Al Gore's Electric Bill, Carbon Credits, and A Lesson In Economics

Meth is a hell of a drug.

Wow. Just...wow.

You're right, Jimmy, although I didn't realize that meth had such strong hallucinatory effects until I came to the part where he said that Conservatives always question their leaders and that the Republicans bravely acted to remove Foley from endangering any more pages.

It usually takes some Dick Cheney-strength hallucinogens to block out six years of Congress rubber-stamping every bad idea emanating from their infallible leaders and questioning the patriotism -- not of their leaders -- but of anyone who dared question their leaders. And in order to get a version of the Foley scandal which doesn't mention the length of time the Republican Congressional leadership actively ignored, blocked, or covered-up for Foley's actions, Condor's shortwave radio must be tuned to the station coming in through his dental fillings.

There is so much bad info, lies, and stupidity in this unfocused rant that I just don't know where to start, nor do I know whether Killfile's article is the proper place for rebutting so many off-topic topics. When I came to the part where he said he was a trucker, though, I realized that whatever he may haul in real life, here he's carrying some big loads of manure and pumped-out cesspool sewage.

Yes, democrats always do what is good for the country and put the American taxpayer above themselves and never ever cover up for any of their own and they never lie. Democrats are so perfect that they don't ever have to come up with answers or solutions. They just constantly engage in hysterical rhetoric and disparage conservatives and call that good enough- job done.

A little time spent on history will show you that only the names have changed. The tactic of diverting attention away from their misdeeds has worked for liberals for decades. The old media has done all it can to make sure only one side of the aisle gets credit for caring and the other side gets credited with being mean and untrustworthy. Democrat leaders have done horrible things- especially during war- yet, only republicans receive the daily ass-kicking they get in the press and on television.

The internet and cable tv have at least given people a place to learn alternative news and information and it is really bringing the libs out of their shoes to that someone would actually challange them. They don't like the fact that other points of view are getting play. They don't like having their place in the sun eclipsed by having their hypocrisy pointed out. Well, tough! It is high time that liberals be forced by other Americans to justify and prove their paranoic accusations against the right. I am loving the libs eat their own in the news-finally. Tee Hee!

Global warming? Who cares. There has always been some big scare going on in the world. Get over it. Just going hysterical over it and drumming up phoney feel good activities won't change anything. Just like building bomb shelters in the 1950's didn't stop the Cold War. Go ahead and change all your light bulbs. I am keeping mine in protest of the Al Gores of the world who have made a new career, making millions on trying to scare everyone instead of putting THEIR money where their mouth is.

Toodles

Global warming? Who cares.

What if you're wrong? Unless you're a climatologist yourself, you seem to be putting a lot of faith in the conclusions of a vocal minority of scientists.

Another symptomatically deluded comment from a so-called conservative who spends a lot of time and words saying nothing. Please, Towanda, put on your tinfoil hat and take a break from listening to your own voice for a minute, then point out where I claimed Dems "always do what is good for the country and put the American taxpayer above themselves and never ever cover up for any of their own and they never lie." Go on... I'll wait.

Didn't find anything even close to that, did you? That's because I didn't say that and I wouldn't. My mentioning political parties at all was merely responding to your original claims about how pure and wonderful Republicans were. So, instead of me making the statement you are refuting, it must just be another one of your hallucinations -- one of those strawmen who are talking all the time in your head -- and your responding to it is just another instance of you arguing with yourself. You should really get some help.

I'm just an amateur psychologist, but, as is typical for schizophrenics, your connection with reality is very tenuous, especially when you are accusing others of being "paranoic" [sic] while claiming that there's some big conspiracy going on to silence people who have views like yours. When you get your medicine adjusted properly, you'll probably realize that people with views like yours -- far from being quieted and hidden -- were in charge of the Federal government and many state governments for the last 12 years, as well as having their opinions voiced in a whole bunch of very successful media outlets, including cable TV networks, highly popular radio programs, bestselling books, one of the two largest newspapers in the country and countless magazines and websites. You'll be amazed at how much your condition has hidden from you!

You might also find yourself able to make appropriate associations and distinctions between ideas and events once your treatment really takes hold. Like you'll realize that building fallout shelters in the 50s was attempting to deal with a potential outcome of nuclear war, while cutting down on electric usage by changing to CF lightbulbs, hybrid cars and other energy-saving technologies is attempting to deal with a cause of climate change. See: causes and effects. They're different things!

