WASHINGTON (AFP) – The US Supreme Court ruled Monday that the Environmental Protection Agency must consider greenhouse gases as pollutants, in a blow to the White House.
“Because greenhouse gases fit well within the Clean Air Act’s capacious definition of ‘air pollutant’ we hold that EPA has the statutory authority to regulate the emission of such gases from new motor vehicles,” the court ruled.
Led by Massachusetts, a dozen states along with several US cities and environmental groups went to the courts to determine whether the agency had the authority to regulate greenhouse gases such as carbon dioxide emissions.
Don’t mess with Mass.! Big, big tip of the hat to ex-AG Tom Reilly and his assistants, who argued the case. In particular, Assistant AG James Milkey was tough enough to endure tough questioning from the Court. They all deserve our thanks.
It’s what people are going to point to when talking about global warming. The Bush administration has long argued that carbon dioxide is not a pollutant under the Clean Air Act, so the EPA has no authority to regulate those emissions. Yeaaah , riiight. Anthony Kennedy jumped and didn’t vote with the usual crew; Roberts, Alito, Scalia and Thomas.
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It’s Tom Reilly’s work, but Martha weighed in today:
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SCOTUSBlog has a good writeup.
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Now we just need an executive who won’t staff EPA with industry hacks.
On behalf of my two kids who will have to grow up with the global mess created by climate disruption- Hooray! Thankfully we didn’t have to wait until the entire Antartic ice sheet collapsed before someone forced the federal government to take some responsibility.
a post all of its own but how much good news can we take?? (try me…) More great environmental news from the Scotus today and although it’s a little harder to explain, trust me, it’s also a doosie:
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The second decision, also in an environmental case, upheld EPA’s view that changes in power plants that may contribute to air pollution must be done only with a permit if there is an annual increase in emissions. The Court rejected the Fourth Circuit Court’s view that the permit requirement applied only if there is an hourly increase in emissions. The case was Environmental Defense Fund v. Duke Energy Corp. (05-848). The decision was written by Justice Souter. The vote was unanimous, although Justice Clarence Thomas filed a separate concurring opinion.
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Thanks for posting this, Charley.
isn’t there an annual increase too?
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Perhaps the 4th circuit court required a permit if there is an increase in every hour, not just one of ’em?
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Methinks there is more explaining to do on this one. Any ideas lori?
deeply wonky NSR discussion where if a certain amount of modifications were done by a grandfathered power plant, they would lose their grandfather status and need to comply with the more stringent requirements of Clean Air Act for post-70’s power plants. What is considered a modification is more the issue, not the permit. This is wildly oversimplified but all true, I believe. Not that I’ve really answered your question stomv, but I think the point your raising is a loophole through which Duke tried to jump and SCOTUS sent them back through the other way.
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If you want to get your brain all twisted up in a knot, the explanation and ample court material can be found here.
Carbon dioxide is not a pollutant. All respiring creatures (that includes humans) are constantly emitting carbon dioxide. The ocean emits carbon dioxide. Carbon dioxide makes up 0.0383% of Earth’s atmosphere (about 2 trillion metric tons).
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Is the ocean a source of pollution? Are my lungs?
Neither is raw sewage a pollutant. I guess we can dump ours all at your house.
along with H2O (water)which causes photo sythesis in plants which in turn produces OXYGEN without which we’re all DEAD.Simple..no CO2..no..Plants = no humans…der, ah, gee Mr. Wizard!
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The declaration of CO2 as a”pollutant” merely highlights the collosal ignorance of a bunch of “lawyers” who obviously don’t know how the “life cycle” of earth actually works. If they wanted to enact laws limiting CO2 then fine but to declare it a “pollutant” is beyond ridiculous. Laughable is a better description
Would probably kill you, too.
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The idea is regulation, not prohibition.
….is so very good for many reasons. Too much and its poison. I suspect you understand the difference and that your argument is disingenuous.
which in the far left “world” are always annoying
…just your opinion (and a bad one at that) which only in your world is equivalent to a fact.
