12.15.06 Can't get to EDONline 13919.

Why not?

I'm an empiricist. It's difficult for me to get on the global warming bandwagon when the most important greenhouse gas (water vapor) input to the atmosphere cannot be directly controlled (70 % of the Earth's surface is water), and only about 3.5% of the CO2 emmissions to the atmosphere are man-made. The other 96.5% come from natural sources. Have you read that in the mainstream media? Almost certainly not. Are you going to try and legislate volcano gas emissions? Are you going to try to use technology to reduce or stop those emissions?

So, if man and all his works were removed from the planet (something of which the elite environmentalists would probably approve -- except for them, of course), the effect on atmospheric CO2 would be negligable from a global warming perspective. We can't begin to remove more than a small fraction of the man-made CO2 without killing most of humanity (because a great deal of the infrastructure necessary to keep them alive would have to go away) and reducing the lifestyle of the rest to pre-industrial levels.

If you really want to get a critics view of global warming, I suggest you spend some time perusing the global warming articles at http://www.junkscience.com/ where real experimental data are compared with the output of models which can't even take mid-twentieth century data and correctly predict late-twentieth century global climate.

Also, another way of evaluating the credibility of the upcoming global warming "catastrophe" is to look at the fallout of the late twentieth century's senate hearings on global warming held by then Senator Al Gore, wherein any scientist called before the committee who was a critic of global warming, was intimidated and urged to recant his criticism. Many of those who didn't recant found funding for their research cut off.

A very good rule is also to "follow the money."

Nathan Lewis is paraphrased as saying:

"Lewis noted that California has kept per-capita energy consumption flat since the 1970's while the rest of the country has seen multifold increases."

This is not accurate at all. Please check out the following DOE link:

http://www.endicia.com/status.cfm?pic=9101805213907361977207

Look at Figure 2. The numbers are flat for the WHOLE nation since 1970. There are no "multifold" increases here.

The world is facing several long term problems, but the human approach is to "wait 'til the last moment" for solutions. Of course, all solutions cost money, but research (Fed funds) can be conducted in the interim.

From my perspective, the top three, long term problems for the USA are: Global Cooling, Energy Sources and Global Warming.

The world is on the brink of a "natural" global cooling (typically 90,000 years) that would reduce the average temperature by 20 DEGF. This should freeze most of Northern Canada and return the glaciers to the Great Lakes. Energy for heating will be in much greater demand, but nuclear power could solve this impending crisis. In the ramp-up period, we could tap the heavy oils in Northwestern Canada and Western US for boiler feedstocks.

Energy Sources are plentiful in the USA, in the form of coal and petroleum, but the need is for greater efficiency, such as constant speed Diesel engine hybrid autos and workplace commute vehicles. Most organic matter can be burned, but it's a matter of cost-effectiveness. As the article mentions, battery technology needs a significant bit of work. Then, home thermal efficiency could provide broad effectiveness.

Global Warming has been in effect for about 10,000 years, thus we are due for the Global cool-off. We happen to be experiencing a rather warm ending of global warming, before the cool down, however humans can tolerant the heating cycle better than a cooling cycle, so most will move closer to the equator. The politicalization of global warming is unfortunate, but tempting, for it provides a broad base for new taxes and when global cooling arrives, politicoes can declare victory. The 80 PPM increase in CO2 over then last century is an untested hypothesis. When we reduce the air around us, to recover N2 and O2, we also receive about 1% return of Argon, Neon, Krypton and Helium, but no CO2. There is so little CO2 in the atmosphere, and it is so readily absorbed/emmitted by the oceans that the 4,000,000 carbonated drinks consumed every week must purchase CO2 from mines or as chemicals by products. Perhaps NSF should fund a prove-up study for the CO2 cause, instead of alarmist hypotheses.

Regrettably it appears that the Global Warming alarm may be leading us in the wrong direction. Before we make political correct decisions stemming from a too-narrow perspective, it may be worth our time to review the recent findings of NASA, JPL and the Lowell Observatory, who report that Mars is also undergoing 'global warming.' If true (and why shouldn't it be?) perhaps our global warming may be a solar phenomena and not a man-made problem.

You had an editorial "Are You Taking Global Warming Seriously?..." and a few pages later Mr. Tom Wilson's POV "For Truth in Testing..."

It seems to me there needs to be a lot more truth in testing on the global warming theory. Kyoto and such is more politics than science.

It seems to me that not too long ago people were screaming about impending doom from a coming ice age as the global climate was "cooling".

So what is it really? I think its all a lot of Chicken Little "The sky is falling" nonsense.

Do I believe we should do our part to be good stewards of our envirinment? Absolutely! Anything we can do to reduce the waste and harmful pollution (CO, NOx, O3 (ozone), etc.) we generate is a good thing. It does us good to do what we can to heat & cool our homes more efficiently.

But the noise about "greenhouse gases" and having to cut back on CO2 emissions? Next, we're going to be assaulted about our generating water vapor! (I jest, of course.) The last I knew, CO2 was a necessary component for plant growth, and plant growth generates oxygen. Is that really such a bad thing?

