I am interested in the statistics on how aids is spread. Is the spread still attributed to heterosexual exchanges of fluids and contaminated blood, or is the UN and the Center for Disease Control giving the proper figures re the spread by homosexual contact?
hunter
· 2 years ago
One hysterical UN hype unmasked. Will climate hysteria be next?
Otter
· 2 years ago
Right on with Hunter. When will they admit that 'man-made' global warming is just another set of hysterics they are trying to foist upon the world?
Jazz
· 2 years ago
First item: Even rounding down further, 30 million is still a lot of people. But the UN certainly should have done a better job of tracking and should be held to account for that. Whether or not it was intentional is still purely speculative as far as I can tell, however.
Second and more to the point: The portion of this post that saddens me is the seemingly reflexive instinct to try to tie it to climate change. This interparty fighting on the subject doesn't server anyone. Unlike the people on the extremes of both wings, some of whom declare with certainty that climate change is not only real, but caused by man, while others insist it is a myth, I would ask for a bit of calm and a dose of reality. It would be extremely productive if we could stop fighting about this and devote the same amount of time, energy and money to preparing for cyclical changes in our world's climate as we do to fighting about it.
The climate is changing. I'm sorry to burst your bubble, but that's no longer in question. To what degree does man affect the rate and direction of change? I'm not smart enough to say, but I would venture to say the majority of you are not either. But even if there were not a single person on this planet capable of a tchnological feat more complex than rubbing two sticks together to make a fire, the climate would still be changing. It's been doing it since the world began roughly 4 billion years ago (or six thousand, depending who is reading this) and there is absolutely no reason to think it's going to stop just because we're here. And at times it changes very rapidly once a change cycle swings into gear.
Did you know that the Earth's orbit changes from a roughly round path ( a period of which we're just coming out of now) to a long, eliptical orbit and back again? That causes massive fluctuations.
We experienced a mini-ice age as recently as the 1500's. In cycles before that the planet has gone from massive ice ages (possibly once or twice turning the entire world into a snowball where life only hung on by a thread) to brutal hot spells where deserts covered the lion's share of the land above the water line.
The ocean levels will rise or fall. They may start rising shortly, or they may start going down if we slip toward another ice cycle. In any event, they will do both. When they go up, we're going to lose a lot of the heavily populated areas of land and provisions need to be made for that. And such a rise will be accompanied by serious temperature increases and spreading deserts, loss of arable land, etc. When they drop it will be because of another ice cycle, and to see the power of what a group of glaciers sliding across inhabited lands can do, just look at the shape of the northern section of all the continents. You can't stop a glacier and you won't be living in the same place if one comes by.
Long term planning is the key to long term survival. Some things are more important and will require more cooperation and strategy than who wins the next damn election.
Otter
· 2 years ago
Jazz, you have not said anything that many of here don't already know, not to mention have put many hours of reading into.
We just want them to admit that the 'man-made' portion of climate change is hysterics.
As to surviving climate change, you may notice we've been here two million years or so. I'm still waiting for another chance to grow corn in Greenland, like they did 1100 years ago. If the human race survived weather back then even warmer than it is today, I think we'll manage this one also.
Jazz
· 2 years ago
We may have been here for 2 million years, but we were not here in these numbers and in this vast geographic diversity for more than the last couple of thousand, and even then we've been nearly wiped out a few times by mother nature. Two million years ago there were human numbering probably in the hundreds, maybe thousands, all of whom lived along the Oldevai valley in Africa, one of the friendliest environments on the planet from what most research shows.
The changes which may well come as the climate shifts will not be so kind to people living further north than around the latitude of Virginia. A drastic decrease in our ability to provide food is going to sit poorly when trying to sustain a population pushing 7 billion. All I'm saying is, these are things worth preparing for.
Otter
· 2 years ago
I don't disagree with you. One of the places we should definitely clear out is the Mississippie river valley:
'The loss of life and destruction in recent earthquakes of only moderate magnitude (for example, 33 lives and $20 billion in the 1994 magnitude-6.7 Northridge, California, earthquake and 5,500 lives and $100 billion in the 1995 magnitude-6.9 Kobe, Japan, earthquake) dramatically emphasize the need for residents of the Mississippi Valley to prepare further for an earthquake of such magnitude. Earthquakes of moderate magnitude occur much more frequently than powerful earthquakes of magnitude 8 to 9; the probability of a moderate earthquake occurring in the New Madrid seismic zone in the near future is high. Scientists estimate that the probability of a magnitude 6 to 7 earthquake occurring in this seismic zone within the next 50 years is higher than 90%. Such an earthquake could hit the Mississippi Valley at any time.
