Fw: Gas Prices

[Christopher Witmer]

Delwin D Fandrich wrote:
> There is no longer any serious debate as to whether or not these emissions
> are damaging the planet.

The authors of the following seem serious enough:

Hot Talk, Cold Science : Global Warming's Unfinished Debate
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/094599978X/qid=976142616/sr=1-3/107-0725418-0328526

The Satanic Gases
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/1882577922/ref=sim_books/107-0725418-0328526

There are many reputable scientists who have gone on record that global
warming is overrated as an environmental threat. Frustratingly, there is
no unanimity on this within the scientific community and the debate
would seem to be far from finished.

By the way, even though I'm a skeptic on global warming, my personal
lifestyle is more "environmentally friendly" than that of most
Americans. We use solar power for part of our electrical needs, recycle
aggressively, and try to keep summer air conditioning and winter heating
to the absolute minimum (we find it's better for our health). We didn't
even own a car until our sixth child was born (I hate cars and prefer
public transportation). My policy is to only drive cars I can get for
free (my current one came with only 50,000 kilometers on it), but if I
can get my hands on a diesel car I definitely want to try recycling
waste cooking oil into fuel. (Restaurants will give it to you and it
works fine but your car's exhaust will smell like french fried
potatoes.) And when I eventually get around to building a house it will
be made from bales of rice straw that I can get for free -- most farmers
in my area burn the stuff, which contains too much silica to be good for
animal feed. We even have a composting toilet. (Scatologists on this
list should see "The Humanure Handbook" over at Amazon.) I see my
general approach to resource utilization as simply good stewardship:
"Waste not, want not."

One reason I have been hesitant to accept the current wisdom that global
warming is a serious threat is, I have heard the shepherd boy cry
"Wolf!" before. I remember when, back in the 1970s, there was no longer
any serious debate as to whether or not we were entering a new ice age,
and the Club of Rome ("Limits to Growth") had impressive charts and
graphs showing that we were going to run out of fossil fuels by 2000.
The logic and conclusions of those earlier predictions were
unassailable, except for one flaw -- they were based on extrapolations
from a too-small sample of historical data. Since the climate is always
fluctuating, if we take the trend for any given period as normative, the
resulting extrapolations will likely be different from extrapolations
from a longer or shorter period. That's why scientists need to preface
their predictions with "if current trends continue . . . " Trouble is,
"current trends" frequently don't continue. This is too bad because
while we need, as good stewards, to try to understand emerging problems
and take necessary countermeasures, we don't want to waste time and
money "solving" problems that don't exist. We outlawed many CFCs because
scientists assured us they were a threat to the ozone hole, and now
scientists are telling us that the hole was there before CFCs came into
use and will close up of its own accord within 50 years. I'd like to say
to the scientists, "Will you guys please make up your minds BEFORE you
get us to pour untold billions of dollars into solving a problem that
may or may not exist?" In the event the ozone hole thing was in fact a
false alarm, it can't have been very good for the environment for us to
have devoted so many resources to retooling entire industries.

A further blow to the credibility of the movement against global warming
was the Kyoto Protocol's promotion of so-called "carbon sinks." That
this concept is a sham is now coming to be generally understood, but I
don't know why any scientists could have in good conscience promoted
such nonsense in the first place. Everybody knows that ultimately, there
are only two things that can happen to vegetation: it can burn in a
fire, or it can decompose. However, in either case the ultimate carbon
dioxide output is exactly the same, and thus in the long term carbon
sinks cannot reduce the amount of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere by
any significant amount. In fact some recent research suggests that
forests may actually promote global warming! Even if global warming is a
serious problem, carbon sinks are definitely not part of the solution,
and the Kyoto Protocol's reliance on them does not inspire confidence in
the science underlying the movement as a whole. Politics and science
don't mix.

In conclusion, please understand I'm not trying to say either aye or nay
concerning global warming per se, only that the scientists still have a
lot more work to do before this issue is settled. Regardless of the
ultimate outcome, piano technicians deserve credit for doing everything
possible to extend the useful life of beautiful instruments made from
beautiful trees.

Speaking of which, if you're in the mood for some very politically
incorrect poetry, check out:

Ode to a Dead Tree
http://www.lewrockwell.com/north/north12.html

-- Chris Witmer