There’s an amusing little anecdote in one of my old breed books about a crafty old Doberman bitch who would confront neighborhood children and bark in their faces until they dropped their ice cream.
In today’s world, they’ve locked up the dogs – and let loose the snakes.
Might I remind y’all, as Kate asked at 2007-02-23.11:34, “Please avoid taking troll bait”. Perhaps, instead, you might attempt to reduce negative influences on SDA’s signal-to-noise ratio, and instead simply enjoy Monty Python’s Albatross sketch, available here: youtube.com/watch?v=Z_u7VGiMO0U
Albatross is a troll from the yahoo boards.His favorite modus is to pose questions and then answer under another sock puppet name..He is also one of the primary reasons the yahoo boards are being reformated.As Kate said there be trolls out there and Alby is the worst.
While environment minsister, Dion won 3 fossil awards. These were added to 41 fossil of the day awards won by Liberal environment ministers between 1999 and 2005.
You were saying albatros?
“Damb straight I’d oppose him because the fact is global warming is aggravated by mans activities on the planet. Why would anyone want somebody to come into a school to feed the children pseudoscience…”
Posted by: albatros39a at February 24, 2007 10:34 PM
(I posted this in a different comment thread, but I guess he didn’t get back to it)
An open question to albatros39a:
Since you should be up to a direct scientific question, by your own claim (“because I’m a fourth year undergrad in; can you guess? It’s in environmental science”) I have a question you might attempt to address.
I have asked this question of a number of scientists, and pseudo-scientists, who are unequivocally in support of the theory of AGW, or ACC. I always get an abrupt change of subject, or an all-of-a-sudden need for them to see someone they just spotted on the other side of the room.
So, what do YOU think. Approximately 10,000 years ago the northern part of the North American continent was covered by an ice sheet that, in places, was over two miles thick, and which had a southern edge that extended south of the Great Lakes region. It was so thick, massive and extensive that it caused the crust to *sink* in that area. The crust in the Great Lakes region is still, to this date, rebounding from that massive weight.
At that time (approx. 10,000 ya) there was very little population by man, very little burning of fossil fuels, no industrialization, and no evidence of any massive disruptions of a geological nature (i.e. Deccan or Columbia sized plateau basalt eruptions, or massive bolide collisions).
So, what changed at that time (circa 10,000 +/- years ago) that would have warmed the climate and caused the melting of such a large ice mass, and it’s retreat back to the polar region? A retreat, btw, that continues today.
There is also ample evidence of elevated CO2 levels in the distant, and very distant, past. What created those?
You know… just askin’.
BTW… what exactly IS that thing hanging around your neck?
I remember reading in one of Suzuki’s books a question he posed to the head of the Canadian Humane Society regarding hunting and his thoughts on the practice. The answer to Suzuki’s question was more or less that it was the result of bad breeding. I recall wondering what Suzuki thought of that?
I no longer wonder.
He really is just another “noble” ass hat worshiped by dingbats and those too young to know any better.
Yoop, nobody denies that there is a natural cycle to the climate, due mainly to the Milankovitch cycle changing the solar insulation received by the earth. But many other mechanisms are involved in climate change too, like volcanoes, continental drift, solar activity and even the occasional asteroid smacking into the earth. The problem this time is the rate at which the temperature is rising. It’s something that has not been seen before in the climatic record. We are indeed in a natural warming cycle, I don’t deny this, but the rate at which the temp is rising is the problem. It’s not supposed to be getting this warm, this quickly and the natural ecosystems on the planet cannot compensate for the sudden change. Ecosystems respond at a rate similar to that of evolution and if it can’t keep up, it dies like we are seeing with the polar bear. So even though there are other things that have caused climate change, the earth has never experienced man pumping his CO2 into the atmosphere.
