Global warming is a result of the greenhouse effect, that is why is use it in my overly sarcastic remarks. You are simply too ignorant to see through your own ignorance on the science of global warming/climate change and what oil consumption has to do with it.

We do in fact still have enough capacity to refine our own DOMESTIC oil production. If we are not opening more wells faster then we are depleting old wells (which is the situation) common sense says that is true. I'm talking about DOMESTIC production and not products refined from foreign crude oil. I believe we currently get the vast majority of our imported oil from Canada right now which comes from their shale sands, is refined in Canada and is imported under NAFTA treaty regulations. I have been to many of the US owned oil refineries around the world


There is nothing holding back solar power generation. The technology certainly gets better as time passes and its efficiency has certainly gotten better since i got my first panels but it is like most other technologies...it gets better as time passes by.

My argument about Iraq is not weak and if you knew anything about US National Security/Middle East Foreign Policy you would realize that my argument about Iraq is not my argument. It is what the current war in Iraq is all about. There may only be a few wells there but it not about the number of wells. It is about the fact the the 2nd largest quantity of oil reserves in the world lies within the borders of Iraq. We have the UN signatory countries and international law keeping us from making Iraq a US territory however the plan is to get the newly formed government to sign away their oil leases to US and British Oil companies.

As to Saudi Arabia there once was a company called Aramco. I let you do the research on that one.

Might as well mention Iran...That company was called AOIC...once again google is your friend.

No, you are dead wrong. There is a hypothesis on the table of climatologists that makes this claim. But the data is nto supporting the hypothesis. You just made a statement of fact. It is not. And therein lies the problem. Those who cannot see beyond the creed of the new religion state it as fact. Yet it is apparent from the data, and from the dissenting scientific views, that the hypothesis is not even a theory or close to it.

The data when looked at objectively, does not show a causality between greenhouse and global warming. It only shows a fluctuation (note not even trend at this point since it has been almost completely reversed with revision of the data since the hypothesis was first proposed) of the temperatures that they cannot explain and they then hypothesized that it was man made. But the correlation is not there.

There is a strong correlation between the suns activities and global warming, but a very weak one between man's actions and global warming. And in the end, the efforts to stiffle the dissent on the issue only serves to reinforce the appearance that it is not science at all, but a new religion.

You are totally incorrect. All one has to do is look at a few graphs and see how drastically the rate of change of global warming has accelerated. The point at which the rate starts to change drastically corresponds with the beginning of the industrial age, and even more so corresponds with the rate of increase that fossil fuels have been use to drive industrialization. The rate of change in the suns activity is extremely slow othere than the sunspot cycle, however the sunspot cycle is an 11 year cycle which mostly effects electromagnetic fields.

In any case even if you take the global warming issue out of the discussion you have to look some of the many other issues involved with increased fossil fuel use. Leukemia, cancer, athsma, contamination of ground water and drinking water sources, air pollution, etc.


This list goes on and on but if you don't look at both sides of the argument you are essential blind in the overall issue. If you look at the politics of it all you will see that the vast majority of politicians that still deny the global warming/climate change side of the issue are ones that are from coal/oil producing states and are doing so to protect those industries and their seats in congress. They really don't care about you. or the future. They care about supporting the industries that are paying for their campaigns so that they can live like kings alongside the robber barons.

See? That is where we can debate. Because I have looked at the graphs (you can search JU and find them and links to the articles). The graphs show no such thing. They show a trend, since reversed in the last 10 years, of a minor increase in global temperature. No one can say if it has accellerated because accurate temperature readings have only been available for the past 100+ years. And trying to establish a trend when you can only look at data from that represents basically less than .0000001% of the whole data is idiocy as any statistician will tell you.

All that we know - all that any scientist or layman - is that the earth warmed from the mid 70s to the late 90s. A nice 20 year run up. It cooled from the mid 40s to the mid 70s, and has cooled (insignificantly) since the late 90s. That is what it is all about. Now why did it do it? The answer is simplicity itself. NO ONE KNOWS. Lots of hypotheses and conjecture, but as yet no observable cause and effect has been established, and therefore no theory has even been put forth (scientists may be prima donnas but they are not stupid - scratch that - most are not).

Now, using those exact same graphs, explain how the world temperature dropped in the 40s, during the greatest man made holocaust of all time! When the level of CO2 put out by man dwarfs that even of today! (Burning buildings provide a lot of heat - and polution, etc.) The facts do not fit the prevailing hypotheses. It may be they need to gather more data. It may be that they are false. We can and should debate it. We should never accept it as fact based upon what amounts to faith.



