fuman
Ex Member

Rocks Off Rules You Bastards
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Re: Obama elected President
Reply #7031 - Aug 25th, 2009 at 5:07pm
I heard that Obama is reading Tom Friedman's book on global warming.
As it turns out, I have been reading it for the past couple of weeks. Good book. I'm a slow reader, I tend to recap every night before I start up again.
Not from the book, but relevant: In 1972 a NASA scientist testified before Congress, stating that the planet was warming. He based his assertion on data compiled from hundreds (thousands?) of thermometers placed around the world. These thermometers were in place for roughly 100 years, so the data was stable. Shortly after his testimony, new satellite data (10 years of data collection) showed that the planet was cooling. This served to discredit the testimony. At the end of the 1970's, it was determined that the satellite data was wrong, due to a shrinking orbit and a slowing down of the satellite's orbit. What they thought was data from Rio De Janeiro at 12:00 Noon was actually Rio De Janeiro at 6:00 PM. Also in the late 1970's a scientist graphed temperature readings and made was was called "the hockey stick" graph, so called because of the relatively flat data until the 20th century where the graph shot up. His data was over a thousand years of climate averages.
Now enter that stupid fuck Reagan, who after seeing this alarming data called for yet another study. He appointed a highly respected scientist to head the new study, but many feared this guy was too much of a free market capitalist, and would inject that bias into the report (which he ended up doing). So while this study is happening, researchers from around the world started their own. In the later part of the 1980's, the report was published and all of the other studies were reported.
The ONE area that there were discrepancies was in the early portion of these graphs, mostly 1800's to early 1900's. Where they all were in agreement was the 1900's onward, where the temperatures shot up.
But even this was disputed and locked up in arguments in the 1990's, because of money, money, money. And money talks. (didn't you get any? Too bad, but you got the benefits of all that spending right? Oh, sorry. Well, you got clean air and water, right?)
Now our 1972 scientist had been working on simulation models, but since he still was living with the discredited label from his earlier testimony, his arguments were easily disputed. Then, in 1993 (?) a volcano erupted. It was massive, and it provided an opportunity to "qualify" his climate modeling software. He nailed it, by predicting a cooling trend in certain geographic areas around the world. His models were accurate enough, and way ahead of other forecasting techniques.
This is where we are now. The elevated levels of CO2 are climbing in unison with the planets temperature. There is no dispute about that.
We need to begin the process to get off of fossil fuels. We have enough technology already, and it will take a long time to ween all of the industries, so the sooner we start the better off we'll be.
Someone once said "the stone age didn't end because they ran out of stones. It ended because they found better ways".
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