The real kicker for Alberta and most of the prairie region is that as they continue to extract oil from the tar sands, and ignore the changes, they could end up losing their entire agriculture industry. No more Alberta beef, no more prairie wheat and no corn to grow to produce ethanol. In fact, anyone living between the Cascade Range to the Manitoba-Saskatchewan border will quite possibly be living in a desert in less than 50 years. The glaciers that feed the western rivers will be gone so the rivers will simply dry up. To complicate matters, as temperature increases the subtropical high will move further north dramatically decreasing precipitation in the rain shadow of the mountains. As the subtropical high moves north, the polar front will moves north allowing dry continental air from the south turning everything from Texas to Fort St. John to Yorktown to become an extension of the Mojave desert. To the east and north of this region will become the new Tornado Ally.
Whether you want to believe it or not, western Canada has the most to lose from global warming.
So albatros eh. Yoop is the guy I would pick to go to your school and present the other side of this issue. You would oppose his right to do that because it is pseudoscience etc… Yet you gladly debate him on this forum. Interesting. I at least give you credit for engaging in the debate whereas Suzuki, in a completely inappropriate forum, absolutely ridicules and insults those who question his omniscient knowledge. What do you want albatros, total and complete adherence to your science or can we have a debate without the insults?
Bob, Suzuki was invited in to give a talk, not a debate, and the parents came to listen to him talk. He gave them what they came for.
Debate is one thing, but purposely feeding children false information is completely different animal.
albatros – did anyone really go there to hear his vitriol about how Stephen Harper doesn’t care about them, and the like? Is Suzuki capable of letting his science do the talking rather than his condescending, paternalistic, I’m smart and your not kind of talk? I can see why you like his style. Yours is much the same. It is the same style that dismisses an opposing opinion before it is even heard. It is the style that would love a real debate providing there was no one arguing on the other side.
Issues usually have more than one side or aspect to consider. For you there is no other side. It is game – set – match with no referee. As long as the Suzuki’s and albatros’ of the world continue like they do, we who value a thorough search for truth will continue to keep calling you for what you are – demigods.
You have this false belief that yours is the only truth. “feeding children false information is a completely different animal.” “False information”! Really, Says who? Says you? Oh I forgot – you are after all omniscient. Who is anyone to challenge you? Well albatros – there are many brilliant scientists who directly challenge what you and the Suzuki’s of the world are telling us. I note that the main difference between them and you is that they seriously question your conclusions while you say they are deliberately giving us false information. For you there is and never will be any debate.
I am scratching my balding pate as I try to understand why you and your ilk would attack Stephen Harper when in 13 months he and his government has done more to advance the environment agenda than the Liberals did in the previous 13 years. Can you begin to explain that to me? And I will bet that you and David will line up one behind the other to vote for your Liberal candidate in the next federal election. In fact, you might even vote early and vote often!
Give your freekin a head a big shake. Sheeeesh!!
Whether or not they agree with what he said, they came to hear Suzuki speak and he spoke.
About Harper doing anything for the environment, I answered you in a previous post above.
As far as global warming is concerned, I speak empirically on this subject, it’s happening and it’s measurable. Scientists around the world agree overwhelmingly global warming is human induced and as I said, Alberta has the most to lose from it.
albatros39a posted the following:
“But many other mechanisms are involved in climate change too, like volcanoes, continental drift, solar activity and even the occasional asteroid smacking into the earth.”
As I mentioned before (but you conviently ignored):How many of these mecanisms have occured in this latest glacial recession: i.e. in the last 10,000 years?
“The problem this time is the rate at which the temperature is rising. It’s something that has not been seen before in the climatic record.”
With this I totally disagree. Could you please provide some peer-reviewed citations that actually show data for the last 10,000 years that prove your statement. Or, are you referring to man’s 180 years of recorded climatic record, as opposed to earth’s 5 BILLION YEARS of climatic record?
“… it dies like we are seeing with the polar bear.”
The polar bear is dying? With an increasing population over the last several decades, the polar bear is actually dying? Again, could you please provide a citation that actually uses properly collected and interpreted data that supports your claim.
“So even though there are other things that have caused climate change, the earth has never experienced man pumping his CO2 into the atmosphere.”
