Comments on: Real-Time Carbon Counter Is 70-Foot-Tall Vision of Climate Doom

By: Doug

Doug — Mon, 06 Jul 2009 07:14:09 +0000

I think Jay needs to read Bjorn Lomborg. A man of the left and a believer in man made global warming (I’m still not so convinced.) His books go over the facts of “Global Warming” very scientifically, and even he says that the whole global warming thing is over done.
Try “The Skeptical Environmentalist” and “Cool It.” Not to mention “The Politically Incorrect Guide To Science.” And for fans of science fiction based on real science: there’s always the late great Michael Crichton’s “State of Fear.” For once it’s not either the big bad corporations or the evil right-wing government that’s the bad guys (two of the most over used “bad guys” in book and film.)

By: Zen

Zen — Sat, 04 Jul 2009 19:32:35 +0000

Jay, the pine beetles life cycle is nothing new and it does not prove that humans are a significant cause of the recent warming nor does it prove that humans will cause the temperature to rise by roughly 9 degrees by 2100. These are models that predict this rise and their predictions are not reflected by observable temperature trends…..which have been manipulated by the IPCC to eliminate the little ice age and the midevil warm period. The models are controlled by the IPCC and all of them have a climate feedback factor of close to +1. The observable climate feedback factor is closer to -1. (Positive feedback increases temperature while a negative factor decreases temperature) So Jay your are being duped by junk science.

By: Jay Alt

Jay Alt — Mon, 29 Jun 2009 13:32:49 +0000

Entomologists studying pine beetles have found the plague of pests is caused by winter warmth that accelerates their life cycle. It is one of 29,000 data sets of biological indicators in the UN 2007 IPCC report, 90% of which reflect the warming climate. But that’s just a small slice of a report that establishes that human beings, not Mother Nature, are responsible for turning up the heat.

Doug, the UN report says a 9 degree F temperature rise is expected by 2100 if we fail to take action.
That irresponsible course would cause terrible hardships for our descendants.

If we act boldly now, stop the rise in carbon emissions by 2015 and begin steep reductions, there is still time to avoid the worst of the problems. If we don’t, we will be perfectly fine. But also long dead and universally despised.

By: shaking head

shaking head — Tue, 23 Jun 2009 04:09:55 +0000

In british columbia canada the pine beetle is quickly killing the forests. It was estimated that last year the beetle wood produced more carbon than all of the cars in north america because the trees have died and are starting to rot. Humans actually have litle effect on climate change.

By: Anonymous

Anonymous — Tue, 23 Jun 2009 00:06:53 +0000

Haha, this article made me laugh. “Carbon offsets” are by far the laziest and most idiotic form of “environmentalism” there is. They are a joke at best. I’m also rather curious as to how much pollution gets spewed into the atmosphere during the creation of a massive device such as this? Probably quite a lot when you consider it contains 40k+ LEDs. What happens when those LEDs burn out, do they get put in say…a landfill? Who is gonna offset the junk this company dumps into said landfill? Nobody? The best advice I can give to people is to not let corporate hypocrites scare them with their attempts to incorporate fear into their advertising schemes. Plus I’ve honestly gotta say that this environmental scare crap is nothing new at all. Hypocritical lazy “green” people have been tooting their horns for *years* about all sorts of ridiculous theories concerning pollution. Also take note how none of them ever seem to agree with one another? You’ve got certain groups that have claimed pollution will lead to another ice age and some saying that it will lead to immense heat and *then* an ice age. Even a cursory glance at the science behind such principles shows that it takes astronomical amounts of time for the Earth to suffer so drastically from climate change (shy of those changes brought on by global cataclysms like super volcano eruptions and asteroid collisions.) And to be honest, I’m sick of the attitude that environmentalists have. They act as though we who “pollute” are evil. I hate to inform them of this, but it is *impossible for humanity to exist without polluting*. There, I said it, if you live you pollute. It’s really as simple as that. Why don’t “green” idiotic hippies go yell hypocritical rubbish at cows? Cows do afterall deposit more than their fair share of methane into the atmosphere? Basically, I’m not saying it’s alright to pollute without putting considerable thought into our actions, but it’s thoroughly impossible to occupy a planet and take absolutely nothing from it. Even the self-righteous hipsters are polluting and taking away from what they call “mother earth, etc…” Anyway, I’ll end this rant with a fun fact for all you idiots who have gone green because it’s a hip new way to “care”: No matter what you or anyone else does, every single living creature on this planet is going to die. Mass extinction has happened before without the aid of conscious mediators and somehow or another it is going to happen again. The Earth dies in the end, it’s inevitable. Being mindful of our pollution is not going to prevent the planet’s inevitable demise. Nothing will.