As for Al Gore putting his money where his mouth is, when your medication has quieted down the crowd of lunatics in your head and you become able to read something in this thread other than your own disease-driven rantings, you'd realize that Mr. Gore has been putting his money where his mouth is for far longer than the limited amount of time the issue of global warming has made it through your delusional fog. He started writing his first book on global warming -- Earth in the Balance -- in 1989 (before Zyprexa was approved for treating conditions like yours) and has been putting his money where his mouth is ever since then.

You've indicated quite strongly that you don't care about conserving the environment and that you're going to keep wasting energy because global warming is just another scare. (Strange isn't it, that "conservation" and "conservative" should have the same root meaning, yet so many supposed conservatives like you should find no value in conservation?) If that's the way you feel about it and you don't plan on seeking help, perhaps then, you can do a little experiment for the rest of us frightened libs? We're all just scared to death of pollution and greenhouse gases. You know that's true since the voices keep telling you that. While doing this little experiment, you'll be proving how much braver you are than us cowards, and you would -- at the same time -- be putting your money where your mouth is!

Okay, then, here goes: All you need to do is climb up on top of your truck, wrap your lips around that dirty diesel exhaust pipe and take one really, really deep breath... Let us know how it turns out for you.

What if I'm not wrong and we spend all of this time and capital trying to alter our existance for no good reason? Twenty five years ago the scientists were warning us that the earth was cooling. Now Mars and the Sun are warming. What if the warming of the sun is causing the predicted miniscule average increase in the temperature on earth over the next 100 years? How the heck do we, on earth, change what is happening on the sun? No one knows for sure whether green house gases are caused by man or by cow or both. And if we do figure this out, and it can be proved that this is what will end the earth, how do we get other countries to slow their emissions?

Go ahead and drive a Priuis and use the new light bulbs if it makes you feel better. I do my thing in my life to save MONEY on energy. My efforts to save money by saving fuel are more of a real reduction of the use of resources than the behavior of a blow hard like Al Gore who wants essentially to keep using all the energy he wants to. Him FEELING less guilty is not going to save energy.

The global warming craze has become fraught with zealousness that attracts kooks to join in and over-shadow the good science. Emotional and faked depictions of polar bears drowning and predictions of dust bowls and the like are a disgrace. The nuclear arms race scared us, the zero population growth movement scared us, the anti-insecticide movement scared (and now malaria has killed hundreds of thousands of Africans- many more than the insecticide may have made sick), and any number of things people have been made hysterical about over the centuries.

towanda -

While you did not answer my question, I will answer yours. If you are not wrong and we take steps towards cleaner industrial production, then we do clean up the environment and make the earth a more pleasant place to live. As someone who once lived in the NYC area for about 10 years, I can tell you that pollution, smog, exhaust fumes, etc - it's not pleasant. There would be an economic impact associated with the cost of cleaner production, regulation, etc, but we would leave the environment a better place than we did prior to the clean up.

That doesn't sound too scary, does it? Actually, it sounds pretty nice. Now, I ask you again - what if you're wrong? I'm perfectly willing to admit that I'm likely wrong about something here - I'm no climatologist, and there has been so much political posturing on both sides of the debate that I don't trust much that I read in the press. However, it seems the consequences of me being wrong are fairly pleasant. The consequences of you being wrong are far less pleasant.

I don't want a dirty earth. I hate fumes and garbage and waste just as much as the next guy. BUT, I want an honest sincere fact- based debate. I do not like being lectured by people who use a platform to pile on Cheney and Halliburton and Bush and "big oil". Try to leave the politics out of it. I also hate the glorification of individuals who are getting all the glory and kudos for their "work" on the environment when they have actually been sent to a rally, for instance, by their publicist because looking like you care about the environment is the latest craze and it would be good for their career.

I am new on this site and I saw hate-based ( I engaged in it, too- so sorry) , bash- the- party- you- don't- like -rhetoric that infuriated me but is being used as part of the debate on global warming. I appologize for letting it get under my skin.

