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Post by slh1234 on May 4, 2009 2:01:02 GMT
However, "the love of money is the root of all evil". Your comparison of Gates and Soros is a great illustration. If money is the root of all evil, what is the root of money? Mike I think that was why the emphasis was added to the word love. That passage is often misquoted to leave out the word "love." And, as I understand, it is not really "all" in the sense that all evil is caused by money, but rather, the passage might be more accurately translated as "The love of money is the root of all kinds of evil."
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Post by slh1234 on May 3, 2009 15:58:11 GMT
It's ironic that those quotations (at least the first two) contain a tad of fearmongering in themselves. Even more ironic that this is probably why these quotations have survived the passage of time. Fearmongering is a way of attention seeking. People will pay more attention to an announcement that promises to affect them negatively. That's why scary headlines sell. The media market is geared up to consumer demand. When the pig-flu thing broke, it was of course a race for every media channel trying to provide the most scary headline. There's also a large number of people that enjoy being scared and another large number who enjoy scaring people. Why do people watch horror and disaster movies? There's no logical entertainment value in watching very bad things happening. I can only think that some people want to experience heightened emotional stress beyond the relatively dull everyday. Perhaps this is also similar to the motivation to participate in extreme sports. So there are people who seek to be scared, people who like to scare others and of the remaining a lot of people who will nevertheless pay attention to anything that could affect them negatively. So basically there's no need to invoke political conspiracy theories of governing overlords to explain the prevalance of fearmongering. Something that is taught in sales is that fear of loss is a greater motivator than opportunity to gain. People can put off an opportunity to gain, but fear motivates for immediate action. (of course, what is not taught is that fear only motivates short term.) So basically, there is every reason to think that politicians will invoke fear to gain what they want. It's not a conspiracy theory. It makes perfect sense, and fits the pattern we see continuously. Politicians (mostly lawyers in the US) are very well aware of how strong of a motivation fear is.
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Post by slh1234 on May 3, 2009 15:53:46 GMT
Really, I'd like to hear your comparison here, and your take on their motives.
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Post by slh1234 on Apr 22, 2009 19:32:01 GMT
So in other words there are many other natural climate drivers that can overwhelm AGW? I don't think anyone disputes that -- a massive volcanic eruption would do very nicely. HOWEVER, we can't count on a constant string of volcanic eruptions, never ending solar minima, upwelling of cold ocean water for centuries to come, etc, etc, to bail us out. So long as CO2 levels keep rising, the amount of warming that will occur when all those extraordinary events stop is going to increase. See this article of mine -- furrycatherder.livejournal.com/66935.html -- for a longer explanation. I think that showed your political views clearly enough that your opinions here now make more sense. But just a question, in your article, do you see the parts that are really just your opinion? or the assertions that you make just because that's what you think? Is disagreement with that what makes someone "maladaptive?"
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Post by slh1234 on Mar 15, 2009 22:17:50 GMT
Please keep that in mind whenever you hear someone on this site complain about cold weather, snow or a frozen lake near where they live. In a warming environment, there will still be winter, especially if the warming trend is 0.2 degrees C per decade, which is what it has been for the past few decades. For climate, you want to check a 25 to 30 year trend. When someone tells you that the last seven, ten or 12 years have been cooling, call BS on them and explain the difference between climate and weather! There are as many different definitions of climate on this site as there are people wanting to see something different occurring in the climate. For you, there is a number of 25-30 years for it to be considered climate, but that number is entirely arbitrary. If you held your position, but warming had occurred only the last 10 years, would you have the same definition? (I know everyone would say "yes," and actually believe it whether it is true or not. I'm also sure they could come up with equally sure reasons why they would, and what they have managed to filter from their past to convince themselves that they would.) But there have also been 20-30 year reversals in much larger trends in the past. That seems to get mentioned by some when looking at the cooling from the 40's into the 70's only when convenient to say that cooling can happen in the midst of warming. But never does there seem to be room in that reasoning for the possibility of warming in the midst of a cooling trend. Man was blamed for the cooling. Now man is blamed for the warming. Man was blamed for changes in the environment for at least as long as there has been print to record it. The constant in all of this is the propensity of people to blame (other) people for any changes they see, combined with the fear of change to magnify the claims into a prophecy of impending doom because of said change.
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Post by slh1234 on Mar 15, 2009 21:53:51 GMT
My thoughts EXACTLY. Your faith is shattered, and you have no response - there is none, as the truth is entirely clear to those who understand real physics. I'm sorry, but the paper you touted is absolute crap. CO 2 related greenhouse warming happens for a very simple and very thoroughly proven reason -- CO 2 absorbs long wave radiation. There's nothing you can do about it, including stomp your feet or bury your head in the sand. Unfortunately, what I've seen you contribute to discussion here can be summed up as "That's not what I want to believe, so it's absolute crap." That's not just one post, it seems to be your style. I think that is unfortunate as you seem intelligent, and I'm sure there is something you could add to the discussions you participate in.