By: James E.

James E. — Mon, 22 Jun 2009 20:23:25 +0000

There was one article I read, on this site I believe, that made an elegant point about climate change. Paraphrased “We know that carbon emissions produced by human society effect the climate. The question that we still need the answers for is, what scale will our emissions effect the climate and how will the other variables that relate to climate change (our emissions are not the only factor) will change in response. Just because we have an effect does not mean it has to be a major effect and greenhouse gasses are not the only factor to look at. We as a society sometimes tend to give our self’s too much credit in what we can effect and forget to take into account that the planet is capable of regulating its self and other variables will change to help balance out the system. That does not mean that we will like where it balances at, that is why we need to continue studying our effects. I just think that we as a society tend to assume doomsday type of effects because it gets more attention.

By: addicited to Bad

addicited to Bad — Mon, 22 Jun 2009 17:45:00 +0000

You see how well this approach has worked for national debt.

By: Brian M

Brian M — Mon, 22 Jun 2009 13:31:15 +0000

Doug,
Bravo.

By: Doug

Doug — Mon, 22 Jun 2009 01:31:24 +0000

In the last thousand years our world went through first an heating in average world temperature (that resulting in less famine because of longer growing seasons) and a mini ice age that we just came out of in the last century.

The UN says the climate may raise 1 to 2 degrees over the next century. (Mankind attributes less than .1% of the carbon in the atmosphere.) That prediction is based on the same computer models used to tell us what the weather will be like in the next 10 days or so-they don’t predict much further then that because it gets incredibly inaccurate. I don’t know where you live (I live in So Cal, probably one of the easiest place on earth to predict the weather) but they’re not so good at telling us what the weather will be like.

It also takes about a century for the oceans to recycle the ocean. Yes. The oceans acts like a giant filter and cleans the air. And, no the oceans won’t terribly effected either.

I’m not going to freak out about it. You shouldn’t either.

Be smart. Recycle and do your part to help the environment.

We’re gonna be just fine.

By: Zen

Zen — Sun, 21 Jun 2009 16:27:42 +0000

Your math is a little off there WEUer.

At 2 billion metric tons per month that’s only 24 billion metric tons a year. We need 400 more billion metric tons to get to 4 trillion so that’s about 16.6 years. To be accurate the Deutsche Bank should also reflect that about 60% of the 3.6 trillion metric tons have been absorbed by Gaia. Maybe a global mean temperature graph showing no significant rise in temperature would be nice too.

Do you think the bank can right this off their income taxes as advertising?

By: WEUer

WEUer — Sun, 21 Jun 2009 01:01:18 +0000

Oh my gosh.
At the current rate, it will increase by a trillion tons to over 4 trillion tons in little over a year from now. In 84 years, it will be 100 trillion.
I wonder what the temperature will be like. =.=

By: Anthony

Anthony — Sun, 21 Jun 2009 00:27:44 +0000

Yes Sarah, we are doomed. Finally the world is starting to act, but it much to little and much too late. For so many, what is already locked in will prove to be unmanageable.

We need to do so much adaption. Yet one side doesn’t want to admit any problem and the other doesn’t want to talk about adaption because it might limit mitigation.

So we will neither manage the unavoidable nor avoid the unmanageable.

By: Sarah

Sarah — Sat, 20 Jun 2009 09:52:36 +0000

This is a great idea… but, we are doomed, aren’t we?