text:
Click here
for full forums index
Log in to check your private messages
Log in
Reality, science and climate (long)
Goto page
AAR Forum Index
The Wild Wild West Forum
View previous topic
View next topic
Joined: 22 Mar 2007
Posts: 1502
Posted: Thu Mar 19, 2009 12:35 am
Post subject: Reality, science and climate (long)
Except for a few reflexes like a baby's sucking reflex or the classic knee-jerk, people do not react directly to sense impressions. People have to learn to interpret sense impressions, and then react based on their learned interpretations. This learning process essentially builds an internal map or model of the external world that is unique to each person. Some parts of the internal model of the world are easier to form than others. For example, people seem to be born with special brain circuitry to recognize faces, making the whole process of interacting with other people easier to learn (for most people in which the circuits are in working order).
If you think you respond directly to what your senses "tell" you with no interpretation required, test yourself with a few simple examples.
Listen to a sample of speech in a language you don't speak or know. You can probably (though not guaranteed) tell that it is speech, but you certainly can't get any linguistic meaning out of the sounds. Depending on the nature of the speech sample and the similarity of the sample language to languages you do speak, you might get emotional content from the sample, detecting anger or joy or other strong feelings.
Now look at unknown or unfamiliar pictures, especially of unfamiliar objects or involving unusual compositions. You will probably be able to identify what objects are depicted quickly in most cases, but if you look at enough pictures, you will also almost certainly encounter some that are just incomprehensible shapes and/or colors at first glance. Some might even take several long looks before you can spot an edge or a face or a head or a limb or something that gives you a clue to separate the image into recognizable objects. Once you achieve that recognition, it will be very difficult to see the picture again as incomprehensible.
Also in the area of pictures, there are multiple techniques for letting people see images that look three-dimensional. One very common technique involves a single image (an anaglyph) with overlapping components in red and blue. If you look at this with standard vision it is just a not-very-good picture. If you look at this through special glasses with one red side and one blue side, you see an apparently 3D picture. There is another technique (stereogram?) that looks like a jumble of colors. I have to take on faith that those can be viewed as 3D pictures because I have never been able to get my eyes & brain to see anything but a jumble of colors in the examples I've looked at.
For a final example, look at a few classic optical illusions or paradoxical figures. The face-vase is a classic, as are impossible triangles, perspective drawings of cubes that visually flip depending on how you view them, or some of the art of M. C. Escher. Many such illustrations change as you focus on different parts or as you mentally change what you think you are seeing.
I believe the fact that we respond to our mental model of the world rather than responding to the world directly is at the heart of the reference to the world as an illusion in several religions and philosophies. This is often misunderstood as a denial that a real world exists. I think it is a reminder that while the real world exists, that isn't what most people "see" in normal mental states. (That also suggests the thought that at least some mental illnesses could be described as bad models of reality.)
I mentioned the importance of expectations in my essay on genre labels (last posted on the talk about novels board several weeks ago). This ties in fairly closely to the point of personal mental models. Expectations are predictions from personal mental models. Inaccurate mental models can cause trouble by creating unrealistic expectations. Gambling can be an example when the gambler expects to win despite actual statistical odds for the house. I don't know the exact nature of the false expectations involved (prices will rise forever, nobody will notice bad assets hidden in complicated portfolios, perpetrators will be rich & retired before houses of cards collapse, etc.), but the current mess in the world's financial systems is a serious reality check of whatever false expectations guided so many people in so many companies for several years. The freezing of so much credit is another affect of models and expectations--many banks are afraid to make loans now that they can no longer shuffle bad debts off to some other sucker. The bankers, along with many other people, now fear an even worse economy, creating a spiral of inaction and loss. (Fear is a negative expectation based on a mental model.) Expectations based on mental models can create self-fulfilling prophecies through reinforcing feedback loops.
Just as every person has to build a personal model of the real world to be able to function in it, science is a collective process of building models of the world. Scientists have been engaged for centuries in the process of building better models of the world.
All modern technology depends on the models of reality established by science. The Internet, the servers hosting these message boards, my connection to the Internet, the computer I'm typing on, the electrical power grid letting me run my computer, and the power plants supplying electricity to that grid all work because they are built using good enough models of reality.