One last thing: changing back and forth evidence about everything from oatmeal reducing cholesterol to new studies showing that the CF light bulbs emitting mercury shows that one man's science is another man's reason to take everything with a grain of salt. Many people are deeply devoted to the prophesy about the end of the world because of green house gas emissions and will not, under any circumstances, even consider new and divergent information that is delivered to us simply because it may come from conservatives or Fox News or other right leaning organizations. To absolutely refuse to consider data because the source may be the Heritage Foundation means that people are more concerned about political affiliations than the environment. If a conservative finds a cure for global warming or cancer or aids, don't we run a danger of people discounting research because of a political bias? Every time I submit an opinion or an article on a study in a conversation, my contribution is discounted as not valid because it came from Georage Will or Cato etc.. Seems unfair and arrogant.

I see such rabid anti-conservative language no matter where I go. How does this get people to commit to solving the problem? You were very polite, unlike Evan who has me sitting in a day room in a straight jacket drooling because I haven't drunk the whole global warming/man is evil Koolaid. I know the earth is supposed to be warming. It will cool again just as it has warmed and cooled for millions of years.

I understand where you're coming from. We share many of the same frustrations, but from different sides of the fence. The reality is that the political "discourse" has gotten in the way of the science, and it's too early for either side to feel like they know for sure that they are correct. I want to make sure we're open to continuing (starting) healthy debate - saying "Global warming. Who cares?" sends the message that you're not open to debate.

Perhaps I'm less of a risk-taker than you, but given how much I feel we *don't* currently know about the situation, I feel it is irresponsible to not begin to take some precautions. This is why I'm comfortable endorsing programs like Carbon Credits in the near term and funding meaningful, unbiased research to better understand the environment in the long term.

Should I trust a study from the Heritage Foundation? Maybe. Should I trust a study funded by Exxon? Probably not - conflict of interest. Should I trust the results of a request for papers specifically targeted at debunking the liberal viewpoint? No. The request was not for a papers that address the merits and weaknesses of conventional theories of global warming - the request was for papers that show those theories are not correct. I trust you see the bias in that approach.

No one knows for sure whether green house gases are caused by man or by cow or both.

We burn 30 billion barrels of oil a year, and you don't know where that excess CO2 is coming from? What do you think happens to oil after you burn it? Do you throw garbage on your floor and then wonder where that awful mess came from?

Should there be a limit to the length of a comment? I don't think that they should be longer than the orginal post and certainly not twenty times longer.

Towanda: You stepped into a discussion which had been going on for 5 days and had reached more than 150 comments by the time you appeared. You then proceeded to ramble and rant and reminisce over numerous tangential topics, from re-opening the debate on what is causing global warming, when just about everyone, including President Bush, has conceded that human activity likely caused most of the warming of the past century; to repeating the perpetual falsehood that there was a consensus of scientists in the 1970s who predicted an imminent Ice Age, when, in fact, there was no consensus about that issue at all and the claims were driven by newsmagazines like Time and Newsweek -- not scientific journals; to nanotechnology; to swamps and McDonalds as the major source of greenhouse gases; to genetic engineering of corn; to the wonders of shortwave radio; to Ted Kennedy and Chappaquiddick; to Bosnia and the rest of the states of the former Yugoslavia; and finally to Palestinian propaganda.

In that long and pointless discourse, you -- yes, you -- also managed to bring US political partisanship firmly into the conversation. Do a search on this page for the word "Democrat" and you'll find that it first appears in your comment. Same with "Liberal." "Republican" first appears in my restating of your claims of the superiority of one party, in which you use "liberal" and "Democrat," "conservative" and "Republican" interchangeably, and therefore, incorrectly. "Conservative" appears several times before your arrival on the scene, mainly as an adjective describing certain media outlets and because it also happens to be part of one of the commenters' screen names.

You also posit a number of ridiculous conspiracies and spew out an inordinate amount of column-polluting misinformation, including -- but not limited to -- these items:

• You claim that nanotechnology is "pie-in-the-sky" when it is in fact already being used in industrial and consumer products from surgical screws with anti-rejection nano-crystalline diamond coatings, to fabrics with permanent stain-resistance in the threads, to sunscreen, golf clubs, car bumpers and beer-bottles.

• You claim that No Child Left Behind was Ted Kennedy's bill, when in fact, it was modeled on the program President Bush championed as governor of Texas, which he coined the name for and campaigned on during the entire 2000 election season, and which he announced was his first legislative priority of his term of office. Kennedy was one of the sponsors of the bill in Congress, but he warned that unless the bill was properly funded, states wouldn't be able or willing to use it to its full effectiveness. In his budgets since 2002, President Bush has not proposed and the Republican-controlled Congress has not increased the funding of the mandate above 50% of its requirements.

