Printable View
Record high for March 1 in Abilene, TX yesterday. 95 degrees!
http://www.weather.com/activities/ev...03&from=search
Does anyone have a theory as to why the drought line sits on the treeline in TX and Oklahoma?
http://www.drought.unl.edu/dm/monitor.html
This is kind of subjective, though, because fossil fuel burning is also linked to higher incidences of health risks, with much more straightforward cause-effect data than the "greenhouse gas" data. My problem with the GW movement is not that I staunchly believe GW doesn't exist, but that what the activists lack in data they supplement with histrionics and appeals to emotion. One dose science, two doses alarmism, and abracadabra! "Major environmental catastrophe lurks. Look at my 'science'!"Quote:
Originally Posted by saltydawg
I hope they come out with a hybrid or biodiesel minivan before I have to upgrade. I need the seven seats plus the extra luggage space for my expanding family. However, since moving to Ruston in August, we have reduced our gasoline use from over 100 gallons per month to under 20. We no longer have a 80-mile per day commute like we had in Georgia, and here I walk or bike to work/school.
Speaking of commuting, and speaking of waste, I could never get over noticing all the cars with one individual coming from the same neighborhoods at the same time of day with the same factory parking permit on the windows. Is it really that shameful to car pool?
Because it enjoys the shade?Quote:
Originally Posted by Dawgbitten
No, I know, it's making a political statement about deforestation.
those hybrids are so expensive right now that the extra price of the vehicle would not likely be cancelled out by the savings on gas. so, one would have to be truly altruistic to buy one, because it's not really going to save you any money. if the government is truly concerned about the enviornment they should consider providing some sort of incentive to consumers for buying them or to the companies building them to keep the price lower. it just doesn't seem to me that anyone in washington has been concerned with tryuly improving the state of our ecology for quite some time.Quote:
Originally Posted by saltydawg
if i could have gotten a hybrid version of the vehicle that i presently have (or a similar vehicle) and paid near or the same price as the standard one, i would have done it in a heartbeat. it has to be comparable in price for it to really catch on.
Actually, there is a tax break for buying a hybrid (just the year you buy it though). I think when I crunched the numbers, depending on how much you drive and whether that is city or highway, between the fuel savings and the tax break, you at least make up for the difference in price. Depending on your driving habits and any modifications you make to the car, you could do better.Quote:
Originally Posted by sik-m-boi
As for modifications, I heard about a guy who rigged is to be able to charge it with an extension cord, so he started with a full battery. He could go about 40 miles without the gas engine ever kicking in. He only had a 20 mile each way commute, so his "effective" mpg was something like 300mpg.
i just looked up some MSRPs to emphasize my point:
standard honda accord $18,200
hybrid $30,900
standard honda civic $14,500
hybrid $21,800
insight (essentially a gocart with a roof) $19,300 (but it does get 66 mpg)
standard toyota highlander $24,500
hybrid $30,400
prius (toyota's 4 dr gocart) $21,700
i know there are some american car companies making hybrids but i didn't feel like looking them all up.
there needs to be more...but i appreciate the info.Quote:
Originally Posted by Brian96
[quote=saltydawg]Effect of climate change in Europe
The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), which brings together the world's leading experts in this field, projected in its Third Assessment Report in 2001 that the globally averaged surface temperature will increase by between 1.4 and 5.8°C from 1990 to 2100 under business-as-usual, and that sea levels will rise by between 9 and 88 centimetres over the same period. If nothing is done to prevent or limit these changes, they will have major environmental, economic and social consequences.
Just to refresh us on who the IPCC is and how their studies, which resulted in the Kyoto Protocol, were put together here's an excerpt from a paper I put together over a year ago......................
What about the claim that there is indeed Global Warming?
If this is true, how did we find this out? Are the claims valid? Were the predictions made with sound science? The basic claim of recent global warming and the main basis for what became the Kyoto Protocol lies in a United Nations panel – the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). This panel put together a group of 122 well known scientific authors to document what was (or is) happening to the Earth’s climate. Note that some of these authors are Nobel Prize winners, thus immediately adding credibility to their findings, although it is worth noting that few of the Nobel prizes had anything to do with climate.
Organized into 14 groups, each produced a paper dealing with a particular aspect of the subject. What is not generally well known is that none of the 122 authors had a chance to review or challenge findings from other groups. There were several hundred additional “outside” reviewers but their approval on any content was not solicited. The resulting papers were then summarized into the final 14 chapters by yet another group. From, this, the “Summary for Policymakers” was edited by a small group of UN “Policymakers”, not the scientists!! It seems highly likely that the Policymakers simply “cherry-picked” the points they wanted from the material. Thus the Summary from which the media takes virtually all of its “points” came from a political body! Statements by ideological environmentalists and politicians that thousands of IPPC scientists agree on everything in the final report are simply untrue and grossly misrepresent the process. In fact, since the original document was released, many scientists, including many who were involved in the basic analysis, have come forward and said that they do not support the final summary report that resulted in the Kyoto accord.