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Post by slh1234 on Mar 13, 2009 2:37:15 GMT
CO2 causes arthritis & wrinklesWell, it has for me - 50 years ago, when CO2 was much lower, I had neither. But as CO2 has increased, so have the wrinkles & arthritis. That's all the proof I need! And if anyone needs corroborating evidence, have a look at me .
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Post by slh1234 on Mar 13, 2009 2:24:09 GMT
Having grown up in Milwaukee (toward the south end of Lake Michigan), I'm struck by how little ice there is on the lake in the middle of March. I remember when we had deep show and ice along the lake well into April during most winters in the 1970s. Ice storms in April (and even May) weren't unusual. It shows how much warming there's been in the past three decades. When a winter doesn't even get as severe as the ones we were used to and people complain about how cold it is, they've really become used to the milder winters we've had over the past few decades. That has to be absolutely the weakest meter I've ever heard of. People always complain about the cold. It has more to do with the warmth of the summers that come between the winters than the warmth of winter as compared to winters past. Surely that is not an argument put forward to support any hypothesis of warming or cooling. What I'm much more interested in is how this winter's cool/warm compares with other years, and what the trends are currently. Personal observations have a place in evaluating those things, but the person's leanings, and what they want to see have to be evaluated when considering such anecdotal evidence.
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Post by slh1234 on Mar 6, 2009 6:11:26 GMT
Wylie, I don't have exact figures on any of this, but I think there may be more to reforestation than just what is done in places like Massachussetts. Mainly, because there are many more types of biomes in the US than just forest.
As an example, the 1930's brought the dust bowl to Oklahoma because of severe drought and farming in an area that really was just grasslands and plains. After that time, I now read that the agressive capture of water in ponds and lakes in that area has transformed it into "green Country" at least for the Northeastern part of that state. A lot of area that was formerly grassland is now forested with hardwoods.
In another area, the Central Valley of California is basically a desert. But with irrigation, it has been transformed into one of the highest yielding farming regions in the US. If you drive along I-5, you can see that much of that farmland is citrus groves or almond groves. That doesn't exactly fit the definition of forest that we usually think of, but the bottom line is that an area that was formerly desert is now covered in trees. As I understand, almond trees slow their bearing after a few years, so the almond farmers pull the old trees out and re-plant periodically. You can see groves that have been pulled up occasionally. So it would seem the almond groves stay pretty young.
I've heard, as the original poster said, that the US is now more heavily forested than it was when white men first arrived here. I don't know how that can be known empirically, but conversions like what has happened in Eastern Oklahoma make that at least seem possible. But I have no idea what the net effect is.
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Post by slh1234 on Mar 5, 2009 23:42:00 GMT
He has the freedom of speech to throw out nonsense claims. Everyone else has the freedom of speech to complain. So how many of you have written a letter defending George Wills? The Greenshirts are ganging up on him, as they do to anyone who opposes their pseudo-science driven Socialist agenda. Their stridency and vituperation reveal their desire to silence all opposition. You're determined to raise webster.com's hit count, aren't you They just got an extra hit from me after reading that post
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Post by slh1234 on Jan 17, 2009 3:56:22 GMT
SLH1234: "My assessment is not doom and gloom - that is the AGW position. My statement was an honest assessment of what I see. Now if I use your tone, I can respond and say "You can blow sunshine all you want, but that isn't going to change the situation." " Sunshine spreading as a policy, in my experience is a hell of a lot more effective than doom and gloom spreading. There is an outcome grid here: Possibilities: 1) Your reps won't listen. 2) They will listen. A) You don't write. B) You do write. Outcomes: 1A) Nil 1B) Nil 2A) Nil 2B) Positive The only strategy with any chance of positive outcome is B, writing. There are no negative outcomes, other than the tiny effort required to write. You've already expended far more effort on your posts than would be needed to fill out the form and send a short message to all your congressmen. Why is this? Could it be that you are really trying to convince everybody else here not to write? I think you missed what I was doing. Politics involves a lot of charicaturizations, and distortions. Your assessment of me as "doom and gloom" was a distortion. My retort that you were blowing sunshine was an intentional distortion on my part to try to make the point ... I don't think it worked. Pidgey is right in that it takes a grass roots movement. My assessment is that right now, we are so far from having a grass roots movement in places like California that it seems overwhelming. The elected reps are a lot of things, but one thing they are not is naieve. They poll constantly and know what their constituency thinks, and that is how they know what public face to put on. Barbara Boxer responded to me like she did because she doesn't dare go on record agreeing with me. She doesn't dare sign her name on a letter where she agrees with our position, or promises any compromise with us. She doesn't dare because her base is overwhelmingly on the other side of the fence on this issue, and she knows it. Yes, we can write (and as I said, I have - JIC you missed that), but unless a change is made in the attitude of the voter base in California, it would be political suicide for her to agree with us either publicly, or in voting. That's not doom and gloom, that's a political reality.
