ann:

At the same time, I don't feel we have to give up our current North American lifestyle because wind and solar energy sources can provide all the electrical power needed to continue using transportation and recreation at the current rate and the future rate as well.  The sun and wind are limitless sources of electical power.   Think of the money waiting to be made in producing the new technology at mass volumes which will bring down the purchase cost for consumers (us).  It's phenomenal.

Maybe if people understood that they don't have to give up their lifestyles they would embrace the new technology (really not all that new) and make the switch.

Hey Ann... I agree with the sun and the wind being able to power us.  I'm just going to address my excess and waste remark:  I see tons of really cheap stuff in stores, and 99% of it comes from China.  How many t-shirts/skirts/dresses/coats/pants/shoes do people really need?  And then when they get tired of it, it all goes to landfill.  That's the North American lifestyle.  Let's cut down on our consumer excess, it will benefit the planet.  Less stuff in landfills, and less carbon emissions spent in transporting it over from far away.

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The tragedy of life doesn't lie in not reaching your goal. The tragedy lies in having no goal to reach.

I see your point yet the move to solar and wind power and public support of these methods of power production will not be sold by telling people to be happy with less. These really are separate issues so I think it is important for people to know that they can continue to live the way that they do, drive in their current patterns and still not produce the tons of carbon dioxide emissions that are putting a chokehold on the climate and thereby, the planet.

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"Over straight and crooked miles
Falling out of favour or embraced
Wondering where was love...
It hadn't happened yet"
~Ron Sexsmith~

Nearest to all things
Patiently waiting
So let the angels sing
Silently weeping

Dizzy:

The graph shows a number averages.  The 8.7 average you quote is from a 115 year period from 1886 - 2000.  The 11.0 is from 1991-2000.  But, if you look at 1951 - 2000, the average was 10.  So, from 1951, we are averaging 1 more storm a year.  That to me, that is insignificant.  Again, whether is bizarre.  That's why we had none in 2006.  I'm having a hard time finding the number of hurricanes in each year since 2000.  But if you look at last year - 2005, there were 15.  In 2006 there were zero.  So that average for 2 years is 7.5  It could indeed be that the average is going down.

Last year - all the global warming "experts" and scientists predicted a horrible hurricane season for this year.  They said global warming and its effects were going make for a terrible year - possible worse than 2005.  They were wrong!  Weather is not, never has been and never will be predictable.

2005 apparently had a lot to do with solar forcing. Unfortunately, though I am a global warming skeptic, I predict 2008 will be a bad hurricane summer, owing to the same La Nina that has graced the Northeast/Southeast Canada with August in October. Essentially, El Nino, its opposite, generates a fierce subtropical jet stream that killed most hurricanes this and last summer. La Nina, its opposite, suppresses the subtropical jet, leaving us open for a miserable summer. This will follow a mild winter, getting the "sky is falling" crew excited.

ann:

I caught a neat quote from the opening page of the noaa.gov homepage though.  Here it is: "The global average temperature was the warmest on record for the December-February period."  Funny yet relevent...or not funny and relevent..

Dizzy:

Absolutely no arguement there.  As I said, global warming is occurring and it is a big problem.  It is effecting our lives and it needs to be fixed. 

I'm a diver.  I see under water the effects that the global warming of our oceans is causing.  I have seen it first hand, and it's not good.  Corals are slowly dieing, and if it continues, and we wreck the oceans, oh man, are we ever in big trouble.

Cycles. See below.

Dizzy:

Therese, you're last post was what I refer to as "preaching to the choir".  I agree with your sentiments 100%.

The only point I was trying to make is that the movie An Inconvienient Truth is a biased approach and it convieniently leaves some scientific evidence out (like historical data on Hurricane intensity) out and trys to quickly misguide people to conclusions.  There are numerous other examples of "misleading" the audience.Perhaps the most pathetic of those was the picture of the young girl crying, at the beginning of the movie, at an ice cream cone melting in the heat. From time immemorial the Northeast US and Southeast Canada have been subject to temperatures over 32 degrees Celsius, roughly "ice cream cone melt" weather (or what in less politically correct pre-True-dopian days were called 90 degree days). Tieing Katrina to global warming was also horribly misleading. Was the Great Unnamed Hurricane of 1938 which devastated Long Island the result of anthropogenic global warming? I highly doubt it.

Nowhere did the movie discuss ENSO cycles (El Nino-La Nina), the Pacific Decadal Oscillation, sunspots, NAO blocking or any other cycle that effects weather. What about the Greenland and Iceland Vikings? More to the point, why does Gore duck debate on these topics?

 

Dizzy:

I also think there are many other things that need fixing in the world just as much, if not more.  Unfortunately, since global warming is the issue of the day, I have to listen to all the arm chair scientists say "global warming" every time a freaking thunderstorm rolls thru. 

