Dave World

It could be that the matter which exists is in a constant state of flux, expanding to an ultimate point, and then reversing direction. Possibly when it reverses direction at first the contracting is slow, and the it begins to accelerate, reaching a point where the aggregated matter is so dense that it can no longer contract. Then after the briefest of steady state moments, it does the big bang thing once again. Is it ever "nothing"? Can both "nothing" and "everything" exist simultaneously, perhaps in parallel universes? This is the conundrum. Read about the Conundrum Theory at <http://www.daveworld.biz/higgs-boson-conundrum-theory.html>

Just a tidbit here for your edification. My link

First, as to your thread. Apparently you read the report differently than the people who wrote it intended it to be understood. You quote Roger Pielke on the subject, since you obviously didn't read the report yourself. Pielke is a meteorologist, not a climatologist. He writes a blog. His main affiliation is with the Center for Science and Technology, an arm of the Institute for Defense Analysis. The IDA goes back to WW2 and has a vested interest in continuing warfare. It answers to the Pentagon. Even so, he does admit to anthropomorphic climate change and is on record with this statement. "the evidence of a human fingerprint on the global and regional climate is incontrovertible." As for the International Panel on Climate Change, here is their synopsis of the March 2012 report: "Geneva, 28 March 2012 – Evidence suggests that climate change has led to changes in climate extremes such as heat waves, record high temperatures and, in many regions, heavy precipitation in the past half century, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change said today. "Climate extremes, or even a series of non-extreme events, in combination with social vulnerabilities and exposure to risks can produce climate-related disasters, the IPCC said in its Special Report on Managing the Risks of Extreme Events and Disasters to Advance Climate Change Adaptation (SREX). " Do not assume that being a top mind precludes someone from writing a blog and/or being an activist. Those who are highly knowledgeable in a field are apt to make their opinions known. Often those opinions are strong and very advanced. For example, Dr. James Hansen heads the NASA Goddard Institute for Space Studies, and is also an adjunct professor in the Department of Earth and Environmental Sciences at Colombia University. His post graduate work in radiative transfer models lead to our current understanding of Venus's atmosphere. Hansen is best known for his research in the field of climatology, his testimony on climate change to congressional committees in 1988 that helped raise broad awareness of global warming, and his advocacy of action to avoid dangerous climate change. In recent years, Hansen has become an advocate for action to mitigate the effects of climate change. Stephen Chu is a Nobel Award winning Physicist who is our current Secretary of Energy. I will spare you a recounting of the bona fides of the others in that short list. Suffice it to say that some of them are prominent economists and one is even a man of some note in the petrochemical private sector. Now to some more documentation pertaining to my assertions. From the Union of Concerned Scientists comes this: "In an era of globalized commodity markets, the devastation of the U.S. corn crop translates into a global grain shortage. But, equally important, the U.S. drought is just one of many extreme weather events around the world this year and their combined "domino" effect could put many at risk of higher food prices, if not a full-on food crisis." [http://blog.ucsusa.o...l-food-crisis/] Remember, just because it comes from a blog, that doesn't mean that the information is weak. As far as your quotes from the IPCC go, if read correctly you come away with the distilled truth that individual events that are coincident often do not show a provable cause and effect link, but when statistical information shows an overwhelming probability that such a link exists, it must be assumed to be so until there is proof to the contrary. Now, let's get to my military assertion. This is from the New York Times, August 8, 2009: "The changing global climate will pose profound strategic challenges to the United States in coming decades, raising the prospect of military intervention to deal with the effects of violent storms, drought, mass migration and pandemics, military and intelligence analysts say. "Such climate-induced crises could topple governments, feed terrorist movements or destabilize entire regions, say the analysts, experts at the Pentagon and intelligence agencies." http://www.nytimes.com/2009/08/09/science/earth/09climate.html?_r=2&pagewanted=all The only people who are challenging these assertions are those who have agendas counter to the welfare of the human race. Follow the money trail. It always leads to those who wish to further the interests of fossil fuel proponents, and away from the harvesting of clean, renewable energy sources. Finally, anybody who categorically refers to environmentalists as "whackos" is a science denier. Prove me wrong.

Sorry it took me so long to give you a source for my statements. More to come. From Science News 1/4/12 Munich Reinsurance corporate headquarters in Munich reported that the period of 1980-2010 did not see a change in the rate of earthquakes and tsunamis, but there was a noticeable increase in the payouts the firm made due to extreme weather events. My link

Hold onto those thoughts. Time will tell. It does amaze me, though, to find a science denier on this particular forum.