In the statute isn’t the same as the definition in Websters, or in your brain.
and definition of “pollutant” is different than as defined in the English language dictionary? Is that the same kind of “lawyer think” that said that Bill’s”oral sex” was not really “sex”?
So please enlighten us as to what the new “lawyer” definition of Pollutant is…..love to learn new words… especially new lawyer words …..Thanks!
….the same kind of “english language think” that recognizes that different terms have different or modified meanings in differnt contexts. This is a scientific context, not a legal one, and here is what the American Heritage Science Dictionary has to say:
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pollutant (p?-lt’nt)
A substance or condition that contaminates air, water, or soil. Pollutants can be artificial substances, such as pesticides and PCBs, or naturally occurring substances, such as oil or carbon dioxide, that occur in harmful concentrations in a given environment. Heat transmitted to natural waterways through warm-water discharge from power plants and uncontained radioactivity from nuclear wastes are also considered pollutants.
…does the dictionary actually say that CO2 is a pollutant? That’s outrageous! Who’s writing the dictionary now adays, Al Gore?
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Of course a moonbat like you would get his “facts” from a biased, left wing source like the dictionary. You sure that isn’t the American Heratige French Dictionary?
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Next you’ll try to tell us that “science” has proven that oil spills are bad for Alaska! Thanks for the “reality-based” comment!
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(For real, though, good catch!)
Are you that Rock Radio guy?
dissenting view or difference of opinion consistently viewed as an attack or “hateful” here? Now we see paranoia about “psuedo handles”? I can assure you I’m not “rock radio” or whoever else the gross personal attacker “Lurker” here ( there’s an appropriate handle) thinks I am? Is any civil discussion and exchange of opinion possible here?
advertisement “Some call it pollution. We call it life” Oh man, were they ever riduculed over that one. It showed up all over the net as parody. The point is that we’re way out of whack on our CO2 emissions to the point where we’ve heated up the planet to the point where life (not just humans) is in serious peril. Too much of anything can be a pollutant.
about how a sudden, natural explosion of carbon dioxide killed 1,700 people, thousands of head of cattle, and just about every other living creature near Lake Nyos in rural Cameroon in 1986. I think anything that can do that could, perhaps, be considered a pollutant under the right circumstances…
Sure you weren’t in Wonderland at the time and not Florida?
There is a deep lake in Cameroon which, due to volcanic activity, has a large amount of CO2 dissolved in the water. The lake is deep enough that water is at high pressure–like inside your soda bottle before you open it.
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For whatever reason, perhaps a small earthquake, the lake “burped,” resulting in a huge, sudden emission of CO2. CO2 is heavier than air, so stayed low on the ground and displaced the air. The result was that everything within a mile or two of the lake died of asyphixiation.
you graceously accepted CMD’s great explanation, and i’m sure he appreciates your response. the trouble is that you attacked the poster of this story without first finding out for yourself if the story was reasonable. all you had to do was click the link or do a simple google search to find out exactly what CMD told you. so if you wonder why people often react negatively to your posts, it is because you do repeatedly jump all over other people’s posts without even checking the veracity of their claims. i hope you will be more circumspect and join the discussion rather than just randomly throw mud.
You are quick to lecture and talk down to me but seem to have no problems with the incredibly vicious attacks launched against me by this “Lurker” creature of whom I have no clue or idea what its “problem” is other than its use of bad language and horendous personal assault . Apparently you have no problem with this kind of behaviour here on BMG? Is this kind of behaviour acceptable to BMG members? Is “lurker” a member of the “in crowd” and therfore exempt from any semblence of civility?
Feel free to condemn “Lurkers” horendous insults at any time you deem appropriate… I’m waiting
are peppered with condescension. Methinks the “centrist” doth complain too much.
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And that is a heck of a coincidence about that little “latte cup” turn of phrase …
here Charley? You have no problem with his (it’s)obscene posts?
