Agreed. Global warming has created smaller brains among its activists. All hail the narrow minded!

Warmer climates = Smaller brains.
Does that not say something about the intelligence
of those living in warmer climates ( eg. Africa )?
How long will it take to get the anti-racism crowd
on to this one?

No wonder I felt dumber after moving back to Winnipeg, after spending three glorious years in the cool, crisp Yukon air.

"Australia's largest city will be plunged into darkness for an hour on Saturday in an attempt at a world first blackout to raise awareness of global warming, organisers say." Actually, the concept should be turned on it's head to raise the awareness of life under Kyoto. The message should be "get used to the darkness because that is what you will perpetually be living in if the Kyotophiles ever get their way".

What a great find - to see this blog!

Thanks for the link -- and for the privilege of being part of a fun conversation at your site. I bookmarked:-)

What did we do before we had blogs to hear what really smart people are thinking and sharing?

"..Runaway Global Warming promises to literally burn-up agricultural areas into dust worldwide by 2012", THE CANADIAN (tm)

Well, there may be only 5 more crops !! And then no grain supplies !! Not just a small crop that could double grain/food prices. No crop !!

Winnipeg Commodity Exchange futures must be at, at, well, I guess it would be 'up-to-infinity !! Someone call Big Al. Or Suzuki !!

I wonder if the idiots in Sydney realize just how much their awareness stunt will cost? Emergency backup? Why those deisel generators of course. Extra manpower to reset stuff, etc. Every time there is a power blackout, a lot of people have a lot of work to get things back to normal. Been there, and still do that.

Big Al is too busy bathing in the sweat of the soiled and blood soaked underwear of Hollywood to pay attention right now.

i'm afraid global warming has already caught up with the MSM bunch followed closely by politicos of a certain bent or is it vis-versa?

That's an old story - the one about How The West Invented Everything - because they lived in cold climates and so 'had' to be smarter and how those people in Africa etc just reached up for a banana.

Of course, such a mythic Just So story ignores reality; such as,

The fact that Europe has the highest percentage of arable land in the world, along with a regular rainfall (no water problems), a temperate climate, oh - and animals that could be domesticated. Ever try domesticating a lion?

Africa has none of these crucial ecological factors and so, could not move out of elementary economies (hunting and gathering, and some peasant horticulture). These ecological constraints limited the food supply and therefore, the populations.

Same with N. America; no domesticated animals. Different climate - with seasonal temperatures, seasonal rainfall, droughts, etc.

Europe, with its rich ecology, was able to increase its population. However, even that has its limits and eventually, Europe had to develop new technologies to sustain that growing population. If you don't develop those new energy harnassing technologies then, you must rely on famine, disease and war to reduce your population. Eventually, after 'trying' all of these, Europe moved into the Reformation, promoted individualism in thought and action - and exploded in inventions that harnassed energy from non-human and non-animals sources - and enabled it to support larger populations.

But, I'm very sure the above data won't change the minds of the Cold Air/Large Brains and Hot Air/Small Brains devotees. But, but, couldn't small brains be complex and intensely networked, while large brains are just simple linear mechanisms that take up a lot of space but can't do anything?

I'm sure that my friends in Sydney will keep as many lights on as possible.

Welcome, Ellen - I suggest you also check out Tim Blair

The Canadian Wheat Board has just announced that they have accepted the dooms dayers prediction that we will run out of wheat in five(5) years and are increasing the price that they will pay for wheat in the next crop year by three cents(3)a bushel to increase their stocks of wheat because of the impending shortage.That should allay any fears of global starvation.

To add to the fun: BNN, this morning, had a report which said that Canadian top executives were deeply concerned about global warming.

The corner-office crowd do tend to know which way the heated wind is blowing...

Topics of global warming, POLLUTION and energy can be complex, lengthy and tiresome for many readers, so I pledge to keep it simple.

To summarize then. . .

CO2, at .02%, forget it or restore the Amazon rain forest.

E85, sweet corn and grains, make work project, starves the very poor. inefficient.

Nuclear, final safe waste storage problem remains a nightmare. Most leathal poison.

