It's a nice article, and a breath of fresh air from a research stand point.
But I disagree with your closing paragraph. You are displaying a hawkish bias. Right wingers have terror and left wingers have warming you say, but you don't say "big corporations repeatedly lie regarding their environmental impact". You and I both know this because corporations use Lawyers to defend themselves, not scientists. Lawyers make up the ideas to defend these people...
What if many people, (and this will inevitably include media) are succumbing to this propagandistic fad of just making up bullshit to further their point? This is not a "the sky is falling" syndrome so much as a "why should I play by the rules when my opponents are outright slanderous liars?"
Seriously, I don't see a tree-hugger type needing an apocalyptic scenario to feel happier in life, where as I do see Tucker and O'Reilley needing flames and hell to assert their points of view.
Everywhere in the public forum, from Creationism vs Science, to War vs Peace, the right wingers* are using lies and deceit as essential tools of argument.
The system is going from wrong to wronger, and accusing media of being sensationalist doomsday sayers will only make it worse, not better. I'm not saying that we should accept their crap. But when you say this kind of stuff, people David Suzuki (in)directly gets called a doomsdsay sayer... If you don't believe me, look him up on Youtube. It's a disgrace how even the media treats him...
* I would like to point out that right wing in its original sense doesn't even mean this shit anymore. But that's completely a different topic.
PS.
"Whoever fights monsters must take care not to become a monster himself. For, as you stand looking deep into the abyss, the abyss is looking deep into you."
- F. Nietzche
This just goes to show -- if you pay close attention to most global-warming charts and graphs, they typically use the 70's as their reference "baseline". Regardless of whether or not you think AGW is a concern, using the 70's as the baseline is simply cheap theatrics and is deceptive to say the least. After all, global mean temperatures had been on the decline for three decades before the 70's, and only started back up again at that point.
A truly honest consideration of the AGW hypothesis/theory would use the industrial revolution as its starting point, and no other starting date. But this is never done.
As CLS, the author of the blog in question, has pointed out: the greatest proponents of AGW have repeatedly proclaimed that "lies, deception, and exaggeration" are "perfectly okay", so long as it "produces public outcry."
Yeah, And Lott was correct in lying to the mob when he told them that his daughters were virgins as he gave them over to be anally raped instead of the visiting angels.
Little white lies, right?
(Atheism. It can be connected to anything!! 
)
"me" -- actually, yellow journalism is a tried-and-true practice of the right and the left, historically speaking, over the course of the past two centuries of American history. Honesty and politics have never been good bed-fellows.
CLS was not biased here.
I'm not saying so much that he's biased in his arguments, as in what he says as criticism.
You are right that politicians and people who wield power have been inextricably linked to coercion etc. But this is slightly different. People who are up against the likes of Chevron and Texaco because they spilled millions of cubic meters of tar into the river, they're not doing what they're doing for profit. They're doing it because black sludge is emerging from their grounds. Their opponents however have pallets full of money on the balance, and they're not going to flinch at giving one of them pallets to the best attorney and one to the best PR firm in the country.
Global warming deniers unfortunately have been typically these people who have a clear conflict of interest. And again, unfortunately any person who denies global warming can be attributed to these parties in a simplisict manner - hence the reluctance by some people to fact check. But from here to asserting that just like right-wing (profiteers), left-wingers have an agenda to promote fear and loathing using Global Warming as a tool is just misattribution. The motives are entirely different. The stakes are entirely different.
I could sum it up using this quote (paraphrased): don't attribute to malice what could easily be explained by stupidity. In the case of Chevron, you know it's malice. They're not incompetent, they're actively trying to make more money. But there is no such back drop to global warming advocates. Which makes me think their motive is probably not a motive at all, but just plain stupidity: i.e. gullibility, lack of information etc. etc. In essence, what the majority of the masses is/has become.
Me: I have no idea how you discover a hawkish bias or what that has to do with big corporations, who really have little role in this story. I didn’t mention the issue because it is not relevant to this story.
