"There's money to be made here."

Not if the White House has anything to do with it. It's business as usual over there...lying to the public seems to be quite the norm for them.

"The USA, land of the free.... yeah.... right."
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You said you watched it on CBS' 60 minutes. Do you think that the police were waiting for Jim Hansen outside and that he is now in the slammer? What do you think is going to happen to 60 minutes and Jim Hansen?

"Do you think that the police were waiting for Jim Hansen outside and that he is now in the slammer? What do you think is going to happen to 60 minutes and Jim Hansen?"
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No need for any of that.... they had a White House Official present when the interview took place making sure the "wrong" things were not talked about.... just like China.

And BTW... they made it clear that the White House science staff would "never" be available for comment.

Yeah, right. 60 Minutes as a source of unbiased reporting...

Yes, that happened last May. Funny it didn't draw any media attention until now.

That date coincided with the day Bush at his United States International Development Agenda presented his proposal to reduce greenhouse gases emissions:

In recent years, science has deepened our understanding of climate change and opened new possibilities for confronting it. The United States takes this issue seriously. The new initiative I am outlining today will contribute to the important dialogue that will take place in Germany next week. The United States will work with other nations to establish a new framework on greenhouse gas emissions for when the Kyoto Protocol expires in 2012.

The proposal called for "voluntary international goals to reduce greenhouse gases", not binding commitments. And that troubled climate change experts"

Yet on May 31 ABC's Nightly News with Charles Gibson:

GIBSON: Well, President Bush today addressed the issue of global warming. The president is calling on 15 major nations to set a goal for reducing greenhouse gas emissions.

Gibson neglected to say that Bush's proposal failed to include any targets.

This past October Dr. Julie Gerberding, director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, testified before the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee on the “Human Impacts of Global Warming.” submitting this report.

The report gave few statistics and later CDC officials revealed that the White House heavily edited Gerberding’s testimony, which originally was longer and had more information on health risks. That article was here on Forbes.com when I bookmarked it. It has since been removed from Forbes' website. Quoting from my print copy:

“It was eviscerated,” said a CDC official, familiar with both versions, who spoke on condition of anonymity because of the sensitive nature of the review process..

None of this received any television news media attention.

Democratic senator Barbara Boxer issued a statement at the time stating that, “The Administration should immediately release Dr. Gerberding’s full, uncut statement, because the public has a right to know all the facts about the serious threats posed by global warming.”.

Again no television news media coverage.

Another report censored by the television news media was the report to the Democratically controlled House Oversight and Government Reform Committee by Union of Concerned Scientists and the Government Accountability Project who answered in their survey that 46 percent felt pressure to eliminate the words “climate change,” “global warming” or similar terms from communications about their work.

The scientists also reported 435 instances of political interference in their work over the past five years.

In the results of the survey the findings were:

– 46 percent of government scientists “personally experienced pressure to eliminate the words ‘climate change,’ ‘global warming,’ or other similar terms from a variety of communications.”

– 46 percent “perceived or personally experienced new or unusual administrative requirements that impair climate-related work.”

– 38 percent “perceived or personally experienced the disappearance or unusual delay of websites, reports, or other science-based materials relating to climate.”

– 25 percent “perceived or personally experienced situations in which scientists have actively objected to, resigned from, or removed themselves from a project because of pressure to change scientific findings.”

A television news media blackout of this is the reason most of you don't know about this continuing trend that started long before the news media re-elected Bush in 2004.

In fact when some of the scientists went to the news media in 2004 they were smeared by the news media because it was an election year.

The 60 minutes report is a result of the next media appointed Republican president expressing an interest in climate change and his "supposed" disagreement with the Bush Administration on this issue. That presidential winner is the one I stated would "win" in 2008 on these forums in 2004 and again in 2006. John McCain.
If the search engine were working I would link it.

If their report were for any other reason, 60 minutes would have gotten into some of the other stuff I talked about (which only scratches the surface).

John

So let me get this straight: Bush and his administration, who are either as dumb as rocks or as evil as Hitler (or both) have this lock on what the press says and does? Wow. Karl Rove must be involved somehow.

Now on to the issue of global warming. Does the earth get hotter and colder from time to time? Yes. Are we on an upslope presently? Apparently, yes. Are there thousands of variables that define the earth's temperature? Yes. Is carbon dioxide concentration one of them? Yes, along with the variability of solar radiation and cow flatulence (which apparently is a significant factor!). Do we understand the mechanism whereby these thousand variables affect temperature? Very poorly at the present time. If carbon dioxide were to be discovered as the major factor in climate change, what could we do to lower the concentration? Very little, short of a nuclear war that wiped out 90% of the world population. Do I have the answers? No. Does anyone? No. Are there some who are exploiting this issue for political purposes? You bet.

