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2008 Is the Coldest Year of the 21st Century
Posted by
timothy
on Thu Aug 21, 2008 07:20 PM
from the problem-with-complexity-is-all-the-complexity dept.
from the problem-with-complexity-is-all-the-complexity dept.
dtjohnson writes "Data from the United Kingdom Meteorological Office suggests that 2008 will
be an unusually cold year due to the La Nina effect in the western
Pacific ocean. Not to worry, though, as the La Nina effect has
faded recently so its effect on next year's temperatures will be
reduced. However, another natural cycle, the Atlantic
Multidecadal Oscillation, is predicted to hold global temperatures
steady for the next decade before global warming takes our planet into
new warmth. If these predictions are correct, there must be
a lot of planetary heat being stored away somewhere ... unless the heat
output from the sun
is decreasing
rather than increasing
or the heat being absorbed by the earth is decreasing due to changes in
the earth's albedo."
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gore (Score:5, Funny)
Re:gore (Score:5, Funny)
Burn them for warmth.
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Re:gore (Score:5, Funny)
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Re:gore (Score:5, Interesting)
But what will I do with all my "Gore 2012" buttons?
Ha.
Still, remember that the Gore stance is roughly (yeah, it's exaggerated, but roughly) in line with the science.
The global warming platform from the Republican party is to shoot into the air and yell "yeeehaww!" a bunch.
Maybe so, but gas prices aren't $4.00 a gallon because rednecks shot their guns. What you are paying at the pump is the direct result of environmentalist's policies fed by the FUD spread by AlGore.
Meh. Not entirely accurate, really. If Al Gore's "recommendations" had really been followed by a large proportion of Americans (ignoring for now his own failure to follow them), demand for energy should have decreased significantly. With everybody switching to more efficient lighting and appliances, driving less and buying more fuel efficient cars, etc., chances are that energy prices probably would not have spiked the way they did.
The NIMBYs and the environmental lobby that slowed US drilling and new power plant construction to a crawl and completely stopped any increased capacity for oil refineries and other infrastructure were the real culprits in keeping energy supplies too far below the demand curve. Not that Gore had any solutions for helping improve energy supplies.
Of course, the big jump in oil prices has more to do with the declining value of the US dollar than anything, but that's another issue altogether.
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Re:gore (Score:5, Informative)
A 5 to 10 percent decrease in energy use will be offset by population growth in as little as 3-6 years. That the problem with thinking we can inflate our tires out of this as some people think. In case your wondering how an average of a 3% population increase can offset and savings, it is becuse population growth is exponential and not linear. This means that instead of having 9,030,000 more people next year and every year after, we will have to add the 9 million people and take 3% of that. So instead of having 310,030,000+ 9,030,000 in year two, you have 310,030,00+9,300,900, almost 300,000 more.
Your spot on about the third world countries too. There are generally two reasons for this. The first is that a third world citizen uses on average one sixth the energy as a fist world citizen. That means when they improve to first world status, even with a 10% more efficient world, they will increase their energy consumption 5 fold. The second reason for this is actually the Kyoto accords. Out of 150 some or more signatories, only 37 or 38 are capped and have to reduce emissions. This promoted development into those third world countries so the emissions don't count against you when the product is imported. Europe is doing this with China and India where they are increasingly relying on imports instead of opening or using their existing facilities. As a matter of fact, you can look at the percentage of increase in Chinese imports in say england and the increase is about 5 times as much as the US or any other country not signed onto Kyoto.
Anyways, this off shoring their way into compliance is actually raising the living standards of third world countries faster then their own sets of circumstances would allow. This thereby increases the amounts of energy they use in a greater portion then the population growth. So yes, we are being taken to task on all sides of the demand issue.
I personally don't know why our leaders can't get their thumbs out of their asses and do both, get more fuels as well as make things more efficient and less energy intensive. It's pretty horrid that that congress went on vacation when people wanted to discuss this issue and get something done about it. I understand that the republicans were showboating their commitment by staying in Washington and giving speeches to anyone who entered congress over the needs to do something sooner then later. But the gas prices weren't this high when they were in control and they were the ones wanting to do something about it when the dems decided a vacation was more important at the same time people where spending their mortgage payments on gas to get to work.
I say damn it all, take both sides positions and put them into effect all at once. It is like the big plan Kerry had for winning in Iraq that he refused to tell anyone about after he lost the election. If it is so damn good, then why waste it when your side doesn't win. Use it and for once, be about the country and the people in it instead of you and your parties success. Most races bring up good ideas and suggestions on both sides. It is time to stop using them for political advantage and just do what's good for America.