In 1811, the central Mississippi Valley was sparsely populated. Today, the region is home to millions of people, including those in the cities of St. Louis, Missouri, and Memphis, Tennessee. Adding to the danger, most structures in the region were not built to withstand earthquake shaking, as they have been in California and Japan. Moreover, earthquake preparations also have lagged far behind. '
----
Come to think of it, MOST of the NA continent is under major earthquake risk. We should start preparing to move 150+ million people out of those areas, too.
I am Not being facetious. Natural disasters are part and parcel of living on this planet. That one of them happens to be non-man-made, Uncontrollable climate change, is just the way it has always been. We'll survive it, or most of us will.
BTW, the altitude of the Tuvalu islands has Increased since the claim was made that they are sinking.
Obvious Observer
· 2 years ago
People are going to get pieces of this wrong. The Tuvalu islands might or might not be a false alarm; I don't know enough to say. It's a big planet out there. Most of the glaciers might be melting, but there'll undoubtedly be a few of them that are advancing. The United States, along with a lot of other countries, might be facing a fresh water crisis, but there will always be some places that have plenty of it, and in fact too much of it.
Here's a dirty little secret: Al Gore will die. You will, too, and so will I. This isn't about one person, as much as you want it to be. If those who are predicting a continuation and of global warming are wrong, and those who are predicting a reversal are right, I'll be happy. But if the scientific consensus is correct, then we've got a big problem.
Question is: How long do we wait to find out? It's a classic issue. I'd have more respect for the climate change skeptics if they'd lay out a series of tests they'd impose, including what it would take for them to throw in the towel.
Otter
· 2 years ago
Oh btw- wasn't 30 million about how many the last major Flu Pandemic killed world-wide? IF and when the next bird flu crosses over to humans, they are predicting 5 times that number. I'd say research into a flu vaccine against that ought to be getting serious consideration, before it hits and the Real hysterics get going.
Arch
· 2 years ago
Jazz, The UN AIDS campaign is all about funding. If have 50 million infected with HIV you get twice the money you would from 25 million infected.
As for global warming, the Milankovich cycles seem to explain glaciation cycles over the past 1.6 million years. There is a great 17 minute video by Bjorn Lomborg, a Danish PhD economist, who puts this debate in perspective.
A detail everyone seems to be ignoring about the consequence of glacial melting is that when the atmosphere warms, it is able to absorb more water vapor. If we see a one meter rise in mean sea level over a three degree increase in temperature, it would be counterintuitive. Also, when the tropical and temperate zones have violent storms occur much less frequently.
Arch
Arch
· 2 years ago
I meant to say:
Also, when the tropical and temperate zones have less variation in temperature, violent storms occur much less frequently.
Arch
Obvious Observer
· 2 years ago
If have 50 million infected with HIV you get twice the money you would from 25 million infected.
Please show through the use of facts that the UN spend money on AIDS in direct proportion to the number of people it estimates are infected. Or was this something you just made up to justify your knee-jerk opinion?
docjim505
· 2 years ago
Jazz: The portion of this post that saddens me is the seemingly reflexive instinct to try to tie it to climate change. This interparty fighting on the subject doesn't serve anyone.
Yes, it does. It serves all of us who will pay a price in lost wages and changed lifestyles if the Gorebots get their way. If global warming were merely an academic argument, it wouldn't be a big deal, but there are very real policy decisions that have been made on the basis of this junk science, with the UN and Gore and his crowd pushing for more. Pointing out that the UN has admitted that they fouled up on AIDS right after they issued another "stern warning" about global warming is QUITE useful to those of us who think that man-made climate change is crap and don't care to live in unheated, unlit caves when we're not biking to work.
Now, I thought that the rest of your post was very good, and brings out things that I often try (without nearly so much eloquence) to point out when I'm talking about global warming with those who believe in it: that the Earth has climate cycles that don't depend one little bit on how many SUV's we drive or whether we light our houses with CFL's or good ol' fashioned incandescent lamps.
Jazz: Long term planning is the key to long term survival. Some things are more important and will require more cooperation and strategy than who wins the next damn election.
