wow.. small hydrogen fuel cell engines. that would be amazing if they could get out to market within the next 10 years. nice article
http://www.ecolosophy.com

Sweet! But this sounds like small-scale stuff - how would this affect the use of fuel cells for motor vehicles?

5 rules that should be followed by all global warming hypocrites, immediately, to save the earth!

If you care, then simply do your part.

1. Stop heating your homes. Never mind that the temperature is 5 degrees outside. Global warming is going on because you are too concerned about you. Stop being so selfish, would ya? The animals are dying!

2. Those light bulbs need to go. I know fluorescent lighting gives people headaches, but hey, either take some painkillers, or pre-historic Saber Tooth Mosquitoes may rise from the melted glaciers and wipe out all of America Junior, Canada.

3. All recreational vehicles are hereby banned. I know life is short and ATV's, snowmobiles, motorcycles and boats are fun, but come on, we must sacrifice for the children. If you keep riding them, then the children will drown from ocean levels rising 1 foot. Did you here me? 1 foot! You extreme, heartless, carbon emitters!

4. (Americans only) Sorry Billy Bob, no more BBQ's. First of all, you are not helping the animals to survive by eating them are you?(see rule 1) Do you want to be perceived as a caveman or a narcissistic intellectual? That's what I thought. Try the Tofu. It�s delish! Secondly, BBQ smoke is cationic and tends to drift towards the South Pole. Don't you think that the penguins have it tough enough with the bitterly warm temperatures? Now you have to remind them that their cousins, the chickens are being massacred in a flaming grill of goodness. You are evil.

5. Lastly, to reduce our carbon footprint, we must simply stop driving cars, stop flying, stop going on vacations, stop purchasing 20 room mansions (right Ozone Al Gore), destroy American industry, and most importantly, stop breathing so heavily. If we all collectively focus and take just 6 breathes per minute, we can reduce atmospheric CO2 concentrations by 30 micros/liter or 10 percent. This gesture may prevent the polar bears from staging a massive, mock suicide in protest.

If you care, then simply do your part.

Cool, but I wonder just why we need fuels of any kind when electricity works just fine...if more effecient batteries were just brought down in cost and/or put into general use.

Rich, you could actually add a few more rules to it.

6. Stop smoking not only is it bad for your health, it's bad for the environment

7. They just need to stop breathing period. Every breath they take emits that much more co2.

Fuel cells are great... but, where do you get your hydrogen. It still takes more energy to produce hydrogen than you get from oxidizing it. Most hydrogen today comes from... petroleum refining.

Ryan:
Cool, but I wonder just why we need fuels of any kind when electricity works just fine...if more effecient batteries were just brought down in cost and/or put into general use.

Remember Ryan, electricity doesn't come from a wall socket. Most electricity comes from power plants that burn coal, natural gas, or heaven forbid are nuclear powered. With more batteries we'll need more power plants to carge them. There are already rolling black outs and power outages due to high use in the summer. People tend to overlook the fact that electricity isn't so green when you look closely.

Ryan,

Electricity is great, for lighting my house and powering my PS3. How are tractor's going to tow their trailers(18 wheelers) with batteries? Too much weight. How am I gonna tow my boat and snowmobile with the energizer bunny under my hood? Again, too much weight. Car full of people going up that hill. Sorry, you are gonna need fuel for that extra horsepower. Electric cars are fine, but not practical.

I suggest that we ban recreational vehicles. That's a nice green place to start, right ;) Then we ban sports. All of that huffing and puffing is certainly not good for the atmosphere.

Rich and Julie, do you know what a false dichotomy is? A couple of examples:

You recklessly use all the energy you can, or you subsribe to liberal, tofu-eating mind control

You refuse to use or develop energy that isn't based on rapidly depleting fossil fuels that keep jihadists and despots in power, or you destroy the economy.

Some other underlying assumptions in your hilarious lists:

Cars and planes can and will only ever run on oil and gas.

By believing in the existence of something that certain groups also believe in, you are immediately signing on to ALL their beliefs (meat is murder, smoking is bad [!], etc.) So I guess if you believe in God, you must also be a terrorist.

CO2 of all kinds is bad--not just the incredible excess amounts we're producing.

All change is inherently bad and threatens a very specific version of the American way of life.

Sounds silly, doesn't it? And not at all funny.

Boris,

I know what dichotomy is. There are however varying levels or extremes within each division. I clearly was being sarcastic with my 5 rules, but I am sure there are people out there, specifically in the GW cult who feel that only extreme changes in lifestyles will save the earth. I disagree though, not all change is bad. I've said it before, old technology will be phased out by new technology(100+ years?). The earth will not die before this transition is made, atleast not from human induced global warming.

