Environment – Page 5 – OfficiallyScrewed.com

Australia Moves To Fluorescents

February 21, 2007Mulder

Little girls across Australia are crying because they will no longer be able to cook those tasty tiny cakes in their EZ Bake ovens.

In an effort to reduce GHGs the government has decided to phase out incandescent bulbs over the next three years.

Federal Environment Minister Malcolm Turnbull this morning announced standard incandescent light bulbs would be phased out within three years in a bid to reduce energy consumption.

“We are introducing new energy efficiency standards and these old lights simply won’t comply, they will be phased out and basically over a period of time they will no longer be for sale,” Mr Turnbull said.

Compact fluorescent or low-wattage bulbs cost about $5 more, but are more energy-efficient and save an average of $30 per year.

“They’ll be a bit dearer to start off with but over time they’ll be less expensive and they’ll last four to 10 times longer,” said Mr Howard.

This type of plan makes sense to me because the ban will be on selling the bulbs, as opposed to using them, as there will always be a few who want to use up their old bulbs even though the math works out that you are better off financially if you switch over right away.

But to me the big reason a move like this is good is because it drives volume way up on a product and when that happens, economies of scale kick in. This means that as more nations move towards a 100% fluorescent market, the cost of the bulbs will drop which will make it easier for households with tighter budgets to take part. When I went to switch most of my bulbs over three or four years ago, the cost of the fluorescents was not $5 more but 5 times more.

Technically, this move will produce a bit less heat in the winters which will put more strain on furnaces, but there is a doubly good benefit in the summers when the Air Conditioners will need to operate a bit less to cool off the added heat and the power savings of these bulbs will reduce the strain on power grids that tend to hit capacity on the hottest days due to Air Conditioner usage. It may seem paltry at a one home level, but when you look at 5 million homes or 10 million homes, this idea has it’s merits.

Global Warming Cooked My Sushi

February 15, 2007Mulder

Cooked Fish Today I went to my favourite sushi place and ordered a rainbow roll. I was expecting to see the roll appear with a nice blend of colours across the plate and sink my teeth into some nice raw fish with some ginger and wasabi.

The chef did his thing but by the time it got from the sushi bar to my table it looked like this.

Global warming cooked my sushi.

I’m not making this up … I’m not allowed to do that.

Thomas Sowell's 4 Step Plan For Leftists

February 15, 2007Mulder

Today Lorrie Goldstein (again) debunks a bit of the global warming hype.

He points out that the way the Liberals are handling the issue exactly as per the four step process outlined by Thomas Sowell in his 1996 book The Vision of the Anointed: Self-Congratulation as a Basis for Social Policy

Step 1: Declare a crisis
Step 2: Declare the solution
Step 3: Results indicate solution won’t work
Step 4: Declare the Results in Step 3 were not accounting for all factors and dismiss them.

As Lorrie puts it, Step 4 is actually in a Conservative commercial.

“This is unfair … This is unfair. You don’t know what you speak about! Do you think it’s easy to make priorities?”

Suzuki Math Indicates 4 x 0.4 = 2 : No Wonder EnviroNazis Are Wrong

February 11, 2007Mulder

Today’s Ottawa Sun has a Q and A session with David Suzuki about his carbon spewing bus tour across Canada and this is one of the questions.

Q: What role should Canada play on the international scene?

A: Canada produces 2% of C02 emissions, but represents just 0.4% of the world’s population.

So we produce four times more pollution per capita than the global average, and because of that, we have an obligation.

My 10 year old does better math, Mr. Suzuki.

But this is besides the point when we really think about it. Yes, Canadians may create five times the man made emissions of CO2 compared to our percentage of the population. But let’s look at some comparative information to assess the “obligation” part of his comment.

Canada has 10% of the world’s forests (StatsCan numbers) and as we know the 402 million hectares of woodlands we have eat up a massive amount of the earth’s carbon dioxide to produce the wood that becomes the tree trunk.

Newly planted trees can eat up to 15 tonnes of CO2 per hectare per year, so for my calculations I am going to say 10 tonnes to be conservative (which we all know I am).

This means that Canadian forests alone are pulling 4 GigaTonnes of CO2 out of the air each year. Yet our CO2 emissions are only about 60 MegaTonnes/year. Or let’s be less specific and say that Canadians are only producing 640 Megatonnes of GHGs/year (as per Greg Weston’s column that I blogged about here.)

This means that our nation is sinking approximately 66 times the CO2 that we produce and sinking about 6 times the GHG’s that we produce by CO2 equivalency.

I can hear the environmentalistas screaming now…..”But wait, you are only considering man made green house gases (and CO2)!!”

Ah yes. Man made. And this brings us back to the crux of the debate that keeps getting overlooked by these ecoterrorists. Where ARE all these other Green House Gases coming from??

And thus, we find ourselves back to water vapour. That elusive substance escaping from the earth’s oceans in massive amounts. That substance that makes up 95% to 97% of the GHGs on the planet.