Regardles of Center Aisle’s total compliance with “rules of the road” here (please point to posts where is not)it appears that you condone this Lurker’s obscene behaviour and its paranoid unsubstantiated accusations? Well, so much for your rules and the integrity of this site. What a dissapointment.
that you’ll be leaving us then. If you don’t, after what you’ve just said, then you really show your cards. Please show us how above it all you are by refusing to participate in this cesspool of duplicity and abuse any longer. Stand tall! Be proud!
over on RMG. Check out the “handle” pretty classy eh, Laurel?
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“”Sure, lurker is one of my aliases, but I at least I don’t lie about it. Are you angry because you hate yourself for being a filthy liar?
by: Tony Snow’s Colon @ Mon Apr 02, 2007 at 21:53:23 PM EDT””
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This “sicko” is all over RMG with his disgusting and offensive “Tony Snow’s Colon” alias… real class eh? Go take a look. An incredibly offensive and tasteless alias about a poor soul with terminal cancer. Oh, but I guess that’s OK though. After all Tony is a “hated” republican right?. Go take a look at what your “lurker” creature is doing over on RMG as a representative of this group )and he makes it quite clear that he is from BMG)….you won’t be very proud of it, I’m sure. He’s also got a few BMG “friends” along with his other aliases trashing the site with him too.If this lurker creature and his “pals” pulled the kind of garbage here that they’re pulling on RMG they’d be gone in about 10 seconds. He gets away with it over there because RMG doesn’t believe in “censoring”.
And just to keep the record straight, “Center Aisle” while on this site has NOT posted any such vile trash as this gross person has and has NOT broken any of the “rules of the road” here. For some here , however, any dissenting viewpoints like mine are viewed as being even worse than the offenses of this lurker creature. This could be one of the most closed minded,
intellectually stiffling and intollerant sites on the internet. The hypocrisy is beyond belief.
You made vicious remarks about gay people (Most people here [RMG] don’t like “gays” . I’m one of them) the BMG community, and its Editors ([here at RMG there’s] no fear of some “gay lawyer” who censors the “web site” objecting to what you have to say); it may not be violation the rules to spew hate elsewhere, but that doesn’t mean we have to tolorate your bigotry here.
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Take ownership of what you say and accept the consequences. If you don’t want to be called to the carpet for hateful speech, don’t make such remarks.
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I make no appologies for trying to keep the dialogue here at an adult level by exposing your fraudulent designs and your truly hateful points of view. You obviously don’t like it here and you are free to crawl back into wence you came.
Wikipedia is your friend:
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http://en.wikipedia….
.. at least I was when I was pursuing a Ph.D. at MIT studying environmental engineering in general and carbon sequestration in particular (left with an M.S.).
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I think CO2, at the rate at which it is being added to the atmosphere, is properly classified as a pollutant.
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Here’s one definition:
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Pollutant: Any undesirable solid, liquid or gaseous matter in an environmental medium: “undesirability” is often concentration-dependent, low concentrations of most substances being tolerable or even essential in many cases.
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See my other post on the topic. Phosphorous is a pollutant, despite being so critical to life. Hell, water can kill you if you drink too much.
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It’s not about innate properties. It’s about impacts. A lot of people accept that a hotter earth = probably, on balance, a bad thing (those who argue otherwise tend to forget about the oceans; hotter oceans means more stratification which means less mixing. Less mixing means less nutrients in the surface water, which means less primary production, and so forth. But I digress).
Because of the rapid increase in atmospheric CO2, the ocean is actually, on net, a CO2 sink. The fun thing is that when you dissolve CO2 in the water, it first becomes H2CO3, and then HCO3- + H+. That’s right, it’s an acid (carbonic acid). The ocean is usually pretty well buffered against this sort of thing, but it’s happening so fast (on geologic time scales) that the pH of the ocean is going to drop by a couple tenths over the next century. It’ll be interesting to see what happens!
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But that’s a side note. As for your general argument: A pollutant is characterized not by its general properties, but by it’s impact. Here’s one interesting definition: “Any undesirable solid, liquid or gaseous matter in an environmental medium: ‘undesirability’ is often concentration-dependent, low concentrations of most substances being tolerable or even essential in many cases.”