It's okay, flame away. I have to sign off anyway and get some work done.

I concur with riredale.

When politicians and the media collude to promotoe an issue as a DANGER, there is usually some sort of power grab going on.

Remember, whatever power we cede to the government comes at the expense of your PERSONAL LIBERTY and your BANK ACCOUNT.

We Americans are some of the most foolhardy and gullible people on the planet. In the vein of creating a FREER, SAFER and LESS TOXIC world...we are on the verge of creating a POLICE STATE NIGHTMARE that will make the NAZIS and the COMMUNISTS look like rank amateurs.

Sadly enough...it takes a lot of video editiors to help get the necessary propaganda through to the sheeple.

"Do we understand the mechanism whereby these thousand variables affect temperature? Very poorly at the present time. "

This is not true at all. There have been enough high powered, well respected researchers/scientists (Canadian, American, European...etc) to come forth and directly relate global warming directly to C02 emissions. For the most part scientists have been correct in their assessments so far. What was said would happen 10 years ago has in fact happened. The only difference is that it has happened on a grossly accelerated time line.

And I repeat the term "highly respected scientists" These are not Al gores' (uncertified people trying to promote awareness). They are merely researchers trying to get the facts out as they know them... no sensationalizing one way or the other.

"If carbon dioxide were to be discovered as the major factor in climate change, what could we do to lower the concentration? Very little,"

Again, not true. There is lots that can be done and the Bush administration (as well as my Government... Canada) knows it. Of course the economy would be turned upside down in the process... and THIS is why the facts are being played down as much as possible.

But even if you disbelieve these researchers, you still have to ask why the White House is going to the extent to edit and white out huge swaths of researchers papers. If they are not true then why not simply disprove them?

So, let me get this straight... you saw this on a major US television network and you still say it was censored?

THE SKY IS FALLING! THE SKY IS FALLING!!!!!!!!!!!

I've seen very credible arguments made both ways in this debate. What is important if we want to get to the truth is open and honest research and debate. There are attempts at censorship made by both sides in this particular debate, and scientists often find themselves caught in the middle.

How personal is this to me? I live in an area in Florida where when I applied for a mortgage was told that I was safe enough from flooding that I didn't need flood insurance to qualify for my mortgage. A couple of years later, water in a nearby lake rose to within six feet of my house! Do I care about this issue? Hell yeah!. Am I suspicious that global warming is real and man made? Yes very. Am I certain of this? Not by a longshot. Do I want scientists to be able to debate this freely and policy makers to have good information not based on spin from either side? Absolutely.

Does Fwtep think that by reporting an issue then that issue can't exist? Maybe I can report here that Vegas has no bugs then we would all be OK.

It is interesting to see grownups hear incontestible scientific proof that world temperatures are rising to the point where something must be done to counter it, or else face extinction, and then observe said "grownups" publicly choose not to take any action on the basis that "it has not been sufficiently proven that the temperature increase is caused by human activity."

That seems to me like the old fable about the guy who was shot with an arrow and refused to pull it out until he had found out who shot it.

In the fable, his life was cut short.

I flew to Iowa on Thursday to photograph Dr. James Hansen while he spoke at a hearing regarding a power company's plan to build a coal energy plant there. Seemed like a long way to go for 20 minutes of video, but what the hell. It was for a documentary.

Anyway, that evening while waiting for my return flight in the airport, I used Vegas to render an MP3 of Hansen's speech, and grab select screenshots of him and the B-roll from the P2 HD files, and emailed them to the producer's in NY. It was easy. :)

http://inventivepictures.com/hansen-grabs.zip

I am disappointed that this video editing forum has once again been taken over by people who are talking about something that they are not qualified to discuss. And it is once again amazing how everything is Bush's fault. Absolutely amazing.

As for Global Warming:

1. If you have watched the indoctrination film, "An Inconvenient Truth," a good antidote, is "The Great Global Warming Swindle." It's available on DVD, but you can also go here: The Great Global Warming Swindle. Unlike the Gore/Moore political film, complete with people viewing hanging chads (never figured out what that had to do with Global Warming), this one contains real science.