YES! I am with you all the way here! Clean up the damn planet! Yes, reduce polution! But lets do so for the right reason, and in a sane and rational way. Lets do it because of the reasons you list above (although again you omit the biggest factor leading to the increase in these diseases - improved medicine). But lets not harken back to the days of fearing the coming of winter and that we have displeased the sun god and that is why he is going away! For that is what I hear from the true faithful of GW. not reasoned debate, but superstitious hysteria.

You must be looking at graphs that are published by partisan political zealots. Are not 90% of the earths glaciers melting and melting at an increasing rate? Go find a non partisan graph please. Ive seen the glaciers in Alaska every year for the past 20 years.

Its extremely ironic that my entire career has revolved around the petrochemical industry. I've worked on tankers and in the office of their companies shipping crude, gas and chemicals. I know not only what i have researched personally but also what ive seen on my trips to places like Valdez. Watching friends i shipped with die of Leukemia. And listening to what the experts who work for the petrochemical industry say behind closed doors about global warming. It is not the same thing as what the politicians they have successfully lobbied say.


End of conversation. Go ahead and don't figure it out for yourself. The only thing that it not certain is the extent of the changes that are attributable to the burning of fossil fuels so we can wait for a few more decades then realize we passed the point of no return or start now and maybe still have a enough oil and coal left, and enough leeway to carbon emissions so that we can power the things that are more difficult to power with alternative solutions. Maybe its too late now or maybe some currently unknown will reverse the trend in the future, but twiddling ones thumbs while the robber barons protect their industries is not a good alternative.

You need to go to my articles on global warming, because you have swallowed the party line hook line, sinker the boat and half the water the boat displaced. I have been studying the topic of global climate change since it was the coming ice age in the 1960's. First, the term “fossil fuels” are a misnomer, petroleum products are produced by the excretion of microscopic organisms. Just like our atmosphere has such a high oxygen content because of microscopic organisms that filtered the air using the sulfur and carbon as building blocks for their homes also known as coral. There is less coral today because there is less carbon dioxide being filtered into the oceans and used by those creatures. Unlike the environmentalists claim that the warm oceans are killing the coral, the low amounts of carbon dioxide and sulfur dioxide absorbed by the oceans reduced their food, and tools. That is two things you got wrong that are basic science. You did go to school and graduate right? The organisms that produce crude oil, discovered in the 1970’s, are still producing oil. They have found petroleum products on a moon going around the planet Jupiter. It rains methane there, if they can find the organism there then they will have proof of life outside our little world. You said you watch the science channel right? I have as well, did you miss that show?

Fossil fuels is not a misnomer.

Education....sure you want to know?

BS Marine Transportation-U.S.C.G. Licensed Master-Unlimited Tonnage
BS Marine Engineering-U.S.C.G Licensed 3rd Assistant Engineer Steam/Motor Unlimited HP
BS Petroleum Engineering
Certified Professional Engineer

I could list a whole lot more certifications that I have received over the years but i think you may now understand that I am in fact well educated.

Yes, the refineries were owned by US companies and most are still owned by them but they only charge to refine the oil, they don’t get the oil for free nor do they get it into the US without taxes and tariffs. What I am trying to tell you is your information is out of date.



Sorry but as a former member of the Defense Intelligences Agency I bet to differ. No, I was not a spy. I do not subscribe to your conspiracy theories. As intriguing as they may sound they don’t hold water based on what is out in the public to see.



Closer to the third or fourth behind the Russia, and the United States.



What about them? This is your fantasy lead the way.



What graphs are you talking about? Have you every studied the Sahara valley? The green meadows and pastures there, or the deep lakes, rivers streams, and tributaries? No? When the Earth was covered in ice it was the entire planet. Over the years after the ice melted there were all the things I mentioned and as the sun continued to beat down on the planet it dried up into what we call now the Sahara Desert. Read the bible? Moses walked across it in a little more than a week, bet you can’t do that now. Global warming! It has been happening for the past few million years. Man did not become the dominant species on this planet until seven to ten thousand years ago. The Earth has been getting warmer and warmer with brief periods of deep cold, called mini ice ages. Every time the carbon dioxide level goes up we have another mini ice age. The last one was in the 1800’s, Google “the year without summer”. Or watch something about it the next time the show is on the Discovery channel. They show it about twice a year for the past five years. The professor in Geology Pampling, I believe his name is, not sure of the spelling, is one of my favorites mostly because I got to pick his brain some years back before he became a TV star. Anyway, the stuff you have been led to believe is propaganda, media hype, and some are just plain lies. Carbon dioxide is a lagging indicator of global cooling.