I do not make any claim that the models of reality already established by science are finished or complete. Part of the scientific method is the process of testing hypotheses. A theory or model of reality is only considered useful if it lets people (or programmed computers) make predictions and/or retrodictions (also called hindcasts) that can be tested. (A retrodiction is a prediction about the past--a statement made based on a hypothesis or model or theory that can be checked against past data.) A working scientist might assess the discipline as a whole differently, but my personal view is that modern science is doing very well in the physical and biological sciences, that it has a long way to go in the social and mental sciences, and that it is severely lacking in the spiritual sciences. (In fact, I almost never see anything in the general science reporting I read about spiritual matters.)
Laws governing planetary motion provide an example of scientific models of reality. Newton's laws provide a set of equations that are a good enough model of reality to correctly describe most of the motions of most of the bodies in the solar system most of the time. Einstein gave us the added refinements of relativity theory, adding equations that handle a few conditions that Newton's laws don't get right. There are a few situations in the solar system where chaos theory is involved. Each addition since the fundamental work of Newton has been a refinement of or supplement to his equations, not invalidating them in any way.
It is always possible for a model builder to misapply scientific knowledge. In a project years ago where I wanted to work with planetary positions over more than a 26,000-year precession cycle I got some really strange planetary positions out of one iteration of the programming. I finally traced the weirdness to limitations of the precession equation I had been using, but it was a good illustration of the need for a reality-check with any model.
Climate is an incredibly complicated field of study, so no short post on the topic can be anything more than superficial. (The Teaching Company course "Earth's Changing Climate" is 12 lectures, and that is just on the narrow topic of climate change.) Completely modeling the climate of just one planet (Earth) requires understanding the Sun (total energy output, output in each frequency of the electromagnetic spectrum, particle emissions, storms, sunspots, magnetic fields), the Moon (mostly tidal effects and a little reflected light), cosmic rays from outside the solar system, and meteors (mostly dust and a little energy) as well as the Earth itself. On the Earth, it requires understanding physics (gravity, orbital and rotational motions & their changes over time, radiation belts above the atmosphere, radiation balance [reflection & absorption by every solid, liquid & gas; how changing albedo affects everything], pressure effects in solids & liquids & gases, convection, phase changes of water [evaporation, condensation, freezing, thawing, sublimating], flows of gases & liquids & solids & plasmas & particulates in gases, how the shapes of surface features affect all flows, magnetic fields, dynamics of storms, electrical or plasma effects in the ionosphere & auroras & lightning & sprites, heat and radiation effects from radioactive elements in all layers of Earth), chemistry (components & interactions of the atmosphere, oceans, continents, mantle & core), geology (contributions to atmosphere by volcanoes & geothermal sites, absorption & release of gases by rocks, effects of continental drift on existence of ice caps), biology (absorption & release of gases by all microscopic & macroscopic life, both while living and after death), technology (effects of human mechanisms and actions on all the preceding), meteorology (weather, cloud cover, storms, fogs, etc.), and probably several more things I haven't thought to list. Beyond all the factors involved in climate, there are issues with the science of chaos. The "butterfly effect" nickname for chaos comes from the observation that exact weather predictions will almost certainly never be achievable because some necessary calculations display sensitive dependence on initial conditions. You can give a range of expected results or a confidence rating with phenomena behaving in that way, but a single unambiguous answer is almost impossible. The same limitations would apply to any attempt to make exact detailed statements about future climate rather than statements with ranges of expected values.
Modern understanding of climate has developed tremendously since the development of computers with enough power to let scientists program computer models of all the factors involved (global circulation or climate models). I'm probably grossly oversimplifying, but my understanding is that the models set up as many data points (cells) as the computer's capacity will allow, plug in data for each point, then run simulations applying the equations & rules needed to describe as many of the factors mentioned above as the model can handle. The earliest models could use very few data points or equations at first, with more points allowing more detail with each generational increase in computer capacity. Each generation of model can improve in two (or more) ways. More data points allow each cell to describe a smaller portion of the Earth, which permits the model to include more details (topography, composition, life, etc.) and allows the many equations to work better. More computer capacity allows the model builders to incorporate more equations describing more contributing factors. The many factors involved do not contribute equally to climate. Some factors are much more important than others, and many factors interact in complex ways with reinforcing feedback or negating feedback or threshold triggers. Modeling started with the most obvious contributing factors and each generation of model can add weaker factors that refine the results, but the models are already beyond the level of refinement where an addition will make a big change in the development phase of working with past data. Modern climate models will probably approach within not too many more years as good a map of reality for climate as was achieved for celestial mechanics during Newton's lifetime. They also show how much more complexity science has learned to handle in a few centuries. I can run calculations of a Newtonian model of the dozen or so largest bodies in the solar system with a few constants and equations on a home computer. A climate model requires incredibly complex programming and masses of data on a supercomputer (a site listed below does have a cut-down subset for home computers). All climate models are tested & validated by running them for past times to be sure they make good retrodictions before running them for future times to make projections or predictions. Even 20 years ago the model Hansen used was good enough to make projections close to the actual measurements taken in this decade. The only valid basis for challenging the good fit to data (reality) achieved by GCMs is some other model with an even better fit to the data (reality)--anyone who can ignore all that work or dismiss it because of religion, ideology or self-interest is living in a cave (Paleolithic or Platonic, take your pick).
