Northwest Passage

[SailOar]

Originally Posted by Singularity

If trees could talk, if you asked them where they want the CO2, they would tell you "in the air." If the animal/plant life dependent on trees and vegetation were asked the same question, they would provide the same answer.

The most cogent argument against planet warming alarmism is that it's self-serving to humans and stuff a few feet from sea level...really, an exceedingly small percentage of the biomass. This basic observation/position accepts whatever of the gazillion end-is-near graphs alarmist post up and accepts them readily. From this reference frame, any debate on the legitimacy of this or that graph is rather pointless...the debate itself is only self-serving to the people in the debate who don't have a more interesting hobby (or bogey man to worry about).....

You are unaware of, or ignoring, a host of other "negative" effects of climate change.

Millions of people depend of people in S America and Asia depend on glacier melt to provide drinking and irrigation water. But the glaciers are melting.

The pH of the oceans is decreasing (acidifying). Many corals and shellfish are finding it increasingly difficult to make their calcium-based "houses"

To the extent they are able, ecologies are moving to cooler locations -- higher latitude, higher altitude. Those already at the tops of mountains, for instance, have nowhere to go and are dying out.

Relationships between animals and food sources is being disrupted. (e.g. when birds nest vs when there are food-bug outbreaks)

The Jet Stream (Polar Vortex) is becoming less stable. (It tends to corral polar cold north of it) Instead of being a nice do-nut at high latitudes, it instead is becoming more sinuous, with loops both farther north than normal, and loops further south than normal. That is one reason why we are getting record-breaking heat waves in Alaska, for instance, but also record-breaking cold in the lower-48 -- or very high temps in Canada, but very low temps in Russia.

Ice shelves that walrus use to haul out on and penguins nest on, are disappearing.

Some areas are getting wetter, others dryer. Intense downpours are becoming more common. That's very disruptive to both human farmers as well as the local ecology.

There is some indication that hurricanes are becoming more intense.

There is some indication that as large glaciers melt the weight change on the earth's crust will release more volcanoes.

When ecologies change pest species always seem to adapt quicker than those species humans deem to be more valuable. (mosquitoes adapt faster than elephants, for instance, and thistles faster than redwoods)

The list could go on and on. People mostly don't care about what happens to birds, bees, and bugs, so we alarmists mostly dwell on the negatives that are happening/will happen to humans. It's simply a matter of trying to appeal to our own self-interest, since, fundamentally, most of us are extremely self-centered, and we're mostly interested in what will happen to us in the next few days or weeks, not the next few centuries.

[SailOar]

I need help with the New York Times Mini-Crossword Puzzle for today.

https://www.nytimes.com/crosswords/game/mini

3 Down: When it's a good time to argue with strangers on the Internet.

Clues: 5 letters, starts with "N" and ends with "R"

[AllenRbrts]

Originally Posted by newhaul

that reads more like 25% now how much of that additional co2 is from sources other than fossil fuels that register the same

How about volcanic activity . It does put out a heck of a lot of co2 with the same atomic signature of fossil fuels . Raikoke Volcano which erupted in the end of June discharged as much co2 in 4 days as Sweden does in a full year.

Humm .... 1-280/440 =?

If volcanos we’re capable of big swings , they would show up in the historic record of CO2 and they don’t. Try as you might, there is no other credible explanation.

[AllenRbrts]

Originally Posted by Exile

Yes, this does seem to be one of the areas of CC where there's more consensus. Then again, I don't think it's quite as linear as you describe, mainly because the land & ocean "sinks" that absorb (and later release) CO2 aren't well understood.



I don't think the connection between added CO2 and some level of added warming is all that disputed either, but the issue of how much warming is occurring as a result is probably one of the core controversies. Even here amongst our strongest advocates, there seems to be controversy whether the added CO2 is responsible for all the warming or just a part of it. And if it's the latter how much? These aren't just quibbles for they go directly to what sorts of remedies/policies we may want to adopt in mitigation, and what the obvious downsides are that would necessarily accompany such imposed or induced reductions in fossil fuel consumption.



And to save some people some Google-time, we already know there is long-established, published/peer-reviewed evidence to support most theories from "we'd be in a cooling trend right now but for," to "we'd still be warming but not as much," to the Spencer/skeptic/minority position that the human CO2 is contributing to warming but it's not consequential (this one may not be peer-reviewed per prior discussions). I could be wrong, but I believe the official IPCC position states that the added CO2 is a "significant" cause of the warming but doesn't say that without it we'd be cooling. Ditto for NASA & NOAA as far as I recall. So another volley of scientific papers, charts & graphs probably won't help since mustering a return volley is likely only a quick Google search away. Happy to stand corrected on any of this.

