HA!

That's all I have to say about this.

I gotta say this is pretty far out there.

Surely any connection between the length of professional sporting events and AGW is, shall we say, tenuous at best?

Finally, something productive to combat the evil CO2..........

In addition, may I suggest that the infield and outfield grass be left uncut ! ! ! ! This would not only consume more CO2 thru photosynthesis but also could provide a, as yet untapped, source toward the production of biofuels ! ! ! ! !

The effect on the game would be unimportant as most of the time the ball is in the air. While the offsetting impact would be tremendous ......and who watches these silly human games anyway!

For my part, as soon as the 5 feet of snow melts away sometime in June, I will NOT cut my lawn for all 10 weeks of summer (if we're lucky), to achieve inner peace with the environment and save the planet in my spare time.

It's true, we CAN control the climate ......as soon as we can forecast the weather for longer than 24 hrs (with hourly updates of course).

Personally, I prefer that we control the climate to achieve weather over 32F ....... I understand that over half the globe has temperatures below this for at least half of the year!

Doesn't sound like we're doing much controlling ............ Sounds a little like my golf game .................LOL

it should take anyone with an inkling of common sense and some knowledge of science about 15 seconds to come to the conclusion that AGW is a scam...this latest japanese infomercial is a classic example to what length these shysters will go to pilfer yen under the disguise of saving the world from imminent doom...perhaps the japanese league should all dress in green and adopt GUMBY as the league mascot...they could serve flat saki promoting co2 minimization, use aluminum bats made from ethonal derived energy and sell carbon friendly, synthetic-immitation-plastic AL GORE and Ichiro bobbleheads ...they could also claim the sushi was raised in a co2 reducing laboratory invented by NASA...the idea of cutting game time to reduce co2 would be hilarious if it wasnt so true these dudes actually believe this stuff...have a nice day, bros...

How much shorter would a baseball game (or any televised sporting event) be if commercials were shorter and less frequent? While watching the NCAA basketball tournament I learned that there are planned TV time outs at pre-determined intervals. The coaches know when these will occur and save their alotted time outs until they really need them.

Of course, without commercials we would not have TV coverage but I think it is a fair question to pose to sponsors, "Are you willing to reduce your ad time to speed up the game and cut down on carbon emissions?

I hadnt realised how much global warming we must be creating then in the UK with cricket... or worse soccer and the pathetic over paid 'stars' who spend most of the time on the floor. This could be another reason (if needed) to convert everyone to the joy of rugby!! ;o)

And later on, when these effort show absolutely know impact on anything, I will be laughing hysterically. Baseball. The only team sport on the planet that doesn't depend on a clock, and they are doing this to comply with Kyoto? How stupid! Here's hoping the USA NEVER signs that stupid economy wrecking, spread the wealth/level the playing field (no pun intended) document. While I agree that games do tend to drag, such implementations should not be enforced over a non-existant boogie man. They should be implemented to hold the fan's interest. (Which I might add, is dwindeling rapidly here in Pittsburgh--Just keep shoving bobbleheads, fireworks, and "Going Green" PR stunts in our face, though -- that's all you need!). Just another story from the "stuck on stupid" file.

Japanese baseball. One more reason to DENY DENY DENY THE GLO-BULL WARMING LIE!!!!!!!

This nonsense just gets sillier and sillier all the time. They can cut energy usage even more by only having games during daylight hours, reducing the number of innings and reducing the number of games.

In fact, why not just stop any recreational sports altogether? Human respiration releases CO2, so it stands to reason that exercise and sports increases emissions. It increases consumption, too, as muscular athletic people need more calories because the expend more energy. Increase consumption means more production and that means more emissions.

Let's just call a time-out on all this nonsense. Instead, let's focus on whether the increase in CO2 over the last few decades has had any noticeable effect on the climate.

Yes, CO2 is up, but does that really mean anything? CO2 is a weak greenhouse gas. (To my knowledge, it's the weakest greenhouse gas.) CO2 only traps a limited spectrum of infrared energy and must compete with other greenhouse gases to do so. The most common and most powerful greenhouse gas is water vapor.