Before one can have long-term planning to assure long-term survival, one needs good data. The UN screwed the pooch regarding AIDS, and many of us think they are absolutely cooking the books on global warming. Shall we try to plan in the face of what we think is trumped-up, politically-motivated hysteria?
Incidentally, how "long term" should we plan? Shall we evacuate New England because the next Ice Age will cover it up again... in about five thousand years?
Obvious Observer
· 2 years ago
There is a hermetically sealed quality to the anti-warming argument. It seems as if you've got people who deny that warming is happening -- but if it's happening, their fall-back positions are one or more of the following: that human activity plays no part in it, that climate change is beneficial, that any changes or planning to accommodate it are "statist."
In the meantime, the real-world evidence of climate change accumulates. This is far from the only environmental issue we face, but climate change is a big one. We're getting very close to the point where events are going to force adaptation whether you like it or not.
For the U.S. in particular, and the industrialized world in general, to act as if none of this matters is foolish at best, and could wind up being tragic. We didn't get to where we are now by hiding from problems. If so-called "conservatives" won't do it, then others are going to. Choice is yours.
clever_hans
· 2 years ago
A fitting metaphor for the entire history of junk-science liberalism is Chairman Mao's campaign to kill sparrows. He ordered the peasants to kill the birds on the theory that if you stopped birds from eating crops, you'd get more crops. So simple, even a commie-lib could understand it. Sure enough, the peasants used sticks and rocks with slingshots to kill as many sparrows as possible. But it turned out to be a costly scheme. Sparrows eat insects, and killing sparrows caused a catastrophic increase in the insect population, which destroyed the crops.
The history of liberalism is the history of superficial utopian ideas that end up causing far more harm than good.
NoDonkey
· 2 years ago
The UN is run by socialists.
Socialists lie about pretty much everything.
It's who they are. Never forget it and never believe them.
Duane Lester
· 2 years ago
When I saw this on Free Republic, all I saw was the first paragraph. My first thought was "And they want more money for "Global Warming."
Glad you covered that aspect.
DocNeaves
· 2 years ago
And this is the reason we should have voluntary taxes, and why we should give the UN the thirty-thirty plan...thirty minutes for our people to get out of the building, and thirty days for everyone else to get their stuff out, and the building comes down, and we put up a monument to capitalism and democracy and sovereignty.
always right
· 2 years ago
That is because the "scientists" now have a newer version of crusade, i.e. Global Warming.
They (UN) rather we put all the research "money" into this new hoax instead. Aids patients be damned. We are all going to die from global warming, don’t you know?
John
· 2 years ago
Women, minorities and children hardest hit :-)
davod
· 2 years ago
They don't need AIDS anymore, the cash cow is Global Warmening. The IPCC is due to release a report stating that Climate Change is the new world crisis.
I do not know why I didn't see this before. All pet projects take on the mantra of World Crisis. AIDS, Poverty and now Globl Warmening.
Rob Misek
· 2 years ago
Unlike global warming, AIDS is 100% preventable.
We just have to stop behaving like irresponsible immoral animals when it comes to sexuality.
Essucht
· 2 years ago
Is there *anything* big government does not corrupt???
One should hardly be shocked that a group of scientists was caught reporting findings that just happened to keep their budgets growing, but the MSM does such a bad job in reporting this sort of obvious conflict of interest, I guess many will be.
I still remember being taught, in a public school of course, that heterosexual AIDS would decimate the population in a few years...guess that prediction was off by a bit too.
Dave
· 2 years ago
The first problem is that the U.N. ISN'T a scientific organization, but a political one (and BAD politics at that). You'd have to be an imbicile to buy into the lies they come up with. The United States should have left this loser organization long ago, and thrown them out of the building that they have on our soil. (I am also amazed that the Nobel Prize board gave the UN scientists ANY kind of prize (and Al Gore? I mean, really. Get a clue)
Jobe
· 2 years ago
I have to admit that the first time I saw a bumper sticker that said "GET THE US OUT OF THE UN AND THE UN OUT OF THE US", I cringed. How simplistic, I thought. Right now, it looks pretty good. This is an organization whose time for burial has come.
ZZMike
· 2 years ago
Jazz: We're not trying to tie it to climate change. What we're saying is that (to put it bluntly), the UN got it wrong - either on purpose or by accident - about AIDS; we should be very very careful about blindly accepting what they say about climate change.
