http://climateprogress.org/2007/07/20/the-work-to-read-after-seeing-an-inconvenient-truth/

Well, the local TV news here lists gas stations that are selling cheaper gas (5-10 cents below the average). You should see the lines at those places.

No progress. Just a warmer globe. And a couple of hundred billion more in Dick Cheney’s Halliburton account. Mission Accomplished! Hope you made out like a bandit, MikeN. If not, you’re a fool.

I’m not sure if it’s a government study, but according to the National Academy of Sciences’ 2001 CAFE study, this downsizing contributes to between 1,000 and 3,000 additional fatalities per year.

Science is not actually done by politicians and their interpretations are always suspect. There is no consensus, nor should there be a consensus.

As to what “was already determined as the result of CAFE rules”, I’m not aware of that determination. I have seen testimony before the House Energy and Commerce committee from AUTO COMPANY EXECUTIVES AND THE PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED AUTO WORKERS UNION claiming that development of energy efficient cars would lead to thousands of deaths on the highway, but wtf do you expect? Talk about having a vested financial interest!!! I haven’t heard any credible sources making the same claim. Sure, if you’re one lonely guy in a Geo Metro among a sea of Hummers and F350s, you’re going to come out on the short end of the stick in an accident, but that’s not the goal here, Einstein.

If you’re old enough, perhaps you remember the oil embargo of 1973, when all the gast stations with the mechanical pumps freaked out because they had to retrofit their pumps to charge more than $1, and you had to wait in line for 1/2 hour to get 5 gallons of gas. Everyone was saying “by the end the decade, all cars will get 100mpg!”. Well, the oil supply loosened up, and now cars get shittier gas mileage than they did then. Sound like progress to you? Obviously, whatever we have been doing isn’t working.

As for not remaking society, I’ve seen various environmentalist plans on smart growth and the like. I would call it remaking society.
You say dumping Hummers, but the reality is it leads to substantially smaller, lighter, and perhaps more expensive cars. This also leads to higher death tolls, as has already determined was the result of CAFE rules. We’ve already seen posters on this board insisting on different light bulbs, and I imagine they would insist on different bathroom fixtures too. So we have changes in computers, monitors, TVs, washing machines, bathrooms, houses, cars, streets, city and suburbs, public transportation, forests, highways, office buildings, etc.

This whole thing reminds me of an episode of the Twilight Zone, “The Midnight Sun.”

Solar variability data here (read the whole deal if you’ve time):
http://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/Study/GlobalWarmingQandA/#03

Never hurts to study new data. We all change our minds as the information quality increases. And maybe this is the last post (still no bets). More fun here:

Cool info on Mira (glad we’re not there):
http://www.aavso.org/vstar/vsots/1298.shtml

About planetary nebulae (the fate of our own Sun):
http://hubblesite.org/newscenter/archive/releases/1997/38

So when you say (along with your fellow stellar researchers) that “the sun is at least 40-50% responsible” for global warming, are you really saying that the sun is responsible (40-50%) for the increase in the earth’s temperature starting with the Industrial Revolution? Has the sun been getting hotter all this time?

Here are two pieces of fluff that argue both sides, and neither site quotes any reputable authority. We might as well argue about how many morani it takes to fill up a blog.

“Cosmic rays — However, because the Sun’s magnetic field—which shields the Earth from these rays—doubled in intensity during the last century, there has been a reduction in cloudiness, a possible contributor to Earth’s warming.” [Oh, bulls**t]

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/15391047/

“No Link Between Cosmic Rays and Global Warming” [Hahahaha]

http://tinyurl.com/2up368

Yeah, right. I stand with my fellow stellar researchers that the Sun is at least 40% -50% responsible. Watch out for that next Maunder minimum, Mr. Algore. You might be the only one that can afford the heating oil.

Wow, this post is so old, maybe I get the last word!! (But I’m not betting on it)

Actually, it’s very coherent. And, with the exception of a few flakes like Celebrity Kook Tim Ball, and lackeys on the payroll of the Petroleum Industry, the entire scientific community is united on the causes of global warming. Sure, petroleum fuels and Hummer drivers are not the ONLY things keeping Earth above -470 degrees, but they are the major environmental shift since the Industrial Revolution, and are largely to blame for the constant increase in global temperature.

Nobody is suggesting “redoing all of society”, Einstein. Reducing our fossil fuel emissions, using clean power, dumping the fucking Hummers, does that sound like “redoing all of society”? I guess if you’re a Hummer dealer, or a member of President Cheney’s Secret Energy Cabal, it might seem that way….

>guess if you don’t have a coherent argument, it’s hard to debunk.

That’s because the science is incoherent. It could be all true or only partly true. Generally, I would say even if it is 90% true, it still wouldn’t be worth redoing all of society to combat global warming. The 20th century saw huge economic growth with about 1 degree of warming and a certain amount of extra CO2. That strikes me as a good deal. How much growth would you sacrifice to have kept the same temperatures as 1900?

And so it is, in “natural” concentrations. However, when the concentrations skyrocket because of Dick Cheney’s Energy Cabal and Hummer drivers, then it becomes a “pollutant”. Methane and nitrous oxide are also a “natural part of the atmosphere”, but in excessive concentrations they too are pollutants.