John McCain vs Barack Obama Mega-Politic-Thread of super fun awesomeness.

[Summa]

Well now that this evening marks the Kickoff to the NFL season, I have lost all interest in the political debate taking place.

All I can say and or predict is that Melanoma man tonight will be wearing the same blue suit he wears for everything and will use the word "my friends" at least 10 times in his speech.

Personally, with all the rhetoric, I would much rather and will watch the Redskins vs. Giants game over the the Melanoma Maverick (god the Maverick was a shit car and it is all I can think of when they call him that ....is shit) speech.

i hope the game is close and stays entertaining into the 4th qtr, if its a blowout i may find myself watching mccain live instead of later on youtube or a news site which would be sad....

as for wark, i was reading thru posts again today and you did attempt to answer how to pay for it by saying "it will pay for itself", maybe in the longterm but the startup costs are astronomical and people dont usually like to make investments that cost them an arm and a leg to start and have great potential in 6-10 years but absolutely no profit yield now

and as for your "global warming doesn't exist", yes it does....but then again so does global cooling; because the weather patterns are what everybody? cyclic, just like almost everything thats is natural. and whether you want to try and sway me to the side of warming or cooling or neither i will say to you that there is not substantial evidence over a long enough period of time to deduce either way

[kthx]

and as for your "global warming doesn't exist", yes it does....but then again so does global cooling; because the weather patterns are what everybody? cyclic, just like almost everything thats is natural. and whether you want to try and sway me to the side of warming or cooling or neither i will say to you that there is not substantial evidence over a long enough period of time to deduce either way

I don't believe in man made global warming or global cooling, I am just pointing out that if pollution was causing anything it would be a cooling affect not a warming affect on the planet. Besides even if global warming does exist, it will be on average half a degree every 100 years or so, and all that will do is produce a longer growing season for agriculture. The earth does what it wants to do, because it runs like it always has on trends of cooling and heating. After Erathia or some other global warming idiot makes some kind of post about how "GLOBAL WARMING IS A CEREAL THREAT" then I will post my scientific data, but it appears that Erabrainwashed and the likes have fortunately left this thread without trying to quote Al Gore. If that person does come back and try to quote Al Gore who won't even argue anyone about global warming because he knows he would lose, then I will start bringing up more stories like the one in the Sahara desert, and bring up the physical society, and maybe you should watch this..

http://www.rewardingbadbehavior.com/...lav-klaus.html

Is it just me or are people really failing to live up to their belief in this Obama character.. I still have atleast 20 pages left in me for this thread, so if you have any more reasons to tell me why Obama should be the next president, by all means.

[Jerome Scuggs]

so basically we need to pass an environmental plan now, but we don't know whether global warming exists or not (and even if so, to what degree)

so if you don't know whats broke how you gonna fix it?

it's not something to take lightly. a plan of that magnitude would require a massive re-tooling of our economy and god knows how much that will squeeze the private sector even more. hypothetically you could just charge it to the government's tab but who the hell is going to be willing to take on more u.s. debt? this applies even more specifically to the government itself - is it going to be willing to shell out the money it would require to design and develop new technology? there's no silver bullet solution - solar might be better for some uses (like mobile power), nuclear for another (utilities), etc. the government would be have to be willing to invest in a multitude of different ideas and technology and it would have to be willing to take losses.

and also remember - creating jobs in of itself doesn't create wealth or raise the standard of living. government employees get paid from taxes, meaning they are getting paid at someone else's expense (the one time where marx's theory of wealth creation/labor are applicable). even the products will be made with materials purchased with money taken from others. in the long-run very little to no actual wealth is created.

but then, without the sort of market process that leads to the most desired equilibrium price - how would the government then set the prices of its "exports"? And how would these prices change as different market scenarios occur? When prices don't react quickly enough, demand or supply can drop or rise without the usual market adjustments, and shortages/surpluses which prove to be unprofitable are created.

this, though, assumes the government could even create a product of significant value. without open competition, without new ideas coming from a plethora of random entities, how could they possibly develop the tech at a reasonable pace? And since every decision a government body makes has to be approved (noone gets a blank check from the government - especially not now), how would new innovations from other sectors be quickly adopted or improved?