"Did you know that the Earth's orbit changes from a roughly round path ( a period of which we're just coming out of now) to a long, eliptical orbit and back again? That causes massive fluctuations."
No, it doesn't. There's a 100,000-year cycle, but the difference in orbits is very small. Any good book on planetary science will bear that out. The only things that change are the 23,000 year precession cycle (where the rotational axis points) and the 41,000 year tilt cycle (a change of about 2 degrees).
Of course the climate is changing. It's been changing for thousands of millennia. And it will continue to change for the next few thousand millennia, whether we're here or not. We have little to do with it. We might just as well emulate King Canute and compel the climate not to change. Fat lot of good that'll do.
Remember that the Sahara was once a forest.
The question is, why are some segments of society so determined to convince us that it's all our fault; that if we don't agree with them we must be mad; that only the Enlightened Ones like Al Gore are worthy enough to tell us how to fix the problem, and the only way to fix it is by spending massive amounts of money - amounts that would make the Iraq war budget seem a trifle - and by effectively turning back every technological advance mankind has ever made?
Obvious Observer
· 2 years ago
"Turning back every technological advance mankind has ever made?"
What in hell are you smoking? If global warming is real, the only way we'll solve the issue is through further technological advance. Fortunately, the new technologies are much further along than you and other "conservatives" want to realize. Within a few decades, if not sooner, there won't be much of a need for carbon-based fuel. We're very rapidly progressing toward a future of energy derived from renewable sources.
ALL power is solar power. Oil, coat, and natural gas are the liquified remains of plants that grew millions of years ago. Uranium is the remnant of the earth's formation out of one gigantic star. Using those sources entails significant externalities in the form of pollution and wars of conquest. Wind, geothermal, photovoltaic, hydroelectric, and tidal-generated power are just more direct means of harnessing the sun's energy, with fewer externalities.
Why wouldn't anyone want to move toward those sources? We've done it before. Petroleum and natural gas have about a 125-year history. There's nothing sacred about them. Why are you acting as if they are the only means of generating power, when in fact nothing could be further from the truth? You people really need to quit jerking your knees and look at what's happening out there.
harleycon5
· 2 years ago
Ok, so the UN cannot get verifiable info right on the number of people afflicted with AIDS, when such a scientific study would take little more than testing, BUT they say they have ALL THE FACTS on humanity's contribution to global warming, which they say will likely lead to the extinction of 1/3 of the world's species?
And they want us to drink the Koolaide again??
Lets all understand that the UN is in this for little more than profit and fear-mongering. If they can scare you, they can bilk you. We need know nothing more than this simple fact.
Dirty and Dubious, the UN is nothing more than a fear for money corporation run by 3rd world scum.
Betty
· 2 years ago
An article that didn't receive the attention that it should have at the time... http://www.whatisaids.com/rollingstone.htm . Maybe now it will. It's all about the numbers and how they are derived. It's a bit scary.
Obvious Observer
· 2 years ago
Let's see. They revised their estimate of infected people downwards by 17.5%, from 40 million to 33 million. And they cut their estimated rate of new infections of 40%, from 4.16 million to 2.5 million. And this blog goes nuts about sloppy numbers and "statist" policies. So, has this blog gone equally crazy about Rumsfeld's first estimates that the Iraq War would last no more than 6 months, and the Bush administration's testimony that Iraq reconstruction (which still hasn't happened) would cost the U.S. no more than a few billion dollars?
No, you haven't protested the latter, because that would involve criticism of a group of people to whom you are a knee-jerk slave. But you despise the United Nations. Hating the UN has always been a right-wing hobby horse. Your fake outrage at the revision of the AIDS projections says nothing about the UN or about their statistical methods, which are only given a surface look in the Washington Post and no look at all on this blog.
Anyone who has ever actually made their living at making decisions under conditions of uncertainty knows the limits of statistics and forecasts. They are always to be taken with a grain of salt. Rarely does a projection come true, in the sense of there being an exact fit. The way to use forecasts is primarily as an indicator of direction; from there, you have to look into the survey methodology to know how far to take it.
The "outrage" here is preposterous. It's the application of false precision for the purpose of flogging your predetermined point of view. By contrast, the gross errors in the Bush administration's projections for Iraq, which are greeted with silence from you, go far beyond the bounds of foreseeable error. Yet you say nothing, because you cannot be disturbed by the facts.