What would be your good guess as to the amount of CO2 that was pumped into the atmosphere by Mother Nature during a large, sustained volcanic erruption? Where did that CO2 go, afterwards? Do you have ANY idea how much CO2 is *sequestered* in the carbonate rocks of the earth’s crust? Any idea how it got there? In Fact, have you considered ANY of the geochemical aspects of the earth’s past as they relate to your claims of today?
And from a later post:
“As far as global warming is concerned, I speak empirically on this subject, it’s happening and it’s measurable.”
Of course it is. It has been going on for 10,000 years and three months! Now, how much of a *measured* EMPIRICAL record for that 10,000 years can you supply so that we can ascertain both cycles of flucuation and rapidity of change within that time frame.
“Scientists around the world agree overwhelmingly global warming is human induced…”
This is an out-and-out lie perpetuated by the media and the proponents of AGW and ACC. The agreement among scientists IS NOT overwhelming, and there is much more dissent amongst and within the scientific community than you or others are willing to acknowledge. Why don’t you entertain a bunch of that dissent, and address those issues specifically, with real, verifiable data, instead of droning on with the presently acceptable PC mantra? If you are, as you claim, a soon-to-be scientist then you should understand how that applies, should you not?
a different Bob:
You said: “So albatros eh. Yoop is the guy I would pick to go to your school and present the other side of this issue.”
Sorry. It won’t happen. It is too easy to ask simple questions, to which they have no answers, either simple or complex. They cannot afford that exposure.
Yoop, at least most of us are quite willing to let him and his ilk have their say – which is quite different from what they would let us do. To them we are no more – no less than liars.
“Yoop, at least most of us are quite willing to let him and his ilk have their say – which is quite different from what they would let us do. To them we are no more – no less than liars.”
Sooner, or later (and I’m betting later) the general population will come to the conclusion that the so-called scientists who have a closed mind and an agenda are more danger to their health and economic advancement than anything else they have to fear.
When that realization is finally achieved it will set the acceptance of real science back several decades.
I’m sure you note that none of them ever want to address where the big ice cube went.
“As I mentioned before (but you conviently ignored):How many of these mecanisms have occured in this latest glacial recession: i.e. in the last 10,000 years?”
No the answer is up there for you to see. You figure it out. For example, is it likely continental drift will affect climate change in 10000 years? No, so it’s continental drift. Is it volcanoes? No, though volcanoes have affected the climate in the past few hundred years as in the Little Ice Age and the after effects of Mount Pinatubo, this time though it’s not volcanoes. Any asteroids? No, nothing that big. Solar activity? Not enough to account for the climate change we are seeing.
I’ll give you a hint. Think precession.
“Could you please provide some peer-reviewed citations that actually show data for the last 10,000 years that prove your statement.”
Yes I could, there’s plenty of publications dealing with paleoclimatology and if I get time I’ll find a couple and post them.
“The polar bear is dying? With an increasing population over the last several decades, the polar bear is actually dying? Again, could you please provide a citation that actually uses properly collected and interpreted data that supports your claim.”
Goodness man are you really that ill informed? Even George Bush has recognised what the polar Bear is going through right now and wants them on the endangered species list.
“This is an out-and-out lie perpetuated by the media and the proponents of AGW and ACC. The agreement among scientists IS NOT overwhelming, and there is much more dissent amongst and within the scientific community than you or others are willing to acknowledge. Why don’t you entertain a bunch of that dissent, and address those issues specifically, with real, verifiable data, instead of droning on with the presently acceptable PC mantra? If you are, as you claim, a soon-to-be scientist then you should understand how that applies, should you not?”
It’s overwhelming and you’re in denial. I’m getting the sense you are employed in the oil patch.
http://www.ipcc.ch/
If you go to the Mirriam Webster dictionary and look up one of the definitions of the word “albatross” it reads ” something that greatly hinders accomplishment”. That pretty much puts into context for me. Yoop, if you want to continue with this bag of air, you go right ahead. I’ve got better things to do with the rest of my life.