Did you miss this year? The reports in the news as well as the UN and environmental groups that have not been corrupted all agree that:
1. The earth has been in a cooling trend for the past ten years.
2. That the glaciers you say have melted due to global warming have been brought back to where they were a few years ago and that they are thickening as of this past winter.
3. That sunspot activity has slowed and the last time that happened we had a mini ice age. But not to worry we need about 40 to 50 years of very low or no sunspot activity and this is only the second year though solar climatologist are concerned and some are worried but not that many yet.
4. The data you have been using is more than ten years old which was at the end of the last warming cycle.
5. Meteorologists will tell you that this is part of the normal cycle of the earth. It has happened before and will happen again. And before you cry that it never happened so fast before in our history may I point out that year without summer, as well as the mini ice age that came in one year. The winter came and did not leave for 50 years then we started warming up again and within two years everything was back to normal. That was 1500 years ago and there are records for it. There are records of heating and cooling that go back thousands of years and fossil records that date back even further.
The person that discovered the Atlantic conveyer that explained the mini ice ages was laughed at for 10 years because his field of study was paleoentomology rather than climatology or even paleoclimatology which would have given him a chance at being listened to. Now his findings are taken as fact and the movie “the day after tomorrow” was based on his work. All other theories have fallen by the wayside because of his work. There was a documentary of him on the science channel maybe you missed it. Not to worry they show it twice a year for the past 7 years no doubt they will show it again. All of his published works contradict the theory of man made global warming and since they were written before there was a global warming movement it is hard to say that he was paid but the evil oil companies or any of the anti-global warming people to produce this work of science rather that the myth or religion of global climate change.

Doc, even when you agree with him he still wants to dispute you. he is a religious zealot rather than a rational person looking for the truth.

It is not your level of your education I question, it is the prevalence of your education. Have you taken any refresher courses since your BS? With your BS Petroleum Engineering degree then you know of the microorganisms that feed on petroleum in the open sea. You should also know that millions of gallons of crude is naturally released into the oceans yearly and those organisms feed on that crude, that and the natural wave action dissipate the oil long before it reaches our shores in most cases. Since we swim in the ocean would that not be dangerous? According to you petro chemicals are extremely hazardous. I don’t disagree with you here but you don’t seem to take into consideration the fact that we have put plutonium in our atmosphere for three decades to the point that every man woman and child on this planet is carrying with them a particle of this plutonium. Is not this element a carcinogen? Would than not help account for the ailments you mentioned, no not all but plutonium will kill you a lot faster than gasoline. Or is there something I missed in school?

If what you say is true then please explain the findings of the Huygens probe. This is from the ESA
13 February 2008
Saturn’s orange moon Titan has hundreds of times more liquid hydrocarbons than all the known oil and natural gas reserves on Earth, according to new Cassini data. The hydrocarbons rain from the sky, collecting in vast deposits that form lakes and dunes.
Where are the fossils that created this vast amount of hydrocarbons? And if fossils did not create the methane there maybe just maybe it is not really fossil fuels.

I was looking at your graphs, and no on the glaciers (unless you count the normal life of glaciers).

You obviously were not looking at my graphs, Since i never created nor used graphs to investigate the statistics involved with glacial melting.

Normal life of glaciers? What is normal and what isn't. There is no normalized life of glaciers. Glaciers have come and gone over millions or billions or maybe gazillions of years for various reasons.

Then how can anyone say that anything is causing them anything? Man was not around millions and billions of years ago.

And the "your graphs" was the ones you linked to. Should I link to the NOAA ones for you?

Because the melting point of water is 32 degrees farenheit(give or take depending on salinity). As far as what caused specific cycles. Extensive volcanic action is theoried to have been of significance in the past, however we are talking about the current cycle.



"My Graphs" refer to global temperature change not the extent of glacial melting. Go ahead and link your information. I'm quite familiar with a lot of NOAA's information. After all i had to get ice reports to safely navigate my ship into places like Valdez for many years.

This is your weak point in your argument. You claim that man is the cause of this happening and here you state that there is not lifespan to the glaciers. If there is no known lifespan to them than how can you say that man is the cause?

I have also noticed you have not rebutted anything I have presented and in stead argued opinion with the good doctor rather than facts. Could it be because that minute you try to dismiss the facts you lose all credibility or because you know I am right and you refuse to admit it? You started out by saying that if you take the politics out of the issue and stick to the facts we will see you are right. You then tried to impress and browbeat us with your degrees and that did not work either. All you have left is your opinion which is not politically neutral but more than leaning to the left. Even the UN commission on climate change disagrees with you and they have been ardent supporters of man made global climate change for a decade and they have had to reverse their opinions due to the facts that have come out. Lies in there own reports have been rebutted by actual scientists to the point where they fear losing all credibility unless they throw out their reports. All that is left are the religious zealots of which you seem to be one. Face the facts, in science that is what we do. The theories abound but the facts prove or disprove the theories. So far the facts point to other than man as the cause of this hoax.

http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/hotpolitics/view/

Watch this show carefully because it shows how both sides have dropped the ball since the 80's. This is not a partisan thing. Im an independant who hates both sides because they are both screwing the public. Your so blinded by partisan politics it isn't even funny. Its rather sad.