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Here are some examples: Heat can be a pollutant (hot outfalls from power plants have strong local impacts), as can light (i.e. “light pollution.”). Phosphorous is a fertilizer, and is a component of DNA and RNA (and ATP). But if you drop a bunch of phosphorous in a lake, you cause an algal bloom; after the bloom, the bacteria eating all the algae use up all the oxygen in the water, and all the fish die. Therefore, in this context, phosphorous, so critical to life as we know it, is a pollutant.
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Same goes for CO2. Carbon and oxygen. Couldn’t live without them. Plants love it. But put enough in the air fast enough, due to the way it absorbs longwave radiation, and you just might find the air heating up. Enough to impact the environment that is, on balance, a negative. Just like phosphorous, that’s pollution.
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Now if you want to discuss how sensitive the climate really is to CO2 concentrations, and what the net impacts of a warmer earth are, fine, let’s talk about that. But to argue that CO2 isn’t a pollutant because it’s so natural is a waste of my time and yours.
Also, to over simplify for the people who might not bye your argument, I might add that sure, nature has ben dumping CO2 into the atmosphere for millions of years, but it’s in the last 100+ years that we have seen an extreme proliferation of non-natural CO2 being dumped into the air (e.g. motor vehicles, power plants, aircraft, factories, etc). The proliferation of new things that produce CO2 has increased exponentially while things that neutralize CO2 have not.
…because what syphax is telling you is exactly correct.
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Also, to over simplify for the people who might not bye your argument, I might add that sure, nature has ben dumping CO2 into the atmosphere for millions of years…
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Nature has been recycling carbon into the atmosphere for millions of years. It is the recycling part that is important. Nature has not been dumping CO2 into the atmosphere. Burn a tree, that produces CO2 emissions, but that is merely recycling carbon that had been part of the tree.
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Burn coal or oil, or natural gas, that is re-introducing carbon into the atmosphere that had been sequestered in the ground for millenia. And burn them fast enough, and you will get a significant uptick in the climactic temperature. And that is why there are efforts to develop technologies to sequester new carbon emissions–according to SciAm–but they haven’t panned out very well. Yet.
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Lest I be misunderstood, I am a technologist (lawyer but with a useful degree–a masters in physics), and I really do believe that technology could be developed to solve these problems. On the other hand, I am enough of a cynic/realist to believe that there is not sufficient wherewithal in the body politic or the body economic to actually carry it through. My father, a retired chemical engineer, pretty much agrees with me on the technical issues, btw.
Some people are too dumb and lazy to really read what he said. And even if they did, they would still not be convinced that there is a problem with CO2 emmissions. What they cannot dispute, however, is the shear volume of new CO2 producing sources that has proliferated in the last 100 years compared to the last 4.6 Billion years.
for the readers here.
The part I guess I don’t get is even if CO2 regulations are enacted nationwide and US emmissions are cut ( at the expense of increased prices for everything along with rendering us even more non competetive with China and India) The FACT of the matter is that China is bringing on huge coal fired electrical generation plants virtually one or two EVERY day (2300 plants in the next 20 years) and the pollution from one of them virtually negates any and all CO2 reduction efforts here in the US in a YEAR. China now has 10 of the top 17 pollution producing cities on the planet and we haven’t even mentioned India here. So the real issue is what are you going to do about China and India? Answer? Nothing if you listened to Al Gore declare them “emerging economies” and therefore exempt from the Kyoto treaty… Laughable don’t you think?
As a by the way, would some one ask Al to turn up the “global warming” a bit as we enter yet another week here in New England with temps 10 to 12 degrees below normal?
No one wants you here, especially when you spew “Most people here don’t like ‘gays’. I’m one of them” and other bigotted crap.
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Worst of all, YOU ARE A LIAR!
I am sending an email directly to Charlie requesting he investigate your “problems” and hopefully he’ll delete your offensive posts and better yet, delete your account for blatant violations of BMG rules of conduct
Liar.
