VANCOUVER ISLAND WINDTALK

lol....Well that will teach me!!!!!!!!

Scientific debate is useful, but all the quarrelling in the media seems just to promote either unnecessary confusion, dangerous inaction or ridiculous hysteria.

The basic principle that all environmental arguments seem to distill down to is extremely simple:

*living lightly upon the Earth is good;
*waste and inefficiency are bad

Not confusing, and really difficult to debate.

But it wasn't 5 to 10 years ...lol

Media hysteria and over-reaction? Check out this creepy video about Global Warming!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BY7875_rv1s

Hey Nosey, were you referring to the quantum physics described in that brilliant *documentary* "What the Bleep: Down the Rabbit Hole"?

yes, very good movies, if you like that kind of thing

I can't believe I sat through that Bleepin' movie. One of the worst films I've ever seen. But we digress...

To get us back on topic how about we ponder adapting this technology to windsurf boards:

Linen biodegradable kayak:
http://www.exn.ca/news/video/exn2006/03 ... -kayak.asx

Clark Foam replacement
http://www.exn.ca/news/video/exn2006/03 ... fboard.asx

lol....ya i liked " what the bleep do we know"....it makes you think!

What the Bleep is Quantum Flapdoodle!

http://skeptico.blogs.com/skeptico/2005 ... leep_.html

lol

It's just like CNN, but still good to watch if you ask me

I recall debating the implications of global warming with professional foresters 20 years ago. One guy was asking WTF use was it for "us" to study pollen cores? I replied that if global warming was indeed happening (and there was a whole lot less evidence for it back then), then it would be directly useful for foresters to know what trees grew well during the hypsithermal 7,000 years ago in each part of the province to help know what to replant with if it got even warmer than that natural fluctation. He was incredulous, and hadn't heard of global warming till that point, and completely dismissed the idea. Now, of course, foresters are starting to take warming into account in silvicultural prescriptions, and the mountain pine beetle has already shown the huge effects global warming is likely to have even in our lifetime. (Supression of fires being the other big cause; something else we argued about - prior to industrial people arriving, most of the province had active management of vegetation by controlled burning by aboriginal people; but thats another topic).

Unfortunately we need Al Gores to bring this type of problem into general conciousness. I understand that the big scientific report issued a month or so back put to rest any serious scientific question about whether global warming and its human cause was a fact. You can still find scientists who dispute whether smoking cigarets causes increased rates of lung cancer too.

The full IPCC report is not yet out. You can download the "Summary for Policymakers" at http://www.ipcc.ch/ .

Carbon dioxide has certainly increased in the atmosphere over the past 100 years. To maintain a perspective on this though have a look at the variation of CO2 and T over geologic time at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Milankovitch_cycles , in particular the plot labeled "420,000 years of ice core data from Vostok, Antarctica research station." As a result of the solubility pump, ultimately, most of the CO2 emitted by human activities will dissolve in the ocean.

There is a great paper on global cycles and the planets climate history:
"Trends, Rhythms, and Aberrations in Global Climate 65 Ma to Present
686 27 APRIL 2001 VOL 292 SCIENCE". If anyone would like a copy I can email it to you.

Having said all this I am a strong proponent of fuel efficiency and reducing our waste footprint.

There is a new company in the states, that measures your carbon foot print, then assigns it a dollar amount. If you feel guilty about what your doing to the environment, you can pay this company your assigned amount, and they will put it to a series of green companies for further development. Im sure there is a good portion of the money that goes into there back pocket, but it sounds good if your loaded.

MTM, whats your background? You sound like you are very current with the literature.

My understanding is that the CO2 and the temp are doing things unanticipated compared to the red and blue lines on the Vostok graphs. Already the last 10,000 years is really different when you look at the temp graph (which is why we are in the Holocene and not the Pleistocene). But looking at that one graph, over the last half million years, the warm spells were only 2 degrees above 'present' and I understand that the trend for the last couple of decades is already above that, and headed for off the scale.

The airline kiter guy (whats his name, at Squamish last year) has airline tickets that are carbon neutral. The extra you spend on the ticket goes to plant trees. This seems pretty hypocritical. If we are really serious about lowering our footprint, airline travel should be thought of as a sin (like the Archbishop of Canterbury recently decreed I believe). Sometimes it will be necessary, and sometimes you just want to slum (e.g., to have a warm-water windsurfing vacation) but we have to reduce how often we do it and consider the long-term consequences. Some frequent flyers are on planes every couple of days going enormous distances. THey should check out videoconferencing etc. instead, and drastically cut their flying.