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Post by boxman on Jan 10, 2010 15:00:01 GMT
Here in Norway we had a story about some elderly lady who had to sleep in front of here open running stove for days. Was apparently impossible to get the inside apartment temp to more than 9c even with electric heaters running at full. pub.tv2.no/multimedia/na/archive/00748/Torborg_Agn_s_To_74800216x9.jpgI bet she will also get a nice electricity bill.. Does not help that electricity prices in large parts of the country is currently 10 times higher than normal, thanks to overloaded grid network and high import prices. Norway is a rich country. What has happened to your generation capacity? And when you refer to the grid....isn't it maintained? We must be a strange lot in ND. The cities are served by private utilities, the rural served by co-ops. The private utilities AND the co-ops by elec from a co-op that they have formed. So in essense, our elec generation is owned by the consumer and ran as such. It has worked well for us, and our rates are in line or lower than the rest of the nation. The storm in Europe has been a learning one for me with the comments etc on this board. Thank you. We kinda are rich if you count our oil money yes. The problem is that we have had socialist government here that refuse to use any of the oil money. The problem with the grid is that it has not been upgraded for ages and is now incapable of transporting the needed electricity from southern to middle/northern parts of country. It is the same with schools, health care, elderly homes, road infrastructure and so on as well. Our road infrastructure is for example now worst in all of Europe even though we also pay the worlds highest road taxes, highest car taxes and have most road toll stations in Europe. Norway is more like a development country when it comes to infrastructure these days.
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Post by steve on Jan 10, 2010 16:01:51 GMT
Pensioners in the UK get 250-400 pound winter payment every year plus 25 pounds per week during particularly cold weeks. There is quite a strong pension lobby who are good at getting stories like this into the press.
Councils can't afford to maintain the equipment that is hardly ever used these days to clear pavements. That's mainly due to the continuous drive to cut costs. It's always easy to cut costs for things that are infrequently used. We also have a bizarre situation in the UK where it is commonly believed that clearing pavements (sidewalks) of snow will leave you open to be sued if someone slips over on the bit of pavement you cleared. So noone ever clears pavements these days.
At least in the UK and Europe if anyone falls over on the ice, they will get free medical treatment.
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Post by sigurdur on Jan 10, 2010 16:09:43 GMT
Pensioners in the UK get 250-400 pound winter payment every year plus 25 pounds per week during particularly cold weeks. There is quite a strong pension lobby who are good at getting stories like this into the press. Councils can't afford to maintain the equipment that is hardly ever used these days to clear pavements. That's mainly due to the continuous drive to cut costs. It's always easy to cut costs for things that are infrequently used. We also have a bizarre situation in the UK where it is commonly believed that clearing pavements (sidewalks) of snow will leave you open to be sued if someone slips over on the bit of pavement you cleared. So noone ever clears pavements these days. At least in the UK and Europe if anyone falls over on the ice, they will get free medical treatment. They get medical treatment here as well, but with clean sidewalks and roadways. I will have to say tho, if medical treatment is free, there have to be some really dedicated people there. I have not heard of free medical treatment anywhere in the world, but then, maybe I don't read the correct papers.
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Post by poitsplace on Jan 10, 2010 17:19:03 GMT
Steve, do you notice the sliding scale here though? Everyone in the AGW camp claims horrible physical and financial stress from warming...but the figures completely ignore the fact that cold is far, far worse. At worst, cold and warming are equal...and will simply cause winter physical/financial costs to drop and summer physical/financial costs to rise.
Of course then there's the other thing you probably aren't noticing. Can you honestly say you have given real consideration to the idea that the wind/air currents just might be responsible for the bulk of the warming of the 20th century? If these became the dominant ocean/air current patterns there would be a massive increase in (snow) albedo feedback. We KNOW these currents play a role in climate. We KNOW that they've played at least some role in recent changes. What if it stays more or less like this for 20-30 years? It did last time!