While there is much valid in what you say -- at least the parts I understand -- they are not related to this story. As for Right-wing lies this site has gone after them numerous times. And I don’t see why covering up lies in the media is going to put things any righter -- as you imply.
IConrad: I think you confused Lot with a politician (Lott).
quote: Global warming to the Left is what “terrorism” is to the Right. It is an issue that is meant to be so scary that one is supposed to close down their mind, repeat the slogans, and obey.
I contest that sentence.
Terrorism is the neo-cons' attempt at grabbing the political power. It's supported by the entire war industry. It's supported by anyone (e.g. airlines) who was having a hard time in more fair situations.
Global warming has no such backdrop. Nobody is out to make *billions* from global warming. Nobody.
So simply for that matter, I contest that you can equate the two.
If I must be even more clear:
Terrorism is the product of a sophisticated, well oiled (or not) propaganda machine. With billions invested in its perpetuation, from think thanks to mercenary armies.
Global warming denier-bashers are conspiracy theorists, armchair critics, and usually people who don't have the intellectual rigor to carry a healthy debate/argument. If the media is being lax, it's not because someone is paying them behind the scenes to perpetrate this hoax. It's because they're being intellectually lazy. Which you have clearly pointed out.
Here's a quote from the linked article:
"Recent years have seen a marked shrinkage in its ice cover, but this year it was extreme, Esa says.
It says this made the passage "fully navigable" for the first time since monitoring began in 1978."
Here's what is said about the linked article:
"The BBC dramatically reported on September 14 that: “The most direct shipping route from Europe to Asia is fully clear of ice for the first time since records began.” They are a bit dicey about when those records began or what records they are referring to. In fact it is satellite records of the passage that were started in 1978. So they mean for the first time since 1978. They leave out the date for the start of the records."
I find it interesting that the while complaining about the inaccuracies of the article, the complaint is inaccurate.
"Global warming has no such backdrop. Nobody is out to make *billions* from global warming. Nobody."
Oh puh-lease! 
If you go to projectcensored.org, you can find a story about how companies are going nuts working with indian reservations and wanting to start alternative energy systems there. Why? Reservations are NOT regulated by the federal government. No one to blow the whistle...
Al Gore's website sends you to... nativeenergy.org to make your payment.
The problem isn't democrat vs republican, its politician vs citizen. We are all going to lose, none of the big name politicians care about the average person anymore. Too much money involved... Hillary and Obama both have contributions from ethanol companies...
for the record, I like Ron Paul, and Dennis Kucinich. Forget what party they are from...I say look for an honest politician, and those are the ones NOT getting rich...
also, Enron was the biggest proponent of carbon credits with teh Kyoto treaty, they thought it would generate billions of dollars in revenue.
They aren't 'oil companies' anymore, they are ENERGY companies!
sorry if i seem like I am frantic/yelling/intense but COME ON! of COURSE there are dollars to be made, the UN wants to tax energy for the WORLD! Tell me, just try and tell me all of that money will go to planting trees. bleh
Nothing like taking slander from the left and turning it into slander from the right.
Who cares that people who were absolutely crazy were able to squeeze through? What's that have ANYTHING to do with this being now completely melted? Nothing.
zorn: get a grip. Maybe the UN *wants* to tax money. Blackwater and Exxon *make* money. The gap between the two is lightyears. Big oil and war industry have money right now in their pockets which they can give right now, this second, to think-thanks, to PR agencies and to armies of lawyers.
UN wants to tax us. Get a grip on reality man. That you can be scared by a plot so unlikely to happen so far off in the future is quite simply embarrassing.
In the rush to 'disprove' all those evil liberals, you might stop and consider these relatively easy to understand questions. Is there any substantial evidence that the ice packs at both ends of the world are melting? Is there any substantial evidence that fossil fuel burning is the cause of the melting? Is it prudent to continue doing nothing about such melting?
Me: you say “Nobody is out to make *billions* from global warming. Nobody.”