All I said was take the movie with a grain of salt. 

The movie was frankly a Grade A Fraud.

PL, I feel that you are entitled to an opinion just like anyone on the board while at the same time,  I have to say that I'm firmly behind the science that propelled Al Gore to a Nobel Peace Prize.  Science predicts a model and we languish in the actualities of what Mother Nature dispenses.  I'd love it if all the scientists were wrong however; I believe that they largely have it right and that it's time to make the switch to non-polluting methods of power generation.  It's entirely doable.  Environmental concerns aside (and they are huge), I can think of many reasons to initiate the switch to clean electricity.

---

"Over straight and crooked miles
Falling out of favour or embraced
Wondering where was love...
It hadn't happened yet"
~Ron Sexsmith~

Nearest to all things
Patiently waiting
So let the angels sing
Silently weeping

I rarely weight in on this topic, but I have a couple of points to make.

1) It is disheartening to me to think that after centuries of forward progress through ingenuity and invention, that we as a society have lapsed into a coma on developing uses for alternative energy. Not entirely, but to a large degree.

2)On Global Warming - some believe, some don't. OK well who is going to step up and do a study on the affect of daily temperature changes on our planet and infrastructure. I don't mean daily temp averages but the range of temp in a day. Point in case, just a few weeks ago I woke up and it was 50 degrees. Three hours later it was close to 90. What impact does that have (and I am not an engineer) on everything from buildings/bridges to growing crops for food?

Discuss.

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Where my designer B*tches at?

MAGNETS....COWS....HERD....it all makes sense now?

There's nothing worse than driving in a snowstorm with a GPS that's on the rag

Do you take PAYPAL?

Gee whiz, PyramidLake, all that space just to say the movie was a "Grade A fraud".

So why did Al Gore win the Nobel Peace Prize?  No mean feat, I might add.  Here's what the Nobel Prize Committee press release had to say:  "Indications of changes in the earth's future climate must be treated with the utmost seriousness, and with the precautionary principle uppermost in our minds. Extensive climate changes may alter and threaten the living conditions of much of mankind. They may induce large-scale migration and lead to greater competition for the earth's resources. Such changes will place particularly heavy burdens on the world's most vulnerable countries. There may be increased danger of violent conflicts and wars, within and between states."  To see the complete press release, click here:  http://nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/peace/laureates/2007/press.html

On Tuesday Oct. 22, another press release was issued, this time from the German-based Energy Watch Group http://www.energywatchgroup.org/fileadmin/global/pdf/EWG_Press_Oilreport_22-10-2007.pdf, which read, in part:  "Anticipated supply shortages (... of fossil fuels...) could easily lead to disturbing scenes of mass unrest as witnessed in Burma this month. For government, industry and the wider public just muddling through is not an option anymore as this situation could spin out of control and turn into a meltdown of society."

(I bolded the words for emphasis on the point I'm about to make.)

So Al Gore won a Nobel Peace Prize for warning the planet's inhabitants that our current actions could place all of us in great danger, and that for the love of humankind and our planet, could we please take a moment and think about what we collectively could do to preserve the only home we've ever known.

He's definitely a fraudster.  PyramidLake, you're a lawyer... prosecute that con man! 

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The tragedy of life doesn't lie in not reaching your goal. The tragedy lies in having no goal to reach.

Heheheheh GG....

Here's a pertinent link to info on hybrids:

http://news.en.autos.sympatico.msn.ca/td/article.aspx?cp-documentid=917654

 

---

"Over straight and crooked miles
Falling out of favour or embraced
Wondering where was love...
It hadn't happened yet"
~Ron Sexsmith~

Nearest to all things
Patiently waiting
So let the angels sing
Silently weeping

Hey Ann... thanks for posting the link to that very informative article.

And now something that me me say "WTF?  Should I really believe this?"  I'll let you all decide, but first I'd like to say, you don't need a big vehicle, hybrid or otherwise, to prove your self-worth to the world.  Honestly folks, what's with the love affair with massive vehicles?  Here is the link, it's about an eight-passenger GM SUV hybrid that won  the "Green Car of the Year" award at the Los Angeles Auto Show yesterday:  http://www.thestar.com/Business/article/277102

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The tragedy of life doesn't lie in not reaching your goal. The tragedy lies in having no goal to reach.

Great article GG, it is encouraging to see new and increased numbers of hybrids coming out.  I think they should also include a 'plug-in' option for people who want to charge the vehicle overnite and thereby give even more opportunity to reduce fuel use than they currently do.

---

"Over straight and crooked miles
Falling out of favour or embraced
Wondering where was love...
It hadn't happened yet"
~Ron Sexsmith~

Nearest to all things
Patiently waiting
So let the angels sing
Silently weeping

For just a short while today, I attended the Global Day of Action Against Climate Change.  There is still time to participate, check out http://www.actfortheearth.org/climatechaos/.