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Post by stranger on Jan 11, 2010 1:39:50 GMT
Steve, that "free" medical treatment is far from free - and the wait for health care is among the longest in the world. One need only consider the fact the UK's NHS is Europe's largest employer, and only lags India's railroads and China's People's Army in the number of employees to realize just how bloated and expensive that bureaucracy is. Of course, the bureaucracy grows every day, while the percentage of the NHS appropriation given to health care shrinks correspondingly. Have a link: www.telegraph.co.uk/health/healthnews/6890335/Spending-on-NHS-bureaucracy-up-50-per-cent.htmlStranger
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Post by scpg02 on Jan 11, 2010 2:07:16 GMT
The US is trying real hard to catch up though.
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Post by steve on Jan 11, 2010 8:56:42 GMT
Steve, do you notice the sliding scale here though? Everyone in the AGW camp claims horrible physical and financial stress from warming...but the figures completely ignore the fact that cold is far, far worse. At worst, cold and warming are equal...and will simply cause winter physical/financial costs to drop and summer physical/financial costs to rise. That's a Northern Hemisphere, western economy outlook. Most of us in these economies can survive cold quite happily. I'm more concerned about changing rain patterns in Africa and India, possible drying of the Amazon and likely sea level rise within the next 200 years. The speed of the change is also an issue. I don't think that the wind/air currents have changed in a way that would have brought warming. I suppose it is not impossible that currents could change so as to bring cooling. But I'm not betting on the arrival of a such a fortunate cold spell to save us from the CO2-induced warming.
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Post by steve on Jan 11, 2010 9:09:49 GMT
Steve, that "free" medical treatment is far from free - and the wait for health care is among the longest in the world. One need only consider the fact the UK's NHS is Europe's largest employer, and only lags India's railroads and China's People's Army in the number of employees to realize just how bloated and expensive that bureaucracy is. Of course, the bureaucracy grows every day, while the percentage of the NHS appropriation given to health care shrinks correspondingly. Have a link: www.telegraph.co.uk/health/healthnews/6890335/Spending-on-NHS-bureaucracy-up-50-per-cent.htmlStranger Well, you have to remember that the Telegraph newspaper is strongly marketed towards people who can afford private healthcare and would like not to pay their taxes towards the NHS. As it happens, it turns out that US medical care costs about twice the proportion of GDP as UK healthcare, but doesn't manage to cover everyone. That might just be because the US lawyers are ahead of UK lawyers in the game of suing doctors, though...we seem to be catching up here...
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Post by poitsplace on Jan 11, 2010 12:16:18 GMT
At worst, cold and warming are equal...and will simply cause winter physical/financial costs to drop and summer physical/financial costs to rise. That's a Northern Hemisphere, western economy outlook. Most of us in these economies can survive cold quite happily. I'm more concerned about changing rain patterns in Africa and India, possible drying of the Amazon and likely sea level rise within the next 200 years. The speed of the change is also an issue. Again, the computer models are virtually useless. How do you not get it...if the models have no mid-range predictive capabilities the models are entirely ambiguous. Honestly, is there ANY difference between...(standard weather model)+(standard CO2+assumed feedback model) or (standard weather model + standard CO2+assumed feedback model) or (plain old random weather/climate)+(standard CO2+assumed feedback models) Let's be honest here, you can't even tell if this is just (plain old random weather/climate). You're claiming such obviously inadequate modeling capability could somehow be stitched together with a series of variables that are not known to within +/-50% to as bad as +/-120% (some involve sign changes) and used to predict 100 years into the future. If this is your claim, you clearly haven't the faintest idea of what you're talking about. You obviously don't think about this subject at all. You've been "thinking" like a religious zealot...essentially you just rationalize everything to fit into your totally unfounded beliefs. Apparently you've NEVER stopped to think... "Wait a minute...they have no clue what caused ANY of these other fluctuations during the holocene, what if CO2 does almost nothing and this is a normal warming period that started in the late 1700's?" You never thought... "If models can't predict for a week, the climate system isn't well understood and the climate variables (that we THINK we know) aren't known with remote certainty...how could anyone POSSIBLY claim to have the slightest capability to predict?" You've been spoon fed crap and you're thanking them for it. Take the spoon out of your mouth and take a moment to really look at the crap they're feeding you! The ONLY thing you have as evidence is CO2 absorption that says CO2 MIGHT cause some entirely unknown amount of additional warming. And of course (in keeping with the subject) you've been fed yet another whopper...that warmer is somehow more damaging for humanity, even in places that are cold limited (like the UK). Cold is terrible. The cold of the cold period slowed the economy. It lowered food production world-wide. Cold can kills faster than heat and requires more support to survive at all. COLD increases the incidence of disease. MOST people can survive through heat just fine...nobody can survive cold without special clothing and/or a heat source.