2. Go down to the nearest ocean (sorry, lakes don't count because their levels have nothing whatsoever to do with Global Warming) and see if you can discern any rise. You won't because the increase is so slight as to be unnoticeable by anyone (40 mm since 1994 -- see the chart at this site, which is derived from NOAA satellite data Long-term mean sea level ). For those who don't think in metric, that's 1.5 inches in almost two decades. There are all sorts of scary predictions (Gore's movie shows amazingly scary animations of Florida and Bangladesh being innundated by the sea as oceans rise by 22-25 FEET, or 170 times the rise of the past 14 years), but so far those predictions are as accurate as the U.S. hurricane predictions the past two years, both of which were as wrong as wrong can be.

3. Get a book on forecasting based on multivariate regression, both linear and non-linear. I have written papers on the subject. You will find it at the heart of almost every unreliable forecast done in the past century. The modeling for Global Warming is as reliable as the modeling done for weather forecasting, including seasonal hurricane predictions. Exactly why people suddenly want to believe such forecasts would make a very interesting study in human behavior.

4. I have been personally in touch with one of Gore/Moore's advisers on the movie "An Inconvenient Truth," and since we both worked at BCG years ago, he put me in touch with some really great web sites, not easily accessed by the public, that have the actual data, rather than someones conclusion from the data. From this data, it is clear that CO2 is increasing, and global temperatures have definitely increased, but to anyone with scientific credentials, correlation does not imply causation. Of course, as some of you know, the famous graph that Gore shows in his movie, where CO2 and temperatures track, in fact disproves his whole theory because when you zoom in on the data, you will find that CO2 lags temperature increases; it does not lead. Also, water vapor is the major driver of temperature increases, not CO2.

As for Kyoto, it was a joke (because it wouldn't have done ANYTHING to actually reduce CO2 emissions), and if anyone here paid any attention, it was defeated in the U.S. Senate while Al Gore was vice president of this country. Yes, failure to ratify happened on HIS watch, not Bush's (see Kyoto Protocol). Oh, and by the way, the vote in the U.S. Senate was 95-0 against ratification.

Finally, what is REALLY worrisome is that all these people who have taken on Global Warming as a religion now seem willing to support almost any action -- no matter how idiotic or counterproductive -- if they believe it will stop the threat. The move to diverting U.S. corn supplies to ethanol is a great example of what is going to happen. Corn prices, not only in the U.S., but worldwide, are up 70% in just one year, and the poor people of Mexico and elsewhere are having a tough time getting enough maize to feed their families. And ethanol still creates CO2 when burned, and unlike sugar cane (which is used for Brazilian ethanol), corn has about 1/7 the energy density and therefore requires almost as much fuel to produce as it emits when finally burned.

Those that claim that scientists who support global warming have been censured are truly living in a dream world. The real problem is exactly the opposite as can be seen any time one listens to Gore talk about the subject where he claims that the link between CO2 and climate change is "settled science," and dismisses anyone with scientific data which supports other climate models as heretics. I really worry about the sanity of someone who claims that climate scientists are being censured when the U.N. International Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) has issued many statements supporting the CO2 link to global temperature increases, and Al Gore won a Nobel Prize for his support of this flawed model. My late mother-in-law was severely schizophrenic and warned us before almost every meal that "they" had put heroin on the pizza. So, I have had some direct and personal experience with insanity, and I know it when I see it.

Finally, if you really believe that CO2 causes global warming, there is only one solution to reducing CO2 on a global scale. Reductions of 10% or 20% or 30% won't do a damn thing, assuming you believe the "CO2 causes global warming" theory. No, we will have to reduce emissions by at least 80-90%. Now, here's the final irony: This is actually something that could be achieved in a relatively short time (10-20 years) by switching all industrialized countries from coal, oil, and natural gas to nuclear energy (which provides 70% of France's power, and over 50% of Illinois' power). It is a proven technology that has operated with only one accident (although it was a whopper) in almost sixty years. But the irony is that the same people that want us to change to hazardous fluorescents (if you break one, run like hell out of the room before you breath the dust, and don't put a compact fluorescent in the landfill because they contain mercury), and stop driving cars they don't approve of -- those same people who never got an "A" in any science class -- think that nuclear power is the greatest evil of all.

Well, once again, they are wrong.

It is good to read something from someone here who understands both the nature of the problem and the scope of it. Thank you!

It's very likely that CO2 isn't the primary cause of the problem. Sure CO2 levels rise from the start of the industrial revolution however the more interesting question is why did we have an industrial revolution. If you accept that man has been on this planet in his current form for around 2M years why did we take so long to get going, why did civilsation only start a few 1000 years ago.