I think there is little dissent in the scientific community on the amount and source of the CO2 because the amount of fossil fuel consumed can be calculated and therefore the added CO2 is known. The numbers line up. As for the warming that is not much is dispute either. The basic physics are not that hard and has been known for a hundred years. Spencer acknowledges that with his “it is only 1% of the energy budget” which all just spin as I explained many posts ago.

There is more uncertainty about various feedback mechanisms (water vapor, open ocean vs ice, etc) and also what assumptions to make about future fossil fuel usage patterns in the developing world. Some models assume large amount of coal as African nations develop which would greatly increases the CO2 amounts. Hopefully those assumptions are wrong. These uncertainly give rise to wide range of temperature change (1-3C) for CO2 doubling.


Much of the discussion on this forum has been about things that have long been understood and settled, there is much less discussion about what is less certain and even less about what to go about it.

[newhaul]

Originally Posted by SailOar

You are unaware of, or ignoring, a host of other "negative" effects of climate change.

Millions of people depend of people in S America and Asia depend on glacier melt to provide drinking and irrigation water. But the glaciers are melting.

The pH of the oceans is decreasing (acidifying). Many corals and shellfish are finding it increasingly difficult to make their calcium-based "houses"

To the extent they are able, ecologies are moving to cooler locations -- higher latitude, higher altitude. Those already at the tops of mountains, for instance, have nowhere to go and are dying out.

Relationships between animals and food sources is being disrupted. (e.g. when birds nest vs when there are food-bug outbreaks)

The Jet Stream (Polar Vortex) is becoming less stable. (It tends to corral polar cold north of it) Instead of being a nice do-nut at high latitudes, it instead is becoming more sinuous, with loops both farther north than normal, and loops further south than normal. That is one reason why we are getting record-breaking heat waves in Alaska, for instance, but also record-breaking cold in the lower-48 -- or very high temps in Canada, but very low temps in Russia.

Ice shelves that walrus use to haul out on and penguins nest on, are disappearing.

Some areas are getting wetter, others dryer. Intense downpours are becoming more common. That's very disruptive to both human farmers as well as the local ecology.

There is some indication that hurricanes are becoming more intense.

There is some indication that as large glaciers melt the weight change on the earth's crust will release more volcanoes.

When ecologies change pest species always seem to adapt quicker than those species humans deem to be more valuable. (mosquitoes adapt faster than elephants, for instance, and thistles faster than redwoods)

The list could go on and on. People mostly don't care about what happens to birds, bees, and bugs, so we alarmists mostly dwell on the negatives that are happening/will happen to humans. It's simply a matter of trying to appeal to our own self-interest, since, fundamentally, most of us are extremely self-centered, and we're mostly interested in what will happen to us in the next few days or weeks, not the next few centuries.

way to many falsehoods here .
In the future when you make grandiose claims please number them i can provide proper scientific rebuttals .
For now this will have to do .

[newhaul]

Originally Posted by AllenRbrts

Humm .... 1-280/440 =?

If volcanos we’re capable of big swings , they would show up in the historic record of CO2 and they don’t. Try as you might, there is no other credible explanation.

volcanoes do show up in the historical records . Update of your data may be in order

[conachair]

Originally Posted by newhaul

way to many falsehoods here .
In the future when you make grandiose claims please number them i can provide proper scientific rebuttals .

How can you possible provide scientific rebuttals for claims you don't know? Slight bias slipping out there maybe, making your mind up before looking

Could you provide links to published scientific papers which stated the claims below?

[Singularity]

Originally Posted by Exile

I do get the sense that some of the angst derives from being told time & again that the issue has been "settled," the debate is "over," and not realizing these pronouncements are mainly coming from politicians, pundits, and the media, and not necessarily the scientists themselves.

Let me parse the term "derive" a little. I'd suggest that the angst is always there and cannot be extinguished for the reasons described below. The politicians, pundits, media, and even the science for that matter are all subordinate issues that are in fact only coincidental players in what's really going on (at least with respect to some people).

