Alfred’s Commentary on the Human Condition

Gallons of Oil Spilled 102,144,000. gallons
Gallons of Dispersant  1,100,000. gallons
Total gallons of Spill  103,244,000. gallons
Gallon of water in Gulf  650,000,000,000,000,000. Thats 650 Quadrillion
Decimal Percentage  0.000000000158837
Parts per Billions  0.001588369230769
Parts per Trillion  158.836923076923
PPT of Gold  50.

No wonder they are having trouble find the oil to clean up.

I had an interesting thought, namely that all tourists are in a fashion illegal immigrants, with the only difference being that they are not trying get a job. The demonizaton of a particular immigrant group is dangerous, and as history shows, once on that path, it is easy to dehumanize them, then in extreme cases kill them. We are moving down that path. These people are for the most part just you and me looking to better themselves but through the accident of birth ended up in a country that can not feed them. But of course a country has to keep to the rule of law to avoid anarchy, so obviously a worker in this country needs to be documented. But like the drug trade, the problem is in the demand. As long as employers will hire undocumented aliens, which is like putting candy in front of a 4 year old (no I am not comparing the current group of illegal immigrants to 4 year old children, there are many analogies, I just happened to use that one) they will come, they have no choice.

Bill

You said in your TED speak regarding the TerraPower that there is has been no scientific support for the climate skeptics, which is probably true, but I have to ask, and I have done a fair amount of research though I am not in any way a scientist or expert on climate issues, but what is the real science supporting the CO2 forcing issue? If your read the IPCC report or any of the scientific papers, they are all self-referential and rely almost completely on statistical linkage which is itself based on paleo-climate data that is a guess at best, and by all accounts very much open to interpretation. There is no way to formulate a hypothesis and test it as we don't even have the tools to accurately measure any of the variables. Additionally, look at the scale of things (the Earth and its environment), we are but the pimple on a flea on the back of an elephant relative to the terrestrial forces, let alone solar or galactic ones. One volcano in Iceland will produce more CO2 and other "green house" gases than every car in the US in all of history. The Chilean earthquakes have released more energy than mankind has produced in its history and some. We can do nothing that has any permanent effect, we are always just one hurricane, one volcano, one earth quake away from oblivion, and if we wish to survive, we must insulate ourselves from a very hostile natural system. Nature is very much entropic, while life is syntropic.

All that being said, I am strongly in favor of your comments regarding RD and the use of nuclear energy. Energy is the driver of all things, and its availability and price dictate the progress of man.

Alfred Holzheu

The great American Experiment is over, RIP. Eugenics is now the law of the land, and Peter Pan economics now rule the day, very SADDD. There does not seem to be anyone who actually cares any more, when junk science can win out over rational thought, and voodoo economics can supplant reality, we are truly lost!

Does anyone see the resemblance of this lawlessness to the prohibition. Come on!!!! get real, the drug trade feeds on its illicit nature, and that is a human invention. YOU CAN NOT LEGISLATE MORALITY!!! It has never worked in thousands of years and will not work tomorrow. Why is this so difficult to understand?

PhysOrg article on solar activity we would be extremely naive or arrogant to assume that we have any influence over anything. We are the pimple on the back of the flea on the elephant. Get over it.

The straight facts regarding the role of CO2 in AGW, starting with the "accepted" view. The third answer below is the clearest explanation of CO2's role (or lack of) in global warming done from a purely scientific approach. I looked this up because I always wondered how a trace gas in the atmosphere could cause any significant anything, especially when it is so overshadowed by water vapor and Nitrogen and Oxygen, etc, etc, etc, etc...... The first two answers are the traditional answers which just did not make sense to me.

From: [link retired — wiki.answers.com: “How is Carbon dioxide a greenhouse gas”]

A1:

CO2 is a greenhouse gas because it increases the temperature level of the earth in the same way the heat is generated inside the greenhouse where plants are grown. Greenhouses or glass houses trap the heat within thereby increasing the temperature within the glasshouse. In the same way, CO2 acts like a blanket in the earth atmosphere and prevents the heat from escaping from the earth's surface, leading to a rise in global temperatures.

A2:

Shortwave energy (that emitted by the sun) passes through the atmosphere pretty much unimpeded, ultimately to be intercepted by the ground. The warm ground emits longwave radiation in proportion to the fourth power of its temperature. In a completely dry, CO2-less and ozone-less atmosphere, this upwelling longwave radiation would all be lost to space. Carbon dioxide absorbs upwelling long wave radiation and re-emits it back to the ground, thereby reducing the amount of heat that escapes to space, warming the planet. The warmer planet evaporates more water, and the water vapor absorbs even more longwave radiation than the carbon dioxide, warming the planet even more.

A3:

The two answers above are not quite correct. This is how it works.

Incoming solar radiation is widely distributed across the electromagnetic spectrum. Some wavelengths (mostly visible light) get through the atmosphere to the surface, some don't. Of the radiation that gets through, some is reflected and some is absorbed by the surface of the earth. The reflected radiation is not an issue, because it goes right back into space at the same wavelengths that it came in at, unimpeded, just like on the way in. It is only the absorbed radiation that is a problem. This radiation is later re-emitted, but in the form of Infrared Radiation (IR).

