Gag order on the EPA

[Warren Dew]

(01-26-2017, 09:14 PM)X_4AD_84 Wrote:

(01-26-2017, 08:04 PM)Odin Wrote:

(01-26-2017, 03:51 PM)X_4AD_84 Wrote:

(01-26-2017, 08:05 AM)Odin Wrote:

(01-25-2017, 05:37 PM)X_4AD_84 Wrote: The actual worst case scenario would probably be matching the previous interglacial in terms of sea level stand.

So far that does not appear to be likely. The rate of sea level rise is not currently enough to hit that level. Broad brush, the rise curve is still a decaying exponential which makes sense given how much of the continental ice has already retreated since the most recent glacial advance. What is really surprising is that the apparent amount of heat and work now in the oceans is estimated to be roughly the same as it was this far into the last interglacial. That sort of result seems to point to some mode that might be different than it was during the past interglacial, preserving more of the ice than was the case at a similar point back then. It may actually be an anthropogenic effect, perhaps the Asian Brown Cloud or some such. Now countering that (above and beyond GHGs) is the impact of soot. It may be that soot has more of an impact on sea ice than it does on serious glacial masses. Lots to learn still on this topic.

As far as I know the consensus among climatologists is that if CO2 levels exceed 550ppm there is nothing stopping the climate from flipping over into the hot-house mode due to all the positive feedback loops. It will take several thousand years for all the ice to melt, but melt it all will.

During the last interglacial, most of the continental ice was gone from the Northern Hemisphere, there was much thawing of perma frost, and the Arctic was free of sea ice every summer. There can be some debate about how high CO2 not to mention other GHGs got at the time. Nonetheless, there was no hot house. I don't even know what that term means. I suppose to some adherents that means going into something like the Carboniferous. That would be pretty tough given how much the mixture of major gases has changed, and the fact that the Equatorial Current can't circle the globe now due to the wall of The Americas and the near wall of SE Asia, India and Africa. The next opportunity for that sort of regime is hundreds of millions of years in the future.

I meant ALL the ice, even in Antarctica. The Earth shifts back and forth between two stable states, the hot-house world when the poles are ice-free and the deep oceans are warm and low in oxygen, and the ice-house world, where there is ice at the poles and the deep oceans are cold and oxygenated. Our current ice-house phase began at the end of the Eocene when the Antarctic ice sheet began to form.

The Carboniferous and early Permian was actually an ice-house world like our own, with a massive ice sheet at the south pole, and glacial-interglacial cycles exposing and then inundating the tropical lowland forests that became the great coal beds of Appalachia and Western Europe, the CO2 levels dropped to 300ppm at the end of the Carboniferous.

Even some of the more radical models would not give a temp rise sufficient to compromise Antarctica's main continental ice masses. It's at way too high of a latitude and even in "summer" it rarely rises above freezing in the interior.

The reason our current ice phase began when it did was the closure of the Isthmus of Panama. That gave an ocean current configuration that made Earth prone to glaciation.

One big fallacy is the notion that as goes the Arctic sea ice so goes continental glaciers, most especially Antarctic ones. Obviously, sea ice behavior will be influenced by multiple factors beyond the ones affecting mass balance of continental glaciers at extreme high / polar latitudes. A modest rise capable of causing summer ice free conditions at the North Pole is not going to "un Eocene" Antarctica.

My concern is the earlier expansion of antarctic sea ice, for which one possible explanation is warming and more rapid flow of antarctic land ice to the ocean.  I wasn't too concerned when we had reached peak liquid oil and seemed to be moving toward renewables and conservation, but add the return of shale oil carbon to the atmosphere, and warming could go much farther.  I can imagine returning to mesozoic temperatures before shifting away from a fossil fuel economy.

That said, we're also overdue for an ice age, and that would be at least as bad for us.  If we're going to start taking control of the climate, we need to be careful of both extremes.

[David Horn]

(01-26-2017, 03:46 PM)X_4AD_84 Wrote:

(01-26-2017, 12:23 PM)David Horn Wrote: ... Watching the temperatures change enough to kill trees unable to adjust, but unable to move where the climate is now conducive, is a catastrophe in the making.  That's already happening.

Where is that happening. And please spare us die offs due to insects, different issue.

Here's an easy example I found in about 10 seconds.