I was not referring to the graphs in relation to the glaciers, only the issue of causality with global warming. As far as I know, NOAA is not doing graphs on glaciation. And it is good you use NOAA for navigation from storms and such. But I would be interested to see how floating your boat on the ocean has anything to do with glaciers. Icebergs sure, but then we had those 96 years ago too.

PBS is hardly neutral. They are flaming liberal, which is fine if you are looking for validation of a liberal bent. But hardly worthy of use in a civilized debate (Kind of like using Ken Burns as your sole basis of fact finding on the Civil war).



I would say the same for you. Recognizing your own biases is helpful in framing your arguments of persuasion to sway others to your way of thinking. Denying them makes you more antagonistic to those you are trying to sway, and defeats the purpose.

Unfortunately the program that is linked exposes the dirty dealers on both sides of the aisle. It points out which lobbies are directly connected to both Democrats and Republicans, and which politicians from both sides have been instrumental to stop legislation on the issue. That is hardly partisan. If you actually took the time to watch the show you would know that.

Partisan is usually used in conjunction with politics, but it can just as easily be used with issues. This one you clearly are partisan on, to the point you are bordering on insults to those who do not cleave to your line. And that is not how you debate or discuss issues if you want to win converts or influence people.

That story was entirely about the politics of the issue. It pointed out some of the lobbies involved and which politicians they are associated with. It flat out accuses members of both parties being at fault for stalling the issue. That is why it is not partisan.It shows that the blame can be spread all over both sides of the aisle.

DOH

Okay I watched the report. I was not impressed because it still did not show anything with proof, it had a lot of opinions but no proof. What is proposed is we wreck our economy for the next fifty years create massive unemployment with a maximum benefit of reducing greenhouse gasses by 2% over the next hundred years. That is not a cure, that is not even a Band-Aid on the supposed problem. It is junk science since the data is over ten years old and the new data coming in says the exact opposite is happening. You suggest we all follow the path of destruction and hope you are right in the end. The last time I heard this argument was in the 70’s when we were all told that in 20 years we would have ice three miles thick over New York City and we only had ten years to reverse it or we were all doomed. The best cure for this problem was to spread soot over the arctic ice and with the radiated heat melt the ice caps and warm the planet.

Had we done what was suggested then what state would the world be in now? I don’t care which side is right or wrong I just don’t want the wrong side winning. Now with 30 years of data we have seen that the earth goes through cycles as hypnotized 50 years ago. We have data that says that melting the ice caps would trigger a global ice age. Yes, in 1998 we had one of the hottest summers in recorded history but not the hottest earth in history. That goes back to before man was here. Who is to say that we are not entering this cycle again?

To be honest the solar system takes 250 million years to circle the galaxy, man has only witnessed 10 thousand years for that. How do we know for sure what is normal and what is not? You want to bet the farm on a guess that does not stand up to the test of scientific standards and hope for the best. Why is that? What do you know that we are missing? If you can’t come up with relevant data to support your theories then all you have is faith in those theories and that is classified as a religion. I am open to the facts but have seen none.

It proved that the politicians who are trying to make others disbelieve are lying about it. They are mostly politicians from coal states trying to protect the coal industry. That's politics at its finest. If you search the web you'll find a lot about the so-called scientists that say global warming is a myth....Some of these groups can be traced back to the same people who were doing the smoking isn't bad for you propaganda back in the day. Lying to the public and casting doubt is a huge industry in itself and part of the budgets of a lot of industries. Our business culture is truly nasty. A hell of a lot of greed.

I was not commenting on that story, only on your posts here.

Great! Let them tell their side with their propaganda. And we are supposed to believe the Algore-ites are purity itself? They do the same thing, with a difference. Those "greedy bastards" promoting their solutions (in your example - coal) have their agenda laid bare - jobs and money. Dirty terms for many I know. But where are you going to find the same expose' for Algore and his ilk and their naked goals? Well, there is definitely money (selling indulgences), but where are the jobs?

Nowhere. There are no white knights in this. Just dark and darker knights. And right now, the snake oil is coming from the Global Warming side. Lots of flowery rhetoric and promises, but when you use the old adage - and follow the money - you see that it is just a new version of the Jim Bakker scam played on a larger scale.