• Your claims about Milosevic sponsoring heroin trafficking in Bosnia is completely backwards: the KLA, whom the US and NATO backed, have been running the heroin trade through Kosovo ever since they evolved out of the Albanian drug mafia's army. The only thing that kept them in check was the presence of Milosevic's police force in Kosovo. Once Serbia was out of Kosovo, the drug trade picked up very quickly from Afghanistan to Turkey to Albania to Kosovo and into Europe.

My admittedly over-the-top claims of schizophrenia were being used as a metaphor for the lunacy of some of your claims, the tangential style of your discourse, and the way it was obviously disconnected from the rest of this column. You come in here spraying partisan vitriol all over the place without even having the decency to read the discussion in place before your arrival, and then you are insulted when you are called on it? Please! I'm sure they told you in kindergarten that if you are going to dish it out, you'd better be able to swallow what's thrown back at you.

Instead of the nasty suggestion I made in my last comment, this time I suggest that you go back and look at what you wrote in your first entry -- at the accusations, slurs, misinformation, and ignorance of the trajectory of this discussion -- and see if you can figure out why any number of us might have felt it was appropriate to smack you down.

Finally, I don't claim that a philosophy of conservatism, liberalism or alignment with any of the political parties in the US is related to any kind of mental illness. If you read again what I wrote, you'll see that my sarcastic suggestions were based on things you said and how you said them, rather than the political orientation you maintain.

evano:

Wow, I said all that?!
I never said anything about Milosivec, Ted Kennedy or surgical screws. I also believe that you are over reacting to my opinon that the global warming issue has been politicized in general not necessarily in this blog.
I read many comments from others that seemed partisian to me. When a reader agrees with what is written the comments often have little impact. However, when reader reads things that are disagreeable to their beliefs, the comments have a different impact.
I never said I didn't believe in global warming. I simply am offended by the pandering celebrities and politicians who are using global warming like they used fur, and whales and the spotted owl and the famine in Dar fur as springboards for getting face time in the media without having a true investment in those political causes. Conservatives are bashed no matter what they say about anything, yet men like Al Gore can be glorified by an entire political party for his quasi-environmentalist life and platform. It is one thing to write a book or make a documentary; it is quite a different thing to become the poster boy for skulls full of mush who can't see that the man is profiteering on the issue without making any real sacrifices to back up his lecturing of the rest of us on how we are wrecking the environment. The loonies take it and run and insert the conservative bashing (ie Halliburton, Cheney, big oil, Coulter) that serves to create a sense that global warming this is just being used as a political club.

I have two sons who are college students and they come home after being propagandized by their instructors who say things in the classroom (often totally unrelated to the course subject)that could be considered real "tin-foil hat" material. Perhaps stimulation of thought and political discourse is the reason. But, the constant drum beat about leftist beliefs in the absence of another point of view is a disservice. The way you reacted to me was with great superiority and offense that I would dare to step on your discussion of 5 days, that I would dare to have a different slant (or bias-whichever you prefer), that I have no business allowing my beliefs to color my perceptions of the global warming or cooling trends, that I am mentally ill because I choose to be skeptical about something that man may or may not be able to greatly influence and that I see it as another opportunity for the liberal agenda to claim superiority over another point of view. I happen to believe that some people are using global warming as another chance to tell people how to live. And apparently I am somewhat correct as Al Gore has found a way to profit and keep the ball rolling so to speak. He has every reason to keep the conversation focused on what man is doing to the environment and millions will adopt the same beliefs because he says so despite the introduction of alternative data. When someone like me takes umbrage with man made global warming the soldiers attack my point of view with an angry, abusive counter attack that further shows me that some people can dish it out but they can't take any disagreement with their devotion to their beliefs. I hate to think of what would happen if Rush Limbaugh found a cure for cancer. A large part of our country wouldn't listen or believe it or take advantage of it simply because a conservative discovered the cure. A stretch perhaps but this is how frustrated many of us are with the "my way or the high way" approach employed by many activists.

Look how mad you got. For some reason, you are invested in mans' footprint and carbon off-sets and all the other buzz terms for what you believe man is contributing toward the implosion of the planet. I just don't believe man is that powerful. I think we can be good stewards for the environment. But, I see a bunch of people being controlled by a hysterical debate by people who are over-using the very resources on their stumps and award ceremonies that they tell us we need to use less of. Many of these people happen to be liberals who don't want us to eat goose liver, trans fat, smoke cigarettes, drive SUVs, use racial slurs, allow our kids to play dodge ball at recess, even as they fly all over the world in private jets and live highly consumptive lives.