[David Horn]

(01-26-2017, 03:51 PM)X_4AD_84 Wrote: During the last interglacial, most of the continental ice was gone from the Northern Hemisphere, there was much thawing of perma frost, and the Arctic was free of sea ice every summer. There can be some debate about how high CO2 not to mention other GHGs got at the time. Nonetheless, there was no hot house. I don't even know what that term means. I suppose to some adherents that means going into something like the Carboniferous. That would be pretty tough given how much the mixture of major gases has changed, and the fact that the Equatorial Current can't circle the globe now due to the wall of The Americas and the near wall of SE Asia, India and Africa. The next opportunity for that sort of regime is hundreds of millions of years in the future.

During the last interglacial, all the coal, petroleum and natural gas was tucked away underground.  Now it's not.

[Eric the Green]

(01-25-2017, 01:22 PM)X_4AD_84 Wrote:

(01-25-2017, 01:05 PM)David Horn Wrote:

(01-25-2017, 03:29 AM)Galen Wrote:

(01-25-2017, 01:32 AM)Warren Dew Wrote: Climate models - as opposed to empirical research on historical climate behavior - continue to show hockey sticks starting at whatever the current year is, and continue to be shown to be wrong the next year.

Which is a sure sign that they don't know anything because the models are demonstrably wrong if this keeps happening.  This suggests that the real agenda is to scare people into giving the government power and money.  This is a very old story.

Which climate models are you referencing?  None that I've seen in the last 30 years.

Green oriented people need to face the fact that the models are just that. Modeling such a chaotic system where we are still learning the actual boundary conditions and relevant tensors is no easy task. It is going to be a work in process for some time to come. Then someone who has an agenda as opposed to a desire for pure science (shout out to Michael Mann and his "Real Climate" crew) comes along and plugs in bristlecone pine hygrometer-maybe treemometer cores, or other questionable proxies, and exaggerated depictions may occur. This is not to say warming is not occurring and is not to say the warming is not due to AGW. It is to say, exaggeration does no one any good. I can understand certain adherent's desire to get the attention of the masses and increase the urgency of mitigation actions, but the way the Hockey Team did it is wrong.

I doubt that those promoting doubt on this issue have any basis in fact. The "Hockey Stick" just refers to the fact that on a graph, the AGW shows up at the current time as a very sharp uptick compared to the slow changes in the past. It is based on fact. There is no exaggeration coming from research scientists. And it's not just one guy we can pin supposed exaggeration on; this is a community of climate scientists who all agree on these facts.

The likelihood is that we are already too late to prevent continuing and worsening climate catastrophe and species death for the next century. As Rachel Maddow said, "thank you, Reaganomics." We may be able to prevent a total "melt down" of our climate, but not unless we stop using fossil fuels by 2050, and take a sharp downturn now. Obviously, any such downturn now will not be sharp enough while Drump is in office. So a much more drastic program is going to be needed if and when he and his Party are deposed. 

The environmental movement is going to have to be very big and loud under Drump, and exaggeration is likely among its proponents. That is completely understandable. What the scientists report is the bedrock upon which it rests, however, and exaggeration just points people in the direction of the facts, if they care to look and read what the climate scientists say and not the paid shills.

Models can't be perfect in their predictions of what exactly will or has happened. That doesn't matter. The models have been correctly predicting warming at about the level and pace at which it is happening. Sometimes the models may have been too conservative; warming seems to be faster than the models in recent years.

[Warren Dew]

(01-26-2017, 10:36 PM)Eric the Green Wrote:

(01-25-2017, 01:22 PM)X_4AD_84 Wrote:

(01-25-2017, 01:05 PM)David Horn Wrote:

(01-25-2017, 03:29 AM)Galen Wrote:

(01-25-2017, 01:32 AM)Warren Dew Wrote: Climate models - as opposed to empirical research on historical climate behavior - continue to show hockey sticks starting at whatever the current year is, and continue to be shown to be wrong the next year.

Which is a sure sign that they don't know anything because the models are demonstrably wrong if this keeps happening.  This suggests that the real agenda is to scare people into giving the government power and money.  This is a very old story.

Which climate models are you referencing?  None that I've seen in the last 30 years.