JohnB, A problem with discussing this topic in this particular forum category, is that we are operating here at the conflux of science, economics, politics, history and sociology. The oil companies in question engage in more than a little bit of subterfuge. When they claim to be paying hefty taxes, they are referring to an aggregate of federal income taxes, state income taxes, property taxes, sales taxes and excise taxes. When Forbes compares that lump sum with the rate of federal income taxes paid by individuals, that is comparing apples to oranges, I'd say. Look at a three-year time period instead of just one year. Let's talk coal, for example Peabody energy in the years 2008 to 2010 made $1,008.2 million in profit and paid $71 million income taxes on that profit, for an average rate of 7%. Exxon Mobil made a profit of $19,655.2 million during those years, paid $2,783.2 million income taxes on that profit, for an average rate of $14.2%. [ figures from Citizens for Tax Justice ] http://ctj.org/ctjre...s_2008-2010.php Then there is the subsidy of not having to pay for the disposal of their waste products, like all other industries must. One can't have a logical discussion about this topic without acknowledging that the prime waste product of the fossil fuel industry is CO2. Is this not so? Who pays for the disposal of that waste? Everybody except the polluters. The insurance industry is making record payouts from extreme climactic events, the Pentagon now adjudges global warming to be the #1 security threat to the United States, and agriculture is taking record losses. We the citizens pay for all of that. Top minds in the fields of economics and of anthropomorphic climate change agree that the best approach would be to heavily tax the carbon unearthed by the fossil fuel industry and then sold on world markets. Then we would use the revenue raised to promote renewable energy. This would serve to even the playing field and send us in the right direction of development. This backing comes from a diverse list that includes George Schultz, Michael Bloomberg, Stephen Chu, Paul Volker, Al Gore, Dr. James Hansen, Arthur Laffer, Lester Brown and even ExxonMobil CEO Rex Tillerson. Then there are oil depletion allowances, which the companies use to recover 100% of exploration and drilling costs. The "expensing" of intangible drilling costs — including exploration and development — dates to 1916. The oil-depletion allowance dates to 1926. The biggest firms, such as Exxon Mobil, have not qualified for the depletion allowance since the 1970s, but other large oil firms known as independents still do. [ reference Washington Post ] http://www.washingto...NutG_story.html Of course the Ekson Exhilaration plan seeks every possible source of income to bring about the most important thing that we as a species can do. Government subsidies, volunteers and donations should be as much a part of this as were the sacrifices made that allowed the U.S. to win World War 2. During and in the decade after WW2 for every $1 of income tax paid by individual Americans, corporations paid $1.50 in taxes on their profits. Today for every $1 paid by citizens, the corporations pay 25 cents. We're facing the largest crisis ever known to our species. Strong measures are called for. The Forbes article makes the case that a corporation paying a 42% tax rate is higher than the statutory limit of 35% in the U.S. Comparing to a ridiculously low 35% on top income earners is specious. When this country was digging its way out of the Great Depression and paying for WW2, the wealthiest of individuals paid income taxes at a rate of 94%. Corporations got very profitable during the war and, so, were expected to feed a lot of that back into the system that made their profits possible. During the last 30 years our corporations, fossil fuel extractors included, have grown exceedingly profitable. They receive the benefit of a great deal of societal largesse, including untold military expenditures for oil. It is now their turn to kick in the bucks. That is my understanding of economics. A business should look after the well being of the system that allows it to exist.

Sorry about the colored font usage in previous posts. Notice, I didn't do that in this thread. I didn't know that it was for emphasis only. I try hard to follow rules, but that wasn't made clear anywhere in your guidelines. This tendency comes from a 30 year career in editing and typesetting where style is sometimes beneficial.

Actually, solar, wind, biomass, geothermal, et cetera are already cheaper than fossil fuels, by a large margin. That is, if true accounting is used. The problem is that the "price" of oil and coal is heavily subsidized by our lobby-controlled government. The same holds true for nuclear power. The subsidies that keep the price of oil down include the immense military involvement in the Middle East needed to maintain control of the source and pricing of crude oil. Then there are the direct subsidies.[1]The coal industry has enjoyed around $345 billion in subsidies so far.[2] Nuclear is the worst of all, what with the cost of decommissioning plants, not to mention the Price Anderson Act, which indemnifies the nuclear industry against the cost of disastrous accidents. In all fairness, our government would be doing the right thing in terms on economic and social benefits were we to heavily subsidize renewable sources of power. And, we haven't even gotten into the discussion about anthropomorphic global warming.