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Re:gore (Score:5, Insightful)
The liberal (not necessarily Dem) stance is more nuanced than the conservative idea of "More demand so just drill for more oil."
Liberals recognize that fossil fuels are quickly running out and "drilling for more" won't be possible sometime in the future, and that using the fuel as we have been IS environmentally harmful. Conservatives don't care if we run out later, that will be someone else's problem. When you are about to run out of an important and critical resource about the worst thing you can do is ramp up production and burn through your last remaining drops.
Even if we drilled in ANWR and off the coast we would STILL be importing a vast majority of our oil. My objections to those ideas are not based on environmentalism but simple reason. If we could become energy independent by drilling in ANWR I would be the first to say to hell with the wild life, but there just isn't that much oil there when you compare it to how much we use every day. If anything, doing that would simply delay the inevitable and slow our development and adoption of cleaner, sustainable fuel sources.
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Re:gore (Score:5, Insightful)
Actually, the conservative stance is a lot more comprehensive than the liberal one of "don't drill no matter what" since conservatives support BOTH the development of alternatives AND attempting to make sure we have the steadiest supply possible until alternatives are viable.
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Re:Coldest year my ass.... (Score:5, Funny)
Quit paying the ACs, that only makes them post more.
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Re:Coldest year my ass.... (Score:5, Interesting)
I gotta say, I was completely shocked, when about 10 years ago or so, I visited a friend that lived in the far NE of the US. I was amazed to find out, there were houses...LOTS of them that didn't actually have air conditioning?!?!
Growing up in the south, I'd always known everyone to have AC. The oddball ones were the ones that didn't have central heat and air...although after I moved to the NOLA area, in so many old houses, there are a lot of places with window units, but, I'd just never thought there were places in the US that didn't have AC at all. Then again...I'd never been exposed to people that actually used heating oil before as a means of heat. I'd always grown up with gas heating, or possibly electric...
Definitely some strange things and ways of life up there in 'yankee land'.
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Ignoring the real problem (Score:5, Insightful)
Queue in 10 million "global warming is a scam", "don't look at me, people didna doit" and "Al Gore is a weenie" comments.
But all of these comments on the legitimacy of global warming/cooling/climate change all ignore one very simple, inescapable fact: Most "carbon-neutral" energy forms can be generated locally. Windmills use the wind in your area. Solar panels use the sunlight from your roof. This is also true for geothermal, ocean-wave, and bio-fueled energy. All can be generated locally, with local resources.
Only oil and nuclear have limited supply.
So if, for example, you were a wealthy, North-American country with a severe foreign-debt problem, you might consider the actual costs of oil in lost lives, civil liberties, currency devaluation, and raw wealth shipped oversees to fund a petroleum addiction. This cost is so huge and multi-faceted it baffles the mind. Average people just cannot even begin to understand wealth drain and cost of this magnitude.
But if we were to generate our energy locally, with renewable resources, not only would we leave a nicer place for our kids, grandkids, and their offspring, we'd also improve our national sovereignty. Rather than fund deadly radicals [iags.org], we'd fund the nice guy down the street. Rather than ship our cash to entities who threaten us at every turn [washingtonpost.com], we'd fund your next-door neighbors. No matter where you live, no matter who you are, no matter how wealthy you happen to be, this is a good idea.
Ignore the matter of global warming, because there's a much more immediate reason to "go green". And it has nothing to do with carbon footprint, it has to do with the green bits of paper in your back pocket. It will be expensive in the short term. It will pay and pay and pay for generations thereafter.
Which would you rather be remembered as: the generation that ignored the problem until it was too late, or the generation that set your state/country/civilization on a long-term course of prosperity?
I choose the latter, thank you.
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Re:Ignoring the real problem (Score:5, Insightful)
People invented this thing called the "battery" about 100 years ago, look into it. Along the same lines, even on still days where you live, there's probably a south-facing hill nearby that's always windy about, oh, 80 feet above the ground.
Good thing it wasn't cloudy. Still, those few square feet wouldn't even run the blower for my A/C, never mind the compressor. Guess I'm sticking with the nuke.
Cloudy days still let current solar cells work at about 25% efficiency, and the thousands of square feet of roof your home or apartment building has can generate a surprising amount of energy, provided you're not wasting anything.
