Global Warming: The Scientific Facts

Global Warming: The Scientific Facts. You can look at the data and believe what you want.

Melting Artic Sea Ice:

Here are satellite pictures/graphics:

At the National Snow and Ice Data Center, University of Colorado: http://nsidc.org/cryosphere/glance/index.html

At the University of Bremen, Germany: http://iup.physik.uni-bremen.de:8084/amsr/amsre.html


Rising carbon dioxide levels

At the NOAA Observatory, Mauna Loa, Hawaii: http://www.esrl.noaa.gov/gmd/ccgg/trends/


Rising Sea Levels

At University of Colorado, Boulder, Colorado:
http://sealevel.colorado.edu/



If you don’t trust the interpretation of the data as presented, all these sites can provide you the raw data sets and you can be your own scientist.

If you feel uneducated about global warming, start at the National Snow and Ice Data Center’s Home Page and start clicking. This web site started purely as a scientific data site, and by demand and default, became the ground zero of global warming information going from the scientific community to the outside world:
http://www.nsidc.org/

Interesting FACTS:

COMMON MISCONCEPTIONS ABOUT GLOBAL WARMING

MYTH 1: Global temperatures are rising at a rapid, unprecedented rate.

FACT: Accurate satellite, balloon and mountain top observations made over the last three decades have not shown any significant change in the long term rate of increase in global temperatures. Average ground station readings do show a mild warming of 0.6 to 0.8C over the last 100 years, which is well within the natural variations recorded in the last millennium. The ground station network suffers from an uneven distribution across the globe; the stations are preferentially located in growing urban and industrial areas ("heat islands"), which show substantially higher readings than adjacent rural areas ("land use effects").

There has been no catastrophic warming recorded.



MYTH 2: The "hockey stick" graph proves that the earth has experienced a steady, very gradual temperature decrease for 1000 years, then recently began a sudden increase.

FACT: Significant changes in climate have continually occurred throughout geologic time. For instance, the Medieval Warm Period, from around 1000 to1200 AD (when the Vikings farmed on Greenland) was followed by a period known as the Little Ice Age. Since the end of the 17th Century the "average global temperature" has been rising at the low steady rate mentioned above; although from 1940 – 1970 temperatures actually dropped, leading to a Global Cooling scare.

The "hockey stick", a poster boy of both the UN's IPCC and Canada's Environment Department, ignores historical recorded climatic swings, and has now also been proven to be flawed and statistically unreliable as well. It is a computer construct and a faulty one at that.



MYTH 3: Human produced carbon dioxide has increased over the last 100 years, adding to the Greenhouse effect, thus warming the earth.

FACT: Carbon dioxide levels have indeed changed for various reasons, human and otherwise, just as they have throughout geologic time. Since the beginning of the industrial revolution, the CO2 content of the atmosphere has increased. The RATE of growth during this period has also increased from about 0.2% per year to the present rate of about 0.4% per year,which growth rate has now been constant for the past 25 years. However, there is no proof that CO2 is the main driver of global warming. As measured in ice cores dated over many thousands of years, CO2 levels move up and down AFTER the temperature has done so, and thus are the RESULT OF, NOT THE CAUSE of warming. Geological field work in recent sediments confirms this causal relationship. There is solid evidence that, as temperatures move up and down naturally and cyclically through solar radiation, orbital and galactic influences, the warming surface layers of the earth's oceans expel more CO2 as a result.



MYTH 4: CO2 is the most common greenhouse gas.
FACT: Greenhouse gases form about 3 % of the atmosphere by volume. They consist of varying amounts, (about 97%) of water vapour and clouds, with the remainder being gases like CO2, CH4, Ozone and N2O, of which carbon dioxide is the largest amount. Hence, CO2 constitutes about 0.037% of the atmosphere. While the minor gases are more effective as "greenhouse agents" than water vapour and clouds, the latter are overwhelming the effect by their sheer volume and – in the end – are thought to be responsible for 60% of the "Greenhouse effect".

Those attributing climate change to CO2 rarely mention this important fact.


MYTH 5: Computer models verify that CO2 increases will cause significant global warming.