Green oriented people need to face the fact that the models are just that. Modeling such a chaotic system where we are still learning the actual boundary conditions and relevant tensors is no easy task. It is going to be a work in process for some time to come. Then someone who has an agenda as opposed to a desire for pure science (shout out to Michael Mann and his "Real Climate" crew) comes along and plugs in bristlecone pine hygrometer-maybe treemometer cores, or other questionable proxies, and exaggerated depictions may occur. This is not to say warming is not occurring and is not to say the warming is not due to AGW. It is to say, exaggeration does no one any good. I can understand certain adherent's desire to get the attention of the masses and increase the urgency of mitigation actions, but the way the Hockey Team did it is wrong.

I doubt that those promoting doubt on this issue have any basis in fact. The "Hockey Stick" just refers to the fact that on a graph, the AGW shows up at the current time as a very sharp uptick compared to the slow changes in the past. It is based on fact. There is no exaggeration coming from research scientists. And it's not just one guy we can pin supposed exaggeration on; this is a community of climate scientists who all agree on these facts.

The "hockey stick" has never shown up in actual temperature measurements.  Back in 2000 when the Gore campaign was pushing it, the climate models showed a "hockey stick" starting in 2000.  Then for the next ten years actual temperatures, far from accelerating as the "hockey stick" predicted, decelerated and were flat for over a decade.  All along, the models were predicting a "hockey stick" starting in the year they were published in.  They still do, showing an acceleration at the "current time", as you say.  No "hockey stick" has ever shown up in the actual data, making all "hockey stick" predictions - which is most of the predictions - highly suspect.

Most of the theoreticians pushing climate models aren't scientists in the sense of people looking for the truth.  They're "scientists" in the sense of people trying to garner attention and funding by publishing apocalyptic predictions.

[David Horn]

(01-27-2017, 09:05 AM)Warren Dew Wrote: The "hockey stick" has never shown up in actual temperature measurements.  Back in 2000 when the Gore campaign was pushing it, the climate models showed a "hockey stick" starting in 2000.  Then for the next ten years actual temperatures, far from accelerating as the "hockey stick" predicted, decelerated and were flat for over a decade.  All along, the models were predicting a "hockey stick" starting in the year they were published in.  They still do, showing an acceleration at the "current time", as you say.  No "hockey stick" has ever shown up in the actual data, making all "hockey stick" predictions - which is most of the predictions - highly suspect.

At the moment, the effects of greenhouse gases are still relatively weak but growing, but every addition to the quantity in the atmosphere raises its heat trapping ability.  Since we've already moved beyond the point where the amount of heat received from the sun is greater than the amount reradiated into space, the mean temperature of the earth will continue to grow -- even if we managed to stop the accumulation of GHG at the current level.  AS we add more, the heat transfer ratio will continue to decline.  That's been established for a long time by the satellites of several nations.

On the other hand, the range of the effects of the ~11 year solar cycle is still a bit stronger but oscillating in a consistent manner -- as consistent as massive chaotic systems can be.  That's the point of the hockey stick.  Soon, even the downward trending effects of the solar cycle will be inadequate to compensate for the rate of heat accumulation from GHG, and the annual rise will be continuous. It will still oscillate.  And, of course, there are many additional effects that are also cyclic, including our transit of the galaxy.  AGW doesn't operate in a vacuum.

Warren Dew Wrote:Most of the theoreticians pushing climate models aren't scientists in the sense of people looking for the truth.  They're "scientists" in the sense of people trying to garner attention and funding by publishing apocalyptic predictions.

And this opinion of yours in based on what exactly?   At the moment, there are a few thousand actively engaged in some aspect of this issue, but more actively engaged in nothing more rewarding that fact-checking their colleagues.  It should be noted that many of the sceptics have changed their minds and now believe the effect is both real and threatening.  And then there's this:

[Eric the Green]

(01-27-2017, 09:05 AM)Warren Dew Wrote:

(01-26-2017, 10:36 PM)Eric the Green Wrote:

(01-25-2017, 01:22 PM)X_4AD_84 Wrote:

(01-25-2017, 01:05 PM)David Horn Wrote:

(01-25-2017, 03:29 AM)Galen Wrote: Which is a sure sign that they don't know anything because the models are demonstrably wrong if this keeps happening.  This suggests that the real agenda is to scare people into giving the government power and money.  This is a very old story.

Which climate models are you referencing?  None that I've seen in the last 30 years.