Rubbish, global warming is big business. Al Gore has made bundles off it. The companies he runs selling “carbon offsets” have done very nice for him. Billions in dollars are flowing into big corporations (the very people you rail against) in order to fund “alternative” energy that is not profitable on its own. So taxpayers spend billions to fund wind farms and biofuel projects -- and those subsidies are very profitable indeed.
We won’t even count the billions raised in “donations” by alarmist organizations that whip up fear about warming and they insist people send them donations immediately to help address the problem. Those organizations are now some of the wealthiest NGOs in the world and their staff are not exactly working a minimum wage.
Tony: The original BBC report that I read did not mention 1978 and numerous such reports left the date out. Later editions of the report may well but when this was written yesterday (posted today) the report I read did not mention 1978. I had to get that date from another source.
Jake: define “right”? Is it my antiCreationism, progay, antidrug war, anti-war in Iraq, antiBush, proabortion, anticensorship views that make Right? Or do you just throw that out when someone disagrees with you? You also distort the reports of the previous trips through the Passage by saying they squeezed through. The 2000 BBC report said it was free of ice -- is that squeezed through? In the one report, which I linked to but which you didn’t bother to follow, the captain said the passage was basically clear of ice. The ice fluctuates. Some travelers through the Passage had great difficulty and others didn’t.
Philip: Check the site out I’ve explored those questions already.
Perhaps 'me' considers the thirst to control other people's lives by political means to be a cleaner, more upright desire than the quest for money. I certainly don't.
I consider the juxtaposition of the War on Terror with Global Warming to be apt--the tactics used by opposing teams of bullies who really just want power.
"UN wants to tax us. Get a grip on reality man. That you can be scared by a plot so unlikely to happen so far off in the future is quite simply embarrassing."
what? what plot? The UN proposed a global gasoline tax. this isn't a plot, its reality.
You guys are fucking hopeless. It's like talking to Tucker Carlson... many of them.
No, I don't want my life to be controlled by white men with ideas. And no you fucking morons, Al Gore hasn't made billions. Al Gore is already rich. Get over your fucking lamentable jealousy trip with this dude already.
And also, get out of your fucking caves and smell the world of business. There is *not* billions to be made by global warming, it's just an idea. It's not a product. You make it sound like the dot-com boom never happened and Pets.com's owners drowned in excessive money... Christ.
zorn: when do you think that 'reality' is going to become reality? I'm ready to wager *years*, if not decades.
Meanwhile, I remember clearly when hurricane Katarina was 'rinsing the sewers' as some were calling it, the president was already talking about giving emergency relief money to oil refineries on the coast that were not even touched by the thing. That's *your* money, going into big white men's pockets.
I applaud you.
"Me" wrote:
People who are up against the likes of Chevron and Texaco because they spilled millions of cubic meters of tar into the river, they're not doing what they're doing for profit.Al Gore certainly is. But before we go any further, the rebuttals made by others needs to be documented. Unfortunately, after 15 minutes of research, nowhere was I able to uncover a resource which acknowledged the amount of money spent on Global Warming research.
And isn't that curious?
Great article. I added it to Newsvine as well. You can read the discussion here.
What strikes me as especially worry some is the rapid decrease in sea ice extent as shown on the NSIDC image (September 9, 2007). The amount of sea ice coverage will mean continued warming for winters in southern Canada, the northern Rockies and the Upper Midwest.
Once the sea ice is gone it will not come back. That's what makes sea ice extent more significant than the first time of record that the the Northwest Passage became ice free. Does anyone seriously believe that sea ice extent in the last 20,000 years was less than it is now? I don't.
IConrad wrote:
People who are up against the likes of Chevron and Texaco because they spilled millions of cubic meters of tar into the river, they're not doing what they're doing for profit.
Al Gore certainly is. But before we go any further, the rebuttals made by others needs to be documented. Unfortunately, after 15 minutes of research, nowhere was I able to uncover a resource which acknowledged the amount of money spent on Global Warming research.
