Was Maximum Bob right? Is global warming a crock? Sure looks like it around here!
So, was Bob Lutz right, or was it just bad luck? Just as I picked up a new Mazda MX-5 to drive for a few days following the Vernal Equinox, it has started to snow (and snow, and snow). We've actually had more snow this winter than I can recall in quite a few years. Getting 4-5 more inches of the stuff the day after the official start of Spring doesn't help the argument. However, regardless of what might be happening around here on any given day, (and getting snow on Easter is not at all unusual in Michigan) the preponderance of the evidence still seems to point to the fact that something is definitely happening to our planet. Earth itself will ultimately survive - as it has before - following numerous mass extinctions. The planet is not in peril. Humans and the plant and animal species that we depend on for survival, on the other hand, are. The planet will go on and new species will crop up for several billion more years after we're long gone until the sun decides to pack it in. But if we want to stretch out our time here, we need to be a lot more thoughtful about how we utilize natural resources. Was Lutz right? It probably doesn't really matter. The problems we face with collapsing fish stocks and energy supplies are of far more immediate concern anyway.
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 2)
jake 5:13PM (3/22/2008)
Yet more ignorance.
Global warming can affect all weather patterns which can make things hotter AND colder. Duh. Educate yourself before you post.
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Wildgoosechase73 5:34PM (3/22/2008)
Right on Sam! Just as we've back off Global Warming and changed to "Climate Change" which is about as vague as you can get. Energy independance should be the proirity which aside to it environmental benefits will be vital to maintain our standard of living.
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rgseidl 5:54PM (3/22/2008)
@ jake -
besides, climate is measured using rolling averages at multiple time scales, all of them very long. Think decades to millenia, depending on the phenomenon you're interested in.
Annual variations will still be substantially greater than any change in the underlying climate, so one snow storm - or even one particularly cold winter - is not significant.
Btw: fresh water fish can and should be farmed in ponds. They can feed on algae grown with CO2 extracted from the biogas produced by anaerobic fermenters of slurry at livestock farms (finely chopped cornstalk are another possible feedstock). The whole thing is called the integrated farming system (IFS). The Chinese have been doing it for millenia, now Brazilians are doing it as well.
Also, we are only at risk of running out of cheap fossil fuel. Reliable renewable electricity can be generated indefinitely. The capital investments are high, but then CCS for coal-fired and permanent waste storage for nuclear power plants won't be cheap, either. Now that the UK and France - both with nuclear arsenals - have decided to give their civilian nuclear power industries a new lease on life, Germany needs to decide if it wants to go fully renewable instead.
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rgseidl 6:05PM (3/22/2008)
Aaargh, ABG's parser has eaten my embedded HTML. Here are those links again.
Integrated Farming System - English Version:
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=73330751974869771&q=integrated+farming+system&total=25&start=0&num=10&so=0&type=search&plindex=0
Fully renewable: biogas + wind + solar
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-5395558572078423346&q=solar+wind+biomasse&total=4&start=0&num=10&so=0&type=search&plindex=0
Solar tower in Spain:
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=856017458594347062&q=renewable&total=4060&start=0&num=10&so=0&type=search&plindex=1
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jmspearman 6:21PM (3/22/2008)
I would have guessed that all the contributors of this blog drove green cars. The Miata gets decent, but not great fuel economy and could hardly be considered a green alternative.
I don't know your story, but this seems to be a big part of the problem in the United States. We talk a lot about renewable energy, about recycling, about greening our lives through less consumption and better choices, but I still see progressives making choices that are hardly progressive in any substantial way.
How many of the contributors on Autobloggreen drive hybrids or at least cars that get better than 30mpg?
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mike 6:28PM (3/22/2008)
Yes, the Miata really should be a hybrid. What's up with Mazda?
As for me, I'm still waiting for a plug.
The Re1, and the 2009 Prius, a hybrid Fit?, a new EV1?.... Still waiting...
Big deal you got a snow fall:
No Winter in Britain: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/pages/live/articles/news/news.html?in_article_id=512896&in_page_id=1770
We, in eastern PA, got a WHOLE 3 DAYS with snow on the ground.
Yea, 3 days of snow MUST PROVE global warming is a croc.
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BlackbirdHighway 6:34PM (3/22/2008)
Global warming is a global phenomena. That's why it's called global.
Michigan is not the globe, it's just one place. It still snows in Michigan in the winter. If it didn't, it would already be way to late to stop global warming. Most likely, even if it didn't snow anymore anywhere, people would still be in denial about it anyway. That's what people do. (What? It's just a flesh wound!)
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Rick 8:10PM (3/22/2008)
Jake tells everybody to educate themselves. I agree but where does that lead you? the whole discussion is politicized on both sides. You want scientific jargon, experts, charts and convincing argumentation to prove the other side are a bunch of nutty monkeys. It's all out there man.
The "AGM is a Myth" people are more convincing to me, but that doesn't prove they're right.
The more I read on all sides, the more I think that nobody really knows anything, therefore we should all tone down the rhetoric and the politics.