Do consider reading about responsibility OCD. I think I referenced this in another thread here. There are different theories about what OCD in general is, but I heavily buy into the theory that OCD is driven by a fear principally of guilt, where what is described as 'responsibility OCD' is the most severe permutation of this phenomenon.*

Link:
A good place to start is by learning about two beliefs that are common in many people with OCD:

• Inflated responsibility – belief that they are responsible for preventing harm coming to themselves, a loved one or others
• Overestimation of threat – belief that things are riskier than they are

For someone with OCD, what they worry about (whatever intrusive thoughts they have) seems very likely to happen and their sense of responsibility means that they feel they must act in order to prevent it. In other words, the two beliefs create an ever increasing cycle of obsessions and compulsions. Even if the level of danger is assessed to be relatively low [e.g.0.001%] by the person with OCD (i.e. it’s a low risk someone will break into my place of work), their heightened sense of responsibility (to protect my place of work) dictates the need to carry out a compulsion.

An interesting thing is, to me, that the flip side of this overestimation of threat cognitive distortion is evident in people addicted to gambling. Gambling addicts see the 0.001% chance of winning as "too good to pass up" and will expend the entirety of their own savings, plus the cash from the VCR that they stole and pawned from their neighbor, in effort to attain the windfall that they have 0.001% chance of winning. Otherwise supporting this analogy is the fact that very similar brain activity patterns light up on imaging studies between OCD, gambling addiction, and other related unhealthy obsessive conditions.

So we all have OCD to some degree. It's otherwise what keeps us alive longer. But you need to (I think) recognize...in the context of the above examples....that you will get nowhere discussing the "probability vs reality nexus" with people who have no insight into their numeracy cognitive distortion. Recall that one definition of crazy is doing the same thing over and over, expecting a different result.

Even IF you can, transiently for a moment, sooth someone's specific obsessive concern on a subpoint, they will just seek/find some other subpoint to obsess about. Belaboring the point....when you sooth one of their obsessive concerns....it's like you've volunteered to stand at the door and hold the lock closed where the person used to repetitively cycle the lock a million times. As you're standing there holding the lock closed, you'll find you're obligated to watch them then proceed over to the window and cycle that latch too. They'll give you a catrillion examples of how the latch on the windows are dodgy, the history of dodgy windows, endless anecdotes of window latch failures, etc ad nauseam. In this space, you get graphs, charts, articles, name-drops, stories of starving rock moss, whatever...

You can continue your participation with this forever. Just realize that in this AGW discussion context that it's not about science...it's about you getting wrapped up in someone else's OCD (with respect to at least one poster here)...and it's exceedingly unlikely that you'll find deeper enlightenment into the science issues.

As you said, if you're a guy on a recycled boat with an exceedingly low environmental impact being lectured to by a guy in a house who introduces copious CO2 into the environment in a forum where there's little return on investment...it's sort of evident that the environment/science isn't the real issue.

*Note that in at least certain dominant religions a fundamental logical draw to the religion's narrative is that your inherent guilt is quite literally absolved (and/or blame is attributed to the action of "others" (evil-doing non-believers) such that believers are afforded a relatively guilt-free life). Quite a draw if believing gets you out of the above described strife.

[newhaul]

Originally Posted by conachair

How can you possible provide scientific rebuttals for claims you don't know? Slight bias slipping out there maybe, making your mind up before looking

Could you provide links to published scientific papers which stated the claims below?

we will start with some off the wall predictions from earth day 1970
18 spectacularly wrong apocalyptic predictions made around the time of the first Earth Day in 1970, expect more this year - AEI
None have happened . Why. Because technology.
Now as to the ice age by 2000

Quoted text
The fist Earth Day (1970):

“The world has been chilling sharply for about twenty years. If present trends continue, the world will be about four degrees colder for the global mean temperature in 1990, but eleven degrees colder in the year 2000. This is about twice what it would take to put us into an ice age.”

• Kenneth Watt, (UC Davis) Ecologist on air pollution and global cooling,.

"[i]n ten years all important animal life in the sea will be extinct. Large areas of coastline will have to be evacuated because of the stench of dead fish."[21] In a 1971 speech, he predicted that: "By the year 2000 the United Kingdom will be simply a small group of impoverished islands,

inhabited by some 70 million hungry people ...

If I were a gambler, I would take even money that England will not exist in the year 2000." "Five years is all we have left if we are going to preserve any kind of quality in the world."