Because if it was that easy, it would be done already.
That's what people said right before the airplane was invented, and in fact before solar cells were invented. If it's so easy, the reason it hasn't been done before is because there's something more convenient already in place. People (especially you, apparently) don't want to change if it means expending a little bit of effort on their part.
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Re:gore (Score:5, Funny)
Still touting the insane idea that the media is not a right-wing mouthpiece? How cute.
Yeah, I hate the way the media have manufactured this McCainmania, portraying him as almost the Messiah and so on whilst giving no coverage to Obama.
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Oh goody... (Score:5, Funny)
Hopefully for this one we'll get some cashiers, makeup artists and puppeteers to weigh in with their expert environmental opinion, just to mix things up.
Re:Oh goody... (Score:5, Insightful)
Global warming is a misnomer anyway - it should be called, "global climate instability."
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Re:Oh goody... (Score:5, Insightful)
Mod parent up.. The earth's climate is a control system. As it becomes unstable, you will start seeing more records: cold, hot, rain, drought, record single day temperature differentials, etc.
It's not going to just get warmer over short time periods.. It always amazes me that folks don't realize that.
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Re:Oh goody... (Score:5, Insightful)
It's not going to just get warmer over short time periods.. It always amazes me that folks don't realize that.
I've been telling people this for a while. I liken it to a spinning top. When it begins to slow down it starts wobbling and becoming very erratic. The difference is that unlike a top, the climate will eventually begin to restabilize. It just might not stabilize in a way that humans are particularly comfortable with.
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Re:Oh goody... (Score:5, Insightful)
As it becomes unstable, you will start seeing more records: cold, hot, rain, drought, record single day temperature differentials, etc. It's not going to just get warmer over short time periods.. It always amazes me that folks don't realize that.
I've been telling people this for a while.
The you've been misleading them. You may see some variability on a local level, but fluctuating extremes on a mean global level are not something that the IPCC predicts as result of global warming. There will be fluctuations because, aside from the anthropogenic effects causing warming, there are plenty of other factors that make the climate variable; some years are colder than others, and that's still going to be true even with global warming. In this case there are a number of natural factors that have aligned to make 2008 colder than previous years. According to the IPCC global warming is simply dampening how cold this year is, not causing it to be cold through some instability. Compared to the 20th century 2008 will still be rather warm, and that can potentially be attributed to global warming.
Can we lay this tired meme about increased variability due to global warming to rest though. A cold spell is merely not necessarily strong evidence against global warming*, it is not evidence for global warming.
* At this point, given the historical temperature record, a significant (mid 20th century temperatures) sustained (5 or more years) cold spell would be required to count as strong evidence against global warming.
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Re:Oh goody... (Score:5, Insightful)
As it becomes unstable, you will start seeing more records: cold, hot, rain, drought, record single day temperature differentials, etc.
Even if climate is unchanging records will still increase. Citing increasing records as evidence of global warming is an example of a classic fallacy [numberwatch.co.uk].
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Re:Oh goody... (Score:5, Insightful)
Mod parent up.. The earth's climate is a control system. As it becomes unstable, you will start seeing more records: cold, hot, rain, drought, record single day temperature differentials, etc.
Which, conveniently, lets just about any type of weather be attributed to global warming (or is that climate change?)
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Re:Oh goody... (Score:5, Interesting)
Mod parent up.. The earth's climate is a control system. As it becomes unstable, you will start seeing more records: cold, hot, rain, drought, record single day temperature differentials, etc.
Which, conveniently, lets just about any type of weather be attributed to global warming (or is that climate change?)
Which is exactly what is happening anyway. Every big storm or unusual meteorological event these days is automatically assumed to be yet another affect of global climate change. According to some, it's even causing forest fires and earthquakes.
NPR has a whole series where they go to some part of the world each week, and talk about how climate change is affecting the people there in some way or another, and how the people are coping (or are doomed).
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Re:Oh goody... (Score:5, Informative)
Both of you are assuming that the Earth's climate has ever been stable, but even if it is stable, who's to say that it's becoming unstable now? We've seen evidence of relatively severe fluctuations in the climate, the ice age for example, which suggest that it's normal for the climate to change. To us it seems significant but when taken in the proper scope it's likely to be business as usual.
Getting people worked up about things nobody can change is simply an ace-in-the-hole for politicians.