Green oriented people need to face the fact that the models are just that. Modeling such a chaotic system where we are still learning the actual boundary conditions and relevant tensors is no easy task. It is going to be a work in process for some time to come. Then someone who has an agenda as opposed to a desire for pure science (shout out to Michael Mann and his "Real Climate" crew) comes along and plugs in bristlecone pine hygrometer-maybe treemometer cores, or other questionable proxies, and exaggerated depictions may occur. This is not to say warming is not occurring and is not to say the warming is not due to AGW. It is to say, exaggeration does no one any good. I can understand certain adherent's desire to get the attention of the masses and increase the urgency of mitigation actions, but the way the Hockey Team did it is wrong.

I doubt that those promoting doubt on this issue have any basis in fact. The "Hockey Stick" just refers to the fact that on a graph, the AGW shows up at the current time as a very sharp uptick compared to the slow changes in the past. It is based on fact. There is no exaggeration coming from research scientists. And it's not just one guy we can pin supposed exaggeration on; this is a community of climate scientists who all agree on these facts.

The "hockey stick" has never shown up in actual temperature measurements.  Back in 2000 when the Gore campaign was pushing it, the climate models showed a "hockey stick" starting in 2000.  Then for the next ten years actual temperatures, far from accelerating as the "hockey stick" predicted, decelerated and were flat for over a decade.  All along, the models were predicting a "hockey stick" starting in the year they were published in.  They still do, showing an acceleration at the "current time", as you say.  No "hockey stick" has ever shown up in the actual data, making all "hockey stick" predictions - which is most of the predictions - highly suspect.

Most of the theoreticians pushing climate models aren't scientists in the sense of people looking for the truth.  They're "scientists" in the sense of people trying to garner attention and funding by publishing apocalyptic predictions.

The hockey stick, as I explained, does not refer to temperatures in recent years compared to other recent years. It refers to the sudden increase in recent years (meaning the last 3 decades) compared to many thousands of years. The "stick" is a concentration of time at the right-end of a graph that spans many millennia.

As the graph David posted shows, global warming has accelerated in the last 3 years. Before 2000, 1998 was a sudden uptick year (which I predicted it to be in my book). Global warming skeptics and deniers put out this scam for several years that warming had stopped, because it had not changed as much since 2000. But that leaves out how much more warming had occurred before then, and how in the 2000s era it stabilized at this much higher level than before 1998. These deniers are people who can't read graphs.

Most "scientists" who are global warming skeptics are people paid for by the fossil fuels companies, or are libertarian-economics ideologues, or both. Climate scientists are people looking for the truth, and agree on AGW almost unanimously.

Burning fossil fuels causes a greenhouse effect. That has been known for over 100 years. Now we Americans choose to be blind and elect a "president" committed to deliberately cooking the planet for generations to come. Our only hope now to help stop it is blue states and cities and the appeal of clean energy in the market economy.

[Warren Dew]

(01-28-2017, 07:53 AM)Eric the Green Wrote: As the graph David posted shows, global warming has accelerated in the last 3 years. Before 2000, 1998 was a sudden uptick year (which I predicted it to be in my book). Global warming skeptics and deniers put out this scam for several years that warming had stopped, because it had not changed as much since 2000. But that leaves out how much more warming had occurred before then, and how in the 2000s era it stabilized at this much higher level than before 1998. These deniers are people who can't read graphs.

The current uptick is due to an El Nino event, same as the 1998 uptick.  Alarmists advertising it as the beginning of a new trend line are just setting themselves up for another decade of "global warming has stopped" responses when the temperature stabilizes again after the El Nino.

[Eric the Green]

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/ener...38c3f51e6a

A new battle over politics and science could be brewing. And scientists are ready for it
By Chris Mooney January 31 at 12:09 PM


People hold signs as they listen to a group of scientists speak during a rally in conjunction with the American Geophysical Union’s fall meeting Tuesday, Dec. 13, 2016, in San Francisco. The rally was to call attention to what scientist believe is unwarranted attacks by the incoming Trump administration against scientists advocating for the issue of climate change and its impact. (AP Photo/Marcio Jose Sanchez)


Over a decade ago, George W. Bush’s presidency attracted plenty of attention for charges that it had all-too-often mistreated scientific information. By the middle Bush years, reports were rampant that the administration had presented inaccurate or incomplete information on issues such as climate change and stem cell research, edited scientific reports to skew their contents, or had prevented scientists on the government payroll from speaking with the media about their findings and knowledge.

These problems didn’t appear immediately — they snowballed over the course of the Bush administration. By contrast, in the Trump administration, concerns about the treatment of science have emerged in just days, especially at the Environmental Protection Agency.