but speaking of other sectors - they would be vastly limited in their actions as well. for one, a a portion of the current workforce would be diverted into the public sector - creating even more of a disparity in our GDP. you would replace an industry of wealth creation with a less efficient infrastructure that actually didn't create wealth (at least in a short-run term - you could hypothetically recoup those initial expenses after a very long period, ceteris paribus). not to mention, that sort of nation-wide economic plan would lead to a financial bubble. when the government wanted people to have shelter and access to loans, the artificial demand created on those industries led to a bubble that recently popped. the same thing happened with ethanol. how would a new plan avoid that problem?

basically at this point it's a wild guess at the causes and even more of a shot in the dark with the solutions, coupled with very possible, very damaging long-term economic consequences. in the mean time, though, the market is busy developing and releasing those little, step-by-step refinements that will culminate one day in an oil-free world. all the decisions that have to be made - who makes what in what quantity for what price without causing a profit loss - those calculations are an integral part to the market process and a near-impossibility with government planning. and the best part - bad mistakes and investments aren't shouldered by the entire public.

[Necromotic]

Don't forget all the earmarks Palin has received.

[kthx]

more democrats mad because she raped them last night in her speech.

[Epinephrine]

so basically we need to pass an environmental plan now, but we don't know whether global warming exists or not (and even if so, to what degree)

But we DO know that it exists. 99%+ of all climate scientists in the world agree that it exists. A vast majority of other scientists who know about the how the world and ecosystems works (i.e. biologists, weather people) also agree that man made global warming is real. There is a very clear amount of scientific evidence from many, many, many measurements done using every single theory possible that shows that man-made global warming is real and is here. I honestly could care less what Al Gore said because we knew global warming existed before most people even knew he was an advocate. I definately care less what kthx thinks because I know he is just wrong and using ancedotal evidence (or stuff that he made up) to justify his views.

and also remember - creating jobs in of itself doesn't create wealth or raise the standard of living. government employees get paid from taxes, meaning they are getting paid at someone else's expense (the one time where marx's theory of wealth creation/labor are applicable). even the products will be made with materials purchased with money taken from others. in the long-run very little to no actual wealth is created.

True and false. The USA loses hundreds of billions of dollars of wealth each year in buying oil from around the world. This is productivity (or borrowed money from China and Japan) which is directly sent to oil producing countries to buy oil wealth. Think the trade deficit with China is big? The trade deficit with oil producing countries simply for buying oil is vastly larger.

By promoting energy independence and investing in clean energy with the goal of making it financially competitive with oil, this gives further incentive for money to stay within the USA rather than going to oil producing countries. I don't see how this could be bad.

On the other hand it's probably bad for Canada, Alberta in particular as we are the USA's largest supplier of oil.


Finally, there's no time to wait for the market to make the world into an oil-free (well really carbon-free) world. Because the market only relies on prices to direct it's behaviour and because you obviously don't support intervention in pricing (i.e. carbon taxes, regulation), oil and coal will be used in the open market until there is absolutely none left in the world because as demand for them drops, the price drops and they will be somewhat competitive no matter what.

If the rest of the oil and coal were burned, then man-made global warming would reach epic proportions, a rate of warming which would be completely devastating to the world, and destroy a lot of what we like about the world today. Sure it won't be the end of the human race, but the consequences (economic, social, environmental) would vastly outweigh the small percentage of extra investment/taxes/price increases that we'd have to endure every year to go carbon independent.

[Necromotic]

The problem with being energy independent is... you can't be energy dependent. Where do you think the uranium for the nuclear plants will come from?

