… but can any of you data-spouting, expert quoting Kyoto supporters in this thread interrupt your debate long enough to cite a single example in which humans have been successful in changing the weather?
I’ll settle for something simple – like a local news item about meteorologists altering the course of a small tornado.
Or a thunderstorm.
A cumulous cloud?
(Has anyone even tried reducing average windspeed in Medicine Hat? A worthy project, if ever there was one.)
Didn’t think so.
So, eh… until you pro-Kyotos can demonstrate that “technology” is ready to tackle the little stuff, let’s not indulge in this absurd fallacy that shovelling money to the bank accounts of other nations under a CO2 emmision credit system has the capacity to “reverse global warming”.
Because while you’re all busy arguing, your pro-Kyoto friends in the EU have been hard at work exceeding emissions.
BRUSSELS (Reuters) – A cold winter and increased coal- burning power production raised carbon dioxide emissions in 15 EU states by 1.8 percent between 2002 and 2003, the EU environment agency said on Tuesday.
The European Environment Agency said an extra 59 million tonnes of CO2, which represents 80 percent of all EU emissions, were released into the atmosphere in the 15 EU states, measured before its expansion to 25 states in 2004.
The EU has agreed to cut total greenhouse gas emissions by 8.0 percent of their 1990 levels by 2012 to fight global warming as part of the Kyoto treaty.
Green group Friends of the Earth said the figures showed the bloc was far behind in meeting its target and emissions should have dropped by 5.2 percent in 2003 compared to 1990 for western Europe to be on track.
Oh, and New Zealand, too.
Admittedly, where technology fails, one can always fall back on old-fashioned elbow grease. “Think globally – act locally” with the Rick Mercer[tm] One Tonne Jumpstart Program.
One last thought… has anyone besides me noticed that with all this “new” weather instability created by recent global warming, we keep breaking old weather records?
Why aren’t they recent records?
kate, when B.C. Hydro built dams on the peace river they created one of the largest man made lakes. This lake caused a change in the micro climate of the area. Warming the local area in the winter, cooling it down in the summer and increasing local snow fall. this could be classified as man made local weather change.
Another example of man made weather changes could be the seeding of clouds to cause rain. Didn’t I read where the soviets used to seed clouds that might threaten rain in their capital during their Mayday celebrations, thus causing rain to fall far from Moscow and making Mayday a sunny one in the city.
Kate, you asked and I answered.
Clouds are seeded frequently over calgary… they do it to prevent hail for the most part… pretty rare to see it hail here… Oh, I did some of my own climate change… was driving in the car and tooted… ambient temp inside the car rose a degree and the smog made it hard to breathe
Hey, I do my part… I read blogs, get less exercise, and drink beer. All in an effort to reduce CO2 output. What do they want dammit.
At the present rate I figure I’ll weigh 1 ton in about 5 years. They challenged, i accepted…. what’s the damn prize, this better be worth it.
Truthsayer, what precisely is the “micro climate” of the area? Are you confusing weather changes with climate change?
I know about cloud seeding.
I want to see someone summon up some rain, or redirect a plow wind.
Ok…Methinks some people are missing the point…contrary to what the pro-Kyoto camp would have you believe…CO2 is NOT the worse gas in the atmosphere for causing a greenhouse effect.And wrong,it is not methane…it is good old-fashioned H2O(gaseous).That’s right,water vapour.Don’t believe me,check out the World Meteorological Organization’s web(just google,y’all).Here’s one question for any pro-Kyoto guy/gal out there:please tell me how paying Red China $1 Billion of my tax dollars is going to reduce something that has ALL READY been produced??? Does the phrase closing the barn door after the horse has gone ring a bell??
kelly – those damns actually did change the micro climate in the surrounding areas from what it used to be. If the weather patterns shift, is that not climate change?
This whole climate change thing is a bunch of garbage anyway. The climate is always changing, and cycles. It’s just the boneheads that dreamed up kyoto only looked at a couple of 100 years, and used flawed logic in there analysis. The result is a politically motivated money grab.
Global TV is running a scaremongering segment on climate change, going on about how the glaciers in iceland are “sliding off the shield” because of ground water build-up, due to..you guessed it global warming.
They conveniently don’t tell you 80% of the worlds glaciers are growing at un-precedented rates.
I hate more laws but I really believe that the media should be held accountable to the truth, so much tripe is labeled “documentory” or “news” that is pure easily dis-proved bunk.
When did the news and documentories become viewer beware products?
They should at least have a way of telling us they are lying without saying so, Like when Anne McLellan says.. the fact is.. you know she’s lying.
