In 2007, after a marketing blitz for climate change during much of 2006 and the release of a new UN IPCC report, mentioning that methane had 23X the global warming effect of CO2 would get you shouted down and sternly reminded that CO2 lasts far longer. That is absolutely correct. Yet recently, twice in the same week, two papers warned us that methane will cause global warming regardless of...
read moreTropical Cyclone Phailin is closing on northeastern India and by morning will bring winds exceeding 100 miles per hour and a storm surge up to 20 feet. Windgusts near landfall could be 150 MPH. They were higher than that a few hours ago.NASA would ordinarily provide details but while the administration has 83% of the government working during the budget negotiations, including 463 people...
read moreWhile the United States is now back at early 1990s levels of CO2 emissions, thanks to a switch to natural gas in the energy sector and a moribund economy, that doesn't apply to Asia. The middle class in China alone has a population that exceeds the entire USA and they all want, and are getting, cars and air conditioners and a better life and the emissions to go along with it. Globally, greenhouse...
read moreDoes naming every large storm something new and distinct help?When all those media companies in midtown Manhattan wanted to put on their election push and remind America global warming would only happen if they voted for the wrong guy, they were disappointed that Hurricane Sandy was not actually a hurricane any more - so they called it Superstorm Sandy. It was good marketing.A few days ago,...
read moreIn "Science Left Behind", the oft-regurgitated 'it takes a gallon of gas to make a pound of beef' nonsensical metric is revealed for what it always was; a claim put into a book that was derived from an advocacy press release in the 1980s that had no scientific merit. Still, saying what advocates want is enough to make it into UN reports under 'gray literature' and so a UN report dutifully...
read moreSee? America did not need any stinking Kyoto agreement, we just needed for three areas to work in tandem to get greenhouse gas emissions back close to the magic number picked by the Germans and French a decade and a half ago.(1)The Department of Energy released carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions of the energy sector for Q1 of 2012 and they were the lowest since 1992. American energy is...
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