taks

yes. the actual number is 0.6 degrees celsius as reported by NASA-GISS. however, NASA also makes it clear that our resolution is greater than 1 degree celsius, i.e. 0.6 is not really within our ability to resolve. no, well not really. this is not settled. not even close. activists claim it is and keep pointing to a "consensus" that only the media seem to be aware of. he is right and wrong... we are warmer now than in the 70s, but it was actually about the same in the 30s. it was cooler, MUCH cooler during the little ice age which really didn't end untill the 1800s. however, there is evidence it was MUCH warmer during what is known as the mideval warming period. taks

no, but it doesn't take publication on this matter to understand the science. holy cow, i suggest you look up the work McIntyre and McKittrick or Roger Pielke Sr. and the list goes on and on. just because al gore runs at the mouth doesn't mean it's "settled". according to al gore, yes. according to the scientific method. no. taks

energy does not have to be warm. and i would think you also aren't certain exactly what is out there, not just dust, but radiation, too. in short, you, nor i, know. hate to tell you but lots of energy is reflected back into space. you're referring only to that which makes it to the surface in the first place. that's the mechanism... energy reaches the earth and it reradiates (it actually does shift in wavelength, btw). CO2 (and other things) absorb certain wavelengths but some make it back out regardless. some gets reflected before arriving. not all energy makes it to the surface in the first place. that was part of my point. also, you were the one that just got done saying not all gets absorbed (75% was your number). it ain't a "wall" if only 75% is absorbed. taks

you're thinking of directly radiated energy from a point source. that speaks nothing of the various patches of whatever we may pass through along the way. well, it is very specific, and very narrow actually, though plural would have sufficed. space, the final frontier. probably both. it started out denser i'm sure, and then went all kablooey and got worse. given how much warmer things have been in the past, and how much more CO2 AND water vapor have been in the atmosphere, i think it is relatively safe to say the runaway scenario isn't plausible. possible, maybe, but not plausible. the problem with the average scare tactic is that it places ALL of the blame on man caused CO2. unfortunately, we're not even sure CO2 is rising entirely because of human emissions. this whole "science" is dubious at best. taks

i make lots of jokes. most people just don't get me. i do have a rather dry, way too logical posting style, however, for the average netizen. most of you would not recognize me in person. taks

yup... and yup. not sure about lonewolf's statement, however. the ice ages are more than likely triggered by the wobble of the earth's axis w.r.t. the plan in which we orbit the sun. there are also some issues with our movement through the galaxy as a whole and probably a host of other things that we haven't even begun to consider. i'm betting a lot on the sun and it's cycles, which can be devastating (look up maunder minimum). taks

i DO celebrate birthdays. i celebrate all holidays, too. as a matter of fact, i even celebrate every wednesday and the occasional friday. sometimes i celebrate the other days of the week just for spite. actually, i don't need much of a reason to dri... er, celebrate. happy bday. taks PS: i'll be celebrating saturday this week in addition to this past wednesday.

btw, just the fact that a few of the distant past ice ages had CO2 concentrations more than 10x than now are good indicators that CO2 isn't what's forcing changes. also evidence is that historical guesses at temperature changes, while correlating to CO2 concentrations on average, typically precede CO2 by 800 years or so. in other words, it seems that when the earth warms, we get more CO2, not vice versa. this makes sense if you recall that the ocean is the primary CO2 since (as noted by alanschu as well). heat the ocean and you get more evaporation, which results in more water and also more CO2. now, how this 2nd part jives with ice cores showing 10x concentration during an ice age is beyond me. maybe it just means that ice cores are really a poor method of determining past CO2 concentrations (there is evidence that this may be true, i.e. ice cores bad)? or, maybe warming and cooling do cause changes, but there are other factors as well that will dominate even during an ice age. taks

there's actually a band of wavelengths. that which is reflected doesn't contribute to the heat of the earth. the effect of CO2 is to trap heat that would otherwise be reradiated. yes, it is near it's peak. given that this absorption is only a small percentage of the total heat of the earth, 25% remaining means we can only trap enough heat to warm the planet a very small amount further. because venus started out with a much higher concentration in the first place. remember, venus' atmosphere is 90 times denser than ours. apples-apples comparisons aren't valid. also, given that CO2 is already at a 75% of its peak contribution anyway, and given that it is a bit player, CO2 alone cannot cause such a runaway. in the end, it will be up to the water vapor to pull off a runaway. this is why 75% of CO2's possible contribution is significant. it is only a bit player anyway. taks

oh, i must apologize, btw, i incorrectly referred to ozone as O, it is not. ozone is O3. taks