Obvious Observer
· 2 years ago
As for climate change, no one's forecasts are going to be correct. The issue is whether they are right in their direction, and what the appropriate response should be. Everyone should be asking themselves what they will do if their general point of view turns out to be wrong, and what evidence they will demand that they were wrong.
I started out as a skeptic on global warming, having remembered the Ice Age warnings of the 1970s. Since the mid- to late 1990s, I've become steadily more convinced that global warming is real and that it's a major problem. It's certainly not the only environmental problem we have, but it's looking more and more like it's the biggest of them.
I think the case has been made for global warming, so from here on out I pay most of my attention to the contrary viewpoints to see if they might offer insight. One that has caught my attention is a climatologist's assertion (I think from the U of Colorado, but that could be wrong) that the earth actually entered a cooling cycle in the late '90s that will begin to be felt in significantly falling temperatures beginning in 2010.
If that happens, I'm going to be happy about it. I'm not invested in global warming. But if it doesn't happen and the global average temperature keeps rising, then I think it's time for the skeptics to throw in the towel and get moving on non-fossil alternative energy. There, the picture is FAR more optimistic than has been reported so far. In fact, I'm very nearly convinced that, whatever happens with the global warming issue, by mid-century we're not going to be worrying much about oil because we're not going to be using nearly as much of it.
All the alternatives that you've heard about, and laughed at, are in fact coming into their own as profitable alternatives: wind, solar, geothermal, and waste conversion. Do you know that, with currently available technology, 700 square miles of solar panels stuck in the desert southwest would supply 100% of U.S. electricity consumption for an all-in cost of about 15 cents a kWh? Within five years, that cost will fall to 10 cents a kWh or less. Check your electric bills and see how much you're paying.
I used the above as an example, as opposed to a forecast that the U.S. will go all-solar. That technology has limitations, one being that you produce a lot more in the summer than you do in the winter. The solution will consist of a bunch of things, not just one. Here's another one: There is a company that, for the last decade, has been selling geothermal heat pumps. They've sold 4 million of them, mostly in Northern Europe. They cut energy usage by 70%, and provide both heating and cooling. Why? Because if you dig five to 10 feet into the soil, the temperature is always 55 degrees.
Much of the Great Plains should be a wind farm. So should Teddy Kennedy's backyard. Wind farms could easily generate 20% of the juice we need. Appliances still use way, way too much power. Oh, and within five years, you're going to see electric car batteries (for "plug-in hybrids") that will go about 100 miles on a charge and can be fully recharged in 15 minutes. The average person drives 28 miles a day. Do the math.
Even if global warming turns out not to happen, there are all kinds of reasons to want to move away from oil and coal. If it does happen, then there are even more reasons to do so. But this argument over the issue almost completely misses the point. Alternatives are coming whether you like them or not. It's not about Al Gore or your favorite hobby horse. Keep talking that way if you want, but the public is starting to laugh at you, and soon they'll be in full roar.
Otter
· 2 years ago
Another superiority complex descends upon us. What a waste of breath.
Obvious Observer
· 2 years ago
That's right. Keep your eyes closed while you're walking. That's not a cliff over there. The liberals are lying to you. Keep on walking.
NahnCee
· 2 years ago
Why should we trust their scientists on this when they've consistently fibbed about AIDS?
It seems to me the better question would be, why should we be donating ANY money to the UN for ANY of their ticky-tacky little programs, given their track record of lies, deceit, rape and theft?
All Comments
Second and more to the point: The portion of this post that saddens me is the seemingly reflexive instinct to try to tie it to climate change. This interparty fighting on the subject doesn't server anyone. Unlike the people on the extremes of both wings, some of whom declare with certainty that climate change is not only real, but caused by man, while others insist it is a myth, I would ask for a bit of calm and a dose of reality. It would be extremely productive if we could stop fighting about this and devote the same amount of time, energy and money to preparing for cyclical changes in our world's climate as we do to fighting about it.
The climate is changing. I'm sorry to burst your bubble, but that's no longer in question. To what degree does man affect the rate and direction of change? I'm not smart enough to say, but I would venture to say the majority of you are not either. But even if there were not a single person on this planet capable of a tchnological feat more complex than rubbing two sticks together to make a fire, the climate would still be changing. It's been doing it since the world began roughly 4 billion years ago (or six thousand, depending who is reading this) and there is absolutely no reason to think it's going to stop just because we're here. And at times it changes very rapidly once a change cycle swings into gear.