Well, yes, you were being sarcastic, but obviously you were trying to make a point, and using a very common--and dishonest--rhetorical technique. In a comment thread about a small, incremental change that might help us conserve energy, you implied that the choice is between drastic change and none at all (or glacial, hundred-year change). You've taken the extreme example in order to refute it. Well, believe me, the way politics takes place, extreme changes are not an option. We probably disagree on the role of government in all this--I happen to think government, and by extension taxpayers and voters, are capable of helping to avoid bigger problems in the long run by reining in certain forces (the oil industry, consumption habits) that threaten the world today. But, presuming our resources are diwndling and the planet is changing for the worse, industrial innovation seems like a win-win no matter how liberal or conservative you are. And no, the world won't be destroyed in 100 years, but waters will rise, crops will no longer grow where they used to, storms will be more powerful and devastating, and low-lying, poor areas like Bangladesh will be frequently inundated, causing mass death and suffering. The planet can survive without us, but we need it to stay a certain way in order to ensure we can keep living in the same way.

Boris,

You make it sound like temperatures have never been warm, ocean levels have never been high, or low lying areas have never been under water. Ever hear of the land of 10,000 lakes, Minnesota? How did those lakes come to be? From the glaciers receeding due to the end of the ice age, not from industrialization. How could we prevent that? Sorry, but the earth and climate are ever-changing, man cannot stop this.

As far as presuming that our resources are dwindling, they are not! Since the beginning of human existance, humans have used less than 18 percent of the world's total fossil fuel reserves. Don't worry, we will not run out, not before futuristic technology takes over. I can find and post the link to this report if you like?

My approach in this blog was intended to be sarcastic in extremes, to help offset the extremists/alarmists from the other side of the spectrum. Have you read blogs from any other websites, even foreign? Let me just say....scary! Blogs posted by 8 year old children who are having trouble falling asleep, pleading for us to help stop global warming, for fears of dying. Dying! Come on, enough, stop the indoctrination.

I am not dishonest. If you are not able to distinguish sarcasm, that's not my fault. Not even drastic/extreme/alarmist-like efforts to change climate will make any significant difference in preventing the earth from doing whatever it is doing, let alone small incremental change as you suggested. That would be even less than insignificant.

I don't know how many times I have to say I understand you were being sarcastic--but it doesn't excuse you from having to defend your point of view.
I'm saying we should push for as much change as is politically possible. Well if the changes are too small, we may as well not make them, right? Is that what you're saying? Let's apply this principle to other areas. With so much loose uranium potentially on the black market, why try to monitor the spread of nuclear weapons? With so much genocide in the world, what's the point of intervening in Darfur? (Well, you're probably against that, too). Is this a country that shrugs its shoulders at big challenges? It didn't used to be.
I know the earth's always changed. Science tells us--with a high degree of certainty, based on methods laymen like you and me can't grasp but shouldn't reject just because we're not trained geologists--that it's getting warmer than it's been in tens of thousands of years. It's also telling us that change is largely the result of man-made warming. Does it mean that these process haven't occured naturally, at a much slower pace? Of course not. Carbon's always been there, but never like this.
And so, the earth changes and its animals adapt, right? Well, maybe 50,000 years ago, nomads could have adapted more easily to these coming changes than we will be able to. The earth will, in the end, regulate itself, maybe over another 10K years. Can we adapt to its changes, though? I'm not so sure. Would we want to live in the Jurassic period? No, we probably couldn't. Would Europe and the U.S. have become industrialized, free and stable regions during the Ice Ages? Also doubtful. Just try to imagine, for a second, what life would actually be like in a drastically altered climate. It's not going to be any fun.

Ever hear of the land of 10,000 lakes, Minnesota? How did those lakes come to be? From the glaciers receeding due to the end of the ice age, not from industrialization.

Rich, what is your point? The earth was dramatically colder during the last ice age. The glaciers of North America melted and retreated when the earth warmed to something far less than the temperatures we now measure.

We don't know whether or not these changes were catastrophic because we have no recorded human history from that era.

We know that millions of people have died from various plagues, diseases, and disasters during recorded history. If you lived in Pompeii, and modern geologists were to warn you that Vesuvius was about to erupt, would you ignore the warning because such eruptions are "natural"?

It sounds as though you are claiming that no action whatsoever is merited, because these changes are "natural." Do you really believe that?

Since the beginning of human existance, humans have used less than 18 percent of the world's total fossil fuel reserves.

Yes, I would like to see a cite of that. In particular, I'd like to see whether that's 18% of estimated fossil reserves or 18% of known petroleum deposits.