Ballard fuel cell, Laughable, except for heavy fleet use with a central depot, financed by public funding.

Coal use is popular and new generating plants are coming on stream in unstoppable numbers.
Sadly, clean coal tech is priority one, expensive, and AGW is divirting our focus from this pollution emergency.

======= Solutions. . .

High efficiency solar cells.

Wind generation.

Large format NiMH battery. EV automotive.

======== Lower demand with . . .

LED lighting

Demand switch water tanks

Microwave ovens

70* - 66* program thermostats.

===========

This basic list is open to your professional editing and improvement.

Keep it simple. = TG

Anyone in need of a really good laugh , hit the " dead by 2012 "link and check out the Exo-politics header in the left side bar . Sadly , this is on topic . Aliens have the answers to global warming , of course .

Smaller brains eh? Explains Hugo Chavez.

Spiked :

A complete list of things caused by global warming:
(Each list item is linked to a news story. However, this list has been compiled over a period of time, so some links may no longer work.)

Agricultural land increase, Africa devastated, African aid threatened, air pressure changes, Alaska reshaped, allergies increase, [...] anxiety, ... etc.
http://www.spiked-online.com/index.php?/site/printable/2045/

The old antidrug ad HERES YOUR BRAIN(EGG)HERES ENVIROMENTALIST WACOS(FRYING PAN)HERES YOUR BRAINS ON ENVIROMENTALISM(FRYING EGG) ANY QUESTIONS?

I had to buy a new calculator just to add 2+2 after spending 5 Yrs in the Caribbean suffering the balmy breezes and lukewarm swimming.

Smaller brains explains the people in Toronto and environs, where smog days abound, who keep the Liberals in power and elect a few Dippers as well.

Time we get things cooled down for sure.

Well I am sure that Philipe J. Rishton at the University of Western Ontario would agree....and to think I saw David Suzuki come and speak against this guy....well apparently Rushton was correct, so that makes Suzuki incorrect, or Ruishton is wrong which makes the global warmers wrong but makes Suzuki correct, then, but Suzuki is incorrect today.....in either case Suzuki is incorrect

Wow good thing I grew up in northern climate so I can figure that one out......

I also blame global warming for leaving the toilet seat up, not remembering my wifes birthday, not being tuned into her needs more, and the recent spike in Viagra and Cialis sales..

oh, and premature orgasm's too..

TG--we no longer have any problems storing nuclear waste--Ontario states that they will store it underground in S Ontario--because the ground is perfect for that and there are no earthquakes etc. to cause problems.

The global warming crowd - and perhaps most of the good citizens who are constantly pestered by those who manipulate the population on one sort of scary proposition or other – ignore, or are unaware of, a simple fundamental fact about CO2 and its contribution to the greenhouse effect.

CO2 traps all of the 13.5 to 15.5 micron wave-length infrared radiation (heat) that leaves the Earth on its way into space.

This wave-length IR radiation makes up 8.4% of the Earth’s total long-wave IR spectrum.

A very small quantity of CO2 in the atmosphere – something between 10 and 20ppmv is enough to ‘trap’ all of the IR 13.5 to 15.5 micron radiation emitted by the Earth into the atmosphere.

The Earth has had an atmosphere that includes CO2 for the greater part of its ~4.5 billion year history.

We have reasonably accurate measurements of the CO2 content of the atmosphere over the past 600 million years. CO2 concentration has ranged from ~180ppmv to ~7,000ppmv during that time. Current measurements of CO2 concentration in the atmosphere give ~385ppmv. Reliable chemical analyses of CO2 over the past 180 years show variation from about 290 to 450ppmv. It is not a constant concentration, even on such a short time scale.

Therefore, 8.4% of the heat trying to escape from the Earth into space has always been stopped by CO2.

Increasing CO2 content of the atmosphere cannot result in trapping more heat – because all that can be trapped by CO2 is already prevented from exiting the atmosphere.

Increasing the CO2 content of the atmosphere will trap all the IR radiation it can closer to the ground. At present practically none of the 13.5 to 15.5 micron IR gets more than 200 metres above the surface. Increasing CO2 concentration will result in heating the atmosphere closer to the surface – resulting in a slightly cosier surface temperature, particularly at night when there is little wind.