Did you know that the Earth's orbit changes from a roughly round path ( a period of which we're just coming out of now) to a long, eliptical orbit and back again? That causes massive fluctuations.
We experienced a mini-ice age as recently as the 1500's. In cycles before that the planet has gone from massive ice ages (possibly once or twice turning the entire world into a snowball where life only hung on by a thread) to brutal hot spells where deserts covered the lion's share of the land above the water line.
The ocean levels will rise or fall. They may start rising shortly, or they may start going down if we slip toward another ice cycle. In any event, they will do both. When they go up, we're going to lose a lot of the heavily populated areas of land and provisions need to be made for that. And such a rise will be accompanied by serious temperature increases and spreading deserts, loss of arable land, etc. When they drop it will be because of another ice cycle, and to see the power of what a group of glaciers sliding across inhabited lands can do, just look at the shape of the northern section of all the continents. You can't stop a glacier and you won't be living in the same place if one comes by.
Long term planning is the key to long term survival. Some things are more important and will require more cooperation and strategy than who wins the next damn election.
We just want them to admit that the 'man-made' portion of climate change is hysterics.
As to surviving climate change, you may notice we've been here two million years or so. I'm still waiting for another chance to grow corn in Greenland, like they did 1100 years ago. If the human race survived weather back then even warmer than it is today, I think we'll manage this one also.
The changes which may well come as the climate shifts will not be so kind to people living further north than around the latitude of Virginia. A drastic decrease in our ability to provide food is going to sit poorly when trying to sustain a population pushing 7 billion. All I'm saying is, these are things worth preparing for.
http://quake.usgs.gov/prepare/factsheets/NewMad...
'The loss of life and destruction in recent earthquakes of only moderate magnitude (for example, 33 lives and $20 billion in the 1994 magnitude-6.7 Northridge, California, earthquake and 5,500 lives and $100 billion in the 1995 magnitude-6.9 Kobe, Japan, earthquake) dramatically emphasize the need for residents of the Mississippi Valley to prepare further for an earthquake of such magnitude. Earthquakes of moderate magnitude occur much more frequently than powerful earthquakes of magnitude 8 to 9; the probability of a moderate earthquake occurring in the New Madrid seismic zone in the near future is high. Scientists estimate that the probability of a magnitude 6 to 7 earthquake occurring in this seismic zone within the next 50 years is higher than 90%. Such an earthquake could hit the Mississippi Valley at any time.
In 1811, the central Mississippi Valley was sparsely populated. Today, the region is home to millions of people, including those in the cities of St. Louis, Missouri, and Memphis, Tennessee. Adding to the danger, most structures in the region were not built to withstand earthquake shaking, as they have been in California and Japan. Moreover, earthquake preparations also have lagged far behind. '
----
Come to think of it, MOST of the NA continent is under major earthquake risk. We should start preparing to move 150+ million people out of those areas, too.
I am Not being facetious. Natural disasters are part and parcel of living on this planet. That one of them happens to be non-man-made, Uncontrollable climate change, is just the way it has always been. We'll survive it, or most of us will.
BTW, the altitude of the Tuvalu islands has Increased since the claim was made that they are sinking.
Here's a dirty little secret: Al Gore will die. You will, too, and so will I. This isn't about one person, as much as you want it to be. If those who are predicting a continuation and of global warming are wrong, and those who are predicting a reversal are right, I'll be happy. But if the scientific consensus is correct, then we've got a big problem.
Question is: How long do we wait to find out? It's a classic issue. I'd have more respect for the climate change skeptics if they'd lay out a series of tests they'd impose, including what it would take for them to throw in the towel.
As for global warming, the Milankovich cycles seem to explain glaciation cycles over the past 1.6 million years. There is a great 17 minute video by Bjorn Lomborg, a Danish PhD economist, who puts this debate in perspective.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Dtbn9zBfJSs
A detail everyone seems to be ignoring about the consequence of glacial melting is that when the atmosphere warms, it is able to absorb more water vapor. If we see a one meter rise in mean sea level over a three degree increase in temperature, it would be counterintuitive. Also, when the tropical and temperate zones have violent storms occur much less frequently.
Arch
Also, when the tropical and temperate zones have less variation in temperature, violent storms occur much less frequently.
