We Don't Need No Stinking Giant Fans

And on the same subject:

http://www.economist.com/node/21562961

The internet is a weird beast, no? For some idiot reason I can't get Fred Astaire himself, but here's a really spectacular puppet. I mean he's super-dooper.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2Wt5FbGD4PA

Not to worry, the MET stated last year that there had been no warming since 1998. Yes really.
Nobody, and I mean Nobody, has to ever use the phrase 'greenhouse gas' ever again.

All you 'too reasonable' skeptics who said you believed the earth was warming since the turn of the century but tempered the statement by saying 'the warming is natural', were suckers who gave up a major argument point to the Warmists for nothing.

There is no Global Warming and we are not running out of carbon based fuel.

Environmentalists at work, they are consistently bad policy makers as they re knee jerk. This and other "Eco-successes" show they should never never be allowed at the table. They have no manners and they act like spoiled children.

coal is by the far the most polluting source of electricity, with more greenhouse gas produced per kilowatt hour than any other fossil fuel

So 'greenhouse gases' are pollutants? Another case of junk science based carbophobia.

When hydrocarbons are incinerated, two greenhouse gases are produced --- CO2 and water vapour. The primary greenhouse gas in the atmosphere is water vapour, constituting 1-4% of air, not carbon dioxide at a mere trace level of .038%.

Wanna reduce greenhouse gases? Declare dihydrogen monoxide (a.k.a. water vapour) a pollutant and cut it down first.

Restoring CO2 to its rightful place in the atmosphere. Nothing could be finer.
But we still have 1 trillion tons to go. Maybe the plants will become as productive as in carboniferous period again and we could grow date palms in Alberta North...

This coal surge is making a nonsense of EU environmental policies, which politicians like to claim are a model for the rest of the world. European countries had hoped gradually to squeeze dirty coal out of electricity generation. Instead, its market share has been growing.

Actually, the EU environmental regulations are nonsense because they presume CO2 to be a "pollutant". The surging use of coal merely proves it.

Oz, the fact that warming has stalled since 1998 doesn't disprove the fact that the world has become generally warmer since the onset of the Industrial Revolution, which is the usual claim of the warmistas. It is that warming which we "rational skeptics" rightly consider to be a natural event. The world was in the middle of the "Little Ice Age" when the Industrial Revolution started (quite literally) picking up steam.

Recognizing a fact is not "conceding" anything to the warmistas. Remember, it was the warmistas who went to great lengths to deny the facts of the Roman and Medieval Warm Periods.

The entire essence of the skeptical position is that Earth's climate is cyclical.

Rizwan, coal IS the most polluting of the fossil fuels. Particularly with respect to particulates, SOx, NOx, VOCs, ozone, not to mention heavy metal emissions such as mercury. The point is that all of these pollutants can be controlled, albeit with considerable expense. You are right that CO2 is not a pollutant. But the rest are.

Gord, it's interesting that coal has become more expensive that gas in North America, driven in large part by Asian and now European demand. Whereas in Europe, it's gas that remains expensive.

One point about coal and oil as opposed to gas and electricity is that the distribution systems of the former can be bootstrapped, while for the latter a large investment is necessary before any power is available. To set up a gas distribution system you would be looking at a billion dollars before the gas can be turned on. With coal and oil, however, one can begin with a boy with a pail. As that makes money, the next step might be a small truck. The profits from that will finance a larger truck, eventually a fleet of trucks. Gas and electricity demand massive investments - capital formation - coal and oil do not. So which gets used if one is in a hurry, and oil is considered evil?

This analysis is due to a gentleman who was president of Fortis for several years, A.A.B.

Coal burns dirty; the effluent contains mercury and other heavy metals including radioactive ones, and a large amount of other particulates, ie. TOXIC pollution. That's the problem with coal.

It requires more cost and capital investment to scrub the particulates and all the toxins out of coal. People [voters] want cheap electricity. Some of the cleanest coal burning is in N.America Europe, and OZ&NZ; the dirtiest is almost everywhere else.

CO2 isn't an important issue, more 'plant food' will increase bio-productivity, warmer temperatures will give better harvests. That's what history tells us about the other warming peaks that have occurred about every 1000 years as far back as we have records.

Oz, you're wrong on this and Gord is right. The world's average temperature has been slowly rising since the end of the Little Ice Age, approximately 1850. The reason why the global warmers are wrong is that when human emissions of CO2 started to become significant, global temperatures started dropping after 1940 before starting to rise slowly again in the 1980s, entirely contrary to theory. With global emissions at their highest levels ever now, temperatures have stopped increasing since 1998.

Global temperatures have had to warm up, otherwise we'd still be in the Little Ice Age. Fact is, temperatures today are barely at the median between the Mediaeval Warming Period and the Maunder Minimum.

Maybe you should leave AGW theory alone, as you clearly don't understand the state of the science.

One more point for you clever people who style yourselves to be "rational skeptics" while agreeing with Warmists that it is warming(when it isn't):
How many people, Warmists included, do not know there was a BIG ICE AGE(or 2) before the Little Ice Age?
Do you think that knowing it's been warming since the Big Ice Age precludes in their mind the possibility that there is anthropogenic CO2 caused warming in addition to the natural warming cycle?

If NO, then why do you think that bringing up the Little Ice Age is a mitigating argument line after you've conceded to them the major point that it's warming.(when it has not in fact been warming for 15 years)

Is it warming? Is it not warming? Yes, no - but what is not happening is sea level rise.
If you had a 20 cm rise, the financial community of New York would be screaming bloody murder. Relatively small changes in water level have large consequences - financial consequences included - while substantial air temperature rises are less consequential, in the near term. Yes, I know that the latter leads to the former, but the latter is full of large fluctuations and the former isn't.

I say to warmists, "show me the sea level rise; you can convince me of your position in two minutes if you have a substantial sea level rise; otherwise you're full of hot air, rather than the atmosphere."