What we are “going to do about China and India” is to continue to pressure them to join in developing and then complying with new international environmental standards.
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It would make it a heck of a lot easier to do this if we (the U.S. Government) showed some leadership by agreeing to, if not the Koyoto accord, at least voluntarily setting national standards to really reduce air pollution. Your snide comments nothwithstanding, this is what Gore actually said. He was arguing that China is in a much better bargaining position and has more moral authority in refusing to take necessary steps to reduce emissions since the U.S. refuses to also do it’s part.
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I agree with that but I still know all countries must eventually do their part. Global warming is an international problem requiring an international solution. To suggest that the U.S. should refrain from cutting CO2 emissions until such time as we can ensure that both India and China will also be cutting emissions (at the exact same rate?), is indeed laughable.
will do when you try to “pressure them” into compliance.
Good luck “pressuring” them with leadership? You must be joking.
How are we going to convince China to reduce CO2?
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Moral authority aside, and the snide manner of Mr. Aisle, this is a pretty big problem with many proposals. Well, if we just some simple drastic measures, then we can ask nicely for China not to simply step into the market void, totally powered by coal.
Global climate change is just that — global. China and India will have huge humanitarian crises if the sea levels rise even a few feet.
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We’re not convincing them to take action out of the goodness of their hearts, but to prevent a catastrophe that would affect them even more seriously than it would us.
discusses sea level rise in terms of feet…
And not hard to find the answer: it’s 18-59 cm — and quite possibly more, according to the International Panel on Climate Change report.
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You need to get beyond Al Gore. He’s just repeating what other people — i.e. climate scientists — are saying.
I said Al Gore is the only one who discusses sea level rise in terms of feet, and you call me totally wrong and then show sea level rise in terms of centimeters. Are you nuts?
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Should I have used the term “units of” feet?
Anyway, what’s your point?
that Gore exaggerates, alot, and that that seeps into our collective analysis of the coming global crisis. If you want to be taken seriously then its important not to exaggerate.
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A previous poster said something like “…even if sea levels onlyrise a few feet…”
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only a few feet would be a small comparison against Gore’s numbers (hence: only) but a relatively large comparison against the numbers you cite. In that case it should not be “even if the rise is only a few feet” but, at a minimum “in the worst projected case…”
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Although I dont think your cited report is predicting major sections of land going under water, is it?
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Anyhoo.
We can influence their policy. The first step is for us to address global warming, here. Republican Senator Ted Stevens of Alaska is ready for the government to reduce fuel consumption by cars.
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By the way, China’s fuel economy standards are too high for American cars to be sold there.
“one sided” trade policy with the US you’ll discover why American cars aren’t sold over there. Fuel economy has nothing to do with it.
If you really want to influence China what you do is put some import/export trade rules in place that aren’t so lopsided in China’s favor as they are now. Unfortunately, the outcry from so called “Americans” who are addicted to cheap Chinese goods won’t permit that to happen.
The only thing that will happen when the US adopts more government intervention and regulations is that American manufacturing ( what’s left of it) will be even more unable to compete with cheap imported goods while the Chinese continue to increase their pollution exponentially on their way to becoming the world’s new dominent super power in say 15? 25 years? maybe even less? Then you can watch what was the world’s highest standard of living (America) make its rapid decline ( already begun)to just another overpopulated second rate country. Good luck.
You have remember that China currently cranks out < 3 tons CO2 per capita, while we are at 20+ tons/head/year, and have been there for a long time. If I were Chinese or Indian, I’d sure feel entitled to playing catch-up for awhile. In terms of cumulative GHG emissions, we are so way out in front. (check out
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http://tools.google….
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As for Kyoto, do you know anything about it? Like it’s allowance for Clean Development Mechanisms, which “are arrangements under the Kyoto Protocol allowing industrialised countries with a greenhouse gas reduction commitment (so-called Annex 1 countries) to invest in emission reducing projects in developing countries as an alternative to what is generally considered more costly emission reductions in their own countries.”