Here I am again, at the gas pump, trying to figure out why the price just went up thirty cents a gallon in the last month. I'm unhappy about it, and I'm just waiting for the other shoe to drop. Who knows why the price of gasoline skyrockets at any given time.? It seems that the slightest event sends the price of petroleum through the roof. It could be a natural or man made disaster, or a political happening. You would think that, since the first oil crisis of the early 1970s, our society would have been working on solutions to the volatile nature of the petroleum industry. The problem is, the energy industry makes large profits whether the situation in the world is stable or not. It seems like the roller coaster ride is nothing more than business as usual for the energy providers in our country. We have all been there at the gas pumps after months of continuous hikes in the price, saying "there has got to be a better solution to our energy needs". The solution to our energy needs is actually quite simple in some regards. It is the hydrogen infrastructure, what I call Ekson Exhilaration. Hydrogen is the most abundant element in the universe. When hydrogen is extracted from water by renewable electricity resources like wind power and solar energy we largely remove the environmental equation from securing our energy needs and create a true home grown energy source. The big question is, if all the technology already exists for the creation of the hydrogen infrastructure, why haven't we built it? The answers are: money, and control of the energy sector of our economy. To me the issues of money (who is going to pay for building the hydrogen infrastructure) and control (who is going to own the hydrogen infrastructure) are of a societal nature. If our society wants to build the hydrogen infrastructure, it will have to start as a grass roots movement. READ MORE ====>> http://www.daveworld...hilaration.html

I know, it is a stretch of a premise. Basically, I wanted to compare 1988 with 2011, not the actual two days. Roots of the "now" are clearly to be seen in the "then". Of course I admit to a bias in my choice of which events to highlight. Things weren't pretty then, and they aren't pretty now. The ballistics analogy is intended to get minds stewing about what is to come.