Trump administration officials are exerting more control over the agency’s outward communications, according to multiple reports, including those by the Washington Post. Scientists have been alarmed by these moves, as well as the overall tenor of the administration on scientific issues like climate change (Trump has not yet appointed a White House science adviser) and some are even now planning a march on Washington, D.C.

Yet we shouldn’t get too far ahead of ourselves here. There has been no specific claim of an Environmental Protection Agency scientist being prevented from communicating or accurately conveying information to the public (yet). There is also reason to think that what’s happening now may only be temporary, and attributable to the transition that’s currently happening, rather than representing a permanent new setting for the science-politics relationship in government.

But if it turns out that the scientific community’s worst fears are realized, it’s important to recognize that they will also have more tools to counter politicization today than they did a decade ago.

The first such tool is the 2012 Whistleblower Protection Enhancement Act, which “now provides protections for scientists who are being pressured to either change their results or downplay them or manipulate them in some way. So you essentially can’t do that,” explains Louis Clark, chief executive and director of the Government Accountability Project, an advocacy group that works to protect whistleblowers.

The group in fact just released a case study of one of the most famous examples of a politics-and-science clash during the Bush administration — namely, one involving the National Climate Assessment, a federal report that assesses the impact of climate change in the United States, and the U.S. Global Change Research Program, the federal body that produces it. Attempts to remove or minimize mentions of the document including in other climate program reports, were exposed by the late Rick Piltz, a federal whistleblower who had worked at the Global Change Research Program until he departed in 2005, in the process sharing, with the press, copies of documents that he said had been edited by the Bush White House. Piltz’s revelations ultimately led to a major article in the New York Times with the headline, “Bush aides softened greenhouse gas links to global warming.”

Piltz dubbed the undermining of the National Climate Assessment the “central climate science scandal” that occurred during the Bush years. When it came to edits of one federal climate science program report, Piltz charged that “taken in the aggregate, the changes had a cumulative effect of shifting the tone and content of an already quite cautiously worded draft to create an enhanced sense of scientific uncertainty about climate change and its implications.”

The Government Accountability Project report calls what happened with the Bush Global Change Research Program a “cautionary tale” and suggests that similar things couldn’t happen so easily today.

“Agencies cannot pass rules or regulations that will restrict federal employees about speaking out about what they consider to be abuses of authority or illegal actions, or public health and safety issues,” Clark said, citing the 2012 enhanced whistleblower act. “The agencies themselves cannot pass rules restricting the ability of federal employees to raise those concerns…So it’s pretty well established that it’s a new day in terms of the ability of federal employees and scientists and engineers and the like to be able to speak out. All those things were not in place when Bush was president.”

And that’s not the only tool favoring scientists in any conflict with political appointees that may ensue in the science-focused agencies of the federal government.

The second reason scientists may be in a better position to resist politicization is a government-wide institution of scientific integrity policies adopted during the Obama years. For instance, politically vetting the communications of EPA scientists would likely violate that agency’s 2012 policy, which “facilitates the free flow of scientific information” and “prohibits all EPA employees, including scientists, managers, and other Agency leadership, from suppressing, altering, or otherwise impeding the timely release of scientific findings or conclusions.”

That policy also says that scientists should “be available to answer inquiries from the news media regarding their scientific work.”

For now, this scientific integrity policy remains operational. And while it certainly may be tested, undoing it entirely is likely to bring new controversy.

“Let’s be clear that if removed that would be an explicit statement that the integrity of the science was not to be respected, that no safeguards will be in place against political manipulation of scientific evidence in this administration,” said Andrew Rosenberg, director of the Center for Science and Democracy at the Union of Concerned Scientists.

But the third and perhaps most important reason has nothing to do with the law or policy, and has everything to do with mindsets in the scientific community itself.

Scientist marches on Washington, creation of alternative Twitter accounts, legal defense funds, and much more — these are signs of a much more engaged, and politically realistic, scientific community than the relatively reticent one that existed in George W. Bush’s day. This is the consequence of scientists experimenting for more than a decade with blogging and social media, of their focus on scientific communications to the public, and of their growing awareness of political attacks on science and the need to counter them.

In this context, it is far more likely that any scientist who feels the need to speak out will find a ready support structure, both within the community and also in social media — including legal aid if necessary. In other words, researchers have more protections, but they also are better networked and have more social support. Both are crucial.

