Thursday, January 25, 2007

Great News: We're All Doomed!

Reuters is reporting the imminent unveiling of a new U.N. report on climate change (suspiciously timed to coincide with Al Gore’s bid for an Oscar?) "that will provide the most credible evidence yet of a human link to global warming and hopefully shock the world into taking more action, the panel's chairman said on Thursday."

Apparently “The report by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), due for release on Feb. 2 in Paris, draws on research by 2,500 scientists from more than 130 countries and has taken six years to compile.”

What caught my attention, however, was the following quote from the panel’s chairman, R.K. Pachauri, (who, by the way, is “director of India's top environment centre, the Energy and Research Institute.”):

"I think the sceptics on climate change will continue, but the good news is that their numbers and their effectiveness is on the decline."

I don't mean to be overly picky, but wouldn’t “good news” be that the skeptics were right after all?

29 comments:

  1. Six years? Isn't that, like, prehistoric in a field that still hasn't found predictive models, let alone tested them. Seems to me that the rate of change of a science based on computer models should be measured in internet years. In other words, this report is already something like 30 years old.

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  2. careful, chuck - that's getting awfully close to being Prohibited Speech.

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  3. I'm sure the UN will handle this with all the skill shown in dealing with Oil for Food.

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  4. But FA, they've reached a consensus. Everyone knows that's the main objective of science - to reach a political agreement.

    Especially one that guarantees the scientists a living (vide AIDS).

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  5. Oh sure, laugh now. Just wait a few hundred years, when the temprerature will have risen by at least two, and possibly three, degrees CENTIGRADE, and coastal peoples all over the world will have been inconvenienced by having to move several inches inland per year.

    Plus, everyone will have cholera, or malaria, or whatever that tropical disease is that kills everyone if the temperature gets two degrees warmer.

    And it will be colder, too. So we'll all be desperately trying to swat bugs while inching our way inland and freezing at the same time.

    Laugh while you can, neocon warmmongerers.

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  6. Geez, Morgan, I had no idea it was that serious. Do you suppose if we dragged Agore up Kilauea and....

    well, do you think there's any chance that Mother Gaia might be propitiated by umm.. gifts?

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  7. Worth a try, Rick. Desparate times and all that.

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  8. Well, shoot, Algore's always talking about the need for everyone to make sacrifices.. he should go for it in a heartbeat.

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  9. Global Watermelon--green outside, red inside.

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  10. I heard a snip of a news report that the National Academy of Science has officially dumped all over Al's Oeuvre.

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  11. Oh, mercy, yes. A Burka for that visage--it's come terribly unglued.

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  12. There was a young man named Algore
    Who everyone thought quite a bore
    Then an idea started forming:
    "I'll champion global warming!
    Then they'll all love me, for sure!"

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  13. Said Al it'll be Earth First

    or else you'll see all my worst;

    I'll whine like a puppy
    and make shit uppy,

    And eat til I practically burst.

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  14. Algore, on the outside quite green, gave vent to great ecospleen, but a look in his head, reveals it bright red - and a brain has yet to be seen.

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  15. ha ha ha--love limericks.

    Old Al, without the Eco gig, would have to hang out a shingle. And I can't see this near-president actually representing me in traffic court. No empathy. Judge'd hit me for the maximum $100.

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  16. "er, well, your honor, i propose that we put Mr. larsen here's driver's license in what I like to refer to ads a Lock Box..."

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  17. You guys are so disrectful. For shame.

    I think Rick is onto something here with his oil for food reference. Want to bet there is not some wonderful program out there that only the UN can administer. Like say something that requires the corrupt dictator of some poor little third world country to keep his people living in pristine poverty while he sells his emission quota to China or Russia? via the UN of course.

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  18. "Green Fakers"
    "Green Ache-ers"
    "Green Nay-Curs"

    (apologies to Eva Gabor, Eddie Albert, and Arnold the Pig)

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  19. UN Department of Global Climate Regulation.
    Chief Administrator: Benon Sevan

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  20. ...because Al Capone is no longer interested in the position.

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  21. Didn't I read (here perhaps) that temperature readings from below the earth's surface have risen in the northern hemisphere but not the southern during the last century?

    How would carbon emissions possibly account for that?

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  22. Okay. This is my theory. The northern hemisphere is warming due to changes in the earth's core. This warming affects ocean temperatures and currents and thus affects climate.

    The change in the distribution of heat in the earth's core is due to fluctuations in magnetism and is a precursor to the periodic reversal of the magnetic poles.

    I think my theory is as good as any put forward by al Gore.

    Except there is nothing we can do about it.

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  23. syl--search 'carbon cycle' and look at Himalaya effect.

    also, since time is linear, you can pick your own start/end point for any agenda. measure temp from dawn until noon and then extrapolate (whew, we're cooked!). OK, now measure temp from sunset til midnight (whew, we're froze!).

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  24. It's just as bogus an issue as "income Inequality", another lefty "feel-bad" ploy which it is--now that congress is Dem--already coming off of.

    Look for same on "global warming".

    The idea is, if you want any peace, you must let the Dems rule.

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  25. buddy..okay read on the Himalaya thingie (interesting--fills in a gap in knowledge about how carbon is naturally taken out of the atmosphere. Must admit that's one gap among many. Only 537 gaps to go!)

    Sooooo, what's gonna be cheaper: putting caps on carbon emissions or raising the Himalayas? :)

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  26. Syl--having recently bought a few shares of Caterpillar, i'm now absolutely certain that it would be cheaper to raise the Himalayas. Or maybe lower them, one or the other--but, LET'S GET STARTED!

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  27. Buddy

    LET'S GET STARTED!

    ::grin::

    Sounds good to me!

    Really, all the ideas for 'solutions' involve lessening the carbon going into the atmosphere. Nobody speaks of solutions involving getting the carbon out.

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  28. This angle, too, needs be borne in mind:

    Green Goblins

    "hey, wait, before you put me back to hunting & gathering, could I get a hamburger or something?"

    (translated from third-world language)

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