It's here, 11/11/11. This date is the same forwards, backwards, and upside down. Kind of quirky. It reminds me of 8/8/88, which has the same attributes. So, I did a comparison in my Namekagon Notebook blog at http://www.daveworld...y-james-bailey. I'd like to know what you all think of it. 11●11●11 and 8●8●88 Then and Now I'm not really into numerology. I placed no special significance on the event when we marked the change from the 1900s into the 2000s. But, I find it kind of neat when a date is the same whether viewed backwards, forwards or upside down. I'm using it herein as a premise for a flashback comparison that could be titled “that was then, and this is now”. So, here we are at 11/11/11. Nothing special. Neither was 8/8/88, which comes to mind for me because back then I was fully engaged in writing my Namekagon Notebook column when I was editor of the Four Seasons News. Let's compare what things were like in 1988 with how they are today, in the year 2011. In 1988: After 9 years of occupation, the Soviet Union begins to withdraw troops from Afghanistan, where they had fought against the proxy army set up by the United States known as the mujaheddin In order to use Islamic ideology against the Soviets, the Koran and other religious material becomes compulsory reading in army training courses run by the U.S. George Bush beats Michael Dukakis for the U.S. Presidency Iran and Iraq accept a U.N. peace plan after an eight year war during which the U.S. armed and backed Iraq The world had just exceeded 5 billion occupants The savings and loan scandal bailout was delayed until after the elections, bringing the cost up from $20 billion to $1.5 trillion. At the time, it was the largest theft in the history of the world. Neil Bush, Jeb Bush and their father, George Sr., are heavily implicated in the scandal. George Bush Sr. is elected president, while the S&L scandal is not part of the debate. (It would have implicated the Reagan administration for easing oversight of the financial institutions as part of its deregulating of the S&Ls.) Two hundred and eighty people die when Pan Am Flight 103 is blown from the sky over Lockerby, Scotland, by a bomb later traced to Libya. The event is one in a series of terrorist actions by Libya, part of an exchange of violence with the U.S. that included the 1986 bombing of Tripoli in which Ghadaffi's daughter Hanna is allegedly killed along with 60 others. Poison gas attacks on Kurdish villagers kill 2,500 in Iraq. In 2011: Wisconsin becomes a hotbed of political unrest and is labeled the “Tunisia of the U.S.” in reaction to Governor Scott Walker's plan to cut the bargaining rights of public sector workers. “Longer term, the Republican strategy is to split the vast middle and working class — pitting unionized workers against non-unionized, public-sector workers against non-public, and the poor against the working middle class” writes former Labor Secretary Robert Reich in the Huffington Post. Also in Wisconsin, special elections to recall Republican state legislators occur in the summer, resulting in two losses for the G.O.P. A campaign gets underway to recall Governor walker with a petition drive that needs over 500,000 signatures to succeed in triggering the recall election in 2012. An earthquake measuring 6.3 in magnitude strikes Christchurch, New Zealand, killing 181 people An 8.9 magnitude earthquake and 30-foot tsunami strike Japan, triggering the largest nuclear power plant crisis since Chernobyl. A string of unusual earthquakes and unexplained mass animal deaths occurs in Arkansas that are attributed to hydraulic fracking used in natural gas extraction. The similar quakes later strike Oklahoma, also due to fracking. A 5.8 magnitude earthquake hits Washington, D.C. A 5.8 earthquake occurs in Mineral, Virginia felt as far north as Ontario and as far south as Atlanta, Georgia. Osama bin is Laden killed by U.S. Seal Team 6 “Arab awakening” occurs with revolutions in Egypt, Tunisia and Libya. Egyptian president Hosni Mubarak is overthrown. U.S. precipitates a Libyan revolution with massive military intervention. Syrian unrest grows. “Occupy Wall Street” begins in New York and spreads across America and throughout the world. Egyptians protest in sympathy with badly injured Occupy Oakland protester Iraq war veteran Scott Olsen. Ten thousand people surround the White House to protest a proposed tar sands pipeline from Canada to the Gulf of Mexico in an effort to curtail carbon emissions into Earth's atmosphere. Hurricane Irene strikes East Coast, millions left without power. The U.S. space shuttle program ends. Human population approaches 7 billion. The U.S. war with Afghanistan becomes the longest in America's history. Troop withdrawals from Iraq are in the planning stage. Fidel Castro resigns from the Communist Party of Cuba's central committee after 45 years of holding the title. Over 300 people die in a super outbreak of tornadoes in the southern U.S., the deadliest in the country's history. A month later, an EF5 Tornado strikes the US city of Joplin, Missouri killing at least 158 people, the single deadliest US tornado since modern record keeping began in 1950. The global economic and financial crisis gets to the point where the default of Greece could trigger major problems in all of Europe as well as in the rest of the world. Italy threatens to follow suit. Texas experiences a drought, the worst on record, that surpasses anything from the dust bowl days. Subsequent wildfires kill four and destroy over 1,000 homes. An ice-free patch of Arctic ocean about a mile wide has opened at the very top of the world. The northern passage from west to east is open, something that has presumably never before been seen by humans and is more evidence that global warming may be real and already affecting climate. Natural disasters across the globe make 2011 the costliest year in history. The end of the age of America is pronounced by the International Monetary Fund as China's gross national product is projected to exceed that of the United States by 2016. A Halloween snowstorm on the East Coast left 15 dead and over one million people without electricity. On November 9 a hurricane with snow, called by meteorologists a “snowicane”, struck Alaska with 90 mph winds caused by the low pressure equivalent of a category 4 hurricane. A seven foot storm surge hits Nome, where roofs are ripped off of buildings. Elsewhere in the state ice accumulation is measured at 23.5 inches in one hour. And 2011 isn't even over yet! I am not gleeful over these past and present events. There is no “I told you so” here. Others have told us so, but with life's hectic pace, things tend to slip down the memory hole over time. When that occurs, reminders assist us in the recognition of patterns. The weather events we are experiencing are beyond the pale of normal variability. Ditto for societal events. We are slipping into uncharted territory. My only admonitions are: Monitor patterns as you see them develop. It's a matter of ballistics. If you know where something was, what direction it is going, how quickly it is moving/accelerating, and the conditions through which it travels, you can reasonably predict where it will go. Follow the Boy Scout Motto “Be Prepared”.

I applaud your application of logic, Cap'n. Semantics as science.

I agree. We've followed this thread to its logical conclusion. It should be closed. This was quite educational. Thanks. - dw

Regarding the Bentham Open paper, it was an error that it is posted twice. I'll contact administrators and ask that one of the two be removed. Thank you for your polite reply. I find black to be boring and impersonal. How about green? It is restful on the eyes.

I am willing to withdraw this whole line of thought. Being labeled as a conspiracy theorist does not advance my wish for intelligent discussion. Name calling is childish. If the administrators of Science Forums wish to remove this topic and its posts, I can accept that. I've obviously touched a nerve. Actually a bunch of them. Be calm. Everything is exactly as it appears to be. Both