Billpup. glad to know you are feeling better enough to wade into this matter again.
actually, i don't think junkscience.com is neo-con, but they are definitely pro business and anti-tax-on-society. regardless of their bias, they are using the estimates provided by the folks that were pushing kyoto. they have links, if you have time to follow them. i don't.Quote:
Originally Posted by saltydawg
as for willie, his music is great. that doesn't mean that i care what he thinks about bio-deisel. by the way, how is it again that biodeisel will help reduce greenhouse gases?
March 3, 2006
Loss of Antarctic Ice Increases
By ANDREW C. REVKIN
Two new satellite surveys show that warming air and water are causing Antarctica to lose ice faster than it can be replenished by interior snowfall, and thus are contributing to rising global sea levels.
The studies differed significantly in estimates of how much water was being added to the oceans this way, but their authors both said that the work added credence to recent conclusions that global warming caused by humans was likely to lead to higher sea levels than previous studies had predicted.
The earlier projections presumed that snowfall over Antarctica, as well as Greenland, would increase as warming added moisture to the air, compensating for the losses of ice from crumbling or melting along coasts.
Several independent experts agreed with the new conclusions, saying they meshed both with more localized studies of trends in Antarctica and with evidence from warm spells before the last ice age.
"Snowfall will matter less and less," said Robert Bindschadler, an expert on polar ice at the National Aeronautics and Space Administration who was not involved in either study. "We know that warmer climates eventually lead to less ice."
Most of the ice is being lost in western Antarctica, where warming air and seawater have recently broken up huge floating shelves of ice, resembling the brim of a hat. That, in turn, has allowed ice in the interior to flow more readily to the coast.
One of the new surveys, led by H. Jay Zwally, a NASA scientist, used satellites and aircraft to measure changes in the height of ice sheets in Antarctica and Greenland over the decade ended in 2002. It found a loss of volume in Antarctica and a small overall gain in Greenland, where inland snows have outpaced ice flowing into the sea, at least temporarily. It was just published in The Journal of Glaciology.
The other study, by scientists at the University of Colorado, looked at changes from 2002 to 2005 using NASA satellites that detect subtle changes in Earth's gravitational field that can be used to estimate the weight of water in an ice sheet.
"The changes we are seeing are probably a good indicator of the changing climatic conditions there," said Isabella Velicogna, the lead author of the gravity-sensing study, which was published online yesterday by the journal Science.
I'll send them an email and find out.Quote:
Originally Posted by arkansasbob
On second thought, here is a link to their web site that explains it rather nicely:Quote:
Originally Posted by saltydawg
http://www.wnbiodiesel.com/products.html
What? Your wanting to kill America's living and breathing plants and animals to make our cars go down the rode? How convenient! THIS IS JUST OUTRAGEOUS!!!!:icon_wink What will the liberal enviro-wackos think of next. Killing our babies for convenience sake? Oh wait...they already helped make that legal.:icon_rollQuote:
Originally Posted by saltydawg
If none of you believe this finding then why don't you get in a plane, and go up there with scientists and take the damn samples yourself.
Antarctic ice sheet in 'significant decline': study
Thu Mar 2, 2:10 PM ET
WASHINGTON (AFP) - Antarctica's mammoth ice sheet, which holds 90 percent of the Earth's ice, is showing "significant decline" as world temperatures heat up, according to a new study released.
http://ad.doubleclick.net/ad/N636.Ya...1403071509796?
As Earth's fifth largest continent, Antarctica is twice the size of Australia and contains 70 percent of Earth's fresh water resources. British research suggests the melting of the West Antarctic ice sheet alone would raise global sea levels by over 20 feet (six meters).
And now a team of US researchers at the University of Boulder in Colorado say they have discovered that the Antarctic ice sheet is losing up to 36 cubic miles (152 cubic kilometers) of ice annually.
The estimated ice mass in Antarctica is the same as 0.4 millimeters of global sea rise annually, with a margin of error of 0.2 millimeters, according to the study. There are about 25 millimeters to one inch.
The study, however, appears to contradict the 2001 assessment by the UN-mandated Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change which forecast that the Antarctic ice shelf would actually gain mass in the 21st Century due to higher precipitation in a warming climate.
Using specialized data from two NASA satellites orbiting Earth in tandem, the Boulder researchers determined the Antarctic ice sheet has lost significant mass in recent years.
"This is the first study to indicate the total mass balance of the Antarctic ice sheet is in significant decline," said Isabella Velicogna, of the university's Cooperative Institute for Research in Environmental Sciences.
The bulk of the loss is occurring in the West Antarctic ice sheet, according to Velicogna.
"The changes we are seeing are probably a good indicator of the changing climatic conditions there," she said.
The continent's ice sheet has an average thickness of about 6,500 feet (1,981 meters).
The study appears in the online issue of Science Express.