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The 1830 Problem (Score:5, Interesting)
It's not going to just get warmer over short time periods.. It always amazes me that folks don't realize that.
What surprises me even more is how few people know that we've been experiencing global warming since 1830 [mcgonigle.us]. AFAIK, we don't currently have a good model that can explain this.
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Re:The 1830 Problem (Score:5, Informative)
Yes we do. We've been warming since 1830 as sunspots have increased after the Little Ice Age. For details, see the Svensmark book.
If his solar-driven model is correct, and if Solar Cycle 24 continues its petulant refusal to actually exist, then the entire-20th-C.-warming plunge over the last year and a bit is just a little foretaste and things are about to get very cold indeed.
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Science changed from skepticism to consensus? (Score:5, Insightful)
Thank you for this post. I am no scientist, but I am an undergrad in a dual major in Engineering/Science (mathematics), there are certain things that really trouble me about contemporary climate science. For one, there appears to be an over reliance on climate models based on broad sweeping assumptions, and an extreme exaggeration of the capacity of any given model to produce accurate results. Increasingly, the GW science seems to be violating Poppers fundamental philosophy of scientific hypothesis: The only theory worth considering is that which can be disproven. Or rather, science is not about proving as such, it is about disproving. I want to see the falsifiability of climate change theory thoroughly discussed, but it never is, nobody can challenge the models, nobody is allowed to question the methods, nobody is allowed to offer alternative to the mainstream narrative. Its a dangerous place for science to be. More and more I see GW predictions failing the falsifiability test: hot year? Earth is warming, cold year? Earth is unstable due to warming, flood: GW, everything, everything under the sun is being attributed to GW.
The 'consensus' worries me also, moreso in fact. There is rarely consensus in science, especially when dealing with fundamentally complex, non-linear dynamical systems which are proven to be inherently chaotic. Even when a theory is sound and mature, the most important consideration is that you are making predictions by using a model, an inherently and unavoidably flawed model. It is always, always important to cite assumptions and errors when making predictions with any model. But if you question the validity of current climate modelling, you are branded a heretic, a denier, and the worst of all: a skeptic. As if being a skeptic in science is suddenly the wrong thing to do? What happened?
All scientists are skeptics, a scientist without skepticism is no scientist, he is a fool. Worse still believing that computer models are completely trustworthy is like believing your lego starship enterprise will fly you to the moon.
I am not a denier, but I am certainly skeptical. I am certainly open to hypotheses, theories, models and all manner of explanations for given data sets, observations etc. But I am deeply troubled by the way discussion and debate about something as highly chaotic and poorly understood as the climate is shut down so vigorously these days. Worse still, the politicians and economists are on board. I can't help but be just a tad aware that politicians will leap on any populist position and economists are always hungry for new derivatives markets.
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Re:Oh goody... (Score:5, Funny)
Global warming is a misnomer anyway - it should be called, "global climate instability."
How about 'Intelligent Heating?'
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Re:Oh goody... (Score:5, Insightful)
Awe, and here I was going to propose we officially call it "Earth Does Stuff". Too vague?
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Noooo!!! (Score:5, Funny)
Doing stuff is overrated. Hitler did stuff! And look where that led! Wouldn't we all have been better off if he had just stayed home and gotten high?
What were we talking about again?
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The straw man is dead (Score:5, Insightful)
No one is denying climate change. No one even denies that human activity (or the sun or various natural cycles) influences the change. The argument is over how big a role each factor plays. (Along with accusations of exaggerating selected factors for political or commercial gain.) As with many scientific questions, teasing apart correlation and cause is exceedingly difficult - especially with multi-factor causes.
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Re:The straw man is dead (Score:5, Insightful)
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Re:The straw man is dead (Score:5, Insightful)
The religious issue is getting stronger and the facts seem to become less important over time or are just discarded outright. We here CFL are up to 80% more efficient yet I haven't seen one yet that is more than 50% and I have a large box full of them. We hear disposable grocery bags are evil so we should use other bags which take hundreds of times the resources to make but don't last 100 times longer. The carbon trading schemes seem to be another way for governments to print a different type of money and set up trading tariffs while pretending to encourage free trade. We hear about planting trees to sequester CO2 yet the current plan means the land will hold less carbon that it did 100 years ago yet this is somehow a carbon credit. Start looking at many of the scams using a double entry accounting system and you start to see they don't pan out. Of course pointing out wrong numbers in any of this gets one labelled a denier real quick.