FACT: Computer models can be made to "verify" anything by changing some of the 5 million input parameters or any of a multitude of negative and positive feedbacks in the program used.. They do not "prove" anything. Also, computer models predicting global warming are incapable of properly including the effects of the sun, cosmic rays and the clouds. The sun is a major cause of temperature variation on the earth surface as its received radiation changes all the time, This happens largely in cyclical fashion. The number and the lengths in time of sunspots can be correlated very closely with average temperatures on earth, e.g. the Little Ice Age and the Medieval Warm Period. Varying intensity of solar heat radiation affects the surface temperature of the oceans and the currents. Warmer ocean water expels gases, some of which are CO2. Solar radiation interferes with the cosmic ray flux, thus influencing the amount ionized nuclei which control cloud cover.

MYTH 6: The UN proved that man–made CO2 causes global warming.

FACT: In a 1996 report by the UN on global warming, two statements were deleted from the final draft. Here they are:
1) “None of the studies cited above has shown clear evidence that we can attribute the observed climate changes to increases in greenhouse gases.”
2) “No study to date has positively attributed all or part of the climate change to man–made causes”

To the present day there is still no scientific proof that man-made CO2 causes significant global warming.


MYTH 7: CO2 is a pollutant.
FACT: This is absolutely not true. Nitrogen forms 80% of our atmosphere. We could not live in 100% nitrogen either. Carbon dioxide is no more a pollutant than nitrogen is. CO2 is essential to life on earth. It is necessary for plant growth since increased CO2 intake as a result of increased atmospheric concentration causes many trees and other plants to grow more vigorously. Unfortunately, the Canadian Government has included CO2 with a number of truly toxic and noxious substances listed by the Environmental Protection Act, only as their means to politically control it.


MYTH 8: Global warming will cause more storms and other weather extremes.

FACT: There is no scientific or statistical evidence whatsoever that supports such claims on a global scale. Regional variations may occur. Growing insurance and infrastructure repair costs, particularly in coastal areas, are sometimes claimed to be the result of increasing frequency and severity of storms, whereas in reality they are a function of increasing population density, escalating development value, and ever more media reporting.


MYTH 9: Receding glaciers and the calving of ice shelves are proof of global warming.

FACT: Glaciers have been receding and growing cyclically for hundreds of years. Recent glacier melting is a consequence of coming out of the very cool period of the Little Ice Age. Ice shelves have been breaking off for centuries. Scientists know of at least 33 periods of glaciers growing and then retreating. It’s normal. Besides, glacier's health is dependent as much on precipitation as on temperature.


MYTH 10: The earth’s poles are warming; polar ice caps are breaking up and melting and the sea level rising.

FACT: The earth is variable. The western Arctic may be getting somewhat warmer, due to unrelated cyclic events in the Pacific Ocean, but the Eastern Arctic and Greenland are getting colder. The small Palmer Peninsula of Antarctica is getting warmer, while the main Antarctic continent is actually cooling. Ice thicknesses are increasing both on Greenland and in Antarctica.

Sea level monitoring in the Pacific (Tuvalu) and Indian Oceans (Maldives) has shown no sign of any sea level rise.

:::::::::The Scientific Facts come from humans who are not perfect and make mistakes. My bet is in 20, 50, 100 years from now the whole Global Warming THING will be seen as another man made error.

I don't trust any politicians, for or against global warming, but this I do know, the glaciers are melting and we all rely too much on oil as our primary source of energy. What is the downside to developing alternative sources of energy? It creates high tech jobs and hopefully will eventually lead to energy independence. I'm tired of sending my money to terroists sponsoring regimes in the middle east. I would rather pay twice as much for some other form of energy than send them more money.

And sooner or later, oil will run out. Maybe not in our life time, but someday it will, so why not develop a "replacement" now? Who does that hurt? New technology won't happen by itself.

Petroleum not being used as an energy source isn't going to be the end of oil consuption. Everything is made with petroleum on some level or another. From the carpet your standing on to the polyester in your shirt. Being completely independent is bordline impossible. Most people don't like the alternatives either. Hydrogen fuel cells for cars isn't that far off, what is far off is the proper amount of infrastucter to produce the rediculous amounts of electricity it takes to pull hydrogen out of water. Everyone has a unfounded fear of nuclear energy because of Chernobyl, and Three Mile Island. Honestly if anyone is going to screw something up it would have been the Russian's. Three Mile Island could have been a major disaster had the proper steps not been taken, but that is the case with anything disaster is around the corner no matter what.