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Post by slh1234 on Jan 16, 2009 15:30:39 GMT
But how badly has the non-alarmist been outdone by the ones who have been swaying the general populace? Last Friday, we had a team meeting (which doesn't happen often for us field types). For our activity, we took a trip to the newly reopened California Academy of Sciences in Golden Gate Park in San Francisco (This is a fantastic museum, btw. I highly recommend it to anyone who comes to San Francisco - especially if you bring your kids). One section of the museum is dedicated to Global Warming. As you might guess, it is heavily weighted toward global warming alarmism and activism (What in San Francisco doesn't advocate activism?). Walking through there, it really hit me. It's not science that is presented there. It really is a moral imperative they are pushing. And people have totally bought in. I understand what people are saying about it becoming a religion. In that exhibit, they have presented one side of a scientic argument in such a way that they have made it a moral imperative that people take action on every front from what car they buy to who they elect to office. I don't think that sort of momentum is something a few letters to congress is going to reverse. There are exhibits like this that indoctrinate visitors every day, and the people there are completely bought in. To reverse the political momentum, you will have to swing that populace visiting places like the California Academy of Sciences ... when the momentum with the populace is reversed, then the politicians will pay attention. But that is no small undertaking. IMO, it will take years of imperitive evidence to the contrary to reverse that momentum. It's not with the congressmen, it's with the populace. And those who have bought in outnumber the non-alarmists by enough that letters to congress are not enough. I've made it plain in many of my posts how much I hate politics and especially alarmism that is pushed by politics. But my honest assessment is that this momentum is not something that will be reversed in the years I have left on this earth. I do hope my kids live to see more level heads on this matter, though. If you assume that nothing will happen, and do nothing, then nothing will happen! Write the frogging letter, don't just sit here spewing gloom and doom. Or do you have a better idea? If so, let's hear it. I have written in the past, even referencing things like the oregon petition. Senator Boxer's letter sounded like a form letter. She'll let me know if the senate decides to consider legislature like this (What the &$%*( is she talking about? They're ALWAYS considering legislature on this matter ... ). My assessment is not doom and gloom - that is the AGW position. My statement was an honest assessment of what I see. Now if I use your tone, I can respond and say "You can blow sunshine all you want, but that isn't going to change the situation."
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Post by slh1234 on Jan 15, 2009 7:25:15 GMT
But how badly has the non-alarmist been outdone by the ones who have been swaying the general populace?
Last Friday, we had a team meeting (which doesn't happen often for us field types). For our activity, we took a trip to the newly reopened California Academy of Sciences in Golden Gate Park in San Francisco (This is a fantastic museum, btw. I highly recommend it to anyone who comes to San Francisco - especially if you bring your kids).
One section of the museum is dedicated to Global Warming. As you might guess, it is heavily weighted toward global warming alarmism and activism (What in San Francisco doesn't advocate activism?).
Walking through there, it really hit me. It's not science that is presented there. It really is a moral imperative they are pushing. And people have totally bought in. I understand what people are saying about it becoming a religion. In that exhibit, they have presented one side of a scientic argument in such a way that they have made it a moral imperative that people take action on every front from what car they buy to who they elect to office.
I don't think that sort of momentum is something a few letters to congress is going to reverse. There are exhibits like this that indoctrinate visitors every day, and the people there are completely bought in. To reverse the political momentum, you will have to swing that populace visiting places like the California Academy of Sciences ... when the momentum with the populace is reversed, then the politicians will pay attention. But that is no small undertaking.
IMO, it will take years of imperitive evidence to the contrary to reverse that momentum. It's not with the congressmen, it's with the populace. And those who have bought in outnumber the non-alarmists by enough that letters to congress are not enough.
I've made it plain in many of my posts how much I hate politics and especially alarmism that is pushed by politics. But my honest assessment is that this momentum is not something that will be reversed in the years I have left on this earth. I do hope my kids live to see more level heads on this matter, though.
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Post by slh1234 on Dec 30, 2008 19:44:14 GMT
Here is a periodigram based on the raw unfiltered monthly Hadcrut anomalies from 1850 to 2008. The 60 year cycle is quite apparent. And how much of that 60 year periodicity is due to periodic climactically significant volcanism in the past 150 years? The low in the cycle around 1910 is near Krakatau (1883) and Santa Maria (1902), while the low in cycle around 1970 is near Agung (1963), El Chichon (1982) and Pinatubo (1991). For 1910, you have cited 2 events prior to 1910 - one of them 27 years prior. For 1970, you have one event 7 years prior and 2 AFTER 1970 - one of them 21 years after 1970. How are you relating El Chicon and Pinatubo to anything in 1970?
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Post by slh1234 on Dec 19, 2008 2:34:32 GMT
That is interesting Woodstove. Most of my neighbors have been here less than 10 years (most of them have been in the US less than 10 years), so it is difficult for me to find people here with any historical perspective at all. I'm not sure how many ranches are left up there. There are names that indicate that they used to be ranches, but many of them are preserves now with lots of hiking trails. I like the trails, but normally don't go up there if it is too chilly - maybe I'm getting a bit wimpy as I'm getting older . Since the Santa Cruz mountains are heavily treed, I can see that it may get much more snow than we can see ... plus we can only see peaks about 3 ridge lines into the mountains from where we live. We have planned to go up to South Lake Tahoe next month to try to take in some winter fun. But I'm sure my son will like to know that he can sled a lot closer to home.
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