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Re:Oh goody... (Score:5, Insightful)
You're confusing "denial" over climate change (of course it changes! the Sahara was green thousands of years ago, we used to be in an ice age, etc) with being very wary about the political motivations of many of the more shrill people on the stage. Those who claim that the only reason we're looking at any climate change is because of human activity, and that ceasing human activity would magically restore the dynamic climate back to some idyllic state (um... maybe with a green Sahara, but without the continent-covering glaciers, etc?
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Re:Oh goody... (Score:5, Funny)
Wow, believe it or not, most people aren't going to care about a theory that A) Doesn't affect them B) has many people that reject it C) Has no short or medium-term impact and D) has no effects right now.
Awesome troll. But I think you're being too harsh on intelligent design, personally ...
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Silly to reject climate change (Score:5, Interesting)
The climate does nothing but change. The debate is always about which direction it is going. Long-term ice records indicate it should be cooling. CO2 theorists say it should be warming. ! Could we be heading into a period of climate stability as trends cancel???
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Re:Oh goody... (Score:5, Insightful)
It's not less than 1%. And if it is that does not bode well for the field.
Actually, there was an article in Science that there was not a single peer-reviewed paper that claimed global warming isn't happening. The author reviewed all the papers in the appropriate journals and while many made no claims about why it was happening, they all agreed it is happening. So it is less than 1%. I'm curious why this doesn't that bode well for the field?
Because if we're warming up, why is 1938 was the hotest year on record? Why is it after WW2 we entered the coldest non-ice age period, ever recorded?
This isn't true. You might be thinking 1934, which was the 2nd or 3rd, depending on how you interpret the data. However, more telling, is that the last 9 years are all in the top 25 warmest years.
I don't think CO2 production is bad. I know it is. But for the right reasons. It causes acidic water. But that's where it ends. It does not warm. It probably does not cool.
I would like an autographed copy of your book - the one where you rewrite physics and chemistry. The visible light from the sun can travel through CO2 quite well, the infrared radiation from the Earth cooling at night can't. As CO2 increases, less energy can radiate off the planet into space, resulting in more energy in the system. More energy = higher temperature. It's the same idea as an x-ray, visible light can't go through your body, but a higher frequency wave can.
Face it, you started off like idiots, you're going to end like idiots. Stupid blunts like the hockey stick projection by a UN official cannot be forgiven.
But march right out if you think we'll keep buying your peddled crap when you change the meaning a bit to keep in line with what's happening.
Actually, forgiveness has no place in science. That's why we have peer review and independent confirmation of results. You can have wrong theories and wrong projections as much as you want. The only "unforgiveable" is false data and isn't forgiven. However, being wrong is OK because that's how science is supposed to work. You create a theory, test it, and try to prove/disprove your theory. Based on your results, you come up with a new theory, or modify your old one, and try again. We have more climate data, so we alter our models to reflect this new information.
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Global Warming Science Moves On (Score:5, Informative)
All that temperature data tells us is that temperatures have risen At Thermometers. GLOBAL WARMING SCIENCE HAS MOVED ON [nzcpr.com].
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Re:Oh goody... (Score:5, Insightful)
Really? The danger as I see it is a moderate amount of self-regulation to reduce emissions. If you think that if the economy taking a slight hit is just so unbearably bad that it's worth any risk to avoid it, then you are a miserable human being.
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Re:Oh goody... (Score:5, Insightful)
You are correct that there is a debate about anthropogenic climate change. From the most recent reports, there's about a 90% chance the warming we've seen is mostly due to increased carbon dioxide in the atmosphere from burning fossil fuels and forests.
But the climate does not appear to be cooling. The climate is getting warmer. Just because 2008 is cooler than the past seven years doesn't mean that global warming has stopped. There will always be variability in climate. You can't expect every year to be strictly warmer than the years before. It would be like expecting the stock market to reach new highs every year. It doesn't work like that -- you need to look at the long-term trend, not just the most recent years.
Now when you confuse weather with climate, you're going way off track. We can't predict the weather in a given region for a given month. Again, it would be like predicting the price of a given stock in a given month. It can't be done. Would you pass up a buddy's stock tips if he's correct 90% of the time when he says a stock will go up, even if he can't tell you what the price will be six months out? Whether it goes up 20% in three months or 30% in eight months, you'd be passing up easy money!