[Summa]

But we DO know that it exists. 99%+ of all climate scientists in the world agree that it exists. A vast majority of other scientists who know about the how the world and ecosystems works (i.e. biologists, weather people) also agree that man made global warming is real. There is a very clear amount of scientific evidence from many, many, many measurements done using every single theory possible that shows that man-made global warming is real and is here. I honestly could care less what Al Gore said because we knew global warming existed before most people even knew he was an advocate. I definately care less what kthx thinks because I know he is just wrong and using ancedotal evidence (or stuff that he made up) to justify his views.

not convinced, and thats not true. a vast amount of scientists are in the same boat as me: its a possibility but there is not substantial evidence over a long duration of time to prove it conclusively. sure it doesn't hurt to be eco-friendly, but neither you nor i am in a position to say that it exists, nor is wark in a position to say it doesn't. i need a steady increase over a longer period of time to say so conclusively, and if you wanna say "well there was an increase in temperature consistently over the past 50 yrs blah blah blah as we industrialized blah blah blah" 50 years is nothing to nature, and we are quite insignificant in the history of this planet and even more insignificant in terms of nature's course, im not convinced we've done much to alter its course and if we have we will feel the backlash because other countries won't follow suit.

True and false. The USA loses hundreds of billions of dollars of wealth each year in buying oil from around the world. This is productivity (or borrowed money from China and Japan) which is directly sent to oil producing countries to buy oil wealth. Think the trade deficit with China is big? The trade deficit with oil producing countries simply for buying oil is vastly larger.

not true, china holds 47% of our national debt which is $ 9,669,911,890,492.35 according to the us national debt clock The estimated population of the United States is 304,669,066
so each citizen's share of this debt is $31,739.07. yay for depressing

[DoTheFandango]

so kthx is an environmental scientist? cool. help me with my organic chemistry homework.

[kthx]

But we DO know that it exists. 99%+ of all climate scientists in the world agree that it exists. A vast majority of other scientists who know about the how the world and ecosystems works (i.e. biologists, weather people) also agree that man made global warming is real. There is a very clear amount of scientific evidence from many, many, many measurements done using every single theory possible that shows that man-made global warming is real and is here. I honestly could care less what Al Gore said because we knew global warming existed before most people even knew he was an advocate. I definately care less what kthx thinks because I know he is just wrong and using ancedotal evidence (or stuff that he made up) to justify his views.



True and false. The USA loses hundreds of billions of dollars of wealth each year in buying oil from around the world. This is productivity (or borrowed money from China and Japan) which is directly sent to oil producing countries to buy oil wealth. Think the trade deficit with China is big? The trade deficit with oil producing countries simply for buying oil is vastly larger.

By promoting energy independence and investing in clean energy with the goal of making it financially competitive with oil, this gives further incentive for money to stay within the USA rather than going to oil producing countries. I don't see how this could be bad.

On the other hand it's probably bad for Canada, Alberta in particular as we are the USA's largest supplier of oil.


Finally, there's no time to wait for the market to make the world into an oil-free (well really carbon-free) world. Because the market only relies on prices to direct it's behaviour and because you obviously don't support intervention in pricing (i.e. carbon taxes, regulation), oil and coal will be used in the open market until there is absolutely none left in the world because as demand for them drops, the price drops and they will be somewhat competitive no matter what.

If the rest of the oil and coal were burned, then man-made global warming would reach epic proportions, a rate of warming which would be completely devastating to the world, and destroy a lot of what we like about the world today. Sure it won't be the end of the human race, but the consequences (economic, social, environmental) would vastly outweigh the small percentage of extra investment/taxes/price increases that we'd have to endure every year to go carbon independent.

You are an idiot. Plain and simple.

A rather shocking event happened Wednesday: the American Physical Society, an organization representing nearly 50,000 physicists, opened for debate "the IPCC conclusion that anthropogenic CO2 emissions are very probably likely to be primarily responsible for the global warming that has occurred since the Industrial Revolution."

This is significant because on November 18, 2007, the organization declared:

Emissions of greenhouse gases from human activities are changing the atmosphere in ways that affect the Earth's climate. Greenhouse gases include carbon dioxide as well as methane, nitrous oxide and other gases. They are emitted from fossil fuel combustion and a range of industrial and agricultural processes.

The evidence is incontrovertible: Global warming is occurring.