Certain atmospheric gases, known as "greenhouse gases", absorb IR, then re-emit it back into the atmosphere. Some percentage of this re-emitted IR (after a long sequence of re-absorptions and re-emissions by other greenhouse gas molecules) eventually works its way back down to the lower atmosphere and is said to "warm" the surface. This is the "greenhouse effect". The "greenhouse effect", in and of itself, is a completely natural thing, and also a very good thing. Without it, the surface would be far too cold for life as we know it to exist.

At this point, it must be emphasized that carbon dioxide (CO2) is just one of many "greenhouse gases". It is not the most important, nor the most abundant. That distinction belongs to water vapor. Even without carbon dioxide, water vapor alone would cause enough of a greenhouse effect to keep us very near the warm temperatures that we enjoy. Also worth emphasizing is the fact that greenhouse gasses do not "trap" IR. They absorb, then re-emit the IR, in a completely random direction. It could go up, down, sideways, or any direction in between. Re-absorption by other greenhouse gas molecules complicates the path and destination of an individual unit of IR, but what it all boils down to is that something less than half of the IR absorbed by greenhouse gases eventually finds its way back to the surface, with the remainder escaping into space.

Though the greenhouse effect itself is completely natural, and very beneficial, global warming scientists believe that anthropogenic (man-made) emissions of carbon dioxide (mostly from burning fossil fuels) have increased CO2 in the atmosphere to a point where we are now experiencing what could be called an "enhanced greenhouse effect". This artificial enhancement of the greenhouse effect, could cause significant warming of the atmosphere and the surface, over and above what the natural greenhouse effect causes. Though such additional warming will have both positive and negative consequences for human beings and other life on the planet, global warming scientists believe that the negative consequences far outweigh the positive consequences. (However, in reality, they have no scientific basis for that belief - they just believe, just because it's "man-made", just because it's not "natural", that it must be "bad". Even the alarmist IPCC admits that no one can be certain which effects will dominate, but, in true alarmist fashion choose to err on the side of pessimism. But that is a completely different discussion, not appropriate to the question at hand.)

Now, here's an important point that global warming scientists don't mention. Though carbon dioxide definitely absorbs IR, it only absorbs IR in two very narrow ranges of wavelengths, one between 2.5 and 3 microns, and another between 4 and 5 microns. This is a small percentage of the total IR emitted by the surface. I don't know exactly how small (because I can't find any source for the wavelength distribution of IR emitted from the surface), but it's probably less than 10%, and perhaps as low as 4%. And even in those ranges, CO2 has to compete with water vapor, which also absorbs 2.5-3-micron IR. So, even if carbon dioxide in the atmosphere increased a thousand-fold, and even if there was no water vapor, there is a limit to how much IR CO2 can absorb, and that limit is 10% (or less) of all the IR emitted from the surface. And of that 10%, over half of it still ends up escaping into space.

This limit of absorptivity is important because some skeptics argue that, between water vapor and CO2, every available ray of IR within the absorption ranges of CO2 is already being absorbed. Additional molecules of CO2, therefore, will havezero effect on the total absorption of IR. So future warming due to CO2 is simply not possible. The only way CO2 could absorb any more IR than it is already absorbing is if 1) the surface started re-emitting more IR, which could only happen if more sunlight reached the surface, or 2) atmospheric water vapor levels dropped, freeing up more IR to be absorbed by CO2, in which case, warming would not occur, because that radiation was already being absorbed by the water vapor that disappeared. In fact, if the second option occurred, temperatures would in fact drop, because water vapor absorbs IR over a much wider range than CO2, and therefore, CO2 cannot completely offset the loss of IR absorption by water vapor. However, the existence of CO2, replacing the IR absorption of some of the lost water vapor, would mitigate this temperature drop. Therefore, at current levels, CO2 could be said to be somewhat of a stabilizer of the greenhouse effect, taking up part of the slack when water vapor levels drop too low. In this respect, it is good to have an excess of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere.

It is also possible that, even at pre-industrial concentrations of atmospheric CO2, we were already above the "saturation point" of IR absorption by CO2, and therefore, even the warming that has occurred in the last 150 years could not have been caused by carbon dioxide.

In the wake of the EPA classifying that CO2 is a harmful gas, I propose that we take steps to sequester CO2 from one of the most abundant source on the planet, namely oxygen breathing mammals (including humans). It would be simple matter of creating a disposable mask that all mammals could wear that would combine with the CO2 in the exhalation and store it as inorganic calcium carbonate. It could also be coupled with a dye that would let people know when it was full and to discard it properly so that it could be buried forever. I think these PCC (Personal Carbon Catchers, though it could also be called a PCSD or a "Personal Carbon Sequestration Device") would qualify for a carbon credit, that might go along way toward paying for the masks. Can you imagine the quantity of CO2 that would be drawn out of the atmosphere if all mammals could do their part to control CO2 emissions. It boggles the mind.

Pdf of a long but thorough analysis of the Climategate emails and how it relates to AGW and the "science" behind it Science & Public Policy PDF (Monckton)

PhysOrg article on energy supplies We are are a fundamentaly energy consuming race, and in fact the quality of our lifestyle is based on available energy supplies. No if and or buts, period. Get over it, or get out.