CO2 gives us ~2.77°C of the ~33°C greenhouse effect. That’s its ‘limited’ contribution, as long as there is more than, say 20ppmv in the atmosphere. Some other minor gasses have a small contribution to the greenhouse effect, but water vapour which varies from near 0% to ~4% of the atmosphere is responsible for 95+% of the total greenhouse effect.

So, in spite of the propaganda, continue to breathe your personal average CO2 contribution of 400kg/annum and drive your gasoline or diesel powered vehicles with a clear conscience. CO2’s contribution to global warming maxes out at about 20ppmv, a concentration we have not likely seen on Earth since this third rock cooled enough to retain an atmosphere – some 4.5+ billion years ago.

the indoctrination will be complete when the mothers say

"get in here or you will catch your death of warm"

"stop running around or you will put someones sunglasses out"

"eat all your food so that the poor kids in China dont get obese"

Brings new meaning to term..."touque head"

So, 4.5 billion of us, out of roughly 6 billion, will perish by 2012.Hmmm, percentage wise, that's...umm..nought into nought equals nought....oh, about 75%.

So, to make this personal, I have a one in four chance of survival. But I'm not important, just a mere taxpaying peasant! If things were right in the world, I'd have expired as cannon fodder in some far off war twenty five years ago, but our politicians screwed up, and we've had relative peace, so here I am, still burning up my carbon credits.

It's not my fault some eastern European nutcase saw fit to stay home and get drunk, rather than get off his lazy ass and assassinate the Queen of Denmark, or some other important personage.

I mean, I'd have gone over and died, like so many of us did in previous wars,and so would most of my equally stupid peasant friends. I mean, snuff a Royal, and thirty or so million peasants should be killed just for the sheer outrage! In the past, we've always obliged, magnificently.

So, what my point is, I'm issuing an apology to Al Gore, Maurice Strong, David Suzuki, Paul Demerais,etc.,etc., for being alive and, thanks to the greatest medical care on Earth, relatively well.

It's not our fault, my Betters, we woulda, if you and your class had only provided the means!

Well, just checked my ebay sale and its good news/bad news for me. The good is that people obviously don't care that much about the impending doom, the bad is I'm not going to be enjoying "an inconvenient truth" on that new 50" plasma anytime soon either.. hell for a measly 2 dollars and change I'm going to be hard pressed to hold a fart back..

[/end-shameless-plug]

What about daylight savings time, eh?

The Harper/Bush regimes have forced the nefarious scheme on us weeks earlier than usual this year. Can’t they understand what affect an extra hour of daylight will have on temperatures, scorched lawns and dwindling water resources?
Thank goodness Saskatchewan still refuses to fall for this diabolical hocus pocus.

ET @ 3.01pm alluded to "crucial ecological factors..."

...and is guilty of projecting the present onto the past.

Your criticism of the silly twits that purported to correlated evolution in cranial capacity with global temperature is well meaning, but your argumentation is faulty.

The issue at hand is not whether "The West Invented Everything", but brain size. "Stay on target" and take out one death star at a time.

True, cranial capacity is not correlated with intelligence, as your rhetorical close implies, but your introduction of ecology is a stalking horse, and a bad one at that. Since my recent ancestors ate horse meat, I shall permit myself to go hunting...

You attribute European technological development to an ability to sustain population growth originally deriving from its "crucial ecological factors" and "rich ecologies". Twaddle!

Counter-examples: Egypt and China, both with much greater ecological stability and resource bases.

That our current technologies and their scientific foundations are Eurocentric is an historical given, but not an historical necessity. Any other culture that met the necessary philosophical/religious/perceptual preconditions and motivations would likely also found such development unavoidable.

Ask yourself why no previous culture developed in like manner.

JET,

That chain of reasoning even beats the fact brought out in "The Great Global Warming Swindle" that rising CO2 levels lag, not lead, rising temperatures.