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So, like, the west could in theory finance carbon capture and sequestration systems for power plants in China and/or India.
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Now, in practice, CDMs like a lot of Kyoto have been kind of a screwup, but not terrible as a first shot.
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But you are correct that the actions of India and China are really going to steer the CO2 ship. They are developing fast and, like the US, have huge coal reserves.
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Getting India on board should be less problematic b/c they are in for some serious hurting under most warming scenarios. But I would expect that they will/should be allowed to have their per capita emissions rise at least for awhile (they are currently at around 1 ton CO2/head).
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China’s a tougher nut, mainly b/c of the current government. But one interesting thing is that the hideous state of the environment in many spots isn’t exactly a crowd pleaser, and as people get wealthier, they tend to have higher expectations about their child not dying from asthma. So assuming we can avoid WWIII in the next 20 years, it’ll be interesting to see what happens there.
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Maybe we shouldn’t be relying on China to finance our government debt; maybe that would give us a little more leverage. But that’s another discussion…
on the topic. It’s great to hear from someone knowlegeable and open minded.
I have a few questions that I would value your comments on:
1. I don’t think that anyone on either side of the debate will dispute that the earth is warming ( about 1 degree C over the past 100 years is the number I’ve heard?).That being the case, do you believe that man made co2 generation is the MAJOR cause or are other forces ( beyond man’s control) at work? The case that those who dispute the CO2 premise make is the unusual rise in the earths temperature around 950 to 1050 AD in the total of absence of industrialized man’s polution.
2. Many scientists that I have read claim that this “warming period” is the prelude to an approaching ice age. They claim that the warming resulting in the melting of entrapped fresh water alters the salinity of the earth’s oceans thereby altering its operating characteristics as a collosal “heat pump”. They say that the result is the shutting down of the earth’s temperature exchange “conveyer belt” ocean currents which brings on rapid cooling and a resulting ice age.
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Your comments are appreciated syphax
but this ain’t a private forum neither.
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1. We’ve gone up about .5C in the past 25 years. Models referenced by the IPCC predict that global temperatures are likely to increase by 1.1 to 6.4 C (2.0 to 11.5 F) between 1990 and 2100. (source)
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So, the medieval warming and little ice age reasons aren’t so clear — it is clear they weren’t caused by man burning fossil fuels. What I think is important, however, is both temperature and time scale in those periods. The total change — form the warmest peak right around 1000AD and the coolest valley at around 1650 AD was a delta of approximately .7C. Hottest to coolest. The temperature increase since 1800ish is already .8C, and clearly rising. The time scale change is also important — it took 1000 years for the temperature to go up .5C to the medieval warm peak. It took another 800 years to cool down .4C. However, we’ve risen .8C in 200 years, with .54 in the past 20 years alone.
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So, not only is the total magnitude of the change greater, but the time scale is much much different. There’s no question that the earth warms and cools due to all kinds of different systems, but scientists have never found the system to change by so many tenths of degree so quickly.
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Combine that with the measurable increase of CO_2 in the air and the chemistry that demonstrates that CO_2 is a greenhouse gas, and it’s really hard to come to any conclusion other than: mankind’s release of greenhouse gasses in the past 200 years have had a significant impact on the global temperature.
2. Which scientists? I haven’t seen much in terms of publication about cooling effects in the past 10 years or more — and I’d like to read up. Got any papers/articles in mind?
…we who comment here are only guests of the proprietors of the web site.
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I haven’t looked at the temperature reconstruction charts from Wikipedia, but, if memory serves, the temperature delta over the last thousand or so years as between the warming period and the cooling period were only on the order of about 0.3 degrees (Celsius). And that was over hundreds of years. The recent temp change was on the order of 1 degree Celsius, over only little over a century.*
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The irony is, that there was a period 1945-75 (or so) during which there was a bit of cooling. It was subsequently discovered that the cooling was due to sulfate aerosols that had been put into the atmosphere. Sulfate aerosols have the effect of reflecting sunlight, reducing insolation that gives rise to global warming. Sulfate aerosols, on the other hand, give rise to another environmental problem–acid rain. Reduce levels of sulfate aerosols reduces acid rain (reductions have been noted), but they also end up increasing insolation, and hence temp levels.