So what's going to happen when the world oil supply is used up? Should we start working on that now or just wait and see...? <img src="http://www.catsailor.com/forums/images/graemlins/shocked.gif" alt="" />

Something like petroleum that is so engrained into everything we do can't be replaced easily. I leave finding alt energy to others, they leave building cabinets to me. 99.99% of "us" can't do a damn thing about it.

Well conditioned (fissable) Uranium is not infinite either. If all electricity consumption would be done by nuclear reactors then in 40 to 50 years we would run out of that as well. Basically the same period as with easily accessible oil now.

But of course the main problem with nuclear energy is that the US won't allow any other non Allied state to develop that energy source for civilian use because of their fear of somebody else ever having the "A-bomb".

This isn't linked to any knowledge about the Uranium enridgement proces as that can only produce highly enriched uranium and so produce Atomic bombs (max 50kt). The real scare is about thermo nuclear (several Megatons) devices and that is a different animal. The worry is of course that nuclear reactors produce Plutonium as a side product, which is what you need for a thermo nuclear device. You can get this out of the spent fuel through reprocessing.

Many people don't understand the difference between an atomic bomb and a thermo nuclear bomb. But then again there is alot more that plain people simply don't understand. Global warming is one of these things.

Wouter

If we run out of Uranium, how about some thorium.

Sounds to me very similar to schale oil. It is there but not readily usuable. Thorium needs breeder reactors to become fissable and spend rods need to be reprocessed to get it. The effort required to produce energy becomes more and more with each new step away from readily avaible fuels we a eagerly burn away because it enhances our self image.

In theory there are tens of different energy sources available to us, but none are as easily put to use as the ones we are using now, many seems to forget that. That and the fact that our societies are totally dependent on the cheap and abundant supply of these fuels. We will have to change our societies anyway as energy may no longer be one or the other, nor cheap or abundantly available. Losing either one is sufficient to require a total redesign of our societies.

It will also be difficult to use nuclear devices in many applications like house hold heating and cars/trains and automobiles. So yes Thorium can be an alternative, that is true, but how practical will that alternative really be; assuming we can get that alternative figured out sufficiently. We have also been promised a fusion reactor for a couple of decades now no results yet so far.

Basically it gets harder with each step further away from the plain good ole boys like oil, gaz and coal. It seems to me the best approach is to avoid running into that wall alltogether. And if we have have to encounter that wall then do it walking and not running.

Wouter

What is the predicted date of the last drop of oil being sucked from the earth? We know the peak of world oil production is near (~ next 5 years). It's guaranteed alternative plans are already in place. For personal transportation it's obvious electricity is the immediate futures alternate. Coal is (sorry) dirt cheap (compared to natural gas, or nuclear) and will serve as the electric power plants fuel for a long time to come due to an over abundance. The low cost and efficiency of coal over natural gas will be the deciding factor and money will win out (bottom line). The debate of CO2 will rage on as powerplants (more and new) belch out coal smoke.

Just about everything we use around the home and office runs on electicity. Electric cars and trains are available today but right now, most of our electricity is generated by burning oil. What we need is another way to generate the electicity. Nukes, Wind, Solar, Water, Geothermic, etc. are available today, but as Wouter points out, until the price of oil gets very painful, or our governments mandate it, we won't see much money spent on developement of those sources.

That won't solve the problems of producing all the plastic items made from petroleum (like our Boats!) with -no- petroleum, but it's a start. How much petrol does it take to produce Carbon Fiber? <img src="http://www.catsailor.com/forums/images/graemlins/grin.gif" alt="" />

How can we really be running out of oil though? Russia is untouched. Nothing comes out of Africa. Technology to extract it from the ground gets better and better. The only reason the arabian pennisula is use so much is because of terrain and a steady climate.

Jeez Karl! Neither statement is true. I'll try and find the production number somewhere, but I think Russia is the biggest oil producer in the world, and Nigeria is pretty high up there.