So what’s the upshot of all of this? Well, it certainly remains to be seen. But if the Trump administration tries to prevent scientists from sharing information, or to alter or remove such information, the response is likely to be more bold and amplified.

[Eric the Green]

(01-28-2017, 10:17 PM)Warren Dew Wrote:

(01-28-2017, 07:53 AM)Eric the Green Wrote: As the graph David posted shows, global warming has accelerated in the last 3 years. Before 2000, 1998 was a sudden uptick year (which I predicted it to be in my book). Global warming skeptics and deniers put out this scam for several years that warming had stopped, because it had not changed as much since 2000. But that leaves out how much more warming had occurred before then, and how in the 2000s era it stabilized at this much higher level than before 1998. These deniers are people who can't read graphs.

The current uptick is due to an El Nino event, same as the 1998 uptick.  Alarmists advertising it as the beginning of a new trend line are just setting themselves up for another decade of "global warming has stopped" responses when the temperature stabilizes again after the El Nino.

You prove again that deniers such as yourself cannot read graphs.

[Eric the Green]

Bush 43 was the worst president before Trump, easily. He censored the scientists on climate change. He started a war of choice for no reason in Iraq, which gave birth to the IS. He failed to wage the war on Al Qaeda that he declared, which meant that it continues today. Many thousands were killed in these wars. He carried out torture and rendition on prisoners (many of them innocent folks grabbed off the street), locked dissenters in jail without trial, and set up NSA spying on Americans. He made illegal Executive Orders. He let hundreds of people die in New Orleans by not acting in time about Katrina. He failed to regulate finance companies, allowing the great recession, and did not hold Wall Street accountable but just bailed out the criminals. He failed to support international treaties on climate change, and allowed more pollution in our rivers. He provided no incentives or subsidies for alternative energy, but instead supported massive breaks for fossil fuel companies given by congress. His Supreme Court nominees were atrocious movement conservatives like Alito who support big money in politics and environmental destruction, among other outrages.

Liberals who opposed Bush were not "far Left." This was mainstream intelligent opinion. The anti-Bush literature was very extensive and you can't label all of that "far Left." Most historians agree with the assessment that he was one of the worst presidents. But Trump is already on the road to surpassing him in that department.

As a liberal I have taken many questionnaires about which candidates are compatible with my views. Democrats typically score about 67% agreement with me; higher on some smaller tests. Greens at 90% or above. Bush scored in single digits. Most Republican candidates score between 0 and about 30%; Libertarians about 20-25%. From my point of view, Bush 43 is far right.

[Odin]

I have to agree with Eric, here. I remember plenty of moderates and even a few conservatives who were disgusted with the Iraq War, for example. When you end your presidency with an approval rating in the low 20s then even much of your own base has begun to abandon you.

[Ragnarök_62]

(01-31-2017, 01:42 PM)Eric the Green Wrote: https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/ener...38c3f51e6a

A new battle over politics and science could be brewing. And scientists are ready for it
By Chris Mooney January 31 at 12:09 PM


People hold signs as they listen to a group of scientists speak during a rally in conjunction with the American Geophysical Union’s fall meeting Tuesday, Dec. 13, 2016, in San Francisco. The rally was to call attention to what scientist believe is unwarranted attacks by the incoming Trump administration against scientists advocating for the issue of climate change and its impact. (AP Photo/Marcio Jose Sanchez)

<snip>

1. Yes, I agree with said scientists...
2. So.  We need to start the process of kicking the addiction to Mideast oil. There's a externiality called military adventurism present, so an oil import fee is certainly needed to cover the costs of said adventurism. I bet a lot of folks will clamor for ending these stupid wars of choice there.
3. Renewables:  The unmentioned fact is that fossil fuels are needed to fabricate stuff like windmills/Solar cells. So the fossil fuel budget needs to take that into account. Perhaps using a lot less fossil fuels for military stuff would work.  So what's with that "no oil state" sign all about?  I think that lady needs to be educated on the industrial process of fabricating renewable energy sources.
4. Global warming: Fact : I remember "The Population Bomb".  The US needs to take all remedies to achieve ZPG now. That includes ending subsidies for more than 2 kids and clamping down on immigration. Population overshoot is a major bummer.

5. Why didn't the Washing Post put the stuff I added into their article.  Inconvenient Truths, perhaps? [/quote]
6. Rags loves being old enough to recall the ZPG movement in the prior 2T.