorm-sucker-punches-northeast

Baby its cold outside

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4klyIX4RIWA

“Hundreds of billion dollars have been wasted with the attempt of imposing a Anthropogenic Global Warming (“AGW”) theory that is not supported by physical world evidences…AGW has been forcefully imposed by means of a barrage of scare stories and indoctrination that begins in the elementary school textbooks.” — Brazilian Geologist Geraldo Luís Lino.

For more please click on this link

http://www.climatechangedispatch.com/climate-reports/8118-climate-change-the-keywords-part-2-of-3

Baby its cold outside

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pjYUzpdKMZs

The earth’s climate has constantly gone through periods of warming
and cooling. Scientists have extracted ice core samples from Antarctica dating back 650,000 years. Using these samples, they have been able to estimate temperatures in the past. The recent warming trend is not outside the range of natural variability. The latest scientific data, in fact, suggests that we may be entering a period of global cooling.

CO2 is likely not the major cause of global warming. The same Antarctic ice core shows a relationship between CO2 levels and temperature that’s the opposite of what environmentalists would expect: temperature changes precede increases in CO2 by 100 to 1000 years. Even if carbon dioxide was the cause, there isn’t much we could do about it. Man made CO2 accounts for a very small percentage of atmospheric CO2. There is a much stronger correlation between solar output and global temperatures. Solar output is influenced by radiant heat energy and solar winds, both of which appear to have natural cycles.

There is not a scientific consensus that man is the primary cause of
global warming. A group of scientists and researchers recently gathered in New York to sign a declaration stating that there is no convincing evidence to suggest that CO2 emissions from modern industrial activity cause climate change and called upon world leaders to abandon all efforts to reduce emissions. Over 31,000 scientists have signed a petition stating that there is no convincing scientific evidence that human release of greenhouse gases activity is causing global warming. And John Coleman, founder of the Weather Channel, calls global warming the “greatest scam in history”.

Proposed global warming “solutions” will not make a difference and will have tremendous costs, especially on the poor. There is no scientific proof that proposed global warming “solutions” will have any impact upon the climate. These proposed “solutions” rely upon extremely intrusive government controls designed to reduce our energy consumption, thereby significantly increasing the cost of energy and the price of nearly all goods and services produced within our economy, as businesses pass these costs onto consumers. The poor would be the hardest hit by increases in gas, utilities, food and other essentials.

History shows that periods of warming have been healthier for mankind.
Global warming alarmists warn of cataclysmic changes including dramatic sea level increases, fierce storms and devastating drought. But history shows a different story. During the Medieval warm period which was warmer than today, there were record harvests, few major storms, and a thriving of the human population. Many of the pre-dictions of the alarmists have been shown to be false.

Baby its cold outside.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=crFQpOCDfEc

Frosty –
You wrote: “There is not a scientific consensus that man is the primary cause of global warming.”
That statement is demonstrably false. To quote from Wikipedia on this subject:
“Scientific opinion on climate change is that the Earth’s climate system is unequivocally warming and it is more than 90% certain that humans are causing it through activities that increase concentrations of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere, such as deforestation and burning fossil fuels. . .
National and international science academies and scientific societies have assessed the current scientific opinion, in particular on recent global warming. These assessments have largely followed or endorsed the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) position of January 2001 which states:

An increasing body of observations gives a collective picture of a warming world and other changes in the climate system… There is new and stronger evidence that most of the warming observed over the last 50 years is attributable to human activities.”