[ale] OT CFL cleanup / LED light bulbs starting to become affordable

[Ron Frazier (ALE)]

Jim Kinney <jim.kinney at gmail.com> wrote:

>On Wed, Jul 3, 2013 at 1:54 PM, Ron Frazier (ALE) <
>atllinuxenthinfo at techstarship.com> wrote:
>
>>  I've read scientific documents that indicate that global warming is
>> probably not caused fundamentally by humans.
>>
>
>I strongly doubt those "scientific reports" have been peer reviewed by
>actual scientists. The one scientist (out of several thousand in the
>field)
>that was bad-mouthing human-caused global warming was eventually paid
>by
>the Koch brothers to review the real scientific data that all the other
>scientists were getting, reviewing and analyzing. After more than a
>year of
>analysis even he admitted he was wrong and that humans are actively
>causing
>climate change due to CO2 emissions (overwhelmingly CO2 even as other
>gasses are for more problematic at heat trapping than CO2) and EVERY
>SINGLE
>ARGUMENT AGAINST IT WAS WRONG.
>
>Let me be clear on that last point. The only actual scientist to come
>forward and argue against global warming existing and being caused by
>humans finally sat down and did his job and evaluated the data,
>methodology
>and analysis techniques and concluded that the real scientists were all
>correct and correctly answered every, single complaint the denialists
>could
>muster.
>
>The Koch bros were furious and are now fighting the impending CO2
>emissions
>limitations on other fronts.
>
>
>
>-- 
>-- 
>James P. Kinney III
>*
>*Every time you stop a school, you will have to build a jail. What you
>gain
>at one end you lose at the other. It's like feeding a dog on his own
>tail.
>It won't fatten the dog.
>- Speech 11/23/1900 Mark Twain
>*
>http://electjimkinney.org
>http://heretothereideas.blogspot.com/
>*

This is now getting very off topic, but here goes.

I'll preface this by saying this is not something I have the resources to research and argue vigorously.  Nor would I want to get into a flame war with anyone.  It obviously evokes strong emotions.  However, what I read years ago, and I don't know where, exactly, was information that said there were hundreds, if not thousands of scientists that had worked with the UN on this research, and they had dissenting opinions, and that they were censured because their opinion was not politically correct.  Thou shalt not find any scientific evidence to contradict our preconceived opinion, and thou shalt certainly not get published if you do.  The reason there's little dissent in public reports, is that the organizing bodies refused to allow the dissent.  If you count all the opinions, there is far from a universal consensus.

There is debate on whether the planet is even warming up on a long term basis.  Even if it is, the magnitude of nature is far above the magnitude of man's influence.  The most likely scenario is that forces we can neither measure, control, or predict, like the sun's internal processes, or climatological patterns, are causing warming.  The warming is causing carbon dioxide to increase.  Not the other way around.  It's a question of what is the cause and what is the effect.  Most likely, we have that equation backwards.

Even IF the planet is warming and even IF humans are having a material affect on it and even IF there is a tipping point at which a series of catastrophic things happen to our atmosphere,  all highly dubious, we as humans, with our puny understanding of the systems, are incapable of predicting that tipping point or knowing what will happen afterwards.  They cannot even get a 5 day forecast right, much less a 500 year one.

I say again that I'm not the least bit concerned about my or my vendors' carbon dioxide emissions, per se.  It is a vital and normal part of nature.  Let's go back before man's influence.  What did you have?  You had a bunch of plants that had absorbed CO2 and turned it into hydrocarbons in their cells.  Dinosaurs and animals ate the plants and sometimes ate each other, storing more and more hydrocarbons.  They died, got buried, and turned into peat, coal, natural gas, and various types of petroleum.  When we burn it, we're just releasing the CO2 that was there in the first place.

I AM concerned about them dumping TCE in our rivers, about asbestos, about wasting natural resources, about numerous other things coming from tail pipes and smoke stacks and drain pipes that are harmful to our planet.  I try to be as conservative as I practically can, but the key word is practically.  I do not intend to ride a bicycle or a horse everywhere, nor do I intend to live without electricity.

These are my opinions.  I'll admit I could be wrong.  I'll also admit that no one an prove it.  The science, such as it is, on this topic is surrounded by political issues, money issues, hyperbole, and a million different assumptions about history, climate, nature, cosmic weather, meteorology, and other things that we cannot prove.  It's an intellectual house of cards.  If you believe the Bible, the Earth is from 10,000 - 100,000 years old.  If you believe evolution, it's millions to billions of years old.  Regardless, our conclusions based on a puny 400 years or so of actual records is virtually meaningless when compared to these time scales.  Our overall understanding of these extraordinarily incredibly complex multi variable system like our climate is correspondingly puny.  Any assumptions based on extrapolations to times prior to our actual observations are virtually worthless, as there are too many assumptions which the assumptions are based on.

Again, I would not want to fight over any of this, but those are my thoughts.

Sincerely,

Ron



--

Sent from my Android Acer A500 tablet with bluetooth keyboard and K-9 Mail.
Please excuse my potential brevity if I'm typing on the touch screen.

(PS - If you email me and don't get a quick response, you might want to
call on the phone.  I get about 300 emails per day from alternate energy
mailing lists and such.  I don't always see new email messages very quickly.)

Ron Frazier
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