Now, almost exactly eight months later, the following was posted at the APS website (emphasis added):

With this issue of Physics & Society, we kick off a debate concerning one of the main conclusions of the International Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), the UN body which, together with Al Gore, recently won the Nobel Prize for its work concerning climate change research. There is a considerable presence within the scientific community of people who do not agree with the IPCC conclusion that anthropogenic CO2 emissions are very probably likely to be primarily responsible for the global warming that has occurred since the Industrial Revolution. Since the correctness or fallacy of that conclusion has immense implications for public policy and for the future of the biosphere, we thought it appropriate to present a debate within the pages of P&S concerning that conclusion. This editor (JJM) invited several people to contribute articles that were either pro or con. Christopher Monckton responded with this issue's article that argues against the correctness of the IPCC conclusion, and a pair from Cal Poly San Luis Obispo, David Hafemeister and Peter Schwartz, responded with this issue's article in favor of the IPCC conclusion. We, the editors of P&S, invite reasoned rebuttals from the authors as well as further contributions from the physics community. Please contact me (jjmarque@sbcglobal.net) if you wish to jump into this fray with comments or articles that are scientific in nature. However, we will not publish articles that are political or polemical in nature. Stick to the science! (JJM)

For those unfamiliar:

The American Physical Society was founded on May 20, 1899, when 36 physicists gathered at Columbia University for that purpose. They proclaimed the mission of the new Society to be "to advance and diffuse the knowledge of physics", and in one way or another the APS has been at that task ever since. In the early years, virtually the sole activity of the APS was to hold scientific meetings, initially four per year. In 1913, the APS took over the operation of the Physical Review, which had been founded in 1893 at Cornell, and journal publication became its second major activity. Physical Review was followed by Reviews of Modern Physics in 1929, and by Physical Review Letters in 1958. Over the years, Physical Review has subdivided into five separate sections as the fields of physics have proliferated and the number of submissions grew.

I'm sure the mainstream media will be all over this rather startling announcement and the ensuing debate.

—Noel Sheppard is the Associate Editor of NewsBusters.

[Epinephrine]

not true, china holds 47% of our national debt which is $ 9,669,911,890,492.35 according to the us national debt clock The estimated population of the United States is 304,669,066
so each citizen's share of this debt is $31,739.07. yay for depressing

Considering you've just massively discredited yourself with that one paragraph, I'm going to assume that your credibility in other parts like climate science is far off too.

China only has about $1 trillion invested in US bonds.

[kthx]

From Climate Alarmism to Climate Realism - Václav Klaus

Notes for the speech at the 2008 International Conference on Climate Change, New York, March 4, 2008



Mr. Chairman, ladies and gentlemen,

I would like first of all to thank the organizers of this important conference for making it possible and also for inviting one politically incorrect politician from Central Europe to come and speak here. This meeting will undoubtedly make a significant contribution to the moving away from the irrational climate alarmism to the much needed climate realism.

I know it is difficult to say anything interesting after two days of speeches and discussions here. If I am not wrong, I am the only speaker from a former communist country and I have to use this as a comparative – paradoxically – advantage. Each one of us has his or her experiences, prejudices and preferences. The ones that I have are – quite inevitably – connected with the fact that I have spent most of my life under the communist regime. A week ago, I gave a speech at an official gathering at the Prague Castle commemorating the 60th anniversary of the 1948 communist putsch in the former Czechoslovakia. One of the arguments of my speech there, quoted in all the leading newspapers in the country the next morning, went as follows: “Future dangers will not come from the same source. The ideology will be different. Its essence will, nevertheless, be identical – the attractive, pathetic, at first sight noble idea that transcends the individual in the name of the common good, and the enormous self-confidence on the side of its proponents about their right to sacrifice the man and his freedom in order to make this idea reality.” What I had in mind was, of course, environmentalism and its currently strongest version, climate alarmism.

This fear of mine is the driving force behind my active involvement in the Climate Change Debate and behind my being the only head of state who in September 2007 at the UN Climate Change Conference, only a few blocks away from here, openly and explicitly challenged the current global warming hysteria. My central argument was – in a condensed form – formulated in the subtitle of my recently published book devoted to this topic which asks: “What is Endangered: Climate or Freedom?” My answer is clear and resolute: “it is our freedom.” I may also add “and our prosperity.”