Kate… C02 in the atmosphere causes global warming. This is a scientific fact that is impossible to dispute. Compare the averave surface temprature of Venus and Mercury(closer to the sun). Venus is MUCH hotter, and it’s CO2 atmosphere is the reason why.
The important questions are…
1. CO2 is a plant nutrient. Has anyone considered what increased levels of it will do to plant life?
2. Will civilization ever stop burning fossil fuels before the supply is diminished?
3. Climate changes and ALWAYS HAS… would an increase in temprature turn Canada into a tropical rainforest?
4. Is there any hope in hell of Kyoto accomplishing ANYTHING except misery?
Hey Kate
You’re so right … and dispite working in the oil patch in Calgary I think we should do something about our emissions – just not using Kyoto as the template. R&D is the only acceptable solution … it is common sense to leave a smaller footprint than what we presently doing. I even took the One tonne Challenge …
Not only that – all this really clean wind power is killing endangered species of birds so now the enviromentalist in California are suing to close the offending wind farm. (CNN had the story earlier today) Somewhere in Kentucky they have the same problem only its bats that are dying. So really is there any clean form of energy.
Back in 1986, the Soviets offered to guarantee blue skies for Expo ’86 in Vancouver. I’m not familiar with the methodology, but I’d sure like to see them give it a go now, in the cloudy, misty summer of ’05.
Scott.
Humans are not nearly as large as some would like to think. We can’t change the planet, no matter how much we wish it or make up non-sense about “climate change.”
We’re pretty insignificant, but the left doesn’t seem to want to admit it.
My other observation regarding global warming is that in the 100 years of consistant record keeping, technology has improved, and the number of weather stations out there has increased. Of course the average is going to go one way or the other; the accuracy with which we measure it improves every year. In 1900 there may have been a dozen thermometers in one region, where now there are hundreds. So instead of a warming trend, we are merely seeing a more accuracte representation of average temperatures.
Earth first! We’ll log the other planets later.
Knight of Good Mr. Iron Man – CO2 is the result, not the cause. That’s the flaw in this logic. If you look at the data the temperature increase leads the CO2 increase, therefore it’s not the CO2 causing the temperature to rise. The rise is more likely the cause of solar cycles which is totally normal.
Kate, if you go back to the Polspy thread, there’s a good example there (Kevin G) to explain the difference between predicting weather and predicting climate. What you are talking about is changing weather, not climate. Manipulating the whole climate system may in fact be easier than influencing single weather events. Some examples: a farmer doesn’t bother trying to influence exactly when and where a particular plant or weed is going to sprout; just applies some broad changes to tip the balance of the system in favour of the crop. An activist doesn’t worry about whether they can direct the course of thought of any one individual; all they need is a favourable trend in opinion. Likewise, humanity may be utterly unable to influence the path of a tornado, yet quite capable of shifting the balance of the entire climate system. Whether we can do it consciously, deliberately, depends on whether we can find any workable means of global cooperation (one that won’t just be hijacked to the advantage of self-serving interests).
OK I hesitate to post here cause I know I’m going to get clobbered but just by way of introduction I’m neck deep in this debate at the highest levels of the Canadain government. (no I work for industry not the government, but right now industry is more commited to developing Canadian policy than the Federal government is, but thats another story I can’t tell)
As usual I’m noticing in the replys here most of the typical urban myths and misconceptions that most people have about Kyoto and climate change. Including the government.
First. The Kyoto protocal itself is a fatally flawed politicized corruption resulting from poorly informed politicians and bueracrats attempting to address an issue that is very real and very relevent. Any agreement to try and control atmosphereic CO2 concentrations is pretty much pointless without involvement from the 3 biggest contributers, USA, China, and India, in that order. The Kyoto implementation in Canada in my expert, (cool I can acutally say that on this topic) is flawed, and more about creating the next Liberal election slush fund, (now that the adscam and gun registry are public) than it is about actually making a difference on climate change. Fortunatly, Industry, the ALberta government and the Environmental Organizations have formed an informal Unholy alliance and are making life hell for Environment Canada, the result of which will be hopefully a program that focuses on short term emmisions control and long term technology solutions that the liberals will NOT be able to use as thier personal piggy bank.
Second. The issue is not global warming or Kyoto! the issue is Climate change. Like it or not the scientific evidence that we are in the midst of a significant and dramatic climatic shift is overwhealming. Whats not clear however is what is causing that shift, (natural causes or manmade CO2 emmisions) what is the timeline over which that shift is going to occur, (50 years or 5000 years), and what the evental steady state will look like. The scientific community generlly accepts that there is a breaking point somewhere where CO2 concentration in the atmosphere, where there could occur a cascading effect resulting in our climate shifting toward what existed when the dinosaurs roamed the earth. Generally a much warmer but dryer climate, with significantly higher sea levels. (hope you don’t have land in Florida) and a sigificant shortage in freash water resources. Not to mention the storms and disasters that will take place while the earths climate reaches it’s steady state. when and how long it will take to get there is anyones guess. I’ve seen numbers ranging from 2050 to the next millenia.