The most immediate problem is cost of production. The oil "gusher" is mostly fiction. It happens, but not often. Oil is being brought up from deep underground. 15,000 feet? Sometimes that is AFTER you get to the bottom of the North Sea or Gulf of Mexico! As you take more oil out, the rock bearing the oil begins to collapse. Think of the pressures thousands of feet below the ground and hundreds of feet beneath the water. The whole proce$$ is very difficult.

Also China and to a lesser extent India have gone car crazy!

Demand is going through the roof so quickly, producers can't keep up!

Not entirely correct. The middle eastern oil is also of a very good quality and easily extracted because of its low viscus nature. For example is has a low sulfur content and other kinds of advantagious qualities.

There are very large other reserves of oil in the world like the Canadian schale oil but these are of much lower quality and often need elaborate processes to extract (boiling it out of the rock) and purification before we can dump it into our common refineries. We must also not forget that alot of these resources are spread thin over relatively large resevoirs unlike our current oil bubbles that only need to have a tap struck into to them and will empty under their own internal pressure. **** the rocks (schale oil) in order to liquify the tar like oil both adds alot of extraction cost and wasted extration energy that will cut directly into the net energy output of such resources. There are also often hugely poluting over wide area's. And what do you do with the unwanted elements like sulfur that you extract ?

The fact that some element is present somewhere doesn't may that it can easily be exploited. Iran has ample supplies of Uranium ore itself, their bad luck is that it is largely "poluted" by a isotope that kills the fission reaction. This is called "Uranium possioning". It needs to be extracted before it can be used as as fuel. For them it is easier to get good quality uranium from other nations.

Similar things are present in the often touted HUGE oil reserves. Yes, indeed there are 10 birds in the sky but at the end of the day it all comes down to the single one you can succesfully lure to your hand. The other 9 as nice to look at and dream about but other then that not of any practical use.

With respect to coal. That resource is often high in sulfur and as such highly problematic with respect to acid rain. When burned the sulfur reacts to sulfur oxide and when mixed with moisture in the air reacts to sulferic acid that eventually rains down on furtile land and pretty much "salts" it. We need much better smoke treatment processes to solve that issue and processes that can indeed be scale to process tons of smoke per minute. That is quite an engineering operation.

Problem with acid rain during the 70's and 90's in Europe were "solved" by transitioning from burning coal to burning natural gas and high grade oil. What will we win by transitioning back ?

Again, the problems are alot more complex then just finding stuff to burn.

Sorry.

Wouter

Lets face one universal truth here :

The only easy road to solving these problems is to significantly cut down our energy consumption.

Without such a move we can not prevent the developping nations from demanding the same high consumption as we had/have and the growth in energy consumption from them alone will ofset any technological breakthrough we can achieve in the next 50 years. A similar thing is happening with China currently.

I feel that we in the West are looking for our own "Wonderwaffen" (Wonder Wapon) against the developping world Hordes as the Germans were in WW2 against the endless colons of Russian soldiers and tanks.

The hordes have to power of scale on their side no amount of superior technology will be able to stop them when they decide to move. You'll be overrun or in our case the system will collapse.

Whether we like it or not, our societies are going to change with respect to energy consumption, and these changes will eventually become very far reaching. Currently we can still choose between a hard landing and a soft landing. In a while, there will be no longer a choice and then we'll need to brace ourselves for the hard landing.

You may agree with Al Gore or not or support some luny US think tank (of which we have 1000's by now). But what ever you do, you can't reason away the fact that things will change significantly and are indeed changing as we speak.

Note only because of Global warming, but of a portfolio of other causes as well.

Wouter

UH OH! <img src="http://www.catsailor.com/forums/images/graemlins/shocked.gif" alt="" /> Does this mean that once the worlds oil supply is depleted, the earth will collapse in upon itself! <img src="http://www.catsailor.com/forums/images/graemlins/confused.gif" alt="" /> Another reason to seek alternatives! <img src="http://www.catsailor.com/forums/images/graemlins/grin.gif" alt="" />

*cough* now that is an extreme position Wouter.

If you are talking about an armed conflict between developing countries and the west, you are talking about WW3. You know what dear Albert said about the weapons of WW4?

But your other points about efficency, pollution and what the developing nations wants I do agree on.