---
There's two levels to this question. The first is, did the individual or collective who sued BigOilCo. demand a settlement fee? The answer to this, while being obvious, is also in my opinion moot. The point is that this is not an industry or a market. It's a lottery ticket. It doesn't scale. It works once, and then the case is closed forever. There is not money to be made in this manner of work. Only individual gains can be made. Think about it, the cash register bell goes off every day at 5pm for chevron. Every single day. They'd have to be paying settlements every time they made money for it to be of the same magnitude.
As for your question about whether or not Global Warming research is funded. I think once again the question is completely moot, as global warming deniers don't exist because there's a money market of research funding: they exist because BigOil is raking in cash, and specifically hiring researchers, think tanks and PR companies to advocate its company values. This kind of investment is literally loose change for them.
In essence: the Dog (oil) wags the tail (GWD research). So why should we assume that Global Warming advocates do their job solely because their must be lucrative backing? The research isn't the lucrative part.
I guess searching for where they get their funding is best started on the IPCC site itself. Part of the answer is that it's obviously funded by the UN.
But the elusive explanation to your dilemna is simply that the data is likely gathered by thousands of scientists and professors at various universities that are paid as professors to do their jobs in pure research... the way you would expect Academia to be set up really. Every PhD out there has contributed to the body of knowledge of mankind. Their funding? Getting 2 letters appended to their names after their doctorate. This is what academia is folks. Believe it or not. Nobody's getting rich. In fact, most academics lead quite modest lives, barely getting along with academic scholarships etc.
Asking where GW research funding comes from, and how come it could exist without massive lucrative backing is as naive and misled as asking "who funded Einstein to discover relativity?".
The answer is surprising really, in that it's not the Center of Space Tourism and Warfare Inc... it's the US Patent Office.
While I don't disagree entirely with this post, the statement this, "me" character has highlighted I most certainly do have an issue with
"They don’t want to be called “deniers” by the warming alarmists. Global warming to the Left is what “terrorism” is to the Right."
This comparison is simplistic and churlish. I assume you're basing the comparison on the response generated by opposition to either issue in a public forum. While that response does bare similarities, the backdrop of these issues is entirely different and mentioning them in the same sentence, let alone in the way you aspire the relationship to be, is an affront to anyone with any level of intelligence and knowledge of the issues being compared.
On one hand you have a scientific view that is gaining a foothold because of a combination of the kind of politics you've been highlighting, and the hard work that many scientists have been putting in for decades. On the other hand you have an issue that has it's roots in the very "solution" being offered.
If the left were saying that we should pollute more to stop global warming; If the left were saying that it's not really industry's fault at all, it's all those consumers, when in reality we're all to blame, it might be a fair comparison.
Furthermore, while it is true that some proponents of AGW are making money, and their profits will no doubt increase as our response to it improves, the "deniers" have a lot more to lose from this issue. That risk has always existed, even when the proponents were not making ANY profit from their view.
AGW proponents on the whole do not have their roots in anything other than a view of the facts that they've been presented with. I personally have nothing to gain by promoting it if it were a false science, ideologically or economically, you clearly do.
I'd like to know what you would do as a libertarian, should scientific evidence arises to confirm this theory that meets up to your level of scrutiny.
Me: Trying to follow you is not easy. You seem all over the place and unclear and calling people “fucking morons” is not an argument or evidence. No one said Gore made billions all I said was that he has done quiet well for himself. I wouldn’t be suprised if he has made in the tens of millions by now. News reports say he gets between $50,000 and $125,000 to let out hot air during a speech -- proven to cause global warming. Some say he gets $175,000 but none of this includes his book sales, income from his docufraud, or the income for his companies selling “carbon offsets” to people persauded by him that they are sinning.
The profits from globalm warming hysteria are in the billions. I don’t know any one person who gets it but there are very highly paid people getting rich off the scaremongering. And some of the largest corporations int he world are being showered with subsidies worth billions by “environmentally concerned” politicians.
Npat: that is pretty naive. How do you think sea ice becomes sea ice? You say once it is gone it never comes back. If ice is floating in water that means it is being warmed since ice is colder water. Sea ice constantly melts and is replaced with land ice that falls into the sea. Land ice falls into the sea because the snow builds up and the pressure of more and more snow pushes it to the edges of the land where it breaks off and falls into the sea. This site has covered scientific reports on expanding land ice at both poles. In some places ice thins and in other places it expands.