Where did you find that?

spurwing says...
The old antidrug ad HERES YOUR BRAIN(EGG)HERES ENVIROMENTALIST WACOS(FRYING PAN)HERES YOUR BRAINS ON ENVIROMENTALISM(FRYING EGG) ANY QUESTIONS?

ah yes....would that be sunny side up or over easy ???

"True, cranial capacity is not correlated with intelligence..."

O RLY?

"Modern studies using MRI have shown that brain size correlates with IQ (r ≈ 0.4) among adults of the same sex (McDaniel, 2005). The correlation between brain size and IQ seems to hold for comparisons between and within families (Gignac et al. 2003; Jensen 1994; Jensen & Johnson 1994)."

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neuroscience_and_intelligence

"The volume of the cranium is used as a rough indicator of the size of the brain, and this in turn is used as a rough indicator of the potential intelligence of the organism."

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cranial_capacity

" ah yes....would that be sunny side up or over easy ??? " spike .

Scrambled , obviously .

Climate Change. A little off subject.
Can someone tell me did Mark Holland show up in Alberta?

RJ:

Your wondering if Mark Holland showed up in Alberta?
Don't know, kinda doubt it, he's pretty busy these days rooting around in the trash bins to retrieve stuff from 7 years ago. Never mind it has to do with a Canadian Alliance affair the RCMP investigated and closed.
Can't concentrate on much when your on a smear campaign, it's taxing work and the Libs are hard at it.

Now, Bob...be a gentleman, and let ET bite the hook, OK?

Your wiki cranial capacity quote refers to crude attributed intelligence amongst the vertebrates, not to within existing genus homo. As to the latter...
...the increased brain size of race X is obviously due to the need for increased blood flow to keep it from freezing.

While I do acknowledge the modest statistical difference in brain size (not the same thing as cranial capacity) between different population groups deriving from different geographics locals, the difference within a group is much larger, as is is mutability (cf. Flynn effect).

My eventual point was that Gallup and Ash at Albany likely did little that is new, beyond projecting current observations onto the distant past, all nicely tarted up in the most contemporary of evolutionary and eco-climate terminology.

Surly

Shrinking brain size cannot be blamed on CO2. It has done all the damage it is capable of.

H.W. Yates and J. H. Taylor, "Infrared Transmission of the Atmosphere," U.S. Naval Research Laboratory, Washington, DC, NRL Report 5453, 1960).

Carbon dioxide has a very strong absorption band between 13.5 and 15.5 microns wavelength. Earth radiates as a blackbody with a mean surface temperature near 300K and has a peak energy wavelength at 10 microns. Earth's radiation energy in the 13.5 to 15.5 band is 8.4% of Earth's total blackbody radiation. Since CO2 absorbs all radiation in this band it absorbs and reradiates 8.4% of the total energy within 200 meters of the surface. Adding more CO2 does not increase this effect because it is at its maximum
(from Sebastian Borrello - Pers. Comm., March 23, 2007.)

CO2 does not stop other IR wave lengths.

JET

tenebris - your version of history is its own twaddle.

First, the thread was about the correlation between temperature and brain size, therefore, my outline of a common, and fallacious example of such a correlation, ie, the explanation of the Rise of the West, was valid.

My argument is valid; check out the relevant factors of soil type, percentage of arable land, nature of water supply and temperature. All of these together contribute to an economy that can, with relative ease, support a large population IF its technology continues to advance, enabling it to harness more energy resources.

Europe had what is called a 'rainfall agriculture'. This means that its water supply was from the rain- and that rain was frequent but not extreme; it was not seasonal, ie with long dry periods; the climate or temperature was the same; the soil was rich, enabling a deep plough agriculture and the so-called 'three field harvest'; there were plenty of animals for domestication etc.

China and Egypt are invalid comparisons. Their arable land is smaller, their soil is thin, and their major problem is - water. They are both what is known as 'irrigation economies'. This means that they had a problem with water and both relied on vast irrigation systems to bring water from rivers or mountain run-off, to the fields. This requirement led to a two-class system, where the majority of the population were Workers, essentially almost enslaved, to do the work on the irrigation canals. Such a requirement for massive enforced labour also requires a top-heavy authoritarian political system (god kings). Such an economy prevented the dev't of a middle class and of course, allowed no individualism, no inventiveness. Just submission.

