Well, that's it, I was gonna get up, but I aint goin' nowhere now.

Next thing you know, second hand smoke will be more dangerous than smoking.

Many of these folks won't be happy till we all tie a twelve foot rope around our neck (hemp, no doubt), and jump off a 20 foot cliff.

Any other act of man is unarguably evil.

Many stateside readers probably missed one reference...

The climate could benefit if people avoided exercise, ate less and became couch potatoes. Provided, of course, they remembered to switch off the TV rather than leaving it on standby.

In the UK they passed a goofy, nanny state law saying that TV's had to have a standby mode to save electricity.

Electricity use on T.V.s soared.

The reason was simple. People used to turn the TV off when not in use, (so it burned no electricity) now they hit the standby button. -To be green don't you know-

The problem was people would never turn the TV off. They'd leave on vacation with the TV on standby.

Stupid nanny state lefties passing laws that do the exact opposite of what it was intended.... all because they think they can fix all the world's problems if only there was one more law.

Come on you guys, quit whining and just be happy that your creator saw fit to make you in the first place, you ungrateful devils! (If any of you guys has an extra large dose of melanin, please disregard the above.)

The whole idea behind biofuels is that they take up as much CO2 as burning them emits. Cattle eat biofuels and become biofuel for people. The only way Mr. Goodall's calculations can be correct is if more petroleum is burned producing and preparing the beef than is needed to drive a given distance. Even if true for beef, what about foods like potatoes?

Apart from dubious claims of global warming, renewable forms of energy have many other benefits that fully justify pursuing their development. We'll know environmentalists actually believe their claims about global warming when they start pushing for nuclear energy.

haha...Wacko enviromentalists will only be happy when we are all dead...except them of course.

Just on the oft chance this guy is a "Serious Thinker" I'm placing ALL my shoes up for bid on EBay, (sorry the "Vick Signature Series" were burned), adding more cushions to my couch, purchasing a monolith sized HDTV and buying the latest edition of "Hermits For Dummies."

And purchasing Gore carbon credits to offset the wifes job as a postwoman.

Why would you replenish yourself with beef exclusively? Even for us meat-greedy Americans, beef is a small part of our diet. Carbohydrates are much more efficient to produce and make up the majority of what we eat.

What about walking backwards or sideways, or on your hands? No, seriously...:p

Breathing DOES cause global warming. We all emit CO2 when we breathe. I'm waiting for Mr. Goodall to set us an example by giving it up himself.

I think there actually was a story awhile ago, or maybe it was Limbaugh talking about breathing causes global warming. I believe limbaughs comments were to the effect that since CO2 is a pollutant, we now have to regulate our breathing. He was being a smart-ass about the whole thing, but it points out the ridiculousness of all this global warming garbage.

On a similar note, what about all these cries of americans being too obese? I guess we have always been more green than we thought by being lazy and fat! Screw walking!

I just got back from Nicaragua, with an intestinal "upset," and I would like to apologize in advance for my contribution to this problem (i.e., the living as a normal human contributing to global warming or climate change, whichever occurs more frequently).

Reminds me of this serious thinker.

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/4/4c/Ray_bolger_scarecrow.jp

Scarecrow (Ray Bolger): I haven't got a brain... only straw.

Dorothy (Judy Garland): How can you talk if you haven't got a brain?

Scarecrow: I don't know... But some people without brains do an awful lot of talking... don't they?

(I'm not going near the flying monkeys thing.)

The extra content in a hybrid car:
- high power electric motors (made from manmade powerful permanent magnets and expensive copper)
- high voltage power electronics which is actually more expensive than an engine & transmission together and process intensive to make.
- high voltage battery chalked full of nifty chemicals.

I've often wondered if the extra energy to manufacture a hybrid produces more C02 than it saves.

This is probably just a puff piece to make greenies feel good about driving their SUVs.

Now they're even banning asthma inhalers because they have CFC's and it damages the ozone. They new type of inhalers cost $30 - $60 as compared to $5 -$25 for the old style.

HayPeee-Houston

Why do scientists overlook unnecissarily sweaty feet when we measure manmade impact on climate change?

Sweaty feet (stinkfoot) may account for climate change more than we know since scientists have not yet factored-in the impact of foot perspiration and the residual CO2 evaporation rate against the undeniable manmade global temperature increase.

Women and children will suffer most!

This may change soon due to funding provided by the PCPSC (Podiatrical Coalition to Prevent Stinkfoot Greenhouse Gasses).

Did you know almost each person on the planet has more than one foot?