Only a few months ago the complaint was that ice is falling into the sea. When ice bergs floated past New Zealand it was called a warming crisis. I wish I could keep straight what you hysterics are saying. If there is ice that is proof of warming as it fell off the land and is “melting”. If there isn’t sea ice that is proof that it is warming. What isn’t proof? You ask about sea ice over the last 20,000 years. What I can tell you is during the Medieval warm period the planet was warmer than today, that was about 1,500 years ago. Then it was cooler. But before that it was warmer again during the Holocene maximum. So most certainly the planet has been much warmer than today and I don’t see why warming today would melt ice while past warming wouldn’t. So, yes, I think the case for saying there was less ice than today, in the past, is sound.
Me: you seem to have no idea how the IPCC works. You talk about research funding and say that “where they get their fuhnjding is best started on the IPCC itself” and “it’s obviously funded by the UN.” To be clear, since you aren’t, the IPCC does get funding from the UN but it does no research. It compiles through a long, very political, process and issues reports about other people’s research.
David S. How sweetly naive to say that “AGW proponents on the whole do not have their roots in anything other than a view of the facts....” Yet as the links in my article showed these proponents h
What I'm saying is that the majority view (do you really think people who comment on blogs represent a majority view?) is based on their understanding of the facts presented, and isn't greatly influenced by their ideology. Those facts may be bias, or incorrect, but my point is that I've never encountered a true denier (and not simply someone who inadvertently aids this standpoint) who did not have an ideological stake in the issue. I'm a liberal, but I'm fairly centrist in my economic views. I would gladly accept a market solution to the problem if it were presented, and if it were viable. But currently all the smart right wingers think the whole thing is some sort of Marxist plot to destroy capitalism. Yes I'm exaggerating, but I find the whole thing to be just a little absurd.
Of course the MSM will botch it up, they always botch it up. It's not like real journalism actually gets to the front page on any issue, let alone one as complex as the global climate. This fact does nothing to diminish the findings of the wider scientific community.
David: First, I have little concern about the majority view. Second, facts can’t be incorrect. Did you mean opinion? True believers are ideological as well. I’m not sure that this is a strong point on your part. I don’t much care for right-wingers think either. But if by the term you mean anyone questioning warming then you misstate their positions grossly.
Warming theory is not a Marxist plot but it is an issue that is certainly milked for all it is worth by the ideological Left to push their ideology. Many skeptics on wamrming are actually on the Left politically but the simple minded just accuse any skeptic of being right-wing or being in the pay of big oil (who are making a nice living off the subsidies for biofuels that they get). As for big oil I wish they would send me my check --apparently they aren’t listening.
Now you might want to blame the MSM for botching up the story in this case but environmental groups milked this story quite heavily and promoted it. Did they botch it up as well? Or do they simply not care and see it as a tool to use?
By the way, for those who think the sea ice has disappeared the actual estimate is that there is 3 million square kilometers of sea ice.
The skeptics points are that we must first determine how much warming is man-made and how much natural. If natural there is little we can do about it and natural fluctuations in the past have been much, much warmer than today. (And the planet survived quiet nicely then.) If man made what are the solutions offered, what are the costs of the solutions and the costs of not solving the problem. Are the costs better spent in other ways. Is it more wise to prepare for any problems warming causes than to try to stop it at this point? There are lots of questions that aren’t being discussed.
Let us say that warming does keep the Passage open more than in the past, so much so that it can be used for shipping regularly. That cuts 4,000 miles off travel for ships from Europe to the East. When we calculated the costs of warming were the benefits counted in? Does this cut in shipping time, let alone fuel used to run the ships, factor into those costs? Warming might cause problems in one place and blessings in other. More people die from cold related deaths than heat related deaths. Will warming cut the number of weather related deaths for that reason?