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Enoch 10:32AM (3/29/2008)
Global warming is not a myth. 10,000 to 15,000 years ago most of the Northern hemisphere was under 3km of ice. If not for global warming, we would be all shivering in bearskins. At that time, methane generated by a couple of wild deer, created a global warming, since ICE cars were not available, and politicians and “scientists” didn’t generate enough hot air.
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Dad 11:09PM (3/22/2008)
Second snowiest season in Wisconsin since they started recording this stuff. And, with another 14 nches we get to be #1! Is global warming a "crock"? Yes, but this is nothing new. The global warming freaks will still tell you that this extra cold and extra snow is all a result of global warming. Religions are like that.
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Dad 11:32PM (3/22/2008)
Global warming is only global when it misses many places on the globe???? So we shold call it partial global warming?
Definition "Global is a synonym of worldwide and means of, or relating to, or involving the entire world" In the case of the GW freaks, the definition not longer involves the entire globe.
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Joseph 2:03PM (3/23/2008)
I think you guys are taking this post too seriously.
Do you honestly think Sam is providing Michigan's current weather conditions as evidence against global warming? As I read the post, Sam was using Michigan's currently unusually cold weather as a joke to ease into his actual opinion.
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Dad 11:36PM (3/22/2008)
If the Midwest had "suffered" from no snow this year, all the GW freaks would be using this "fact" as proof of global warming. Funny, when the weather does not cooperate, the defintion of global changes.
Reminds me of how the GW folk told us after Katrina that it was the result of global warming and that the next hurricane season was going to be "terrible". As we all know, that prediction never came true.
GW folk simply can't explain why things are the way they keep saying they should be.
GW=religion. All it takes is "faith".
Keep the faith baby!!!!
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Joe 11:47PM (3/22/2008)
I feel like some people are taking this post too seriously. Chill out. No pun intended.
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Michael Hippenhammer 2:54AM (3/23/2008)
I learned the info that Gore is teaching about 13 years ago in college. If you look at geologic time to see how much CO2 has been put in the air naturally it takes tens of thousands of years to for carbon to build up. So yes global warming is a natural cause. Now, all of you who doubt that we humans have an affect on CO2 in the atmosphere I am sure you know by now that the world is not flat. Stop denying the truth. By driving cars, running factories, and producing energy with STORED carbon, (that stuff we dig up from the ground i.e. coal, oil, shale, tar sands and natural gas) we are putting a tremendous amount of CO2 in the atmosphere. Just imagine lakes of oil, billions and billions of gallons have already been burned and there are billions and billions more to burn and it all goes into the atmosphere. YES!! WE ARE RESPONSIBLE !!!! Just look at the CO2 chart graphing the CO2 in the atmosphere you clearly see CO2 levels rising significantly starting in the mid 1800's, the start of the industrial revolution,and increases again in the 1920's, the start of the roaring economy and then the war. In the 60's and 70's another significant increase and again the the 90's to present the levels are skyrocketing. We have put in the atmosphere, in the last 150 years, more carbon than nature has in 10,000 years. Now do you get it?
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Wave54 10:02AM (3/23/2008)
Another view -- that the earth has been cooling for the past decade and the scientists and panels that have promoted "global warming" can't very well back down off their previous assumptions.
http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story/0,25197,23411799-7583,00.html
Rick is right -- nobody REALLY knows.
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Tim 10:20AM (3/23/2008)
Manmade Global warming is designed by the elitists to make the foolish feel guilty enough to transfer their money and power to a socialist world government of the elitists who will "save" them.
Manmade global warming is a crock of Sh&t!
Peak Oil, National Security, Economic Stability and diseases caused by burning oil are REAL problems that must be dealt with by ending our addiction to oil.
If you're going to fight, know exactly what and whom you are fighting for! You can choose (A) Ending our oil addiction or (B) Global Socialism and control by and for the elitists who own the banking cartels, the military-industrial complex, the media and the politicians. Hear THAT foolish Progressives/Liberals/Democratic-Socialists/NeoCons!
Carbon Offset is snake oil for suckers and Manmade Global Warming is the side show that sells the patent medicine that is the death & despair of Global (New World Order) Socialism.
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jmspearman 12:00PM (3/23/2008)
I find it really odd that the guy who posts on Autobloggreen the most doesn't drive a green car. I find it even stranger that he seems to agree with Lutz's highly intelligent and fact-based comments on global warming.
So let's assume global warming doesn't exist. Ever spent any time in Mexico City? Los Angeles? Any big city? Take a deep breath of their air, or don't. Both sides of the global warming issue can see the brown haze. Both sides can see the traffic jams. Even Bob Lutz is not blind. Global warming or not, we have problems that stand on their own.
Pollution is a bad thing, no matter how you slice the ideological pie. No one wants dirty water, dirty air, or more traffic. We have some of the dirtiest air in the country here in Ohio thanks to shady dealings by AEP, our power company.
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Davsot 3:20PM (3/23/2008)
In Puerto Rico this weekend, a massive coldfront brought huge waves across the northern and western coasts which reminded me a bit of The Day After Tomorrow. The waves were changing the way the sand was arranged on shore but most importantly seemed to claim parts of beaches to itself.
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Bill 3:28PM (3/23/2008)
I'd bet most of us here are more concerned about buying less crude oil from countries that hate us over our CO2 footprint.
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