The answer seems to relate to human activity producing methane, a process that started around 50,000 years ago. We started fish farming and wetland rice farming. Both these activities produce small amounts of methane, a far more effective greenhouse gas than CO2 and it breaks down very slowly. So a little over a long time prevented us from going into another ice age. That's why back in the 60s everyone was in a flap over us freezing up. The normal cycle of shifts in the earths orbit which were discovered back then show we should be freezing but we didn't. Ice cores show the increase of methane over time from around 50,000 years ago and that bit makes for good science.

So by preventing an ice age we reached the industrial revolution and then CO2 kicks in.

I also agree, most who sit on one side of the fence are either ignorant or dishonest. If we accept the problem they seriously understate the scale of action needed to solve it. The don't even understand the significant differences between burning carbon (coal) compared to buring hydrocarbons. Cars are a very visible source of CO2 but a smaller one than coal fired power stations. Electric vehicles gain us very little or even make the problem worse if the energy comes from coal fired power stations. Aircraft actually help cool the planet, in the days post 9/11 average USA temperatures increased, the water emissions from high flying aircraft help filter IR from the sun, thus cooling the planet.

And yes again, if we accept the worst case scenarios we need to stop CO2 emissions now, not hold current levels or wait around. And that is a HUGE ask. Nuclear energy is about our only chance and not everyone is opposed to that solution. There are people brave enough to say that in this case the risks are lower than to continue burning coal and yes a large number will probably die as a result.

There's another side to this too. We have to be careful, we should be in an ice age. We managed to prevent one but if we get too zealous in stopping our planet from cooking we need to be careful not to cause it to freeze up for another very long time. The idea that we might need to regulate our planets climate is radical, that it will need precise ongoing management over eons is a pretty difficult idea to accept.

Bob.

Farass said:
"But aside from that, yes, danger is a pretty apt term to be using.
The risks are huge, we're now looking at disasters of biblical proportions, the really dumb thing is it's not that hard to fix and fixing it will be a huge boost to our economies."

That's a very encouraging view. I am puzzled how you feel that the problem is not that hard to fix. Please fill me in on the steps that we can take that will resolve the issue without huge major pain and suffering.
(I do believe the the problem is real and growing.)

Should we (the major consumers) be willing to stop our gluttony, we might stand a chance. Massive numbers of people (China the biggest) are just realizing that they can join the fun and the problem. How can we get everyone doing the right thing?

I'm pretty sure we will be forced to cut back eventually, but I predict the final cutback will be due to lack of population. The only way to really have an effect on the CO2 production now is to vastly cutback on the global growth and hence huge losses in wealth. We are not willing to go back there and be happy -- loss of big screen tvs, maybe all greedy electronics (this group of people for one). I don't see us willing to go there or others on their similar issues, and even if we do, the economy has to tank along the way. All of our basis of economy is based on growth. We have zero economic models or social systems for dealing with contraction. People will die from that.

So as I see it, bad things have to happen, sooner or later, lesser or morer. I think it may get very bad. Farass, I'm glad that you think it is not that hard to fix, but I would really like to hear the details.

Farss, nothing personal. We all would like to avoid the elephant in the room. Me too. I'm just an engineer at heart and my rough guesstimates blended with my thoughts on human nature leave me not feeling hopeful for the sort-of immediate future.

It seems to me so bad that I, like many (I think), are ignoring it and not doing all I could because anything I am doing is so small on the big picture that it really doesn't matter, and besides, I bought my big truck a few years ago when it was ok and besides *I* can afford the expensive gas and the electricity to run all my favorite toys.

The USA was built on energy. Seriously. All of our suburbs and many citys evolved only after cheap gas and cars in the 50's and later let us live in places and styles that hugely changed or society. Central cities of the old days devolved. People no longer live around one place where it all happens. Companies and workers are all spread over a random grid. In any place where I have happened to live in the US in the last 30 years, there is no "from and to" so mass transit cannot really work.

OK, that's my example. We will all (not the New Yorkers - if they are above water) have to adapt where we live and where we work if we are going to make any serious improvements on how we use energy.

Ok. Too much for one post. I'll shut up now.

Electric vehicles gain us very little or even make the problem worse if the energy comes from coal fired power stations.

Quite correct. People tend to focus only on what comes out of the tailpipe of the vehicle in front of them, not on the "well-head to car wheel" energy efficiency. Electric cars would be a HUGE mistake if the goal is to reduce overall energy consumption.