It is a much more nuanced position that skeptics have than the one the critics attribute to them.
Global warming controversy take new picture when a writer say that temperature increase is actually a good thing as in the past sudden cool periods have killed twice as many people as warm spells. He accepted global warming issues is big but he said not our fault.
CLS: If you read the other posts you will see to whom I am answering.
As for: "you seem to have no idea how the IPCC works."
I can only say: this forum is useless. It's like talking in a dark room full of strangers. Nobody listens to each other, everyone shouts out their own views from the top of their lungs...
So: Goodbye. Good luck and Take care. This article is short sighted and as at least one astute observer pointed out (Tony | 09.18.07 - 1:00 pm), curiously vague on its own evidence given its accusations...
"There is *not* billions to be made by global warming, it's just an idea"
As i said, ENRON felt it could make billions off of carbon credits, and pushed heavily for the Kyoto Treaty.
If you guys still think 'BigOil' is the culprit, you need to do some research on Peak Oil. As one 'Oil' CEO said 'we aren't oil companies anymore, we are *energy* companies.'
Oil is peaking, and the world is in danger of an energy crisis. Google for the 'Hircsh Report', is a government sponsored report, on the doe.gov site, that states the world faces an energy crisis of a magnitude never seen before. Oil reserves in the OPEC nations have been exagerated, oil sands in Canada is an environmental nightmare, the US just passed a bill allowing coal liquification...
Coincidentally, the Hirsch Report was released in 2005.
When did Global Warming start to hit the media? 'conserve energy! conserve!' Sounds like a conspiracy, but why are we looking into things like Ethanol? it doesnt help global warming at all, if anything, it makes it worse! yet all major political candidates, from both sides, are pushing it. If you notice all of the government environmental pushes (Denver Mayor bans bottled water, VA Governor makes outrageously high speeding fines, SF Mayor bans plastic grocery bags) - many of them do not, I repeat, DO NOT help stop global warming, but every single one reduces oil consumption. (ex: the SF mayor bans plastic grocery bags... and makes stores go to corn based bags - this is not environmental!)
Then on top of that, there are so many conflicting Global Warming reports, the 'doomsday' cut off point quickly goes from 10 years away to present day...
The world is running out of oil. Mexicos biggest company stated that Mexico will be OUT OF OIL in 7 years. We import heavily from them!
Global Warming is a red herring.
Or maybe not, but peak oil is an even greater threat, and very, very real.
Me -- we are not 'shouting over each other'; rather, we are simply correcting you. For example; The uber-conservative group AEI receives roughly 3-5% of its funding from 'oil companies.' Contrastingly, the major oil companies spend billions each year on blank grants to research institutes, much of which goes to "pro" AGW research.
Secondly, the researchers themselves have a powerfully vested interest in keeping the AGW ball rolling -- as that is their cash-cow. Without it, they'd have to call on unreliable, non-renewing grants. It's job security for them to find a problem to solve.
Contrastingly, the Henrik Svensmarks, the Nir Shavivs, the Tim Pattersons, and the Khabibullo Abdusamatovs of the world receive no funding from oil companies and work with in tenured state-funded universities.
zorn: When it comes to peak oil, you don't know Jack. (Jack the oil field, that is.)
I was a climate researcher but no vested interest in what Mr. Conrad claimed. NOAA National Weather Service management rolled their own ball over my career as a hydrologist because they were embarrassed by what I said about climate and hydrologic change in the Upper Midwest, and global warming, in a 30 Oct 2003 National Press Release which I paid for with my own time and money.
Me: that you vague rants about corporations are not understood is understandable. You never offered evidence just accusations. Whatever you think of my posts they are linked to multiple sources. You just ranted about oil and profits and corporations. Your frustration is that people didn’t agree with you not that they weren’t persuaded by your evidence as you didn’t offer any.
