The mirror image of a trade deficit is a surplus in the asset account: if foreigner’s are selling us goods on net, they must be buying something else in exchange: that would be stocks, bonds or other assets.
The US may be adding to demand for third world (and middle eastern) goods (and commodities), but it is sucking up the world’s savings in exchange. Put in another way, the Asian tigers financed the 2002-2005 US housing boom.
“Job exports” is an equally odd expression; perhaps Cecil meant something like, “deindustrialization”.
No, read carefully - that’s what the Pentagon thinks. They’re your doomsayers.
No, read carefully - I said they muight happen, not that they’d be warranted in my opinion.
No, read carefully - I said there was a possibility of that. (Less than 1% IMO, but that roulette’s still a little Russian for my liking.
I think that might be a ringing in your ears from having your fingers rammed in them so hard.
I’m sorry that you took such intellectually impoverished subjects that you didn’t learn how to understand simple graphs. The chart means that if we do nothing about emissions, the CO2 concentration will rise to 750 ppm. For hundreds of millennia it was 280 ppm. The current concentration, which has caused warming of at least 1[sup]o[/sup]C, is still only 380 ppm, and rising by 3 ppm per year.
Understand?
Wayer vapour is still at the same concentration it was for millennia. Other, less powerful greenhouse gases, are 30% higher and rising. Do, learn to read.
is an attention-seeking tool.
To not answer the question is as serious an omission as in a question about evolution, IMO. And if reducing emissions won’t change anything, why bother with all this energy efficiency (in the Third or First World) at all?
His serious flaw here is that he thinks that we can start making things better when fossi fuels become scarce. If that point is reached, the at ospheric concentration battle will already have been lost. That he doesn’t even mention concentrations at all beggars belief: he and his ghost writers seriously fucked up on this one.
I think you need to read and consider your posts more carefully, IMO. You put that information out there on this board. You link to sites that support those views. You offer no negative opinions about them. Your posts indicate that you think it is right, not wrong.
Now you backpeddle. Now you say that those posts were not meant as your serious opinion. But, you only said that after someone called you on it.
Don’t trip as you backpeddle out the door. Bye-Bye.
You neglected to mention State Of Fear, in which he steps out of his science fiction element to adress this issue in an albeit dramatized, but fully annototed and cited manner. As a dramatic novel, it’s meandering and convoluted – but as an eye-opener to the politics of global warming scaremongering, it’s quite a good read.
I can tell you from the standpoint of oceanography that there is rather a lot of debate on the subject from “how much of an impact do anthropomorphic greenhouse emmisions have on the environment” to “what is the accuracy of climatology models and how reliable are they?”
I work in the area of air-sea exchange (heat and gas). I can tell you that there is A LOT of uncertainty in any climatology models because we still do not have a clear grasp of this basic process. Remember all of those horror stories about how humans are making hurricanes worse? (Time, etc.) Funny thing; those studies did not have have any direct measurements of air-sea fluxes during or immediately after a hurricane. All of their conclusions were based on a certain rate of flux. There will be a paper (actually two, one data and one analysis) published shortly (been approved, waiting for print) which has the first set of data of such fluxes ever taken. This data casts major doubt on the conclusions of our influence on hurricanes.
Now, before I get the proverbial “cite?” I have to say 1.) not yet printed and 2.) even when printed, I highly doubt that linking to it will be as easy as linking to Wiki. When I have confirmation of the date of publication (and, sorry, the journal - not my paper, forgot), I will repost. I just wanted to point out that there is not concensus on this this aspect of the topic of anthropomorphic sources of greenhouse gases and their impact on the environment.
Oh, and I do want to add one more thing:
Cecil? We get it. You don’t like Bush or the Iraq war. I don’t like Bush or the Iraq war, either, but what was the point of that little bit of random Bush-bashing? I know that your articles rely on snarky-sarcastic humor, but really. The “screwed the pooch” comment was off-topic and unnecessary.
Cecil may be smart, but an economist he’s not. Russia is a bad example and its ability to meet Kyoto goals is vastly different from first world countries. Many or most E.U. nations, which have not experienced economic crashes, are on their way to meeting Kyoto goals if they have not already.
Economic growth does NOT equal “driving SUVs”. Yeah, sea levels will rise and storms will destroy all manner of things, but “it doesn’t matter”?
I’m guessing Cecil votes republican, or doesn’t understand the issue. Perhaps both. On this issue, he’s clueless.