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Post by steve on Jan 11, 2010 13:08:11 GMT
That's a Northern Hemisphere, western economy outlook. Most of us in these economies can survive cold quite happily. I'm more concerned about changing rain patterns in Africa and India, possible drying of the Amazon and likely sea level rise within the next 200 years. The speed of the change is also an issue. Again, the computer models are virtually useless. How do you not get it...if the models have no mid-range predictive capabilities the models are entirely ambiguous. Honestly, is there ANY difference between...(standard weather model)+(standard CO2+assumed feedback model) or (standard weather model + standard CO2+assumed feedback model) or (plain old random weather/climate)+(standard CO2+assumed feedback models) Let's be honest here, you can't even tell if this is just (plain old random weather/climate). You're claiming such obviously inadequate modeling capability could somehow be stitched together with a series of variables that are not known to within +/-50% to as bad as +/-120% (some involve sign changes) and used to predict 100 years into the future. If this is your claim, you clearly haven't the faintest idea of what you're talking about. Can you drop the "How do you not get it...religious zealot" stuff, please until you can demonstrate that you have an adequate grasp of the arguments being made. The modelling capability is obviously not "inadequate", it is ludicrous to suggest that weather must be the cause of the warming when a likely cause of the warming is staring you in the face, and you appear to be unaware that much of the information about the sensitivity of the climate comes from real data not from model data. "The climate is not sensitive to forcing, but the weather varies enough to show 0.7C warming in a century" does not scan. They do have a clue. Arguing " what if CO2 does almost nothing" is a bit silly. What if there is no "recovery from a little ice age caused by a mysterious unknown phenomenon." Let me see. Should I assume that it's all natural and caused by mysterious changes or should I assume it's related to something for which we can calculate has a real effect? You've been spoon fed nonsense if you still believe the "we can't do short term weather predictions, so how can we do long term predictions argument". You can't do short term predictions of when your feet will get wet when standing on a beach. But you can do a long term prediction on when you'll drown if you don't move. I think your statement that "MOST people can survive through heat just fine...nobody can survive cold without special clothing and/or a heat source." is about the most horrendously simple-minded statement I've read on this forum. For example: Science 9 January 2009: Vol. 323. no. 5911, pp. 240 - 244 DOI: 10.1126/science.1164363 Historical Warnings of Future Food Insecurity with Unprecedented Seasonal Heat David. S. Battisti1 and Rosamond L. Naylor2 No doubt all we have to learn to do is to cultivate palms and plantains?
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Post by hunter on Jan 11, 2010 13:34:09 GMT
Yes, the dangers of warming are reflected in the numbers of people moving from the south to the north to escape the terrible summers. Steve, Your list of bold assertions are entertaining, in the same way watching a drunk stagger down the street is entertaining. Please, however, get some more original shtick. The AGW true believer pose of moral superiority is long past old. Also, the idea that you can quote weather notices, while telling skeptics they cannot, is infantile for your side.
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Post by steve on Jan 11, 2010 13:57:05 GMT
Is that South London to North London? What do the movements of a few better off people say about global crop productivity? Perhaps if Tesco's home delivery were extended to Ethiopia, famine there would be history?
I find your postings about how agw is a product of marketing, politics and the media dull and unoriginal. If you'd demonstrated you understood what I said then I'd accept criticism, but I have of course never told people not to quote weather notices. However, there is a difference between claiming that weather is proof of climate and claiming that an impact of weather is proof of a potential impact of changed climate. Are you bright enough to differentiate the two?