As for my “accusations”: the two main points I made were that this “first time” ever opening is false and I proved that by showing the same “first time” story running seven years ago. My second was that claims of the NW Passage suddenly being found as a result and open to traffic is rubbish as it was traversed over 100 years ago and has been done at least a dozen times. Again I presented documented evidence for that. My thesis, drawn on the evidence, is that when Greenies murmour warming into the ears of journalists the press looses their critical faculties and parrot precisely what they are told even when it is clearly, as in this case, false. You may have an alternative theory as to why the media screws up but you didn’t present it.
Zorn: I don’t think oil is peaking, I think high prices are due mainly to Bush destablizing the already unstable Middle East. Every few years various govt. departments produce dire warnings we are running out of energy and then regulators do their level best to make it happen by restricting supplies.
But you are right that the oil companies are making oodles of cash out of the hysteria. Every state intervention creates artificial opportunities to profit. And certainly many large companies have pushed for “warming” solutions that would direct money into their pockets via the state. This Green/Big Business alliance, redistributing wealth from poorer people to richer people is ignored.
Original post:
They don’t want to be called “deniers” by the warming alarmists.
Comments by "me":
Global warming deniers unfortunately have been typically these people who have a clear conflict of interest.
Global warming denier-bashers are conspiracy theorists, armchair critics, and usually people who don't have the intellectual rigor to carry a healthy debate/argument.
global warming deniers don't exist because there's a money market of research funding: they exist because BigOil is raking in cash, and specifically hiring researchers, think tanks and PR companies to advocate its company values.
Comment from "David S"
my point is that I've never encountered a true denier (and not simply someone who inadvertently aids this standpoint) who did not have an ideological stake in the issue.
In other words, take a look at the actual facts surrounding a GW claim, and get called a denier. Which is pretty much how the "right" reacts when you take a look at terrorism claims. And is pretty much how any group reacts when you question its religiously-held beliefs. Or, in other words, cls was right in the original article.
"zorn: When it comes to peak oil, you don't know Jack. (Jack the oil field, that is.)" That 'huge' find would supply the US for a year. Thats not much.
"Every few years various govt. departments produce dire warnings we are running out of energy and then regulators do their level best to make it happen by restricting supplies"
In the 70's climatologists warned we were headed for an ice age. They were wrong - does this mean we should ignore climatologist's new warnings about climate change?
I doubted peak oil for a bit, but there is too much evidence out there to ignore it. High energy costs help no one. Every 'cost' associated with every single business goes up, somewhat, if oil goes up. This is why, imho, the US gas and oil prices have been lower for the past 20-30 years than in Europe - we aren't producing our own oil that is for sure, how are our prices so much lower? If oil hits $100 a barrel, what happens? The price of importing goods goes up, anything made with plastic gets more expensive. People start to cry for raises to keep up... this all bites into the profits of every single company, anywhere.
If you look at sites like peakoil.com or theoildrum.com energybulletin.net you will see this is not just a 'oh well, when oil gets expensive, we will move to something else' issue. The problem is that the supply of oil could drop fast, too fast for capitalism/governments/people to move to alternative energy, and if that happens, we are screwed.
I am not just ranting, check those sites. The people who fear the worst are stockpiling food, buring bunkers and buying guns. I doubt it would go that far, but it could easily lead to a worldwide depression. This is not just what my opinion is - many experts warn of a possible depression caused by peak oil.
Who knows, we could find more oil, but no matter what, it just staves off the inevitable - the age of cheap energy is over. Or soon to be over. The question is When, not If.
Thread's a bit old, but I just found it, so...
Great post, CLS.
To those who claim that the pro-AGW side has no conflict of interest: get real.
Scientists are a mix of (1) True Believers (even prior to walking in the doors of academia), having been indoctrinated by 12 years of fearmongering in school and (2) Cowardly Pragmatists who know that funding, publishing, and tenure hinge on toeing the line. And most of them are left-inclined besides.
Politicians? Puh-leeze.
Public Interest groups? C'mon, "Public Interest" has become an Orwellian irony.
Oil Company execs? No, of course they wouldn't want government restriction of the production and consumption of oil! That might lead to monopoly pricing, which would be really bad for everyone except...nevermind.