Arch
Please show through the use of facts that the UN spend money on AIDS in direct proportion to the number of people it estimates are infected. Or was this something you just made up to justify your knee-jerk opinion?
Yes, it does. It serves all of us who will pay a price in lost wages and changed lifestyles if the Gorebots get their way. If global warming were merely an academic argument, it wouldn't be a big deal, but there are very real policy decisions that have been made on the basis of this junk science, with the UN and Gore and his crowd pushing for more. Pointing out that the UN has admitted that they fouled up on AIDS right after they issued another "stern warning" about global warming is QUITE useful to those of us who think that man-made climate change is crap and don't care to live in unheated, unlit caves when we're not biking to work.
Now, I thought that the rest of your post was very good, and brings out things that I often try (without nearly so much eloquence) to point out when I'm talking about global warming with those who believe in it: that the Earth has climate cycles that don't depend one little bit on how many SUV's we drive or whether we light our houses with CFL's or good ol' fashioned incandescent lamps.
Jazz: Long term planning is the key to long term survival. Some things are more important and will require more cooperation and strategy than who wins the next damn election.
Before one can have long-term planning to assure long-term survival, one needs good data. The UN screwed the pooch regarding AIDS, and many of us think they are absolutely cooking the books on global warming. Shall we try to plan in the face of what we think is trumped-up, politically-motivated hysteria?
Incidentally, how "long term" should we plan? Shall we evacuate New England because the next Ice Age will cover it up again... in about five thousand years?
In the meantime, the real-world evidence of climate change accumulates. This is far from the only environmental issue we face, but climate change is a big one. We're getting very close to the point where events are going to force adaptation whether you like it or not.
For the U.S. in particular, and the industrialized world in general, to act as if none of this matters is foolish at best, and could wind up being tragic. We didn't get to where we are now by hiding from problems. If so-called "conservatives" won't do it, then others are going to. Choice is yours.
The history of liberalism is the history of superficial utopian ideas that end up causing far more harm than good.
Socialists lie about pretty much everything.
It's who they are. Never forget it and never believe them.
Glad you covered that aspect.
They (UN) rather we put all the research "money" into this new hoax instead. Aids patients be damned. We are all going to die from global warming, don’t you know?
I do not know why I didn't see this before. All pet projects take on the mantra of World Crisis. AIDS, Poverty and now Globl Warmening.
We just have to stop behaving like irresponsible immoral animals when it comes to sexuality.
One should hardly be shocked that a group of scientists was caught reporting findings that just happened to keep their budgets growing, but the MSM does such a bad job in reporting this sort of obvious conflict of interest, I guess many will be.
I still remember being taught, in a public school of course, that heterosexual AIDS would decimate the population in a few years...guess that prediction was off by a bit too.
"Did you know that the Earth's orbit changes from a roughly round path ( a period of which we're just coming out of now) to a long, eliptical orbit and back again? That causes massive fluctuations."
No, it doesn't. There's a 100,000-year cycle, but the difference in orbits is very small. Any good book on planetary science will bear that out. The only things that change are the 23,000 year precession cycle (where the rotational axis points) and the 41,000 year tilt cycle (a change of about 2 degrees).
Of course the climate is changing. It's been changing for thousands of millennia. And it will continue to change for the next few thousand millennia, whether we're here or not. We have little to do with it. We might just as well emulate King Canute and compel the climate not to change. Fat lot of good that'll do.
Remember that the Sahara was once a forest.
The question is, why are some segments of society so determined to convince us that it's all our fault; that if we don't agree with them we must be mad; that only the Enlightened Ones like Al Gore are worthy enough to tell us how to fix the problem, and the only way to fix it is by spending massive amounts of money - amounts that would make the Iraq war budget seem a trifle - and by effectively turning back every technological advance mankind has ever made?
What in hell are you smoking? If global warming is real, the only way we'll solve the issue is through further technological advance. Fortunately, the new technologies are much further along than you and other "conservatives" want to realize. Within a few decades, if not sooner, there won't be much of a need for carbon-based fuel. We're very rapidly progressing toward a future of energy derived from renewable sources.
ALL power is solar power. Oil, coat, and natural gas are the liquified remains of plants that grew millions of years ago. Uranium is the remnant of the earth's formation out of one gigantic star. Using those sources entails significant externalities in the form of pollution and wars of conquest. Wind, geothermal, photovoltaic, hydroelectric, and tidal-generated power are just more direct means of harnessing the sun's energy, with fewer externalities.