JustAnotherGeek, have you read the thread I linked? It references a study of over 900 abstracts all of which either agree, or take no position on, the IPCC consensus. Obviously there is debate over how particular mechanisms work, and over the accuracy of the models, or the IPCC position would be more accurate than 1.5 to 6 C. I will stand by my position that there is no debate as to the existence of global warming, there is only debate as to the magnitude and the long term effects.
Apparently the hole in the sand your head is in only contains articles from the IPCC. I suggest pulling your head out and understanding that the consensus BS is only there for propoganda purposes to get political support. It is working really well, to their credit, with all the people with their heads in the sand. BTW, that study has been proven to be bunk.
Oh, I forgot, all you need for proof is 5 people, with similar credentials, standing around saying the same thing. lol.
As you pointed out, no one, and I mean no one, is arguing that global warming is occuring. But, since the debate/research about the magnitude of the human induced CO2 is not done, it could very well be proven that its influence is negligible.
No, but I read the link you seemed to be guiding people towards.
You are quite correct in the statement that “there is no debate as to the existence of global warming.” The fact that Earth has been in a warming trend for the past ~15,000 years is not something that I have ever heard debated. The point of my post was that there is a serious amount of debate over the impact of humans on the climate. Positions range from “no discernible impact” to “OH MY GOD WE’RE ALL GOING TO DIE!” Some of the very real reasons why there is such a wide range of views on the subject are:
[ul]
[li]Our reliable data sets are quite small (compared to the time-frame of climate change).[/li][li]Our long term data sets are not as reliable as our short term. (There are always ‘hand-waving arguments’ whenever indirect data is collected.)[/li][li]We do not yet understand all of the basic processes involved (see my earlier post).[/li][li]Our computer modelling capabilities are still unable to completely model all relevant parameters over a large yet detailed topography.[/li][li]etc.[/li][/ul]
My point is not to say that humans have no impact on the environment; all I am saying is that there is rather a lot of debate on the subject and that there really is no such thing as the concensus of all scientists working on this topic (or related ones).
Correct me if I’m wrong here (I know you will :)) but isn’t Cecil’s point that Kyoto is the worst of both worlds because not only does it put the brakes on an economy but it is basically worthless in cutting CO2 as well?
This is what Cecil says Kyoto hopes to accomplish.
Here is a paragraph from Factchecker on the subject:
So, when Cecil says “Answer: Beats me. But you know what? It doesn’t matter even if they are.” he is basically acknowledging that in order to make a REAL difference we would essentially have to gut the entire world economy. Not aprox 5% reduction in 1990’s emmissions but 15%…or maybe 20%…or maybe 30%! Not go with Kyoto, which is difficult but attainable (though as he noted not even all our green Euro brethren are able to meet the goals set), but to go far beyond Kyoto…which, as he says “Ain’t gonna happen, as even Kyoto’s fans are beginning to concede.”.
While I agree with many that I wish Cecil had been able to go into greater detail, I think that his position on this issue is completely logical and in keeping with his past positions. IOW he is being realistic here…he knows that humans (as well as other factors) are slowly warming the earth. To paraphrase from a book I enjoyed, if a man is stumbling and about to fall on broken glass is it better to put your hands out and catch the fall (and get cut up pretty badly in the effort) or to run faster? My interperetation of Cecil’s article is…its better to run.
Anyone taking Crichton seriously is extremely misinformed. See this debunking of State of Confusion. Even judging from his single quote in this thread, the man knows nothing of science. Science IS consensus. A study alone means very little.
That website (http://www.realclimate.org) is a great source of information. It’s written by actual scientists.
Basically, the way I see it is that this is a political issue, not a scientific one. Scientists studying the issue are in agreement (I can provide cites if necessary).
Also, Cecil’s viewpoint seems wrong. We could destroy much of the third world while helping only some of it. Tropical islands, for example, will be pretty much destroyed if we do what Cecil is advocating. Famines will also increase, as well as natural disasters. This will hit the third world extremely hard. His suggested course of action, is very risky.
I noticed that nowhere in the article did they give any possible cause for cooling. They didn’t offer any mechanism that was acting on the climate. The meteorolgoists were basing their predictions entirely on observation. They also didn’t recommend the government do anything about cooling, except to stockpile food. I am glad I got to read that, though. I’d heard about these assertions being made in the 70s and I never came across any of them until now. I was pretty young in 1975, but I had older siblings, who wouldn’t have passed up a chance like that to scare the crap out of me.
Short version: It really was a product of the popular press, with very little science or scientific consensus to back it up. It is, in other words, completely different than today’s situation.