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Post by nautonnier on Jan 11, 2010 15:29:37 GMT
Let's try to put this back onto an even keel - although that is difficult considering the emotive thread title. I have posted this in another thread: Millennium-Scale Sunspot Number Reconstruction: Evidence for an Unusually Active Sun since the 1940s The extension of the sunspot number series backward in time is of considerable interest for dynamo theory, solar, stellar, and climate research. We have used records of the 10Be concentration in polar ice to reconstruct the average sunspot activity level for the period between the year 850 to the present. Our method uses physical models for processes connecting the 10Be concentration with the sunspot number. The reconstruction shows reliably that the period of high solar activity during the last 60 years is unique throughout the past 1150 years. This nearly triples the time interval for which such a statement could be made previously.prl.aps.org/abstract/PRL/v91/i21/e211101If true then perhaps there is another reason that the Earth warmed other than 'it must be CO 2' - especially if Svensmark is right. We are now unarguably in a period of low solar activity and Livingston and Penn's forecasts still seem to be being borne out even with the latest crop of sunspots that may be peak Cycle 24 for all we know. It might be an idea to observe what actually happens and recheck hypotheses based on those observations. Also an article that seems to have been adjusted ... NASA News Archive December 6, 2001 THE SUN'S CHILLY IMPACT ON EARTH "Unusually low solar activity between 1645-1715 likely triggered the 'Little Ice Age' in regions like Europe and North America. A lag time of arguably 10-30 years allowed for the climate system to be affected by an increased ozone layer that altered the heating of the oceans. According to the model, diminished jet stream winds caused by a dimmer sun created cold land temperatures by reducing the transport of warm Pacific air to America and warm Atlantic air to Europe. During this shift, winter temperatures cooled as much as 2 to 4 degrees F - enough to freeze rivers and alter agriculture, economy, disease, etc. Pictured is the climate model used by researchers to watch temperature anomalies. As such, 1780 was used as an arbitrary baseline; the ice age period, then, is colder/bluer and 1780 is white or neutral. Redder colors in more modern times reflect warmer temperatures.
The few degrees' difference was catastrophic regionally. Greenland was largely cut off by ice from 1410 to the 1720s and canals in Holland routinely froze solid. Glaciers advanced in the Alps, and iced waterways effectively sealed off Iceland in 1695. In North America, Native Americans formed leagues in response to food shortages. Rivers in Europe that were typically ice-free, froze over and inspired 'Frost Fairs' as well as activities like skating and even golf as seen in both works of art. "One wonders why this appears to have been excised from the NASA Archives. I wonder if they were burning books then?
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Post by poitsplace on Jan 11, 2010 15:41:09 GMT
That you claim prophetic knowledge is all that is necessary to apply the zealot label...sorry, it fits. You have no clue what caused any of the other fluctuations in the holocene yet you use your AGW faith to tell you that most of the recent fluctuations were caused by man. We know the conditions favored warming and that the last warming period was just as pronounced...yet you use your AGW faith to justify the assertion that most of the warming was caused by CO2 and feedbacks driven by CO2.
Until you can explain the others fluctuations...you can't claim to know what's causing this one (especially since it started about 150 years ago when there was essentially no increase in CO2)
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Post by steve on Jan 11, 2010 16:23:09 GMT
That you claim prophetic knowledge is all that is necessary to apply the zealot label...sorry, it fits. You have no clue what caused any of the other fluctuations in the holocene yet you use your AGW faith to tell you that most of the recent fluctuations were caused by man. We know the conditions favored warming and that the last warming period was just as pronounced...yet you use your AGW faith to justify the assertion that most of the warming was caused by CO2 and feedbacks driven by CO2. Until you can explain the others fluctuations...you can't claim to know what's causing this one (especially since it started about 150 years ago when there was essentially no increase in CO2) I say that our knowledge of Holocene climate is uncertain, and while we can make reasonable speculations of causes of climate change (such as effect of Milankovitch wobbles, volcanic activity and solar variation) based on proxies and our knowledge of physics, we are unlikely ever to know for sure with a lot of confidence. You say we know the climate of other periods of the Holocene was warmer (based on a few Northern Hemisphere based anecdotes and highly dubious meta-analyses of "proxies"?) and since the causes aren't known they are "mysterious". Therefore "mysterious" things must be the cause of current warming. Are you getting my drift?
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