If only we had enough Saran Wrap to cover the Pacific…

IPCC Debunked

February 7, 2007Mulder

Last night, on CFRA, John Counsel took it upon himself to invite paleo-climatologist Dr. Tim Patterson and Tom Harris from the National Resources Stewardship Project onto the show to discuss global warming. It was one of the most entertaining and informative assessments of Climate Change. It is not Al Gore spewing myths, it is true science at it’s best. I encourage everyone to listen to these audio files.

(Note, I managed to get my call in as the first caller (Steve) on part III discussing the increased plant life due to higher co2 concentration and temperature rise. Pardon me sounding like I am slurring speech, I called from my cell phone and was driving at the time.)

CFRA Call In Show On Climate Change Part I
CFRA Call In Show On Climate Change Part II
CFRA Call In Show On Climate Change Part III
CFRA Call In Show On Climate Change Part IV
CFRA Call In Show On Climate Change Part V
CFRA Call In Show On Climate Change Part VI
CFRA Call In Show On Climate Change Part VII
CFRA Call In Show On Climate Change Part VIII

Now for the real info. The IPCC report which claims to have input form hundreds, if not thousands, of experts and scientists was only written by 30 people and that this policy maker’s report has been written to coincide with the beliefs of the group and not necessarily directly due to scientific information. Then they come out and say they will release the full report in several months and that it will be changed to reflect the information that this preliminary policy maker’s report says.

This is called “Ass Backwards Science” or ABS for short. You can read a great commentary on it by David Warren in the Ottawa Citizen (H/T to Dudley DoRight, a commenter for this)

Listen to Dr. Patterson and Tom Harris. For those interested, Tom Harris is the one who took the ad hominem attacks galore on the John Duffy climateliberal website. Tom, as I have pointed out has a Masters of Engineering in Thermofluids. He also had a great article published on climate change.

I guarantee you will come out far smarter for having listened and read info by these two men.

Global Warming Brings End To Religion

February 3, 2007Mulder

Limp Wick Churches have lots of candles.

In recent years, the number of churches going up in flames has increased.

The primary reason is believed to be “limp wick” syndrome made popular by Al Gore. (Unlike the opposite syndrome which Bill Clinton suffers from.)

“Limp wick” is when warm air causes candles to tip over spilling wax and red hot wicks to the ground igniting carpeting. Due to the rise in this syndrome fire departments all across the world are closing up churches.

“Limp wick” is attributed to Global Warming.

I can’t make this up … I’m not allowed to do that.

Fearmongering 101 – What Kind Of Person Fearmongers?

February 3, 2007Mulder

Well there is the childhood fearmonger…always good for a laugh.

Then we have the humourous “the end is near, my alien friends will take us to safety” fearmonger…always good for a laugh

Exidor

Then we have the goofball fearmonger…always good for a laugh.

HomerEndIsNear

Then we have the wacky looking (to attract attention) fearmonger…always good for a laugh.

End Is Near

And finally we have the get on a bus, travel across the country, to share the experience fearmonger….

Further

Oops, wrong bus. I meant the following person who plans to ride across the country in a bus and share his experience with the people. And he too is good for a laugh.

Suzuki

How Many Times Is The Earth "Officially" Warming?

February 3, 2007Mulder

Thanks to John Robson for these 6 historical quotes:

“It appears 1998 will go down as the year that atmospheric and scientific evidence finally put to rest any doubt that the planet is being subjected to global warming, with human activity the probable cause.”

– – Globe and Mail, 1998

“Now, what was once a hotly debated theory – that a vast layer of carbon dioxide (CO2) and other man-made gases in the atmosphere are causing the Earth’s envelope to heat up – has hardened into near certainty.”

– – Macleans, February 2000

“Scientists Now Acknowledge Role of Humans in Climate Change.”

– – New York Times, October 2000

“Scientists have dispelled most of the lingering doubts about the increase of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere with new evidence from satellites orbiting the Earth.”

– – National Post, 2001

“Consensus grows on climate change”

– – BBC, 2006

“In the past five years or so, the serious debate has quietly ended. Global warming, even most skeptics have concluded, is the real deal, and human activity has been causing it.”

– – Time Magazine, 2006

Now let’s look at today’s headlines.

Science Panel Says Global Warming Is ‘Unequivocal’
– – NY Times, Feb. 2nd, 2007

Paris report calls climate change ‘unequivocal’

– – CBC, Feb. 2nd, 2007

Global problem – Climate-change report released in Paris

– – Ottawa Citizen, Feb. 2nd, 2007

Climate change: The DeniersStatistics needed — The Deniers Part I

Warming is real — and has benefits — The Deniers Part II

The hurricane expert who stood up to UN junk science — The Deniers Part III

Polar scientists on thin ice — The Deniers Part IV

The original denier: into the cold — The Deniers Part V

The sun moves climate change — The Deniers Part VI

Will the sun cool us? — The Deniers Part VII

The limits of predictability — The Deniers Part VIII

Look to Mars for the truth on global warming — The Deniers Part IX

Limited role for C02 — the Deniers Part X

Plenty of reading for fellow skeptics.