Global warming is not a partisian phenomenon but it is being used by some for self promotional reasons. Rabid overstatements by pseudo-scientists and media types who happen to be liberal are hurting efforts to create sense of personal responsibility that should be engendered. The other day I was talking to a news guy here where I live. I showed him some alternative data and information that proved my point that people are using inflamatory and downright fabricated stories to pump up the global warming issue. He did the same thing to me that you did. Called me names and pretty much went balistic. I had the proof that the person who submitted photos that were used in a bogus story in a children's magazine about the ice caps had to go and correct what the pictures were really depicting.

So, I appologize if my interpretation of some of the posted comments as being politically biased offended you. I don't disbelieve in global warming. I know we pollute. I just am not sure if we should believe people who are profiting from carbon credit offsets or getting grants to study the issue or people who profit in anyway are any more immune from embellishing the dangers of global warming than many of you on this site believe that Exxon Moblie could produce studies that were unbiased in the oil industry favor.

I am not coming back again. I am spending too much time dwelling on this and I really should be doing something more productive with my time. Thanks.

Towanda:

I have made an enormous mistake, and I apologize in the strongest possible way for my stupidity and my attacks on you! I can only plead temporary brain-death in mistaking your comments for someone else's and attacking you on that basis. Please accept my apologies.
 

For some reason, I must have been hallucinating when I repeatedly mistook your posting for the post by Condor up above, which is the post I've been reacting to and basing my insults towards you upon. I can be insulting and harsh in my comments, but it is usually in direct reaction and appropriate proportion to idiocy, which was not called for by your comments. My repeated reference to truck-driving, shortwave, Milosevic and Kennedy were, if you care to look, responses to some of the issues in Condor's post. I hope you do check back in at least once more to see this apology.

If there is anyone reading this who knows Towanda, please inform him of this apology. I would email him directly, but I wouldn't expect him to read email from me; if I were in his shoes, I wouldn't have anything to do with me.

I hate to think of what would happen if Rush Limbaugh found a cure for cancer. A large part of our country wouldn't listen or believe it or take advantage of it simply because a conservative discovered the cure.

More's the case that it wouldn't be affordable. I wonder if Rush would be generous to share his discovery at any price.

I'm beginning to believe that Towanda is Rush.

You know what's odd is that I confused Rush, er, Towanda and condor at first too. I think it may be due to the fact that all right wing blather starts to sound the same after a while. Kind of like the teacher on Charley Brown, Wah wah, wa wah wah wah.

Ya know, it's understandable to confuse one dittohead with another since they all tend to regurgitate the same ass gas that Rush and his ilk expel.

For a ~600-word comment, I'm rather disappointed that you only used 'LOL' and 'LMAO' five times. What an unhappy person you must be! I generally laugh until some part of my anatomy falls off far more often than every 120 words. But maybe that's just me.

Perhaps I should have made it clearer in that I was referring to nano sized bots.

So, you're equating MEMS with nanotechnology? Brilliant! And with thin film technology? Get a clue or stop dabbling in science and watch the road.

LOL ... best not tell a truck driver to his face that he's dumb as a box of rocks as you implied that I was.

Yea, I guess that would be an insult to rocks. I don't think evano needed to make the implication, your post was more than adequate.

You certainly change jobs often. When you switched from truck driver to ditch digger I just assumed that you ran your rig off the road. Now what, you have to fix the truck?

Dude, seriously, crank will kill you. Check into rehab.

Condor: Truck driver, ditch digger, auto mechanic, whatever. You're definitely not a researcher or a financial analyst. From the Tennessee Valley Authority's Investment Opportunities page:

TVA receives no appropriations from the federal government and is not authorized to issue stock. Therefore, it must meet its capital requirements through internally generated funds and power program financings. TVA securities may only be issued to provide capital for TVA's power program, including the refunding of existing debt. TVA bonds are backed solely by the net power proceeds of the TVA power system and are neither obligations of nor guaranteed by the U.S. government.