Third – Mans activities and CO2 emmisions appear to be having SOME kind of effect, probably to accelerate the shift. but by how much, and how fast again is anyones guess. Yes H2O is a more significant GHG however man’s activities have pretty much 0 impact on the H2O concentrations and therefore not the issue. CO2 and other pollutants are! However it is genrally accepted that at some unknown conentration for CO2 the world average tempurature will rise enough where Methane hydrates at the bottom of the ocean, and the ice caps will melt causing a cascading effect in global warming… No it will not result in masive killer storms forcing and ice age like in that idiotic movie, but there will likely be a dramatic increase in hurricanes and severe wether while the climate re-balances itself out. The numbers put out there are around 750 ppm of CO2 but that is primarily because if it’s anything less than that then we’re already screwed.
Sierra
Thanks for the post – I hope you don’t get clobbered here – common sense says we should do something about GHG just to lessen our impact or perhaps delay the inevitable. The correct terms here should always have been climate change – I’m also not convinced that our behavior is creating this problem but I see no reason why that should stop us from trying to reduce GHG emissions.
One can only hope that the government of Canada can come up with something a little wiser than the “one tonne Challenge”.
Kyoto is about control and the transfer of the wealth of the industrialized countries to third world countries, and the buying and selling of ‘hot air credits’ which will make a few people who are already wealthy, stinking wealthy. If we are that vain to think we can control climate change, WHO DECIDES WHAT THE CORRECT TEMPERATURE IS?
Right on Kate.
Kyoto Japan.
http://www.junkscience.com
Like I said… I dont’ support Kyoto.. I think the climate change agenda was subverted by politicians for thier own agendas.
However Climate Change is an important issue. and something that can’t be ignored. The crux of the debate is actaully less about What tempurature the earth will end up at and more about what are the damaging effects we will see while the Earths climate stabilizes, and what will the end result be. Based on Paleontological evidence, the depiction of earth in the dinosaur time as a lush jungle is wrong. More likely we will see more deaserts, and less rainfall as more of the worlds H20 is stored in the oceans and as vapour in the atmoshpere, That means less ariable land for humans to live on, and less fresh water, and lower crop yeilds in places we are already struggling to feed people. Besides a large percantage of the worlds population now lives in locations that likely will be underwater in 200 years if the current trends continue.
Really this is all tied to the unsustainability of mankind using fossil fuels as an energy source both economicly and environmentally.
“However Climate Change is an important issue. and something that can’t be ignored.”
Climate change is not capitalized and can easily be ignored if you understand the junk underpinning of the bullshit concept proported by those like the sierra club and their suzuki loving simpletons.
Here’s one you can relate to Kate. The former CEO of IPSCO gave a talk years ago on global warming and to paraphrase…. What’s the big stink? Do you mean to tell me that global warming means the weather in Regina in 50 years will be the same as the weather is Esterhazy is now?
Sierra:
Your comments give me hope. How can I help?
Kate,
Regarding the curious lack of new records being broken: Environment Canada makes a similar observation (quoted below). The full article is an interesting overview of difficulties in measuring trends in extreme weather:
http://www.msc-smc.ec.gc.ca/education/scienceofclimatechange/understanding/ccd/ccd_9801/sections/2_e.html
“Many parts of the world have shown a decrease in the occurrence of low temperature extremes, as would be expected in a warming climate. Surprisingly, though, there has not yet been a noticeable increase in high temperature extremes. The reason appears to be related to the tendency regions for winter temperatures to have increased more than summer temperatures and for overnight lows to have warmed more than daytime highs.
“Temperature, therefore, has actually shown a lessening of extremes, at least so far, but a tendency towards more extreme precipitation is apparent across much of the land area of the Northern Hemisphere. Heavy rainfalls have increased in Japan, the United States, the former Soviet Union, China, and countries around the North Atlantic rim. Canadian records also reveal a trend towards heavier precipitation since 1940, although the increase has been mainly confined to the North.
Don’t look at me on this one, Kate. First, I think Kyoto is a load of crap. Second, I’m not responsible for anything that happens while I’m on vacation. 🙂
Don’t ever slow the speed of the wind in Medicine Hat!! Where do you think that the wind farms are going? If you look in the lower pass area there is a growing electrical generation operation by Enmax and others to bring wind generation on line. In fact it is now cheaper to do wind power than to build a gas fired generator plant.
See http://www.enmax.com and check out the “Greenmax and Hydromax” efforts.