“Population will inevitably and completely outstrip whatever small increases in food supplies we make. The death rate will increase until at least 100-200 million people per year will be starving to death during the next ten years.” • Paul Ehrlich, Stanford University biologist Earth Day in 1970,

Sea level rise 1989

The dire warning came from a top U.N. official in 1989, warning that mankind only had a 10-year window to stop global warming before it went beyond human ability to reverse. But 15 years after the warning, no nations have been wiped off the planet because of global warming, and global temperatures have not warmed nearly as much as most climate models predicted..


Himalayan glacier melting
The ipcc admitted they screwed the pooch
And walked it back claiming mis quoted
https://www.theguardian.com/environm...aciers-mistake

2000 snow will be a thing of the past

https://www.climatedepot.com/2018/01...k-independent/

Interestingly the paper is no longer available

According to Dr David Viner, a senior research scientist at the climatic research unit (CRU) of the University of East Anglia,within a few years winter snowfall will become ‘a very rare and exciting event.*Children just aren’t going to know what snow is.’*

2007 global warming will cause fewer hurricanes

https://www.nature.com/news/2008/080....2008.837.html

Arctic ice free by 2013

BBC NEWS | Science/Nature | Arctic summers ice-free 'by 2013'

2012 global warming will cause more hurricanes.

https://www.climatecentral.org/news/...orldwide-16204

(Which is it more or fewer hurricanes??)

as to the last one 2014 the science is settled we all k is science is never settled it is always evolving that was just a political hit job .

Does this do ???

[Lake-Effect]

Originally Posted by Singularity

The most cogent argument against planet warming alarmism is that it's self-serving to humans and stuff a few feet from sea level...really, an exceedingly small percentage of the biomass.

That is some impressive hubris.

Given that we don't have a better understanding about the planet's temperature-regulating mechanism (if we did, we wouldn't be debating AGW, we would know one way or the other), or for that matter, just about all of the large-scale systemic interactions between ... just about everything... does it really make sense to not be concerned about our substantial alteration of something like global CO2? By 40% and growing?

It's becoming more evident that these immense natural systems are both more resilient, and more fragile than we've imagined. In particular, we're seeing that some changes are simply too fast for many components of the system to adapt to. I believe there's particular concern about global agriculture becoming less productive overall, at about the time we need them to be more productive. You can't really just pick up a biosphere and move it higher in latitude.

Most of us on both "sides" seem to be in agreement that the AGW issue should not be drawing attention away from the other large issues we also face:

• massive species loss or extinctions
• in particular, insects
• depletion of the oceans
• a plague of fat blonde autocrats
• etc

I agree. The problem is, the anti-AGW crowd are pretty much in denial or indifferent about all of these too. If one can dismiss a 40% buildup in atmospheric CO2... one can dismiss ANYTHING. And the proof of this is evident, in the lack of widespread concern or action about them.

We are at the point of having a better understanding about how the planet works, and what threatens it, but not yet really giving a sh!t about it outside of specialist circles.

I'm too old to be 'alarmed', and lucky enough, like just about all the members of CF, that I won't ever be threatened by warming or the other threats. I'm just sad that we can't do a better job of acknowledging these problems.

[newhaul]

Originally Posted by Lake-Effect

That is some impressive hubris.

Given that we don't have a better understanding about the planet's temperature-regulating mechanism (if we did, we wouldn't be debating AGW, we would know one way or the other), or for that matter, just about all of the large-scale systemic interactions between ... just about everything... does it really make sense to not be concerned about our substantial alteration of something like global CO2? By 40% and growing?

It's becoming more evident that these immense natural systems are both more resilient, and more fragile than we've imagined. In particular, we're seeing that some changes are simply too fast for many components of the system to adapt to. I believe there's particular concern about global agriculture becoming less productive overall, at about the time we need them to be more productive. You can't really just pick up a biosphere and move it higher in latitude.

Most of us on both "sides" seem to be in agreement that the AGW issue should not be drawing attention away from the other large issues we also face:

• massive species loss or extinctions
• in particular, insects
• depletion of the oceans
• a plague of fat blonde autocrats
• etc

I agree. The problem is, the anti-AGW crowd are pretty much in denial or indifferent about all of these too. If one can dismiss a 40% buildup in atmospheric CO2... one can dismiss ANYTHING. And the proof of this is evident, in the lack of widespread concern or action about them.

