War Liberal

First, take away lefty scientists and those who get grants to study global warming, and let's see what the mainstream scientists who have no conflict of interests conclude. First, is global warming real and second, is it manmade or natural? I know a little about science and am nerdy enough to get physics and astronomy magazines. One thing that I've learned is that Earth's temperatures can be affected by fluctuations in solar acitivity and changes in Earth's orbit (which can become significant--enough for an ice age or back.)

I don't want people or our government to overreact and apply limited resources on what appears, to me, not to be a serious or imminent threat to the planet. Headlines, such as the one referenced, are to sensationalize a topic with poor supporting data. Also, look at the views of another scientist in the article who does not agree with the conclusion.

On a slightly related note, I went through Mississippi after Camille, which was in the 1960's. Nothing since then has approached that hurricane--not even close.

People need to stop and think before we waste more money on hysterical and unsupported fears about very long-term concerns, because that takes money away from areas where it can truly help people in need today.

There are essentially no scientists who deny global warming is real except for a few who are paid by corporate interests. Now, the question of whether it is caused by people is more open, but most scientists agree that it is. The remaining question is if it's something we can do something about, or even should do something about. There's a real possibility that it will be a net gain, at least for the US, Russia, and Canada, the countries that have a lot of empty land. Of course, Europe, Japan, and India will be screwed.

Take away lefty scientists and those who get grants to study global warming and what do you have left? Scientists who get grants from corporations or corporations themselves. How do you expect to study global warming aside from getting grants to study global warming? And most scientists are lefty, in large part because lefties actually believe in funding basic science research through agencies like the NSF and the NIH. Bush and the right doesn't believe in that type of funding and the percentile that your grant application has to be in these days is a lot higher than it used to be.

I work for people that get funding to study the impact of proteins on teeth. If you are going to ask about how that works, does that mean you should take away our view?

People need to figure out what's going on and what to do about it before supposedly very long-term concerns become extremely short-term concerns.

Okay, now thanks to Chris Mooney's site I actually found the link to the article in Nature. The study seems to show a pretty good correlation between surface sea temperature and tropical cyclone intensity. It is shown that it fits previous computer models (often a criticism of global warming that the models keep changing). And it is mathmematically based on wind speed and duration of tropical cyclones, unlike Woody's anectdotal evidence of destruction left behind.

I'm swamped and don't have time for finding links, but I assure you that Camille was a higher category hurricane than anything since, including Andrew and Ivan. It's one thing to see wind speed charts. It's another to see what those winds do.

I realize that it's hard to find anyone objective on global warning. But, we should assess some of the groups making claims. One group of "concerned scientists" had very few people whose specialties had anything to do with that kind of study. They even include psychiatrists, which come to think of it, may be more related if this is the beginning of mass hysteria.

I still think that the concern is overstated and that the level of resources wanting to be applied would do better elsewhere. It's like getting a car repaired. The mechanics tell me that I have to spend $800 or the car will leave me stranded. Instead, I use that money for my kid's college and take a chance and find that the car is still going fine after 100,000 more miles. If I had believed the mechanic rather than trusting my limited knowledge and instinct, I would have been out of the money that could have been used better elsewhere. Same thing.

I don't care what the rating of an individual storm was. The study is about the net cumulative power per year of all tropical cyclones. The author - Kerry Emmanuel - seems primarily interested in cyclones and hurricane modeling, not necessarily with global warming, although in his latest paper, they intersect.

In fact, you're wrong about Camille being higher category than Andrew - both were category 5 storms. Some other ones - Hugo and Isabel were category 5 in the ocean, which Emmanuel's paper is going to take into account.

Also, remind me never to loan my car to you. I'd rather have it running smoothly than take the x% chance it's not going to crap out and get stuck in the middle of nowhere. And then have to pay for a new car or a new engine, as has happened to several people I know.

I'm sure that (adjusting for inflation and population density) Camille's damage was higher than Hugo's or Andrew's. The loss of life was certainly greater. But we have a lot more information now about hurricanes, and everyone knows when they're coming and roughly what they're capable of. It wasn't that way with Camille. Things have advanced significantly even since Frederic.