This group is the one that leftists and other AGW True Believers completely misunderstand. In ANY industry, the establishment is happy to be regulated by government. It's essentially the only way to create a stable oligopoly. That oil companies EVER fund Denialist research is the mystery (and CLS pointed out that it doesn't happen as much as you'd think).
Oh, and as far as Peak Oil goes? No worries...as oil is astrophysical--not biological--in origin, you'll find it almost anywhere you dig deep enough. Gold and Hoyle will be vindicated--Jack is just the beginning. But in the meantime, the fear of Peak Oil sure does benefit at least one of the aforementioned groups.
shoddy reporting, but the fact remains that people are worrying because it's almost possible to run regular freight shipping trough the NW-passage. Come back to this thread if they start doing it, and see if it's still funny.
and by the way. The Amudsen expedition spent 2 winters because of pack ice.
In the 1944 article, they used an icebreaker, you can tell from lines like "Her hull is sheathed in Australian ironbark—the only wood that can stand the grinding pressure of the pack ice." So... that wasn't ice free.
The article could have been more clear about Mr. Beedell, he used a catamaran with retractable rudders. they sailed over the ice. http://www.thepoles.com/news.php...ws.php?
id=16495 for example.
Good to see you trying fact checking though.
johnR/Jason: I am responding to you together because you are one in the same person. At the very least you are using the same computer to post your messages here and doing so only three minutes apart. So unless Jason pushed John off the computer immediately upon his posting you are the same individual using two different names.
You are wrong to say “it’s almost possible to run regular freight shipping through the NW passage”. And when the press uses exaggeration to say the passage was ice free they don’t mean that -- that is PR verbiage from they hysterics. In fact all they said was that the ice was reduced more than usual. And NASA said that was as a result of wind blowing the summer ice (which is vastly reduced naturally) into warmer waters and not connected to any warming.
You mention Amundsen taking 2 winters -- my point didn’t illustrate the nonsense that the NW passage was “ice free” but that when the press said no one has ever traveled the passage until this year it was just pure bullshit. My point stands -- you are just trying to make it say something else. The passage is not ice free and has not been ice free.
In your second post under your second personality you say that the 1944 expedition “wasn’t ice free”. That’s a straw man since I never said it was. Again, the passage was not ice free then nor this year either. I was putting the facts to the lie that ships had never traversed the passage until this year. The warming alarmists are the ones with the hyperbole.
On further analysis this article it gets very interesting. I plotted the number of boats through the passage over time and came up with the following results: (each 'I' being a crossing as reported in the article)
1900s I
1940s III
1950s I
1960s No Data
1970s II
1980s III
1990s No data
2000s III+ "Several times"
Now this is very unscientific and would need more work, but you can start to see a pattern; it could be as time progresses there are more successful passages with more than 64% of crossing happening from the 1950s onwards. Could this be evidence of the impact of global warming? Interesting.
anarchist606: what you are plotting is the rise in technology which allowed boats to travel in shorter periods of time and more able to chart ice flows and see where the openings are -- (they vary from year to year depending on conditions). In addition you are charting prosperity. Costs prevented early attempts as they were very expensive. In later years people were able to use small gas powered craft at a fraction of the cost. And some of those crossings were tourist ships, something not very commony in 1900.
By your logic we could argue that "global warming" caused space exploration since we chart it according to years and space launches increased as the climate warmed.
There is a vast difference in the journey of the first commercial tanker manhattan and present day maritime passages.
The first sucessful NW passage took several years near the turn of the last century.
The first commercial ship, the Manhattan was the largest ship in the world at the time, and barely avoided being crushed in the ice.
Humble oil was hoping to find a reliable route to the transport Alaska oil and the east coast, the Manhattan's trip permanently put to rest the commercial possibility of oil tanker routes via the northwest passage.
Currently shipping lines are now planning to open up routes through the NW passage! This is a huge change.
The post we had showed numerous such voyages in numerous small craft and in fairly fragile ships, compared to the transports. Planning to open routes, if they become available, is not proof that routes exist that previously did not.
Commenting by HaloScan