Wouter, I liked those huge windmills I saw offshore at Zandvoort, about what total percentage of your local electricity do they produce? There are wind farms here as well, just not enough to provide much power yet. But when I was traveling in Texas last August, I saw several big trucks going down the highway with huge windmill blades on them. Anyone know where those were going? They were heading north on I35.

Lots of people think they are "ugly" but not to me. Looks like free energy to me, and much easier to look at than the smokestacks of a coal burning plant or the dangers associated with a meltdown at a nuke plant, not that that is a real threat, but it does keep any from being built.

Won't all that flooding the Algore says will happen just drop into those oil vacated holes and the water will recede? <img src="http://www.catsailor.com/forums/images/graemlins/tongue.gif" alt="" />
Rick

I'm not talking about war, although that is always a possibility when large groups are fighting over diminishing resources.

What I'm saying is that even if we in the West somehow solve 50% of our energy problems that the total energy problem of the whole world during that timeframe will only slow down in growth rate a little.

Basically, we have what 800 million people in developped countries and 5.3 billion in underdevelopped countries ?

Just putting a heating or airconditioning unit or lighting in the homes of 3 billion people will be enough to dwarf the any new energy production breakthrough the west can ever achieve.

What if they also want a TV set, an automobile, airtravel and all those plastic gizmo's we take for granted ?

Getting that stuff for only 800 million people already used the bulk of the easily accessible resources the planet held. What are the remaining 5.3 billion going to use.

Indeed, low grade and highly contaminated fuels at a consumption level that is ohh what 6 times as much as we in the West ever used !

That is is what is happening in China right now and it is a huge problem. Mostly because the bulk of the Chinese population has not gotten into the game yet.

That is what I means by the hordes. Their numbers are so great that even if they only demand full electric lighting on their homes comparable to what we have that that will already offset any energy gains we make in the west.

Wouter

Only a couple of %, but it is growing. The basic problem is that the western consumer is using ludicrous amounts of energy per head. There is no way we can support that level of consumption with renewable resources. Certainly not if more and more people of developping nations are added.

That is just not sustainable no matter how you slice it and that is why our societies are going to change. Irrespectibally whether Nuclear energy, shale oil, coal or whatever is used.

Basically, we only need to look at what a family car burns off. A person on a bicycle uses about 250 watt to get somewhere at 15 miles per hour. 37000 Joules per kilometer (60000 per mile). When I use my car, a very fuel efficient Toyota starlet (15 km to the litre = 60 mpg) I'm burning off 2400000 joules per km or 65 times as much energy. Take your average redneck 8 cylinder 6 liter pick-up truck and be really amazed. Or take air travel !

What if we fitted out these bicycles with small motors and drive around like that ? Take a wild guess at the energy (and money) saved by that. Things like that will happen as that is the only way to get the job done. Looking for other sources to sustain our current consumption level are simply beyond imagination.

Wouter

Man, we really do have to start at the beginning with you. Because it makes Americans feel powerful to drive things like this:



14 MPG



10 mpg

You can't even carry all of your cabinets in that thing <img src="http://www.catsailor.com/forums/images/graemlins/smile.gif" alt="" />

What does this mean?
Before the Industial Revolution there was about 280PPM of co2 in the atmosphere, in the 50s it was at 315ppm, and now it's at 380ppm. Must be part of the natural carbon cycle. It couldn't have anything to do with burning petrolium.



So, what? You want to send in our overstretched military to extract oil from Russia(9.5 million barrel per day production in 2005) and countries on the African continent(9.8 miilon barrel production per day in 2005) so the American public can drive their bling around? I think there are better uses of our millitary.



Still, no one answered how I'm being scammed by global warming as stated in several inflamitory posts. <img src="http://www.catsailor.com/forums/images/graemlins/cool.gif" alt="" />

You could drive one of these at around 140 mpg. But it isn't too usefull.


But I make a [censored]-ton of money with one of these at around 20mpg:



If I could afford a Hummer (not H2) for a run around vehicle I would be all over it.

People piss away all sorts of money on "hybrid" cars, they don't get that great of milage for what you pay and I can't imagine that the batteries are that helpfull to the enviroment either in production or disposal. You can get a diesel VW jetta that gets 50mpg easily, and still can get onto the I-roads at a decent clip. The navigator in your picture could probably get 25 mpg and have more power if it had a modern turbo'd diesel. The H2 could probably be in the same ballpark.