How about some truth (not P. C. claptrap) in reporting that "global warming" theory?!

Here's the difficulty: About 40 years ago the original "ecology" movement was wrapped up in emotional nonsense about "being one with nature", etc. It also had tie-ins with resistance against the military-industrial complex, fear of nuclear power (the original head of the Sierra Club admitted not too long ago that at the time he believed that all nuclear activity would inevitably lead to weapons), and a whole litany of leftist causes. Those who objected to the drumbeating from the left (for a variety of reasons) rejected the whole package. Both viewpoints, over time, have learned to hate each other (how else would you characterize the current political environment). Both viewpoints have learned to find "research" that supports their agenda, rather than ruthlessly pursue the truth.

It's time to grow up and be adults for a change. Both viewpoints are going to have to frankly lay some cards on the table and ADMIT that in many cases they have been flat-out WRONG. That's going to be very hard for some folks to do, because they are deeply in denial, but it's absolutely necessary if we are going to untangle some of this. Then the two viewpoints have to start separating the issues and looking at them one by one (including this one), admit where research has been flawed by viewpoint, clean up the data, and finally make decisions not on the basis of tradition or emotional satisfaction but on the basis of the best, most thoroughly-scrubbed data available.

With regard to this issue, I agree that the Feds need to push development. We are going to need a multi-track plan to deal with this over the short and the long haul. Here's what I see:

a. Medium-term, we need better methods to convert heat to electricity. I just read this morning that we are getting to heat profiles of 100 watts per square centimeter in computer chips. Why are we not recovering that heat, turning it into electricity, and using it to run other parts of the computer? The whole principal behind the internal combustion engine is that we are using the mechanical properties of expanding gases to turn wheels. The heat is a byproduct. Why are we not recovering that heat and using it to help run the vehicle?

b. Short-term, we need a standardized nuclear fission plant. We stack them up in the American desert and get the US Navy to be in charge of qualifying the personnel and the procedures to operate them, because the Navy has one of the best records of running small standardized nuclear plants. This allows us to cut the amount of fixed fossil fuels we burn to generate electricity.

c. Medium-to-long term, we need better and better ways to store energy. Solar's great IF there's a way to store the energy recovered for those times when the sun is not out. We have not gotten anywhere near where we need to be relative to energy storage.

d. Medium-term, more-efficient solar energy recovery is an obvious opportunity.

e. Long-term, we need to zero in on nuclear fusion as a replacement for the fission plants. As a probably-harder alternative, we need to figure out how to accelerate the half-lives of the nuclear byproducts.

f. Short-to-medium term, we need to move away from long commutes. We don't do that by mandating that folks live in cities (that day has gone) or by shortchanging road building. We do it by enabling as many folks as can do so to work from home at least 2-3 days per week. This can be done through a combination of (1) requiring businesses to institute policies that make this not only possible but a regular part of life, (2) legislating the necessary protections to those businesses to prevent rogue employees from abusing the situation, and (3) making investments in communications technologies, particularly in the less-populated parts of America, to enable this to work well. This could also be viewed as a national security imperative (because it sets the stage for the economy to continue to function if physical travel is restricted due to either natural disaster or biological / nuclear terrorism).

g. Most important, we are going to have to return our schools to be places of learning, and not test laboratories for new educational theories or ideological battlegrounds for the left and the right, the secular and the religious. We are in the state we are today (teaching to the test) because we went through a period of time when educators tried every screwball theory that someone came up with for teaching. We finally vomited that up and started testing, testing, testing to demonstrate quality in education. The screwball approach was demonstrably wrong (yet, of course, no fault was admitted), but the testing approach isn't much better because it breeds the "teach to the test" mentality that currently exists. At the same time, tension between parents and teachers over what to do about some of the ideological issues continues to be an issue, with children either caught in the middle or, in the worst case, actually taking advantage of the situation to play parents and teachers off against each other. Once again, it's time to step back and begin to sort through the issues. Even the hardest of these (evolution vs. faith) can be sorted out if anyone wants to sort it out. Long-standing resentments on both sides makes it impossible for many folks to see this.

Just my opinions, of course, and all replies are welcome.

SO, WHERE WAS OUR GOVERNMENT IN PHASING OUT WHALE OIL, BEES WAX, WOOD AND COAL BURNING? Bovernment sponsorship not needed to move things along. Trust our individual economists, the people. ----------- As to the usefulness, it is just the party line; let us have the money and we'll run your lives better!!

When we have competent batteries and inexpensive high horsepower electric motors, electtric vehicles of all kinds will prevail simply because they will be superior while less expensive to buy and operate. This will be the case regardless of the price or supply of oil at the time.

What is Mr. Romm's reply to NASA and JPL reports that indicates global warming on Mars? Could this be a solar phenomena raher than a man-made problem? Or is Mr Romm's agenda other than what he portends?