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uh, i did not say it was AT 100%, i said "near its peak" and, 75% is near the peak in terms of what i was saying. at least, 75% of the specific wavelength is being trapped which is an overwhelming majority, i.e. their ain't much more to trap. it reached the peak, and its atmosphere is 96% CO2. ours is 0.038%. biiiiiiig difference. venus also has a much denser atmosphere to begin with. taks

as you approach the limit, you need more and more CO2 to get that last bit. the example provided by junkscience is a window shade. pull one shade, and you block half the light coming into a room. pull a similar shade over the top and you will not block the rest, only half again. keep doing this repeatedly and the light in the room decreases logarithmically. the same analogy can be used with sound from a speaker. put a 3dB attenuator (power, not voltage) in the line and you lose half of your power. put another in there and you don't lose all of your remaining power, you lose half again even though it is the same size attenuator. in other words, CO2 is sort of an attenuator on re-radiated heat (well, wavelengths which happen to correspond to heat). double it and you absorb half of what you have... capiche? taks

i always found RATM just waaay too whiny. i mean, how many songs about how bad "the machine" is before someone says "ok, i get it, you don't like the gubmint" for the record, i otherwise love chris cornell's songwriting and voice (he did RATM songs, but i don't know how many). taks

yup. several problems with the whole CO2 argument, btw. first, CO2 increases typically follow temperature rise. i.e. rising CO2 is an effect, not a cause. second, even if we were to attribute warming to CO2 increases, there is a limit. the primary mechanism attributed to CO2 in the atmosphere is absorption of otherwise re-radiated heat - at very specific wavelengths, btw - from the sun (you know, the big yellow ball in the sky where we get all that heat from in the first place). well, hate to blow the lid off this one, but that process has a limit. once you absorb all those wavelengths completely, no matter how much more CO2 you add to the atmosphere, you can't absorb any more than 100%. this function is logarithmic, and we're already near the peak. it becomes very difficult to claim increased CO2 will continue to cause warming when it is already near its full impact anyway. w.r.t. ozone, nobody has ever claimed man cannot impact the environment. however, equating one influence with equal relevance to another, unrelated influence is disingenuous (i'm not saying SteveThaiBinh did, just in general). such discoveries are often hailed as "see, man can influence the environment therefore XXX must also be true!" such is not always (or ever) the case. taks

no kidding #2. we're debating about our agreement now. someone should link to something about silliness. taks

no, not really. the confluence of factors that led to this situation are not possible here in spite of crazed environmentalist ranting. well, maybe when the sun starts expanding in a few billion years, right before it engulfs the earth... taks

no kidding... i did call it a nit, right? sheesh. taks

which is nothing more than a combination of the so-called "seattle-sound" (grunge) and traditional metal. i think the evolution was required as grunge all but eliminated the big-hair "metal" of the 80s which in turn impacted serious metal bands of the time. i quoted metal because i never considered bands like poison or ratt to be really metal. metal to me was motorhead, early metallica, early megadeath, slayer, king diamond, black flag (big in st. louis on KWK, more punk, however), mercyful fate, venom (not a fan), et. al. too many to list. some would say that metallica (and even megadeath) sold out, but in the end, people are still listening so maybe that's what's required. i mean, don't evolve and then fade away without a whimper, or evolve to changing times and keep selling records. either way, fans of the original don't get anything they want in the long run (though slayer is still around, they don't garner as much attention now as then). taks

i'm not sure i would necessarily put korn and disturbed into the numetal category. certainly their style is not the same genre as, for example, slayer, but it seems to be more of a progression not unlike that from led zeppelin/black sabbath to slayer. i.e. more of an evolution not a revolution. system of a down and drowning pool, however, and even slipknot, did take another step, IMO (i haven't heard much shadows fall and i'm not really a mudvayne fan). anyway, i like most of it. disturbed in particular. you could probably even lump tool in there, btw, but they have been around a while so they may not count. i'm hoping to go see disturbed in july in denver (off-fest break from the ozz-fest). i'll be out of place, however, as probably the oldest head-banger there (i'm an original, suffering neck problems now as a result of music from the early 80s). taks

yes, they are. but the behavior of clouds in the atmoshpere dictates that at some point they will rain out. it is cyclical. just a nit, but definitely bad science. taks

i wasn't a fan of the 2nd, either. the 3rd was better than that one. of course, they scorch the sky in the matrix, too. exactly how does one do irreparable damage to "the sky" and yet clouds remain? taks

what alanschu said. lots of things can differentiate people from the average. high IQ, high education, extreme distrust of any institution (not just government) or just plain innate curiosity resulting in research into a subject (though the latter is often related to one or any of the first three). realistically, however, the "average joe" is simply the standard run-of-the-mill guy that doesn't care about the details. he hears the news, assumes somebody must've done the research and then takes it for granted that it must be right. that we're even in here posting on the subject likely differentiates us from the "average joe" anyway. taks

i've always felt this way. the problem is that is very easy to use our little influence to scare people into certain behaviors. the average joe does not understand what we can (or cannot) actually do to the planet, and that is prime fodder for behavior control through fear. taks

the US has a very large rainforest in the northwest, btw. i wasn't referring to landscaping trees. they do replant to create new crops as alanschu pointed out. also, he is right that the US has more tree cover than in the past. i don't know the answers to these questions. from what i understand, the O2 content in the atmosphere has been relatively constant. CO2 varies wildly (historically) and currently makes up less than 0.035% anyway and at current rates, probably will double by the time we run out of fossil fuels. i'm not sure it matters for quite a long time if replacement compensates, and by then, human CO2 production will have leveled off and eventually, be due only to respiration. taks