Did you know that almost each and every individual contributes twice the footborne CO2 gasses than those who have one foot or less?

As Oprah may say,"Don't take off your socks and pantyhose peeeoooopleeeeeee!

As Michael Jackson once said,"It's just crazy what they say about me, Oprah!"

As Orenthal James will say,"FORE!"

As Albert Sharpton has said,"Uhhh...uhh...uh...you know"

When Sean Penn made sense he may have said, "Gnarly!"

My brother once told me, "don't shoot yourself in the foot".

I say, "Don't cut off your foot to spite your face!"

I don't intend to run all the numbers, but the guy's theory is entirely plausible. Remember that food entails the use of one heckuva lotta stuff that releases CO2. Fertilizers and pesticides must be produced, transported, and applied, for example, before any food is produced at all.

As to the questions of different foods: well, yeah, meat always takes more to produce because you have to also produce feed. But any attempted scientific evaluation would use the average person's diet in the post-industrial nations as the benchmark, so it's not really relevant.

The real point is there are always consequences to actions, and many of them are unintended. Frequently we use more energy trying to be "green" than we did before we thought about it.

The whole cloth diaper nonsense is a good example. Laundering diapers uses FAR more energy than disposables, and there is NO danger of overcrowding landfills. Sometimes using "plastic" is better for the environment than using "natural" products.

But the "environmentalists" have never worried about such things. For most of them it is either a mindset of "natural = good; man-made = bad" or else they are just looking for a reason to give government more authority over private persons and property - the "watermelon environmentalists," who are green on the outside, but red through and through.

As someone pointed out, the key here is the assumption of the all beef diet. Beef production is much more emissions intensive than just about any other type of food production because a) the cow had to live for a few years, exhaling CO2 all the time, not to mention expelling methane; b) the amount of food the cow had to consume over its lifespan dwarfs the amount of calories returned by the final beef product; and c) slaying, processing, inspection, transport, storage, and packaging of the meat takes more energy than it would for most other foods. So, what this article is really saying is that becoming a vegan is probably more effective in reducing emissions than walking when you could drive. This article reports on exactly the same topic, but, for the most part, draws the correct conclusions that it is the beef that is the culprit, not the walking. Focusing on the walking is like saying that walking a mile costs more than taking a taxi, if you simply assume that all fluid volume lost during the walk MUST be replaced at the end with Dom Perignon.

If you prefer a little harder science, I recommend this paper.

It seems perfectly clear that the only solution is a nihilistic global war to put the numbers back in order. It's the only responsible thing to do.

I am a regular reader of your article. And I am very impress with your blog upon Global Warming. Now I am also write a blog upon effects and causes of Global Warming. This blog is collection of news & reviews like the study found that global warming since 1985 has been caused neither by an increase in solar radiation nor by a decrease in the flux of galactic cosmic rays. Some researchers had also suggested that the latter might influence global warming because the rays trigger cloud formation.

Tom,

This blog is collection of news & reviews like the study found that global warming since 1985 has been caused neither by an increase in solar radiation nor by a decrease in the flux of galactic cosmic rays.

The so-called studies that show no change in the flux of cosmic rays use the data from Climax station neutron monitor in Colorado. That station has a vertical cutoff rigidity of over 2.5 Gev. That means it cannot detect any cosmic rays with energies below that value, and other limitations in neutron monitors limits their upper detection energy to 20 Gev. The energy spectrum of interplanetary cosmic rays spans over 14 orders of magnitude from 10^6 eV to over 10^20 eV. The neutron monitor cited as proof of no long term trend in cosmic ray flux covers less than 20% of one order of magnitude. That's like monitoring the visible light spectrum and claiming there's no directional variation in light in the night sky. It's bunk and it demonstrates there are non-scientific motives involved in such assertions.

I'm not gaining weight -

I'm sequestering carbon!

(for the children!)

Tom, changing your mind would be more effective than changing your name.
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Walking and eating cause global warming ? So carrying this to its logical conclusion - the best thing one can do for Gaia is die ? I'll pass.

Mac Lorry,

What is the preferred source of cosmic ray data that covers the entire (or at least much larger) spectrum? Is there a data set available online?

I have abetter idea how about if all those eco-wackos put some DUCT TAPE over their mouths that would realy go a long way to cut down on all that HOT AIR

Ok all You whacko leftist kooks out there..do Your part!
1-2-3 quit breathing.

Planet Earth: "Ahh thank You My children."