We are at the point of having a better understanding about how the planet works, and what threatens it, but not yet really giving a sh!t about it outside of specialist circles.

I'm too old to be 'alarmed', and lucky enough, like just about all the members of CF, that I won't ever be threatened by warming or the other threats. I'm just sad that we can't do a better job of acknowledging these problems.

I agree there are many other items that we should be addressing .
The difference in co2 levels are actually inconsequential we are talking the difference between .03% and .04% and the actual science community can't even come to any agreement exactly where it comes from .

The only reason they actually go after co2 is they can prove at least a small part of that is from human based sources. Therefore tax it.

Personally I don't care about the tax ( other than the increase in food costs it would cause)
I don't produce enough co2 from non bodily functions .

[Singularity]

Originally Posted by Lake-Effect

.....The problem is, the anti-[xyz] crowd are pretty much in denial or indifferent about all of these [bad things] too...
I'm just sad that we can't do a better job of acknowledging these problems.

No argument, though it may be personally healthy to acknowledge that...that which produces the sadness...has always been with us, and will always be with us, no matter the maximum collective efforts of like-minded people. For sure it's an uncomfortable idea to accept as reality, but I submit to this reality frees you to be, actually, more capable of meeting your pro-change goals. If nothing else, it's more pragmatic. Shakespeare was on to something with the logic "the [person] doth protest too much, methinks."

So the question that begs to be asked: "how much is this dialog helping change the hearts and minds?" If the answer is "less positive impact than the CO2 (etc) caused by the discussion" then the discussion is, frankly, irrational.

Do you genuinely conclude that the type of dialog here causes either hearts and minds reading this forum to change, and/or permeates back into the social consciousness in a manner to justify the CO2/bandwith cost???

[conachair]

Originally Posted by newhaul

we will start with some off the wall predictions from earth day 1970
18 spectacularly wrong apocalyptic predictions made around the time of the first Earth Day in 1970, expect more this year - AEI
None have happened . Why. Because technology.
Now as to the ice age by 2000
No published science that I can see ..
Quoted text
The fist Earth Day (1970):

“The world has been chilling sharply for about twenty years. If present trends continue, the world will be about four degrees colder for the global mean temperature in 1990, but eleven degrees colder in the year 2000. This is about twice what it would take to put us into an ice age.”

• Kenneth Watt, (UC Davis) Ecologist on air pollution and global cooling,.

"[i]n ten years all important animal life in the sea will be extinct. Large areas of coastline will have to be evacuated because of the stench of dead fish."[21] In a 1971 speech, he predicted that: "By the year 2000 the United Kingdom will be simply a small group of impoverished islands,

inhabited by some 70 million hungry people ...

If I were a gambler, I would take even money that England will not exist in the year 2000." "Five years is all we have left if we are going to preserve any kind of quality in the world."

“Population will inevitably and completely outstrip whatever small increases in food supplies we make. The death rate will increase until at least 100-200 million people per year will be starving to death during the next ten years.” • Paul Ehrlich, Stanford University biologist Earth Day in 1970,

Sea level rise 1989

The dire warning came from a top U.N. official in 1989, warning that mankind only had a 10-year window to stop global warming before it went beyond human ability to reverse. But 15 years after the warning, no nations have been wiped off the planet because of global warming, and global temperatures have not warmed nearly as much as most climate models predicted..

Np published work so far then.

Himalayan glacier melting
The ipcc admitted they screwed the pooch
And walked it back claiming mis quoted
https://www.theguardian.com/environm...aciers-mistake

Yep. am error crept in amongst thousands .




2000 snow will be a thing of the past

https://www.climatedepot.com/2018/01...k-independent/

Interestingly the paper is no longer available

According to Dr David Viner, a senior research scientist at the climatic research unit (CRU) of the University of East Anglia,within a few years winter snowfall will become ‘a very rare and exciting event.*Children just aren’t going to know what snow is.’*

Again, no paper.

2007 global warming will cause fewer hurricanes

https://www.nature.com/news/2008/080....2008.837.html

Give you that one, one paper disagreed with other papers.

Arctic ice free by 2013

BBC NEWS | Science/Nature | Arctic summers ice-free 'by 2013'

It said could, not will.

2012 global warming will cause more hurricanes.

https://www.climatecentral.org/news/...orldwide-16204

(Which is it more or fewer hurricanes??)