As for Global Warming:

1. If you have watched the indoctrination film,
ok

2. Go down to the nearest ocean

3. Get a book on forecasting based on multivariate regression,
ok

4. I have been personally in touch with one of Gore/Moore's advisers on the movie "An Inconvenient Truth," and since we both worked at BCG years ago, he put me in touch with some really great web sites, not easily accessed by the public, that have the actual data, rather than someones conclusion from the data. From this data, it is clear that CO2 is increasing, and global temperatures have definitely increased, but to anyone with scientific credentials, correlation does not imply causation.

[delete stuff]

Finally, what is REALLY worrisome is that all these people who have taken on Global Warming as a religion now seem willing to support almost any action -- no matter how idiotic or

Finally, if you really believe that CO2 causes global warming, there is only one solution to reducing CO2 on a global scale. Reductions of 10% or 20% or 30% won't do a damn thing, assuming you believe the "CO2 causes global warming" theory. No, we will have to reduce emissions by at least 80-90%. Now, here's the final irony: This is actually something that could be achieved in a relatively short time (10-20 years) by switching all industrialized countries from coal, oil, and natural gas to nuclear energy (which provides 70% of France's power, and over 50% of Illinois' power). It is a proven technology that has operated with only one accident (although it was a whopper) in almost sixty years. But the irony is that the same people that want us to change to hazardous fluorescents (if you break one, run like hell out of the room before you breath the dust, and don't put a compact fluorescent in the landfill because they contain mercury), and stop driving cars they don't approve of -- those same people who never got an "A" in any science class -- think that nuclear power is the greatest evil of all.

Well, once again, they are wrong.
-------------------------------------------------------

I'll be gone, it won't matter, but if we choose to use atomic energy to protect our asses from our final denial of resposibilty for energy consumption

let us think
perhaps we will have survivors who outlast us and dig up our stuff like we like to do.

We have cracked the pyrimids. For our current power we will leave a death capsule for future generations.

Johnmeyer, Its nice to see you join the "debate". ;-) A form of manageable nuclear power, ( ie, new/old p/ cores designs appear to quick and safe to build). Now, one needs a better understanding to determine an answer, which means basic, first, you must determine all variables and their ranges to define the problem, so-on....

Space weather is one(of many) of the biggies that global warming modeling is failing to consider, but then its a non-money making of current global Warning crowd and its a difficult science for many to get a handle on.

One, ( of many), is that the earth magnetic has been become weaker or the last couple of centuries at a fairly alarming rate. This M. field holds the Van Allen Radiation Belts around earth and with these belts, help shield the earth from sun and space radiation, solar winds, small solar flares, etc. Well, as the M field weakens, some of Belts mass is being slowly loss to \ from solar winds. This increases the amount of high band radiation that reaches the earth's surface during solar flares and increase sun spots. Most the time, the "sun's radiation output" is view as fairly even because of the visual light output, but this is far from the truth. With advance spacecraft X-ray equipment, we discover a massive X-ray output from sun from the late 90's to early 2000's( the cause of this event is still unknow). This type of radiation, dangerous to all, causes deep rock warming, which means the effects on temperature is not instant but shows up over a longer time period, ( those evil cars & SUVs MAY have saved a few people from cancer). If everyone think back a few decades, remember we lost reasonable use of CB radios and mobile phones to sun spots. Then the number of events of communication's problems the last 20 years. Then there examples black-outs, brown-outs cause from solar radiation. The list is big. Its cause and effect, and its on a global scale --- the energy required to created these events are so massive ---- and the whole planet is included.

"If everyone think back a few decades, remember we lost reasonable use of CB radios and mobile phones to sun spots."

Well everyone who knows anything about radio communications over the surface of the earth, knows that the properties of that communication path are affected by somewhat predictable cycles of sunspots.

So that quote is just crap.

RexA, chemical stored energy needs to cycled. Its balancing the equation of change.

If the chemical stored energy is not cycled, then these elements are lockup from future use----- a bad thing if you think about it. A lot of stored energy waiting for a release, think earthquake type of event. I believe that we need to improve our understanding of Bio-stored energy systems. IE, like how harvest methane hydrates in the ocean vs. letting it escape into the atmosphere, far more dangerous than CO2.

RexA, "somewhat predictable cycles of sunspots.", 11 cycle, but where did it cause as much massive and long term inference during the 40s,50s,60s,early 70s?