The securities listed on the NYSE under ticker symbols TVE and TVC are bonds, not stocks, meaning they carry no ownership and merely represent a loan to the TVA which will be paid back at face value at a particular date, with interest being returned in the form of dividends periodically over that time. The TVE bonds trade at $25 because their face value is $25, and as boring old utility bonds they don't generate that much excitement.

The bonds also pay dividends quarterly which have reached as high as $0.41 and as low as $0.35. With a coupon rate of approximately 5.5%, this is the kind of investment loved by little old ladies who can count on their quarterly dividend coming in for the life of the bond. That's why, on it's peak day in May 2000, about 600,000 bonds traded, while on a more average day like yesterday, about 10,000 traded out of approximately 23 million bonds total in issue.

If investing in bonds from the TVA is the way Al Gore has chosen to get rich out of global warming, then he is as fatally misguided as the fools who claim he is in it for the money. And yes, I said, "no one makes a profit" investing in the TVA, so if we ignore the opportunity costs of investing in an underperforming bond as well as the erosion of the value of the dividends because of inflation, technically I was wrong. Still, I'd rather be wrong on little aspects of an issue than be totally wrong about as many things as you are.

Please feel free to continue demonstrating your ignorance.

You are equally amazing in squirming out of being wrong.

Your statement:

"The TVA is a US government entity and no one -- not even Al Gore -- gets any profit from government entities."

Are you saying no one can buy a TVA bond? Or that you can't make money on a TVA bond?

Excitement or not, everyone can make money on the TVA. And unless you know of some utility that has a financial instrument that is exciting, I know of none, they are all boring, I would like to hear about it ...

Oh ... I sincerely apologize. Gore can't make money ... just little old ladies. Okay. My bad.

No you did NOT say "no one makes a profit" .... once again you said .....

The TVA is a US government entity and no one -- not even Al Gore -- gets any profit from government entities.

Perhaps you just had a little mental lapse when you wrote that.

Likewise, not I nor anyone said Gore got rich from buying TVA bonds. Didn't even suggest that he owned TVA financial instruments. Just pointing out one single fallacy in your rant. So why did you even say that in the first place? No one claimed he made money that way nor even was it implied. The only thing said is that you were wrong and obviously, like Hillary, can't say you were wrong. (Although, I don't see why she should apologize for supporting the Iraq war when ALL the information she had available, including from hubby's staff, confirmed that we should go to war.)

There's other incorrect information in your tirade. But it's useless to point them out to you since it makes no difference to you. Rather typical of yellow dog democrats. Just ignore "The Inconvenient Facts."

On one other note, we can certainly agree with one thing.

Unfunded mandates makes poor policy. And it doesn't matter who runs Congress, they continue to make unfunded mandates. It's one of those little things that crop up from time to time and someone or two says we need to fix this and then it disappears from view once again.

I'll go out on a limb now and suggest there are two things.

Line item veto. Presidents need this. Regardless of party affiliation.

I heard that the title "No Child Left Behind" was a spin off of the Marine's "No Man Left Behind". But that's just rumor.

And the spin of Gore purchasing carbon offsets through the investment company is based upon what Krider (supposedly his spokesperson) said. Although, others have pointed out that the investment group does not invest in "green" anything. Just in various stocks.

Supposedly this is what she (Krider) said:

"Gore helped found Generation Investment Management, through which he and others pay for offsets. The firm invests the money in solar, wind and other projects that reduce energy consumption around the globe, she said."

I still believe this whole "carbon offset" affair is a scam of enormous proportions. It's not a shell game, but rather it's an investment idea that is very lopsided. You give money to the poor and tell them not to increase their standard of living so that those that have can remain those that have. While those that have not, remain those that have not. Just like I believe that investing in a stock index is a scam. To me, it's just gambling on numbers. Not all that far removed from options, which at least can produce something tangible (the purchase or sale of stocks/bonds/or what have you). And if your option is not excercised or sold, then all your money goes down the drain ... or to the person (group) that you purchased the option(s) from in the first place.

However, the root of actual contention is that man is causing global warming. And I said that I nor anyone has the evidence or proof to make this claim without any skepticism.

"Here's the kind of information the ``scientific consensus" types don't want you to read. MIT's Alfred P. Sloan professor of meteorology Richard Lindzen recently complained about the ``shrill alarmism" of Gore's movie ``An Inconvenient Truth." Lindzen acknowledges that global warming is real, and he acknowledges that increased carbon emissions might be causing the warming -- but they also might not.