Why wouldn't anyone want to move toward those sources? We've done it before. Petroleum and natural gas have about a 125-year history. There's nothing sacred about them. Why are you acting as if they are the only means of generating power, when in fact nothing could be further from the truth? You people really need to quit jerking your knees and look at what's happening out there.
And they want us to drink the Koolaide again??
Lets all understand that the UN is in this for little more than profit and fear-mongering. If they can scare you, they can bilk you. We need know nothing more than this simple fact.
Dirty and Dubious, the UN is nothing more than a fear for money corporation run by 3rd world scum.
No, you haven't protested the latter, because that would involve criticism of a group of people to whom you are a knee-jerk slave. But you despise the United Nations. Hating the UN has always been a right-wing hobby horse. Your fake outrage at the revision of the AIDS projections says nothing about the UN or about their statistical methods, which are only given a surface look in the Washington Post and no look at all on this blog.
Anyone who has ever actually made their living at making decisions under conditions of uncertainty knows the limits of statistics and forecasts. They are always to be taken with a grain of salt. Rarely does a projection come true, in the sense of there being an exact fit. The way to use forecasts is primarily as an indicator of direction; from there, you have to look into the survey methodology to know how far to take it.
The "outrage" here is preposterous. It's the application of false precision for the purpose of flogging your predetermined point of view. By contrast, the gross errors in the Bush administration's projections for Iraq, which are greeted with silence from you, go far beyond the bounds of foreseeable error. Yet you say nothing, because you cannot be disturbed by the facts.
I started out as a skeptic on global warming, having remembered the Ice Age warnings of the 1970s. Since the mid- to late 1990s, I've become steadily more convinced that global warming is real and that it's a major problem. It's certainly not the only environmental problem we have, but it's looking more and more like it's the biggest of them.
I think the case has been made for global warming, so from here on out I pay most of my attention to the contrary viewpoints to see if they might offer insight. One that has caught my attention is a climatologist's assertion (I think from the U of Colorado, but that could be wrong) that the earth actually entered a cooling cycle in the late '90s that will begin to be felt in significantly falling temperatures beginning in 2010.
If that happens, I'm going to be happy about it. I'm not invested in global warming. But if it doesn't happen and the global average temperature keeps rising, then I think it's time for the skeptics to throw in the towel and get moving on non-fossil alternative energy. There, the picture is FAR more optimistic than has been reported so far. In fact, I'm very nearly convinced that, whatever happens with the global warming issue, by mid-century we're not going to be worrying much about oil because we're not going to be using nearly as much of it.
All the alternatives that you've heard about, and laughed at, are in fact coming into their own as profitable alternatives: wind, solar, geothermal, and waste conversion. Do you know that, with currently available technology, 700 square miles of solar panels stuck in the desert southwest would supply 100% of U.S. electricity consumption for an all-in cost of about 15 cents a kWh? Within five years, that cost will fall to 10 cents a kWh or less. Check your electric bills and see how much you're paying.
I used the above as an example, as opposed to a forecast that the U.S. will go all-solar. That technology has limitations, one being that you produce a lot more in the summer than you do in the winter. The solution will consist of a bunch of things, not just one. Here's another one: There is a company that, for the last decade, has been selling geothermal heat pumps. They've sold 4 million of them, mostly in Northern Europe. They cut energy usage by 70%, and provide both heating and cooling. Why? Because if you dig five to 10 feet into the soil, the temperature is always 55 degrees.
Much of the Great Plains should be a wind farm. So should Teddy Kennedy's backyard. Wind farms could easily generate 20% of the juice we need. Appliances still use way, way too much power. Oh, and within five years, you're going to see electric car batteries (for "plug-in hybrids") that will go about 100 miles on a charge and can be fully recharged in 15 minutes. The average person drives 28 miles a day. Do the math.
Even if global warming turns out not to happen, there are all kinds of reasons to want to move away from oil and coal. If it does happen, then there are even more reasons to do so. But this argument over the issue almost completely misses the point. Alternatives are coming whether you like them or not. It's not about Al Gore or your favorite hobby horse. Keep talking that way if you want, but the public is starting to laugh at you, and soon they'll be in full roar.
It seems to me the better question would be, why should we be donating ANY money to the UN for ANY of their ticky-tacky little programs, given their track record of lies, deceit, rape and theft?