CO2 has been villainized because it's the product of the internal combustion engine. But nature still produces far more CO2 than man and CO2 is necessary for life.

Pretty soon, people will wake up to the fact that the warming doomsday predictions are not coming true while CO2 continues to go up. After that, methane will be the next CO2. In a decade, we're all going to be worried about how to decrease our methane footprints and Al Gore will be selling methane credits to stockyards and garbage dumps.

I would like to the first to thank the Japanese Baseball Players for saving the planet. Without their sacrifices, we would all probably perish in a warm, yet wet manner.....

Aw sorry, I couldn't hold a straight face through my thankfulness post. LOL.

Does this mean I can go back to using non-mercury laced regularly bulbs that actually work? In that case, I am all for it.

Anything they can do to speed up that bore of a game would be an improvement. They should do that in the US. :)

It's summer in the antarctic and guess what's happening!

http://www.news.com/2300-11395_3-6235636-1.html

Don't get me wrong, I love baseball. But thought this might be of interest.

Maybe also for the Pirates they should do the 10 run rule, the games would be over in a few minutes that way. Baseball is not a timed game, if you like to watch it, sit back,relax and enjoy and if you don't like to sit there for so long, you are watching the wrong sport.

If it is difficult to reduce emissions by 6%, it should be very easy and painless to reduce them by 90%.

One of my favorite Dilbert Managerial Principles is
"If I don't understand it, then it must be simple."

Hi kevinag,

Guess what's happening in the Antarctic?"

Good question - after one of the coldest summers on record, Antarctic Sea ice is well ahead of last year's record pace. It has been steadily growing for the last 30 years.
http://nsidc.org/data/seaice_index/s_plot.html

Check out the picture from your link -
http://i.i.com.com/cnwk.1d/i/ne/p/2008/326icebreak550x309.jpg

Very thick ice with no signs of surface melting. Whatever caused the "breakup" appears to have been mechanical, not due to air temperatures. I've already contacted NSIDC about this and they have promised to give me an explanation.

Their claim is completely implausible in the absence of surface melt.

Patrick Henry:
As my wife always says to me after one of my more implausible explainations: "Well, there you go - again!" I'm trying to imagine what "mechanical" action could have caused this situation. Do you mean a really big guy with a really, really big hammer? Perhaps we have solved the mystery of what ever happened to Paul Bunyon! Good luck and keep denying!

Hi kevinag,

Your wife is spot on about the implausible explanations. The NSIDC claim that the breakup of the ice shelf is due to warm air is completely implausible in the absence of any evidence of melting. Ice is an extremely good insulator and does not melt from the inside.

Mechanical actions which would cause an ice sheet to fracture would include wave action or shear. Clearly some form of tensile stress is causing the ice sheet to fracture.

Here is a good critique from an atmospheric physicist about an identical occurrence in the Arctic.

Those are shear lines, where the ice has broken, not "melted". Melting does not occur in particular paths across the ice sheet, except when being zapped by aliens in UFO's.
http://www.middlebury.net/op-ed/global-warming-01.html

Glad to see the Japanese are "doing their bit" for global salvation.

Perhaps they could also pledge to serve only flat beer at ball games in order to reduce CO2 emitting belches and limit CO2 emitting kareoke sessions to once per week.

Add this to the amount of potential CO2 emissions they have elimated via their innovative fewer live whales = fewer breathing whales carbon reduction plan and they are well on their way to reaching their Kyoto targets.

Baseball has to be one of the most boring games ever invented. It would be awesome if they shortened the game.

PH - kevinag:
You're debate and pictures intruiged me - thinking about it for a minute...

The ice shelf is floating on the water in the middle, affixed at the edges on the beach. As the ice shelf thickens it becomes heavier and heavier and the floating part in the middle will sink until it's weight is displaced - but it can't sink at the edges. Something has to give and the ice breaks.

Weird story about baseball. If this kind of trend continues, can we then expect to see motorsports like NASCAR, drag racing, motocross, etc. banned or at least cut back significantly?

Kevinag - I think what PH was talking about is mechanical forces such as wave action. Judging from the pictures of the Wilkins Ice Shelf, there does not appear to be much sea ice protecting the shelf. I'm guessing that no sea ice would mean that the waves are battering the ice edge.