``We do not understand the natural internal variability of climate change" is one of Lindzen's many heresies, along with such zingers as ``the Arctic was as warm or warmer in 1940," ``the evidence so far suggests that the Greenland ice sheet is actually growing on average," and ``Alpine glaciers have been retreating since the early 19th century, and were advancing for several centuries before that. Since about 1970, many of the glaciers have stopped retreating and some are now advancing again. And, frankly, we don't know why."

And even though it may seem at odds with all this, there is a group of atmospheric scientists that believe that this period of warming is indicative of an ensuing ice age.

And there have been published papers to this effect at least at late at 2003. Since I quit that business a long time ago, I no longer subscribe to any of the journals and no longer a member of the AMS.

And if there is any group that has a consensus that I hope is wrong, it's the smaller and less vocal group that believes that an ice age is looming in the near future.

But what do I know ...
I'm just a dumb meteorologist.

Condor

P.S. This will be my last post here. At least as far as the above is concerned. The only thing I hoped to engender at all, was some healthy skepticism about "man made" global warming. But it's a religion to you isn't it? Gore is your head priest.

P.P.S. You do know that the warming trend has been slowing for at least 3 decades now right? That one piece of information should be enough to make anyone skeptical of the "man made" bit.

P.P.P.S. LOL One thing that scientists (a consensus of course) did a disservice to all us was something they said many decades ago. They called it the solar constant. And even now, you hear that term. Yet it's proven beyond all doubt the sun is not constant. It's why C14 isn't constant. And why for such a long period of time, the "carbon dating" method was screwed up. The sun's output produces C14 here on earth. You knew that too, right? Of course you did.

Damn. I just can't pass up one more chance to try to get some skepticism from people and their god Gore and the "scientific consensus".

The entire concept of warming and cooling and by how much and how long and why is based on a huge amount of empirical knowledge. CO2 increases in the atmosphere. The earth gets warmer. The more industrialist man becomes, the more CO2 man produces. Ergo, man makes CO2, CO2 levels rise, planet gets warmer, ha HA, man caused the planet to warm.

Two more examples of empirical knowledge, that doesn't fit.

1. During the "little ice age", there were few or no observable sunspots during the entire period. But this seems contradictory. Why, if sunspots are actually cool regions on the sun, and if they were missing, wouldn't the sun's output actually be warmer? That doesn't fit with the cooling the planet experienced.

2. The hypothesis of an ever expanding universe. The distance to extremely distant objects being determined by the "red shift". Quasars have an incredibly HUGE red shift. And were determined to be at unbelievable distances from earth and moving away from us at incredible speeds. That was the consensus until a couple of years ago. And now astrophysicists are in a bit of a quandary. It was discovered a few years ago that a quasar had to be very close to a star that it was sucking material from. The star was not all that distant, based on the red shift, yet the quasar had to be some unbelievable distance away, due to the red shift.

(Okay, so when I passed on my hypothesis about quasars over 20 yrs ago, I was ignored.)

Astrophysicists, until this discovery, could only seem to picture an accretion disk around black holes. Now, though, theory has been revised, not by all, but most (another consensus) that it could be an accretion SPHERE. And that at/near the event horizon material being sucked into the black hole has accelerated to near light speed, colliding together releasing huge amounts of energy, and appear to have created a HUGE red shift on the object. But actually the red shift is ONLY the material being sucked into the black hole. Not the black hole inside this accretion sphere.

But what do I know...
I'm just a dumb music producer

Condor

P.S. And yes, I've done all these jobs and received money for it.

Just one, hopefully, thought provoking question for everyone.

If planting trees is so wonderful, why are the Great Smoky Mountains called "Smoky" and long before white man began crossing them, they were known as the "blue" wall? And I really don't think the Cherokees were up there making moonshine or the Iroquois or any of the native tribes, for that matter. So where does that "blue haze/smoke" come from?

But I do know the answer

Even if I am a dumb electronics tech

Condor

Meth is a hell of a drug.

Did you not read any of the preceding discussion?

By purchasing carbon credits you're paying someone else not to produce carbon. The small amounts of carbon produced by aspiration are insignificant compared to the tons produced by industry and automobiles.

Al Gore has been advocating for soluctions to fight global warming for over 20 years, long before carbon offsets were little more than a twinkle in some market economist's eye. To say he's doing this for the money completely ignores his record on the issue, which stretches back to his earliest days in Congress.