In addition, I'd like to see a cumulative graph of that consumption over time. How millennia did it take to humanity to consume the first 0.5%, how many decades did it take to consume the next 4.5%, and how many years has it taken to consume the last 13% of that 18%?

Given the slope of that consumption curve, and the rate at which these new reserves are projected to be put into production, how long do those reserves last? What assumptions do you make about future oil consumption?

Blogs posted by 8 year old children who are having trouble falling asleep, pleading for us to help stop global warming, for fears of dying. Dying! Come on, enough, stop the indoctrination.

Ah, I see. So you're quite certain that no children will die from thirst or starvation when the water supply for a hundred million people disappears along with the snows and glaciers of the Himalayias?

A year and a half after just one hurricane, and more than half of the schools in most devastated region are still closed. Are you so sure that the projected increases in "extreme" weather are "indoctrination"? How many children will suffer and die in the low-lying areas of the Gulf coast if you're wrong?

What do you think will provide more comfort to an eight year old child, whining about "indoctrination" or explaining what science thinks is happening and what grownups are doing to make them safer?

It is not unusual for those of us who live in urban areas to hear and see, through various media outlets, eight year olds pleading to stop the random inner-city violence that also terrifies them. There's something about seeing children lying dead on sidewalk in pools of blood that frightens them -- and it should. Is it "indoctrination" for various agencies to use the media to help stop that violence?

Not even drastic/extreme/alarmist-like efforts to change climate will make any significant difference in preventing the earth from doing whatever it is doing, let alone small incremental change as you suggested. That would be even less than insignificant.

I see. So whatever is happening, we can't do anything about it anyway. Sounds like denial to me. In fact, it sounds to me as though you're as frightened as those eight-year-olds you mentioned. It sounds to me as though you want us to stand paralyzed in abject fear as these "natural" changes wash over us. Tell me, Rich -- if you were a frog, would you jump out of the beaker, or just let it boil you to death?

Rich -- it isn't "indoctrination". It's science. If you want to hide, if you want to lie to the 8 year old children in your life, certainly nobody can stop you. They'll surely learn soon enough that the world is filled with grownups who lie to them.

Don't be surprised, though, if it's you who has more and more trouble falling asleep.

In order to make money on global warming...we must 1st convince the public that it is a problem. Hence, Al (the sky is falling) Gore made a movie to do that..that opens the door for all the greedy snake oil sales(persons) to peddle their wares in the form of windmills etc. Not to mention that global warming is the fault of the human race, so we are told by our (god-like) scientists. That way it looks like we can fix it. The truth is, the volcano is the culprit. Good luck Al.

Ken's first sentence has the key, but then he wanders. Little Al (as they used to call him in Carthage) is peddling a phantom windmill against which to send the Don Quixotes to tilt - with aid of their loyal Sanchos Panza.

Money is the life's blood of professional science. Sadly, America has many more Ph.D.-holders than it can employ and reward with six-figure salaries carrying multi-million dollar budgets for research. Even in meteorology, too. But, Ph.D.'s have needs, too (not unlike the stereotype of "dirty old men"). And, Ph.D.'s are ingenious in filling their own needs. Or, at least, in persuading the less ingenious to help fill these needs.

Just as the nation's Education establishment, which once served the nation very well but no longer does so, the planet's Science establishment has learned to play the game. It really matters not, whether the planet be warming slightly, or cooling slightly as it did in the 1940s-1980s. The game is going to played, the pot is to be bet up, not the true best hand but the best poker face takes the pot as the skeptics fold.

This pot is huge - the produce of taxes to raise the cost of gasoline to $6.00 per gallon is not the only thing - the United Nations bureaucracy as well as our homegrown national Socialists can sense the coming opportunity to tax the information and energy of the world and grow fatter. The symbiosis of the parasites will eventually overwhelm the body, "but not yet" is the hope of all.

And Boris thinks that the planet is warmer than it has been for "tens of thousands" of years. True, his textbooks offered in the government schools largely omit mention of the inconvenient truth of the Medieval Warming Period, those centuries around 1100-1500 years ago when the glaciers on Greenland had retreated farther than today, so far indeed that the Danes built homes and prosperous farms and cattle ranches on Greenland, the remains of which are well known to archeologists. Centuries!

And then the glaciers grew again through the intervening centuries, until lately. Imagine, please, how many fossil-fueled electric power plants, how many wasteful backyard charcoal grills, how many SUVs (man-made) were required all over the planet to produce the melting of the glaciers in the 7th, 8th, 9th century. (Not to mention, the retreat of the glaciers from the Ice Age until the modern era.)