Hows this for fuel savings. I loaded 8 boats into a trailer, and got 12.3 mpg over the course of a 2400 mile trip.





How much fuel did I save vs. having 8 different people drive 8 different vehicles half way across the country.

I do my part -- Our car is a 1990 Honda Civic with 160,000 miles, burns no oil and gets 49 mpg. Usually have to fill up the 10 gallon tank about once a month.
And it pulls catamarans as well. <img src="http://www.catsailor.com/forums/images/graemlins/smile.gif" alt="" />
Rick

Ok if I take this all in all we need to do is go back to living in caves and ride bicycles. So honestly what is the solution? I think sailing fits in nicely related to going green other than the energy and material that it takes to produce them. And by the way lets call this a world issue not just an American one. Honestly I don't believe China will ever go green but that does not mean that American needs to follow suit! I believe in American ingenuity and in other free loving countries ingenuity as well. So there is a solution and I don't believe living in caves and only riding bicycles (I cycle to work almost everyday) is the answer.

According to Nate Lewis (my former chemistry prof.) in Caltech's "Engineering & Science" alumni magazine, the US is at the point where we'd have to cover 40% of the US with corn fields to satisfy our energy needs via ethanol... or 10% of the US with today's solar technology... and Solar's the most sustainable energy source... and we expect 30% more people in the US in 30 years.

We're not yet at unsustainable levels, but I won't argue that current levels are not "ludicrous," as you say.

So, Nate is focusing his research on amorphous silicon solar cells. If they can be made to work well enough, then solar becomes the economically preferred option in sunny areas with high energy costs, such as Southern California, where I live. That's why my dream home is solar.

--Glenn

There's snow on the ground and ice on the lake and it's not winter yet. Could be a good ice boating year,terrific!!!Live on the same latitude as Northern Calif.

Fred

Karl, you will be happy to know there is a guy in Kansas who is doing turbo-diesel conversions to hummers and any other big SUV, claims he can make them get at least 50mpg on Bio-diesel. The down side is his conversion costs about $40,000, and that's after you bring him the Hummer you bought, but he says he has no lack of customers. Neil Young (the rock star) is having his 1959 Buick converted to a turbo diesel, supposed to get 100 mpg when it's done. So the question is, why isn't Detroit doing it?

The diesel option on my truck was an extra $6000 bucks. And as to why, I don't know. Americans don't like diesel for some reason. People think they're stinky, (they are), people think they're noisy, (old ones are). Stinky is a state of mind I guess. Both my girlfriend and I grew up on farms so we get all nostalgic when we smell a diesel engine on a cold morning. New diesel engine are creepy quiet, the current generation stuff is actually quieter than the a gas engine of the same displacement. Diesel engines uses less fuel, get better fuel economy, and make more power. Plus diesel is really easy to refine. Bio diesel is a long ways off from being a viable fuel source. There have been many issues with a lack of lubricity which is hard on the injection pumps that rely on the "oily-ness" to keep things working smooth. Another down side is the gell temp is much higher than that of convention diesel fuel. If you live somewhere that stays semi warm, gelling isn't an issue, but it gets flipping cold up here come january. I think somewhere around 6% of non-commercial vehicles in the U.S. are diesel, where as europe I think it is above 70% is diesel powered. My pickup weighs 7500 pounds and gets 21mpg in the summer, on winter fuel I'm down around 19mpg. To me that is very impressive. Especially when a Honda civic that weighs less than a quarter of what my pickup does, has a third of the displacement, and a quarter of the power only gets twice the milage.

If you want to go on a bender about CO2. You can lock yourself in the garage with a diesel engine running and not kill yourself. The enviromentalist types don't like diesel because of sulpher emission and acid rain. But that isn't much of an issue any longer with the new crappy fuel that we get. The old fuel, (pre 2007) was 1500 ppm sulpher, the new stuff is 15 ppm. I dropped 2mpg instantly when we switched to the "improved" diesel. Another marvelous thing to come out of the Clinton administration. Thanks Bill <img src="http://www.catsailor.com/forums/images/graemlins/frown.gif" alt="" />

Tikipete- From a CIA website:
Oil production
Saudia Arabia 9.475 million Barrels per day
Russia 9.4
Nigeria 2.4
USA 7.61
Iran 3.979
Iraq 2.5
UAE 2.54
China 3.631
Kazakhstan 1.3
Kuwait 2.418

Same website says we use 20.73 million barrels/day. Global is about 83 million.