These economies were also 'redistribution' where the grain etc from the common farms was taken by the middlemen, the mandarin bureaucracy, to be redistributed. Private property and ownership was unknown.

Another interesting facet of irrigation economies, is that all of them, except for China, collapsed. This is also known as 'The Hydraulic Trap'. Other fascinating comparisons is that all of them (Aztec, Inca, Mayan) built enormous temples; all required some form of memory symbolism for the vast food production. And again, all collapsed. I maintain that a two-class structure, without a middle class, has no capacity to adapt. China escaped this because its economies have always been locally organized rather than centrally.

So- I maintain my point. The 'rise of the West' was a historical necessity, not a fluke. Of course, the West could have rejected the emergence of freedom of thought, the dev't of a middle class, the rise of innovations etc. It could have continued to deal with its population surges by famine, disease and war. But human beings are not quite as hapless and helpless, and therefore, they finally rejected the Dead End Street - and moved into freedom.

I've already answered why no previous culture developed like the West. Ecology, ecology, ecology and then, finally, an insistence that the basic nature of man is his use of reason.

Re, IR wavelengths...

Water vapour is the culprit, contributing between 90 and 95% of the ~33 Celsius degree greenhouse effect, with CO_2 contributing between about 4 to 8 degrees.

Nelson, at http://brneurosci.org/co2.html (from which the above numbers were taken), has a VERY nice discussion on the greenhouse effect, global warming and absorption.

HIGHLY recommended.

I didn't realize there was still so many climate change doubters left in the world.

I thought you'd all disappeared up your own asses by now.

CharlieJ
Not doubters; merely highly skeptical of the current phantasmagorical extrapolationisms.

Cheers

ET - persuasive, as usual...but not (necessarily) (entirely) correct. One should regress the argument from ecology to length scales of transportation, communication, and buffered contacts (linguistic and political) which I think are more developmentally important.

It is not the ecology (ecology, ecology!), but rather what one does with it. The 'rise of the West' was NOT a historical necessity, but an opportunity. The dynamics had to develop in away that made transition to such a situation metastable over culturally significant time scales. The ecology was merely the matrix in which this occurred – important, yes…but not a principal driving force.

Think Hayek…

Oh, for an evening’s lively debate in a cozy pub somewhere. Unfortunately, I must finish reading this thesis…curse of the profession.

Do forgive me for tweaking you. Highly enjoyable read.

tenebris - I'm not an environmental determinist, I assure you of that. My point is that, without that ecological infrastructure - there'd be no Rise of the West.

What's a 'length scale of transportation' and what's a 'buffered contact' (Do you mean direct vs indirect?)

I'm aware of and an admirer of Hayek. Yes, a lively debate in a cozy Toronto pub (we do have them) would be great.

Enjoy the thesis - my strategy, for some odd reason, has always been to read them from back to front. The intro and first bits can be dreary. Have fun.

Up to about a generation ago, various British personages were
known to express the view that central heating caused smaller brains, or words to that effect. Dunno if there is a connection...

"Expect smaller brains with Global Warming"???

It must be true, Harper and his evil band of Neocons were elected.
Apparently the effect is amplified in the lesser evolved among us who voted con.

Al Gore, David Suzuki,James Lovelock,Ted Turner, all have braisn the size of a srivled up walnut

No matter what the facts, a Liberal can always illustrate the opposite with conviction. = TG

If the MSM has stopped its practice of featuring a Global Warming freak-out on every front-page and newscast, it's because they have figured out that it's killing the Liberals.

Hopefully, the pinhead lefties who went into a Dion-ditching-tizzy because Leeeeza La Flammmmmuhhhh and friends told them that tsunamis were caused by what comes out of SUV tailpipes will continue to view voting for the Green Party as their best option for saving the planet from Algore's imaginary 'fever'.

Green fireballs across the sky? Can*t wait.

Walking the dog at night we only see the very rare shooting star. So tiny.

Green fireballs will be great. Especially when they collide.