Scientists keep saying that with increased carbon dioxide emissions temperature will increase. In addition, we can expect rising sea levels, more intense tropical storms, and increased droughts. Sounds bad enough to me to think about cutting back on emissions. The chief scientist of a major oil company agrees [youtube.com] (you can fast-forward to 13:00 in the video if you want to see only the part on global warming).
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Re:Oh goody... (Score:5, Funny)
I'm still busy with the emacs vs vi debate.
But climate change and your choice of editor are intimately related. It's all the extra processor cycles needed to run emacs that's causing global warming ...
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In New Zealand.... (Score:5, Informative)
Stupid sunspots...( or lack thereof ) (Score:5, Informative)
Those of us who are paranoid about the sun have got some justification for our beliefs. First off, the new solar cycle is somewhat late, depending on who you believe. Secondly, there have been very few sunspots this year. In fact, right now, we have gone 30 days without a single sunspot.
http://www.solarcycle24.com/ [solarcycle24.com]
Fire up those SUVs and coal plants, little ice age, here we come.
Re:Stupid sunspots...( or lack thereof ) (Score:5, Funny)
OK, who knocked Sol up?
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SIgh (Score:5, Insightful)
No, the heat output from the sun is not changing to reflect the temperature changes.
Global warming doesn't stop or create the normal cycles. It makes them more active.
The particulate matters in the air reflects light.
Not enough to completly offset the global warming.
Look up global dimming.
The melting of the ice sheets is having a cooling effect on Europe.
OMG coldest of the LAST 8 YEARS?!? (Score:5, Insightful)
Hype the headline a little more, will ya?
Let's have some context, please (Score:5, Informative)
Even so, 2008 is set to be about the 10th warmest year since 1850, and Met Office scientists say temperatures will rise again as La Nina conditions ease.
I hate to point out the obvious, but global warming models do not predict a year over year increase in temperature. Again, from the article:
"The principal thing is to look at the long-term trend," said Dr Kennedy. "2008 will still be significantly above the long-term average. There's been a strong upward trend in the last few decades, and that's the thing to focus on."
The law of small numbers (Score:5, Insightful)
It would be a lot more interesting if 2008 was the coldest year in the last 100 years instead of the coldest year "this century."
2001, or 2000 for those who short-change the first century, set a record as both the coldest and hottest year of the century. The following year broke one of those records.
Global warming or cooling? (Score:5, Funny)
This picture [beewulf.com] says it all - is it global warming or global cooling?
Storing heat? (Score:5, Insightful)
Oh give me a break. The ice caps are melting, or haven't you heard?
That's why we use ice in our cooler chests: when they melt they absorb a lot of heat, and the ice cold runoff keeps the things around them cooler than they would otherwise be. But just because the ice is melting but your beer is cold you can't conclude that the sun has cooled off.
What you should conclude is that you'd better drink your beer before the ice melts, 'cause it's going to warm up real fast as soon as the ice is gone.
--MarkusQ
Regardless of what the truth actually is... (Score:5, Insightful)
As a practical matter, it's going to be difficult to keep up political momentum in the face of cooler trends. The movement could be essentially dead in a couple years. In ten, we could be looking at films like An Inconvenient Truth, The Day After Tomorrow and Waterworld in the same way we now look at Population Explosion, ZPG and Soylent Green from the sixties and seventies.
Hysteria tends to go in cycles. Buried amongst discredited doomsday theories might be the one that actually does kill us. When that happens, I wonder if we'll all be surprised that it's nothing like the articles running in Time, or if scientists will actually see the prediction-of-the-decade come true, whether by brilliant insight or sheer coincidence.
What worries me is that with the best of intentions we do something profoundly stupid and damaging like, I dunno, dumping old tires in the sea in the insane (in hindsight) belief that they would serve as artificial reefs. In the seventies there were plans to coat the ice caps with soot to combat the global cooling that never came about. Now we're talking about dumping iron oxide in the sea as a solution to global warming, something that would be called "polluting our environment" if it didn't have the Climate Change seal of approval. Confidentially, it's unintended consequences from plans like this that scares me more than the fear that the seas will rise and drown us all.
Three Alaskian Volcanos (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Global Warming (Score:5, Informative)
CO2 levels were [b]11x higher[/b] 500 million years ago. 3x as high just 100 million years ago. This is all through proxy measurement, but if it's even remotely accurate then atmospheric CO2 levels today are some of the lowest in the last 500 million years. There's a nice article [wikipedia.org] all about it that you might want to read.
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