The greenhouse effect is assumed and quantified from a discrepancy between the calculated average temperature of the Earth and the actual average temperature. Those calculations treat the Earth as a black body with a fixed absorptivity and emissivity. However, it's now apparent that the absorptivity of the Earth by day is higher than its emissivity by night. It's that difference in daytime absorptivity and nighttime emissivity that explains some if not all the discrepancy between the calculated and the measured temperature of the Earth.

Here's how the absorptivity and emissivity shift from day to night. By day the surface of the earth absorbs light converting it to heat. Some of that heat is transferred to the atmosphere by conduction and convection. For example, a surface gets hot in the Sun and air in contact with it get's hot, expands, and rises, which draws cooler air onto the hot surface. Larger upward flows are called thermals and are used by birds and hang gliders to gain altitude. By the end of the day there's lots of heat stored in the atmosphere.

The atmosphere is mostly Nitrogen and Oxygen which are transparent to visible and infrared light. According to Kirchhoff's law of thermal radiation, a material that's transparent to visible and infrared light can neither absorb nor radiate those wavelengths of light. Thus, most of the heat contained in the atmosphere cannot radiate away into space at night. The Earth (surface and atmosphere) is more effective at absorbing radiation than it is at emitting radiation. The result is a higher average temperature than can be explained using a constant absorptivity / emissivity value.

Place a chunk of silicon in the sunlight and it will get hotter than a perfect black body. That's because silicon has a high absorptivity at visible wavelengths (appears black), but is transparent to infrared light. The silicon absorbs most of the sunlight and get's hot, but it can't radiate at infrared wavelengths, so it gets even hotter. That's why selective absorptivity / emissivity materials like silicon are used in advanced solar collectors. It looks like the Earth's surface / atmosphere acts like a selective surface because of the day / night cycle.

The assumption that some greenhouse effect is required to explain the discrepancy in calculated vs. measured temperature is likely wrong, at least in part.

What is the preferred source of cosmic ray data that covers the entire (or at least much larger) spectrum? Is there a data set available online?

There's satellite data, but I don't know if it's online or, if so, where it's at. It's up to people publishing studies saying there's no long term trend in cosmic ray flux to use all available data. I only need to point out they haven't done so to call these studies into question.

CERN is currently doing the CLOUD experiments to measure the cloud forming effect of cosmic rays with energies up to about 10^12 Gev on the atmosphere at different altitudes, temperatures, and compositions. As you can see there are many combinations, and thus, the results won't be available until 2010. Only a psychic or a fool would predict the outcome of such experiments before they are run.

YOU MEAN TO SAY EVERYTIME WE GO OUTSIDE TO WAKLK OR RUN WERE CUASING GLOBAL WARMING? IN THAT CASE THEN IT WOULD HAVE HAPPENED EONS AGO WHEN WE WALKED A LOT. CRAZY INSANE WACKO LIBERAL GREEN NUTS CASES

Mac Lorry, not to mention the possibility that the earth is currently in a heat balancing situation, one where the surface temperature of the earth hasn't reached steady state. (as in the temperature rises, the rate of heat transfer from the core to the surface slows, so the surface cools, and by cooling the rate of heat transfer increases again).

Mac Lorry,

I believe that the flaw in your argument is the contention that "According to Kirchhoff's law of thermal radiation, a material that's transparent to visible and infrared light can neither absorb nor radiate those wavelengths of light. Thus, most of the heat contained in the atmosphere cannot radiate away into space at night."

The first part is correct. The O2 and N2 in the atmosphere cannot absorb or radiate infrared radiation. The radiation passes these particles as if they weren't there and exits to space. It doesn't need the O2 or N2 to radiate it. It's already been radiated from the surface of the earth and it will require something to stop it to keep it from radiating into space. The only thing that stops the infrared radiation being put out by the earth from going into space is encountering a particle that can absorb it like O3, H2O, or CO2. As a totally side point, Venus, where the atmosphere is mainly CO2, clearly illustrates the efficacy of the greenhouse effect, getting hotter than Mercury and having a surface temperature that will melt lead.

As for the cloud formation from cosmic rays, I agree that this is important research that will tell us a lot about the atmosphere and climate. However, as far as correlation is concerned, I would think that it is incumbent upon someone who wishes to use this as an explanation for currently observed warming to show the correlation. Simply saying the correlation isn't disproven because there might be better data out there is rather unconvincing.

Nile River levels and aurora borealis have been correlated over fairly long time spans. The price of bread was famously correlated with either northern lights or sunspots. I'm looking for cricket chirping records in Chinese monasteries.
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