Comments on: Don’t Argue with a Fool, Unless you Need Practice

By: Ralf Goergens

Ralf Goergens — Sun, 04 Sep 2005 12:10:17 +0000

Hey Ralf, are you German, and if so, does anyone actually take this very strange and unoriginal type of tirade seriously? Is there an anti-vaigra pill that Stasi slips German Politicos to turn them flacid and light? Because the former Green leader (Fischer?) at least knew about clubbing authority, so to speak (heh), even when objecting to bilateral nuclear reductions.

Few people take this seriously. He’s trying to mobilize the environmental base for the elections.

By: Robert Schwartz

Robert Schwartz — Sun, 04 Sep 2005 04:56:51 +0000

One thing that all these pundits fail to understand is basic physics. Storms are powered not just by the air temperature or the water temperature, but by the difference between temperatures in various places. Warming will not necessarily produce increased temperature differences and might even reduce the fundamental difference between the arctic and the tropics.

By: A Scott Crawford

A Scott Crawford — Sun, 04 Sep 2005 01:24:25 +0000

“First, natural catastrophes are drastically increasing in frequency and magnitude.”

Hey Ralf, are you German, and if so, does anyone actually take this very strange and unoriginal type of tirade seriously? Is there an anti-vaigra pill that Stasi slips German Politicos to turn them flacid and light? Because the former Green leader (Fischer?) at least knew about clubbing authority, so to speak (heh), even when objecting to bilateral nuclear reductions.

Ginny: Here’s the link to the LoC linkfarm on weather and climate data (since when does anyone trust weathermen???)

http://www.loc.gov/rr/scitech/SciRefGuides/weather.html

By: Ginny

Ginny — Sat, 03 Sep 2005 17:07:31 +0000

Actually, the problems with collection are likely to point to more unlogged in the past and fewer in the present – which would support your argument. (Exactly how good were records on hurricanes in North America four or five hundred years ago?)

As someone illiterate about science, I’m always impressed by modern precision. And wondered how this precision affects our thinking? If we awoke to conscious life suddenly this morning, we’d be likely to think the sky was falling at sunset. If we can now take temperatures via satellite, what long-range perspective do we have on them?

By: Mitch

Mitch — Sat, 03 Sep 2005 16:20:16 +0000

I would have liked to present the data as a graph by individual year, since decades are rather an arbitrary way of grouping them. There could well be cyclical patterns recurring at some interval other than 10 years which this table would obscure. However, I only intended to show that Tritten’s assertion of a linear increase is not supported by the data, and that the measure of greenhouse gasses per capita is not very meaningful. My underlying point is that we are doing something with these emissions other than suffering a case of national flatulence brought on by over-indulgence, or driving our SUVs through the pristine woodlands in pursuit of Bambi’s mother.

Regarding the defects in data collection, we are all in the same boat. Their sources are no better than mine, and if they want to use them as proof, I can use them as rebuttal.

By: Ginny

Ginny — Sat, 03 Sep 2005 15:58:22 +0000

Naive questions:
Surely other factors make information partial? Wouldn’t hurricanes that didn’t hit land be as important as those that do? (Not to us, of course, but to weather trends.)
How long and how accurately have these been tracked? Communications even a hundred years ago were not what they are and how long have we been able to “see” movements come and go? (Surely planes and then satellite pictures have made a large difference in what we know at any modern point in time, but do they give us much sense of perspective over time?)

By: Ralf Goergens

Ralf Goergens — Sat, 03 Sep 2005 15:56:49 +0000

Trittin actually only speaks for his party, but because the Social Democrats need the Greens, ypou won’t see the Chancellor calling Trittin on the carpet.

By: Neil Katin

Neil Katin — Sat, 03 Sep 2005 15:38:36 +0000

I agree there isn’t a clear trend, but it is clear that 2001-2004 is a much worse than normal period.

The chart is misleading because the last line is a partial period; if you scale it up by 3.3 then the data stands out more.