Patrick H - I'll agree that the Antarctic peninsula has seen some underwater volcanic activity, but, if the air temperatures in that area are above 28.8 degrees (based on ocean salinity of 35 ppt) then sea ice won't form. Evidence would be the pictures that show no sea ice near the Wilkins Ice Shelf.

Would it be safe to say that higher air temperatures would inhibit sea ice growth in that area?

Higher air temps = no sea ice = waves battering ice shelf = increased ice stresses = ice shelf collapse. Surface melt not needed in this instance.

"We believe the Wilkins has been in place for at least a few hundred years. But warm air and exposure to ocean waves are causing a break-up."

http://www.redorbit.com/news/science/1311136/antarctic_ice_shelf_hangs_by_a_thread/index.html

Temperatures around the Antarctic Peninsula do look like they are in the 30's:

http://www.wunderground.com/global/Region/AN/Temperature.html

The UK Independent also carries a full page story on this. It quotes one of the scientists, Dr Scambos, as saying "We believe the Wilkins has been in place for at least a few hundred years"

That is there was a time when it was'nt in place such as the MWP?

Yahoo had the report on the Wilkins "ice break up". I started laughing when the report said "At least one scientist said it was caused by global warming" ... are you friggin kidding me. They could only find one weasel scientist to put his but on the line. Turn the light on... and they run for the corners.

PH:
The evidence that you work for a neocon think tank or government agency is more apparent by the blog. I hope you are being paid well.
That's funny how that the ice has been there for hundreds of years but the "coldest summer" lately is not stopping the feedback.

Check out http://ap.google.com/article/ALeqM5hzg4otojhA781hp18wMHpy2WUPqQD8VKKNMO0
Talks about the failure of the investigation further down the article because of obvious government agency's lying about the truth, very related to the "we are not responsible for the warming" bs touted in this country. Pray for the children.

Air warming would have to be much more extreme for this to be the cause of enough melting to cause the break.

2 min and 15 seconds in between innings? That's hardly enough time for Toyota and other car compainies to waste our time with commercials telling us how energy efficient their cars have become. Although, I'm all in favour of trying to shorten the amount of time it takes for the Mets to break my heart and just get it overwith.

If only baseball games could be as clean and efficient as Live Earth was...

Hi Gary B,

A couple of interesting pictures - first is six months ago showing that the Wilkins ice shelf was surrounded by hundreds of miles of sea ice.
http://arctic.atmos.uiuc.edu/cryosphere/IMAGES/ANT-ARCHIVE/antarctic.0.2007092510.jpg
and four months ago
http://arctic.atmos.uiuc.edu/cryosphere/IMAGES/ANT-ARCHIVE/ant.20071225.jpg

Here is another one showing similar breakups at the same location in 1993 and 1998.
http://nsidc.org/iceshelves/images/wilkins_19980816_sar.gif
1993 was a very cold period after the eruption of Mt. Pinatubo. 2008 has also been cold in Antarctica.

There is no question that wave action generates stress on the ice, but their explanation of CO2 induced warming seems to be completely unsupported. In order to break a chunk of ice that thick, it would have to be experiencing some significant tensile or shear stress. Instead of mindlessly speculating about CO2, perhaps NSIDC could bring in an engineer or two to examine the actual failure mechanism?

As far as the Antarctic Peninsula goes, it consists almost entirely of volcanoes - being the southernmost extension of the Pacific ring of fire.
http://www.skimountaineer.com/ROF/Region.php?region=Antarctica

From last month-

Ice shelf collapse is not as simple as we first thought," said Professor Glasser, lead author of the paper. "Because large amounts of meltwater appeared on the ice shelf just before it collapsed, we had always assumed that air temperature increases were to blame. But our new study shows that ice-shelf break up is not controlled simply by climate. A number of other atmospheric, oceanic and glaciological factors are involved. For example, the location and spacing of fractures on the ice shelf such as crevasses and rifts are very important too because they determine how strong or weak the ice shelf is."
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2008/02/080210100441.htm

Hey Oiz! A 40 km long ice shelf collapses in Antarctica. It was 31?C