I'm willing to bet that essentially none of Russia's oil production comes from inland russia. Most of it comes from drilling in the Bering sea, and whatever body of water is in between Vladivistok, and Japan. I can't find my atlas.

Russia does produce alot more than I had thought.

Lord! I'm getting old, I was probably thinking Russia and Kazakhstan together (old USSR)! <img src="http://www.catsailor.com/forums/images/graemlins/tongue.gif" alt="" />

btw- with purely mischevious intent, I think I will cite this as my primary source of fact! <img src="http://www.catsailor.com/forums/images/graemlins/laugh.gif" alt="" />

https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook/index.html

I saw on some engineering show on Discovery that this is a large part of the reason why New Orleans is sinking further below sea level - the removal of natural gas deposits under the city.

Wells for water is one of the reasons that Venice is sinking.

In Australia we pay an extra federal levy on diesel to deter the use of diesel and fund research into alternative fuels. Works as you'd expect, we pay more for our diesel and there's no new alternatives come out of it.

... and I suspect your new government to be even better at spending and collecting your money, but hopefully they will guaranty a consistently high price for diesel and private industry will be driven to find an energy solution?

I had a great 5 hour sail on my Hydra today.

Yeah great new Govt, bet we'll get out of Iraq, learn to speak Mandarin, pay higher interest rates, develop a social conscience that will bring the country to its knees again with unions etc just like last time they were in.

My pickup weighs 7500 pounds and gets 21mpg in the summer, on winter fuel I'm down around 19mpg. To me that is very impressive. Especially when a Honda civic that weighs less than a quarter of what my pickup does, has a third of the displacement, and a quarter of the power only gets twice the milage.

Hey, I'll bet I can get almost as much stuff into my Civic as you can get into the back of your pickup. <img src="http://www.catsailor.com/forums/images/graemlins/grin.gif" alt="" />

I've seen her Civic - don't bet with her!

Can you fit your Civic in the back of your Civic?

How are you being scamed? For those that can't see the cost of this joke, see the following.
SEC Should Require Companies to Disclose Risk of Global Warming Regulation, Study Says; Companies Risk Earnings While Keeping Shareholders in the Dark, Reports Free Enterprise Education Institute



WASHINGTON, Oct. 1 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- The Securities and
Exchange Commission (SEC) should take immediate steps to require
publicly-owned corporations to reveal the potential harm caused by global
warming regulations on earnings and shareholder value, concluded a study
released today by the Free Enterprise Education Institute (FEEI).
The report, "Failure to Disclose: Businesses Lobbying for Global
Warming Regulation Keep Shareholders in the Dark," finds that many
corporations supporting greenhouse gas regulations have failed to warn
shareholders about the harmful consequences these regulations pose to
future earnings.
Surprisingly, only five of the twenty-one members of the U.S. Climate
Action Partnership (USCAP), a lobbying group supporting global warming
regulation and cap-and-trade schemes, have disclosed in their annual SEC
filings that limits on greenhouse gas emissions pose a business risk.
Efforts to limit greenhouse gases at the state and local level already
unequivocally demonstrate these regulations are a legitimate business risk
to USCAP members:
-- General Electric is fighting federal and state legislative efforts to
ban the incandescent light bulbs -- a GE product and invention of
Thomas Edison, the company's founder. Government officials want to
require consumers to purchase only the more energy efficient compact
fluorescent light bulbs (CFLs). Shareholders are also threatened by
efforts to ban coal-fired power plants. GE supplies steam turbines for
these power plants.