What frustrates me is the feeling that everything has already been said and published, that all rational arguments have been used, yet it still does not help. Global warming alarmism is marching on. We have to therefore concentrate (here and elsewhere) not only on adding new arguments to the already existing ones, but also on the winning of additional supporters of our views. The insurmountable problem as I see it lies in the political populism of its exponents and in their unwillingness to listen to arguments. They – in spite of their public roles – maximize their own private utility function where utility is not any public good but their own private good – power, prestige, carrier, income, etc. It is difficult to motivate them differently. The only way out is to make the domain of their power over our lives much more limited. But this will be a different discussion.

We have to repeatedly deal with the simple questions that have been many times discussed here and elsewhere:

1) Is there a statistically significant global warming?

2) If so, is it man-made?

3) If we decide to stop it, is there anything a man can do about it?

4) Should an eventual moderate temperature increase bother us?

We have our answers to these questions and are fortunate to have many well-known and respected experts here who have made important contributions in answering them. Yet, I am not sure this is enough. People tend to blindly believe in the IPCC’s conclusions (especially in the easier to understand formulations presented in the “Summaries for Policymakers”) despite the fact that from the very beginning, the IPCC has been a political rather than a scientific undertaking.

Many politicians, media commentators, public intellectuals, bureaucrats in more and more influential international organizations not only accept them but use them without qualifications which exist even in the IPCC documents. There are sometimes unexpected and for me unexplainable believers in these views. Few days ago, I have come across a lecture given by a very respected German economist (H. W. Sinn, “Global Warming: The Neglected Supply Side, in: The EEAG Report, CESifo, Munich, 2008) who is in his other writings very critical of the German interventionist economic policies and etatist institutions. His acceptance of the “conventional IPCC wisdom” (perhaps unwisdom) is striking. His words:

- “the scientific evidence is overwhelming”;

- “the facts are undeniable”;

- “the temperature is extremely sensitive to even small variations in greenhouse gas concentration”;

- “if greenhouse gases were absent from the atmosphere, average temperature of the Earth’s surface would be -6°C. With the greenhouse gases, the present average temperature is +15°C. Therefore, the impact of CO2 is enormous”;

- he was even surprised that “in spite of all the measures taken, emissions have accelerated in recent years. This poses a puzzle for economic theory!” he said.

To make it less of a puzzle, let me make two brief comments.

As an economist, I have to start by stressing the obvious. Carbon dioxide emissions do not fall from heaven. Their volume (ECO2) is a function of GDP per capita (which means of the size of economic activity, SEA), of the number of people (POP) and of the emissions intensity (EI), which is the amount of CO2 emissions per dollar of GDP. This is usually expressed in a simple relationship which is, of course, a tautological identity:

ECO2= EI x SEA x POP

but with some assumption about causality it can be turned into a structural equation. What this relationship tells is simple: If we really want to decrease ECO2 (which most of us assembled here today probably do not consider necessary), we have to either stop the economic growth and thus block further rise in the standard of living, or stop the population growth, or make miracles with the emissions intensity.

I am afraid there are people who want to stop the economic growth, the rise in the standard of living (though not their own) and the ability of man to use the expanding wealth, science and technology for solving the actual pressing problems of mankind, especially of the developing countries. This ambition goes very much against the past human experience which has always been connected with a strong motivation to go ahead and to better human conditions. There is no reason to make the, from above orchestrated, change just now – especially with arguments based on such an incomplete and faulty science as is demonstrated by the IPCC. Human wants are unlimited and should stay so. Asceticism is a respectable individual attitude but should not be forcefully imposed upon the rest of us.

I am also afraid that the same people, imprisoned in the Malthusian tenets and in their own megalomaniac ambitions, want to regulate and constrain the demographic development, which is something only the totalitarian regimes have until now dared to think about or experiment with. Without resisting it we would find ourselves on the slippery “road to serfdom.” The freedom to have children without regulation and control is one of the undisputable human rights and we have to say very loudly that we do respect it and will do so in the future as well.

There are people among the global warming alarmists who would protest against being included in any of these categories, but who do call for a radical decrease in carbon dioxide emissions. It can be achieved only by means of a radical decline in the emissions intensity. This is surprising because we probably believe in technical progress more than our opponents. We know, however, that such revolutions in economic efficiency (and emissions intensity is part of it) have never been realized in the past and will not happen in the future either. To expect anything like that is a non-serious speculation.