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The odd thing is that the Bush II malAdminstration has recently suggested injecting pollutants into the stratosphere to accomplish what the sulfate aerosols accomplished. They want to try to fight one pollutant with another.
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*As I mentioned, I’ve been following the temps in several places over the world over the last few years. The disturbing fact is not so much the daytime high temp, but the nighttime low temp. The latter gives you an indication of the radiational cooling allowed by the greenhouse gases. The nighttime low temps are disturbingly high, which suggests a significant reduction in radiational cooling.
detailed “weather” information as I understand it ,has only been accurately recorded for as little as about the past 130 years?
I think that’s true isn’t it?
So the question becomes how can you accurately say ( in tenths of degrees C) What the temperature variations were over 1000 years ago?
My opinion is that :
1. The eath is warming at this time ( as it has innumerable times in eons past in the absence of industrialized man)
2. CO2 , no doubt contributes to the warming and possibly could and probably does accelerate the current “natural” warming cycle
3. To say that Co2 is THE “major cause” is scientifically irresponsible as there are too many other “natural” forces at work i.e. earth’s rotational precess, sun storms,changes in the salinity of ocean water, the El nino phenomina… etc.
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It was not that long ago that doomsayers were running through the streets screaming “ice Age”! Ice Age!. To me this is the same over reaction only in the opposite direction.
It seems that intellectual dishonesty once again prevails as “environmentalists” scare the crap out kids and tell them that polar bears will be extinct! …..when in fact, their population is increasing ( over 25,000 at last count up from 8,000 25 years ago).
Sorry, but I believe there are way , way too many pieces of this weather puzzle that are “in play” to over react and foister a doomsday hoax on people. I view it as an opportunity for bureacracies like the UN to try to redistribute wealth and make those greedy, rich Americans alter their lifestyles while it’s “OK” for China, India and all the other “emerging” economies to pollute at record rates..no problem
at least not for data prior to 1850. Instead, a number of proxies are used, including tree ring width, ice cores, coral growth, glacial migration paths, etc.
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It’s far from perfect, and it isn’t perfectly precise. But, when a number of seemingly unrelated models (botany, nuclear physics & chemistry, geology, etc) all point to similarly tight average temperature bands, it’s a pretty good basis.
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Remember: daily weather and long term temperature aren’t really correlated.
This idea that it’s a massive hoax designed to increase bureaucratic power at the UN seems quite silly; furthermore comparing environmental issues to the early 70s (when pollution was quite possibly as bad as they had ever been in history due to recent tremendous gains in chemistry but no EPA just yet) is like saying “see, it isn’t the worst ever, so it must be OK.”
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It’s hard to convince China and India to change their ways when we’re spewing out an order of magnitude CO_2 per person than the Chinese and even more than Indians. Furthermore, nobody wants China and India to pollute more; the question is: how to deal with it? Do you behave like an adult and set a positive precedent, taking the high road… or do you behave like a five year old and complain that your two year old brother gets to eat with his hands but you don’t? Somehow, lots of so-called conservatives would rather behave like five year olds than show some responsibility for their own actions and, you know, help conserve our environment.
and illogical overreaction. Case in point… I’m hearing ( not confirmed as yet) that incandescant light bulbs will be outlawed in the US within 5 years and the required replacement will be those curlyque flourescent bulbs. What’s ridiculous is that the only place those bulbs are currently made is in China and that it is projected that China would have to build 9 new coal fired plants ( one of which negates an entire years benefit of using such bulbs)just to satisfy the demand.. Hello? is this “lunacy or what?
holds water either. Do you actually believe that if we in the US “set the example” that the Chinese would actually care? You must be joking. You actually believe that?
The Chinese would be delighted to see the US even more shackled by its own Government “regulations” which would mean even MORE profits for the Chinese who would be laughing all the way to the bank.