Does anyone ever consider, would we be better off if the glaciers never retreated? Glaciers are not static - never is there a long-term persistent equilibrium, the glacier either retreats gradually or it grows gradually - maybe, some day, not so gradually! And a bit of retreating is not in all ways a bad thing, and it is not necessarily a persistent phenomenon. Unless the glaciers retreat in some years, they grow indefinitely.

Another observation - it is not easy to find data, solid and credible, on the total heat energy released into the atmosphere by all human machines and processes. Especially difficult it is, to find data relating how this quantity has changed through the centuries. (As with the concept of measuring temperature, even the concept of measuring energy was hardly known to our natural philosophers much more than two centuries ago.) It is even harder to find scientific data that illuminates the total heat energy collected by the planet from our Sun, as it has changed. The Science establishment of the 19th century refused to take this data, for they held fast to the dogma of the Solar Constant; much as they held to the tenets of Phlogiston and the Luminiferous Ether. Are the facts of total energy input from the Sun vs. that from human activities, really of no consequence to decision-makers in today's world? The relevance of these two figures, and their absence from the popular science articles issued to the public, makes this observer to wonder, on which side of the arguments would these figures weigh in?

It will be interesting to check out the report of the UN's IPCC when released some months from now, and see whetther the scientists' data really matches with the staff bureaucrats' Executive Summary that was issued months prior to the full report. One suspects that there may be significant differences from the science here, too, as there were in the NSF (U.S. National Science Foundation) Executive Summary a year or three ago. And as there, the journalists will not read the real science, just take the staff's version as gospel truth.
Love to all, and a good night.

Money is the life's blood of professional science. ...

Since money is the life's blood of any capitalist economy (and argueably of the alternatives as well), surely it is unsurprising that professional science depends on money.

So what is Gen(X71) attempting to say about money, science (and by extension, education), or both? Is government money somehow more corrupting than corporate money? Are scientists and educators more susceptible to corruption than other fields?

Perhaps Gen(X71) can clarify his position as follows:

A) Is there something wrong with money being the life-blood of a profession? Is capitalism itself corrupt?

B) Is corporate or private spending on research less corrupting than government funding, and why?

C) Is "professional science" more likely to be corrupted by money than, say, professional athletics, professional religion, or professional anything else?

D) Is professional science and professional education something that simply should not be funded at all?

And Boris thinks that the planet is warmer than it has been for "tens of thousands" of years. True, his textbooks offered in the government schools largely omit mention of the inconvenient truth of the Medieval Warming Period, those centuries around 1100-1500 years ago when the glaciers on Greenland had retreated farther than today, so far indeed that the Danes built homes and prosperous farms and cattle ranches on Greenland, the remains of which are well known to archeologists. Centuries!
And then the glaciers grew again through the intervening centuries, until lately. Imagine, please, how many fossil-fueled electric power plants, how many wasteful backyard charcoal grills, how many SUVs (man-made) were required all over the planet to produce the melting of the glaciers in the 7th, 8th, 9th century. (Not to mention, the retreat of the glaciers from the Ice Age until the modern era.)

There is ample and growing evidence that "Medieval Warming Period" was limited to the Northern Atlantic region, including Greenland (see, for example, the Wikipedia entry. The point that Gen(X71) seems to miss is that however localized, the MWP happened without human intervention. If there is any human contribution to global warming, it is therefore in addition to whatever natural change is already taking place.

Gen(X71) is therefore apparently claiming that there is negligible likelihood that human activity might contribute to global warming -- even though the theory, evidence, and analysis all suggests the opposite, and even though Gen(X71) offers no alternative theory, evidence, or analysis.

The relevance of these two figures, and their absence from the popular science articles issued to the public, makes this observer to wonder, on which side of the arguments would these figures weigh in?

These figures are absent from the "popular science articles issued to the public" because the peer-reviewed literature from which the "popular" accounts are drawn provides no support for their relevance, and a great deal of evidence that they are immaterial. In fact, AGW deniers are greatly over-represented in the "popular science articles" that Gen(X71) whines so loudly about.

It will be interesting to check out the report of the UN's IPCC when released some months from now, and see whetther the scientists' data really matches with the staff bureaucrats' Executive Summary that was issued months prior to the full report. One suspects that there may be significant differences from the science here, too, as there were in the NSF (U.S. National Science Foundation) Executive Summary a year or three ago. And as there, the journalists will not read the real science, just take the staff's version as gospel truth.

I see no indication in the comment of Gen(X71) that he or she has "read the real science". In fact, it would appear that it is Gen(X71) who is taking some other source (either his or her own bias or the right-wing deniers) as "gospel truth".