Great logo for the Greens too. = TG

ET - 'length scale of transportation' is the critical distance over which one can move a sufficient plurality of goods to sustain a local economy beyond subsistence level. It constrains the establishment of fixed communities. It coheres with resource extraction and usage in your ecologic characterization.

A 'buffered contact' (a term pulled out of my hat for this discussion) is the third-party mediation (positive or negative) that constrains or modulates the interaction between communities. The feedback mechanism, as it where. Books are an example. The buffering, or delay, is important. Response to events cannot be too rapid, nor too slow. Such must fit the stability requirements of the system. We, unfortunately, are relearning that as a society.

Physics thesis – reductionist modality… the first bits are utterly critical as here one begins with “why”, follows up with “what” and then really digs down and discusses “how”.

…and to get back on topic, lest I get spanked by Kate: as scientist’s, we’ve failed to retain the pre-eminence of “why”, which drove the rise of the west, and have replaced it with “what and how” ... What can I get out of this? How can it benefit me? Self-serving, selfish, consumeristic...

TG--we no longer have any problems storing nuclear waste--Ontario states that they will store it underground in S Ontario--because the ground is perfect for that and there are no earthquakes etc. to cause problems.
Posted by: George at March 26, 2007 4:47 PM

Forgive me if I chuckle a bit, George, but there are people in the Earth Sciences who would love to have your links to these earthquake forcasters.= TG

Green Party in Que garnishes less than 4% of the vote. In the media so-called hot-bed of Kyotoism.

So how cum the editors give the Suzukis 97% of the space ?? Whats the deal, Patricia Graham, editor of the Van Sun ??

Cause and effect are wrong here. Cool climate did not result in increased brain size. Bigger brains are causing Global Warming. I advocate lobotomies for everyone in order to save the planet!

Europe, that bastion of green puritans;

GERMANY: March 26, 2007

HAMBURG - The European Union biodiesel industry is working well under capacity despite top-level political moves to increase biofuels use to combat global warming, industry executives said.

Many new biodiesel plants have been built but many hardly have a market as several countries have been slow to implement promises to increase biofuel use.
"We have been promised a market but it is not yet there," said Raffaello Garofalo, secretary general of industry association the European Biofuels Board (EBB). "It will come but in the short term we have to go through a desert."

"We just cannot sell any biodiesel this year," said BioWerk CEO Thomas Vahle. "The new tax means it is just not competitive."

"The company, which operates a 250,000-tonnes-a-year plant in north England, has seen its stock price fall to around 15 pence compared with over 200 pence in May last year."

"As vehicles consume more biodiesel than fossil fuels and need more engine overhauls, biodiesel must be cheaper, she said."

//www.planetark.com/dailynewsstory.cfm/newsid/41070/story.htm

This is an example of a little bit of knowledge being a dangerous thing. Global Warming isn't going to see us returning to a tribal, hunter gatherer exsistence. We're still going be using computers, employing agriculture and calculating our taxes. All the wonderful things that keep our brains busy.

Evolution occurs over very long timeframes. I wouldn't lose any sleep over its direction over a decade or two.

"Counter-examples: Egypt and China, both with much greater ecological stability and resource bases."

Egypt and China are not and never were primitive societies. They were both early adopters of this whole written language thingy that were're currently using (Egyptians invented the idea of an alphabet for instance). And from what I hear it gets hot in Egypt on ocassion.

It's not a hot or cold thing its a agrarian society vs. hunter/gatherer thing.

JET and Tenebris had some good comments.

I recommend the link provided by Tenebris:
http://brneurosci.org/co2.html

The whole point is that IR absorption by CO2 is non-linear and runaway increases in CO2 does not at all mean runaway increases in the Earth's temperature.

Wow... my first response to JET's little piece was... What's this? Is this true? I went to the site suggested by Tenebris and decided that if this turns out to be true, Al Gore and company have a lot of explaining to do. This topic needs more investigation and a lot more exposure. If atmospheric CO2 is absorbing all the energy that is available, and the atmosphere is warming then there must be more energy being made available from the sun.

You guys are letting all that science get in the way of what was a perfectly hysterical argument. Now cut that out......lalalalala......I can't heeeaar you....