Weak signalk but does look like correlation between increasing sea surface temperatures and hurricanes.
https://www.gfdl.noaa.gov/global-war...nd-hurricanes/

https://www.gfdl.noaa.gov/global-war...nd-hurricanes/

as to the last one 2014 the science is settled we all k is science is never settled it is always evolving that was just a political hit job .

So you never got to the doctor, never get in an plane, never buy a computer of phone cos all that science is just evolving?
You didn't bother answering last time, but doesn't every nasa climate scientist coming to the exact opposite conclusion to you ring just a few alarm bells? They're all wrong but you're right?

Does this do ???

Nope, not a chance. Just shows your bias.

2 questions you have to answer to earn millions in a few weeks.

If it isn't greenhouse gasses then then why not? That science has been known for over a century. Is it all wrong including the predictions made by quantum mechanics? All of it?

If not what is? There is no other smoking gun around which fits.

It ain't the sun.

[newhaul]

Originally Posted by conachair

Np published work so far then.



Yep. am error crept in amongst thousands .




2000 snow will be a thing of the past

https://www.climatedepot.com/2018/01...k-independent/

Interestingly the paper is no longer available

According to Dr David Viner, a senior research scientist at the climatic research unit (CRU) of the University of East Anglia,within a few years winter snowfall will become ‘a very rare and exciting event.*Children just aren’t going to know what snow is.’*

Again, no paper.



Give you that one, one paper disagreed with other papers.



It said could, not will.



Weak signalk but does look like correlation between increasing sea surface temperatures and hurricanes.
https://www.gfdl.noaa.gov/global-war...nd-hurricanes/

https://www.gfdl.noaa.gov/global-war...nd-hurricanes/



So you never got to the doctor, never get in an plane, never buy a computer of phone cos all that science is just evolving?
You didn't bother answering last time, but doesn't every nasa climate scientist coming to the exact opposite conclusion to you ring just a few alarm bells? They're all wrong but you're right?




Nope, not a chance. Just shows your bias.

2 questions you have to answer to earn millions in a few weeks.

If it isn't greenhouse gasses then then why not? That science has been known for over a century. Is it all wrong including the predictions made by quantum mechanics? All of it?

If not what is? There is no other smoking gun around which fits.

It ain't the sun.

the science is evolving no I do not fly anymore but that has nothing to do with evolving technology. The phone why do you keep buying / upgrading your phone?

And fyi it is the sun always was always will be .

[Lake-Effect]

Originally Posted by Singularity

No argument, though it may be personally healthy to acknowledge that...that which produces the sadness...has always been with us, and will always be with us, no matter the maximum collective efforts of like-minded people. For sure it's an uncomfortable idea to accept as reality, but I submit to this reality frees you to be, actually, more capable of meeting your pro-change goals. If nothing else, it's more pragmatic. Shakespeare was on to something with the logic "the [person] doth protest too much, methinks."

Hey, don't be worried about lil ole me. I can be equally sad about the plight of the world, or that someone took my last cold beer.

This isn't about MY pro-change goals. I'll be fine, regardless. If I could actually fix the world (or MY world), I would have already done it.

So the question that begs to be asked: "how much is this dialog helping change the hearts and minds?" If the answer is "less positive impact than the CO2 (etc) caused by the discussion" then the discussion is, frankly, irrational.

Do you genuinely conclude that the type of dialog here causes either hearts and minds reading this forum to change, and/or permeates back into the social consciousness in a manner to justify the CO2/bandwith cost???

Heh. You're asking the wrong guy.

When the AGW discussion shows up on CF, it's mainly for entertainment, chest-thumping, or trolling. And sometimes it's started by someone with a genuine interest or concern. Either way it usually devolves into a shouting match with invested debaters on both sides, and trolls/cretins deliberately stirring things up. It goes to pot, gets personal/political, and the mods shut it down.

This is a cruising/sailing/boating forum; I like it here mainly as a place to discuss and expand my knowledge and interest in those. I think it should be a place of refuge from politics, and so I think that CF is no place for the AGW debate. But I also think that anti-AGW propaganda shouldn't go unchallenged either. Oh the complexity.

I've been on better than usual behaviour in this particular thread because most of the usual trolls/propagandists are absent, and it has been rather civil. You have helped raise the tone a bit.

btw I'm only using spare cycles on CF while waiting on something. The cycles and emissions would otherwise be wasted on cruising kijiji or cat videos.