I signed a petition, chanted some chants, cheered the newly-elected gov't of Australia and was saddened by our federal govt's (in)actions.  What do I want for Christmas?  I'll give you three guesses...  BTW, is running out for us to solve this problem.  "What did you do during the climate crisis, grandma/grandpa?"

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The tragedy of life doesn't lie in not reaching your goal. The tragedy lies in having no goal to reach.

Al Gore's speech in Bali

For all of you Dubya supporters out there - including Stephen Harper (aka Canada's climate criminal) - sad news for you today.  Al Gore started the countdown in Bali.  In his speech, he noted that Bush will be out of office in precisely one year and 40 days.  For the rest of us, happy days are almost here again.

For the article in today's Toronto Star, click here:  http://www.thestar.com/News/World/article/285267

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The tragedy of life doesn't lie in not reaching your goal. The tragedy lies in having no goal to reach.

Although I really admire Al Gore for all the conscious raising he has done about the most immediate threat to our survival, namely global warming, I am not so naive as to think that the future occupant (either he or she) of the White House will take any serious steps to turn the United States around by reducing our greenhouse gas emissions. I have no faith in any politician presently running for President as they are all out for themselves to get a piece of power. "Propaganda all is phony" as Bob Dylan sang. They all talk a good talk...promises, promises, blah, blah, blah, but they will have to compromise ultimately mostly sooner rather than later. The War in Iraq will continue and we will continue to belch poison into the air past January 20, 2009, so don't mark that date on your calendar as anything special. Military industrial establishment rules this land, so get with that program...all the politicians know who is really calling the shots down here.

The best that we can do is take our own steps in chosing how we live our own lives to make any ecological difference. I sure as heck wouldn't hold my breath waiting for any of the clowns running now to "change the world", and if Al Gore believes that it will come to pass when Bush leaves office, then Al is just being overly optimistic. The problem is far too complex to try to fix even if everybody dedicated themselves to fixing it today.

Sorry to sound so pessimistic, but the reality check is that we're not going to change our wasteful polluting ways until it becomes economically profitable to do so. Up to this point it is not. Going green is not profitable presently. I also tire of folks thinking that things are going to improve just because some goof ball leaves the White House in a year or so. Sure Bush is a complete loser and I used to think that anyone would be an improvement, but things are too far gone for any one man, woman, or administration to make any difference at this point.

So that's my rant, feel free to tear it apart or to convince me otherwise...PLEASE!! Honestly, I'd like to believe that a new day is gonna come, but I just can't see it...especially from any politicians. To sum it up in a few immortal words, "Don't follow leaders, watch the parkin' meters".

We all have our pessimistic days.  On the other hand, when the new prime minister of Australia took power a couple of weeks ago, he reinstated Kyoto right away (I'm so glad John Howard got the boot).  That cheered me right up!

If anyone out there is in the mood to send a message, March 29 2008, 8 P.M. to 9 P.M. is Earth Hour.  Toronto is participating, as are other cities around the world.  On that day, for that hour, please turn off your lights and other appliances to symbolize your commitment to tackling global warming.  Here in Toronto, the mayor has commited to have the lights turned off on Yonge St, the CN tower, and Rogers Centre, among others.  Sounds like a great night to go out and look at the stars.

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The tragedy of life doesn't lie in not reaching your goal. The tragedy lies in having no goal to reach.

A glimmer of light (and hope) from the new leadership in Australia. Thanks for posting that granolaGirl. That shows that positive steps can be taken if political leaders have the will to do it.

And thanks for posting about Earth Hour. Even though it is symbolic, it symbolizes what we as individuals and perhaps as governments starting at the municipal level can do to reduce global warming. I will definitely mark that date on my calendar!

 

granolaGirl:

If anyone out there is in the mood to send a message, March 29 2008, 8 P.M. to 9 P.M. is Earth Hour.  Toronto is participating, as are other cities around the world.  On that day, for that hour, please turn off your lights and other appliances to symbolize your commitment to tackling global warming. 

And don't forget all your vampires. Those are all the electronics you have the even if they are "off" still absorb power. By this I mean alarm clocks, PCs that are powered down but the surge protector is still on, clocks on stoves and microwaves, DVDs, Stereos, VCRs....cell phone chargers....you get the gist. I forgive anyone who doesn't unplug their refridgerator though. I have to draw the line there.

So take out your candles, acoustic instruments, books, hobbies etc...write a snail mail letter to a friend....start a journal....have a conversation with someone face to face....go out and listen to the night and escape from the technoligical age for an hour or so.

---

Where my designer B*tches at?

MAGNETS....COWS....HERD....it all makes sense now?

There's nothing worse than driving in a snowstorm with a GPS that's on the rag

Do you take PAYPAL?