[kthx]

CLIMATE EFFECTS OF VOLCANIC ERUPTIONS
THE OZONE, GREENHOUSE, AND HAZE EFFECTS

There is considerable debate on the role that humans play in changing global climate through both the burning of fossil fuels and the release of chlorofluorocarbon (CFC) gases. Some argue that human interaction poses less of a threat to our atmosphere than do natural processes, like volcanic eruptions. This places a great deal of importance on understanding the role of volcanic eruptions in affecting global climate change. Whatever the source, it is apparent that compositional changes in the earth's atmosphere generate three principal climatic effects:
THE OZONE EFFECT:

Intense sunlight in the stratosphere (above 12 km) produces bluish colored ozone (O3) by naturally breaking down normal oxygen molecules (O2) into two highly reactive oxygen atoms (O). Each oxygen atom then quickly bonds with an oxygen molecule to form ozone. Ozone absorbs UV radiation, and in the process ozone is changed back into an oxygen molecule and an oxygen atom. A balance exists in ozone destruction and production, so that an equilibrium concentration exists in the stratosphere. This equilibrium has probably existed throughout much of geologic time. Recently, however, an ozone hole has been detected in the stratosphere over Antarctica, presumably due to the atmospheric build up of ozone-destroying CFCs by humans. Ozone depletion has resulted in a greater penetration of ultraviolet radiation on the earth's surface, which is harmful to life on earth because it damages cellular DNA. The ozone effect does not appear to have a direct influence on global temperatures.
THE GREENHOUSE EFFECT:

Certain gases, called greenhouse gases (primarily carbon dioxide and water vapor; but also methane, N2O, and CFCs), allow short wavelength radiation from the sun (UV and visible light) to penetrate through the lower atmosphere to the earth's surface. These same gases, however, absorb long wavelength radiation (infrared), which is the energy the earth reradiates back into space. The trapping of this infrared heat energy by these greenhouse gases results in global warming. Global warming has been evident since the beginning of the Industrial Revolution. Most scientists attribute global warming to the release of greenhouse gases through the burning of fossil fuels.
THE HAZE EFFECT:

Suspended particles, such as dust and ash, can block out the earth's sunlight, thus reducing solar radiation and lowering mean global temperatures. The haze effect often generates exceptionally red sunsets due to the scattering of red wavelengths by submicron-size particles in the stratosphere and upper troposphere.

THE INFLUENCE OF VOLCANIC ERUPTIONS ON
THE OZONE, GREENHOUSE, AND HAZE EFFECTS

Volcanic eruptions can enhance all three of these climate effects to variable degrees. They contribute to ozone depletion, as well as to both cooling and warming of the earth's atmosphere. The role of volcanic eruptions on each climate effect is described below.
INFLUENCE ON THE OZONE EFFECT:

The halide acid HCl has been shown to be effective in destroying ozone; however, the latest studies show that most volcanic HCl is confined to the troposphere (below the stratosphere), where it is washed out by rain. Thus, it never has the opportunity to react with ozone. On the other hand, satellite data after the 1991 eruptions of Mt.Pinatubo (the Philippines) and Mt. Hudson (Chile) showed a 15-20% ozone loss at high latitudes, and a greater than 50% loss over the Antarctic! Thus, it appears that volcanic eruptions can play a significant role in reducing ozone levels. However, it is an indirect role, which cannot be directly attributed to volcanic HCl. Eruption-generated particles, or aerosols, appear to provide surfaces upon which chemical reactions take place. The particles themselves do not contribute to ozone destruction, but they interact with chlorine- and bromine-bearing compounds from human-made CFCs. Fortunately, volcanic particles will settle out of the stratosphere in two or three years, so that the effects of volcanic eruptions on ozone depletion are short lived. Although volcanic aerosols provide a catalyst for ozone depletion, the real culprits in destroying ozone are human-generated CFCs. Scientists expect the ozone layer to recover due to restrictions on CFCs and other ozone-depleting chemicals by the United Nations Montreal Protocol on Substances that Deplete the Ozone Layer. However, future volcanic eruptions will cause fluctuations in the recovery process.
INFLUENCE ON THE GREENHOUSE EFFECT:

Volcanic eruptions can enhance global warming by adding CO2 to the atmosphere. However, a far greater amount of CO2 is contributed to the atmosphere by human activities each year than by volcanic eruptions. T.M.Gerlach (1991, American Geophysical Union) notes that human-made CO2 are dwarfed the estamated global release of CO2 from volcanoes by at least 150 times. The small amount of global warming caused by eruption-generated greenhouse gases is offset by the far greater amount of global cooling caused by eruption-generated particles in the stratosphere (the haze effect). Greenhouse warming of the earth has been particularly evident since 1980. Without the cooling influence of such eruptions as El Chichon (1982) and Mt. Pinatubo (1991), described below, greenhouse warming would have been more pronounced.
INFLUENCE ON THE HAZE EFFECT:

Volcanic eruptions enhance the haze effect to a greater extent than the greenhouse effect, and thus they can lower mean global temperatures. It was thought for many years that the greatest volcanic contribution of the haze effect was from the suspended ash particles in the upper atmosphere that would block out solar radiation. However, these ideas changed in the 1982 after the eruption of the Mexican volcano, El Chichon. Although the 1980 eruption of Mt. St. Helens lowered global temperatures by 0.1OC, the much smaller eruption of El Chichon lowered global temperatures three to five times as much. Although the Mt. St. Helens blast emitted a greater amount of ash in the stratosphere, the El Chichon eruption emitted a much greater volume of sulfur-rich gases (40x more). It appears that the volume of pyroclastic debris emitted during a blast is not the best criteria to measure its effects on the atmosphere. The amount of sulfur-rich gases appears to be more important. Sulfur combines with water vapor in the stratosphere to form dense clouds of tiny sulfuric acid droplets. These droplets take several years to settle out and they are capable to decreasing the troposphere temperatures because they absorb solar radiation and scatter it back to space.
EXAMPLES OF GLOBAL COOLING IN THE AFTERMATH OF HISTORIC ERUPTIONS:

WOW EVEN BEFORE HUMANS CAME TO EARTH VOLCANOES HAVE BEEN RUINING OUR ENVIRONMENT.. WE HAVE TO STOP THEM!

[Epinephrine]

You are an idiot. Plain and simple.

Yes you are.

I just went to the APS website I can't find your reference anywhere. What I did find was the July issue of Physics & Society, which is the APS newsletter. In the disclaimer on the top, it clearly says that this is just a newsletter and nothing in it has been peer-reviewed to be scientific.

http://www.aps.org/units/fps/newslet...0807/index.cfm

That's the link. Oh there's an article in there supporting man-made global warming as well by the way. There is also an article against.

Regardless it seems like this is just a debate on the merits of what's out there. Being as this is not peer-reviewed and not based on hard data (the against article is just saying the models haven't worked as he'd like), it is more of an opinion piece of the writers at the moment. Either way, this doesn't mean the entire APS has changed it stance, just that some members are questioning it. They are free to question, and while I'm sure the models used aren't perfect, there is more than enough evidence to show that global warming is occuring right now from the vast majority of scientists.

[Epinephrine]

Volcanic eruptions can enhance global warming by adding CO2 to the atmosphere. However, a far greater amount of CO2 is contributed to the atmosphere by human activities each year than by volcanic eruptions. T.M.Gerlach (1991, American Geophysical Union) notes that human-made CO2 are dwarfed the estamated global release of CO2 from volcanoes by at least 150 times. The small amount of global warming caused by eruption-generated greenhouse gases is offset by the far greater amount of global cooling caused by eruption-generated particles in the stratosphere (the haze effect). Greenhouse warming of the earth has been particularly evident since 1980. Without the cooling influence of such eruptions as El Chichon (1982) and Mt. Pinatubo (1991), described below, greenhouse warming would have been more pronounced.

Great article kthx. You just posted an article which showed that raising the point of volcanoes is pointless. I mean in your article it tells us directly that while volcanoes create CO2, the haze effect means that the mean effect is to lower temperatures. Unfortunately CO2 produced by industry does not have the same effects, particularly if we do our best to stop particulate pollution from happening.

I'm VERY glad that you cleared up that pointing out the entire volcano argument is pointless.