I’m also looking out my window right now on April 4th watching it snow with temps predicted to continue to be 10 to 12 degrees below normal with this following bitter cold temps this past winter in Boston and most of the US.
I’m sorry but this global warming thing for the average bear looks more and more like a farce every day. My heating oil supplier is laughing like hell while I’m going broke.
…let’s understand something. As interesting as the majority opinion is (the dissenting opinions are nothing more than horse manure) the fact is that the majority opinion merely says that the EPA has to go through a rule-making procedure to–make rules. That isn’t all that earth-shattering, and it isn’t going to change the world. The EPA will go through its rule-making procedure, those opposed to the rules will sue, and it will just go up to the US SupCt again. BFD In the grand scheme of things, this is a victory for the plaintiffs and the intervenors, but the likelihood that it will mean very much is between slim and none. A victory for the lawyers, but–how did Shakespear put it–sound and fury signifying nothing.
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The dissents were the basic horse manure that one would expect from the Federalist Society.
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Regarding some of the comments above, let’s understand a few things.
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One, if greenhouse gases* didn’t exist, earth would be uninhabitable. In the absence of greenhouse gases, the radiational cooling at night would be so great that the average temperature of the earth day and night would be too low to support life as we know it**.
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*CO2, water vapor and methane.
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**I’ve actually been following the nighttime temperatures of some places around the world. It is the nighttime temperatures that give information about radiational cooling. The nighttime temperatures are disturbingly high, in comparison to previous years.
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Two, on the other hand, CO2 generated by combusting previously-sequestered carbon (coal and oil) is definitely inducing a climate change.
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Three, there has been a series on climate change in the Sueddeutsche Zeitung (Munich’s newspaper of record) recently, and they had a graphic that indicated that the USofA had CO2 emissions, pro-Kopf, on the order of 20 tons per year, China, on the order of a little less than 4, and the world-wide average a little more than 4. Figuring that China has on the order of 3.5 times more “heads” (Koepfe) than Americans, the Americans are still emitting more CO2, per person, than the Chinese.
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The sad thing regarding China is that its energy mix is primarily coal, oil and gas (and much less nuclear and renewable), and as they further develop, those will induce more CO2 emissions from previously sequestered carbon.
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Going up a bit, from syphax @ Mon Apr 02, 2007 at 22:59:26 PM EDT
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Because of the rapid increase in atmospheric CO2, the ocean is actually, on net, a CO2 sink. The fun thing is that when you dissolve CO2 in the water, it first becomes H2CO3, and then HCO3- + H+. That’s right, it’s an acid (carbonic acid). The ocean is usually pretty well buffered against this sort of thing, but it’s happening so fast (on geologic time scales) that the pH of the ocean is going to drop by a couple tenths over the next century. It’ll be interesting to see what happens!
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The first is correct. Increased levels of CO2 in the oceans will induce a chemical change that will make the oceans more acidic. (Illustration: increasing levels of CO2 in cola drinks make them more acidic as well, They are very acidic, indeed.) Regarding your second point, actually, it will not be interesting to see what happens. The sad fact is that increased levels of CO2 will induce an increase the levels of plankton and similar beings in the ocean, which will actually decrease the amount of oxygen in the water (plants use not only CO2, but also O2). Result: killing fish. That has been observed.
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Agree with the rest of your comment, by the way. The Italians killed the Adriatic Sea with their excessive use of nitrogen-based fertilizers in the Po Valley. And the Americans have pretty much killed the Gulf of Mexico by their excessive use of the same along the Mississippi River.
On one level, you are right: EPA still won’t have to do squat on carbon, at least not for many years.
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The real significance of this decision is that it gives states standing to sue the federal government on climate-change.
…EPA still won’t have to do squat on carbon, at least not for many years.
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Suppose the Buch malAdministration’s EPA enacts a rule tomorrow. It would take years and lots of studies to get it changed. It would probably be better to wait until a more environmentally friendly adminstration comes into office.
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Of course, that might be when hell freezes over, regardless of party, but so what?