-- PepsiCo is facing bans on bottled water. Critics complain the
production and transportation of bottled water wastes energy and
contributes to greenhouse gas emissions. San Francisco city agencies no
longer purchase bottled water because of global warming concerns.
"USCAP members must inform shareholders about legitimate risks to their
business," said Steve Milloy of FEEI. "Failure to disclose exposes these
companies to shareholder lawsuits -- especially since greenhouse gas
regulations are materially impacting these companies," added Milloy.
The study finds USCAP membership is controversial and it has created
conflict between businesses and their customers.
Caterpillar Inc., for example, is dealing with a boycott from a coal
industry customer because of company participation in USCAP. A government
study reported that cap-and-trade regulations would cause a 40 percent
reduction in coal production. According to the Caterpillar CEO, the
decision to join USCAP was not based on an economic assessment of the costs
and benefits of the regulations to the company.
"Shareholders have a right to know that Caterpillar may face a backlash
from other coal companies and energy intensive companies, like the steel
industry, whose businesses will be ruined by cap-and-trade regulations,"
said Tom Borelli of FEEI. "If the boycott picks up momentum, Caterpillar
could easily be facing shareholder lawsuits. Making matters worse, the CEO
did not exercise basic due-diligence in deciding to support regulations --
negligence is a powerful argument for trial lawyers," added Borelli.
The study also finds that non-USCAP members should disclose the impact
of global warming regulations to its shareholders. Wal-Mart, for example,
is the largest private user of electricity and its trucks travel an
estimated 1 billion miles every year.
"High-energy prices -- a direct consequence of global warming
regulations -- would dramatically increase Wal-Mart's operating costs and
hurt consumer spending," said Borelli. "Shareholders should be alerted to
the fact that global warming regulations will potentially devastate
Wal-Mart's future earnings," Borelli added.

Now it is nice and all, how some claim to worry about all of us and our future. But don't act like this will not hurt anybody and there is no scam involved. This "global warming" simply an excuse for grabbing money and power.

No oil company makes as much money off a gallon of gas as our own government. Where do the so called "scientists" get the money? Government grants, but those who disagree are banished as working for oil companies. Who makes out when we have a boogey man to blame new taxes and regulations on?

Right, no one will get hurt by our efforts to "save the planet". Don't worry though, once global warming goes out of style, there will be a new boogey man.

No, but if you can fit my Civic into the back of your pickup truck, you would only have room for whatever you can pack into the Civic, so you might as well drive the Civic. <img src="http://www.catsailor.com/forums/images/graemlins/smile.gif" alt="" />

Thanks for the cut-n-paste. Didn't read it. For every one article you come up with stating global warming is a scam, I can come up with about 90 that refutes it.

You guys in Florida let the rest of us know how things shape up in the next couple of decades. With a High point of 345' above sea level you'll know somethings wrong way before most of the rest of the country.

I have to agree with Karl in his defense of diesel though. I can't believe VW doesn't promote the TDI more here in the states. It's a legit 50mpg with power and torque.

The most efficient, electronically controlled, turbo charged diesel is about 37% efficient. That means that 37% of the power held in the fuel gets to the rear wheels. The most efficient gasoline vheicle is around 8% efficient.

Add a little biodiesel to your truck Karl, maybe 10% and it will lube the top end and you'll get that 2 mpg back and then some. It's about $.25 cheaper than diesel per gallon in Amarillo right now. Fewer hydrocarbon emissions, a little more nox. Don't go more than 10% when it's cold.

Still not convinced of the "scam".

Check out Honda's new diesel lineup..Accord, Ridgeline and I think a civic as well. I think they are coming out in 09 or 10.

Look.

<**** !

8% efficiency is the level early 19th century steam engines operated at.

Wouter

Minnesota has a minimum 2% bio-diesel right now. There were problems initially with quality, (Plugged fuel filters and the like), but I think it has gotten much better. I almost bought a setup to distill my own but there is no way I could've produced enough fuel to make it work for me. The time I spent chasing down used cooking oil, I can get more done at work and come out ahead. You can't stock up on B100 either. Bacteria build up and eventually destroy it. The cost, not figuring the equipment to make it or the fuel/time to get waste cooking oil, is about $.50 a gallon last time I checked, but it has been a few years since I looked into it.

I've got a Dodge Dakota for a run around beater that actually gets worse mileage than my 3/4 ton. Pulling the FXone it gets horrible mileage

<**** !

8% efficiency is the level early 19th century steam engines operated at.

Wouter