Greenhouse gases are so labeled because adding more of them to the atmosphere acts on the Earth just like putting up glass to build a greenhouse. More greenhouse gases in the atmosphere cause more incoming energy to stay, causing overall warming. Carbon dioxide, methane, and several other more complicated molecules all act as greenhouse gases. They are a major focus of attention both because past human activity has released them into the atmosphere and because they are one of the few factors affecting climate that deliberate human action CAN change in the near future. The opportunity for people to act is a classic illustration of the phrase "an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure". The longer action is delayed, the more costly action becomes. Hurricane Katrina's disastrous flooding of New Orleans could have been prevented by better engineering of levees before the storm. Since the better engineering didn't happen, we have a devastated city that is still a mess over four years after the storm. Acting on climate is like rebuilding levees in New Orleans on a larger scale--act in time and you save a lot of lives and property, fail to act and you face massive loss of life and a huge repair bill.
Some uncertainty in the projections from climate models comes from factors I listed (or others I missed) above that are not yet incorporated into all models. Another uncertainty relates to the very conservative assumptions used in most projections, especially those from the ipcc. If the assumption that no component will drastically or suddenly shift turns out wrong, the situation could get much worse much faster. Most of the variations in the projections come from the use of different assumptions about future human actions. Optimistic projections assume people will wake up and take drastic action, leading to slowing increases in CO2 and temperature. (Worth repeating: the most optimistic outcome is a slowing of global warming, not an end or reversal any time within many years.) Less optimistic projections based on people continuing to act unthinkingly lead to scenarios rather hostile to human civilization as we know it.
The term "global warming" is used as shorthand for a very complicated process. The overall average temperature of Earth's atmosphere is increasing, so the term is accurate to an extent, but the whole process might better be called global climate destabilization. More overall energy in the atmosphere leads to more extreme weather of all kinds (hot, cold, hurricanes, droughts, floods, etc.), not just a gentle general warming. For a visual analogy, think of bringing a pot of water to a boil (by adding heat, just as is happening to our atmosphere)--at room temperature, there is little visible motion, but at a full boil there is a huge amount of bubbling and other motion.
Beyond the destabilization of weather, the warming aspect of the climate changes predicted by climate models has a couple already measured effects. It is melting both Arctic and Antarctic ice caps at rates unprecedented in recorded human history, which will lead to rises in sea level. The exact amount that sea levels will rise and the speed at which it will happen is still being argued, but the increased polar melting is already happening. In the rest of the world, climate change has already affected many habitats, causing plants to bloom and animals to breed at different dates, causing other animals to move their ranges when they can, and squeezing other plants and animals out completely when their ecological zones move and they can't move or adapt fast enough. Crop plants are not exempt from these problem, so problems with future food supplies can be expected.
On the 10th I posted a link to a Science News article about projected sea levels and the Maldives and Kiribati. Sharon w posted a link to an article about Maldives local conditions. The local conditions article essentially says that since the Maldives experienced sea levels about 1/2 meter higher than now only about a millennium ago, a sea level rise of 1/2 meter as projected by the ipcc in 2001 is nothing to worry about.
That article does not change any conclusions of the Science News article. The 2001 ipcc sea level values are extremely conservative. The Science News article is discussing more recent and less conservative projections with possible sea level rises up to several meters. (Projecting to 2100 gives a convenient benchmark used in many projections, but nobody thinks changes will magically stop on that date. All projections without assumptions of major greenhouse gas abatement lead to even grimmer futures beyond that benchmark.) The local 1/2 meter dip would not save the Maldives if any of the higher projections are right. Since I've never seen the innards of a GCM, I don't know if the extra Indian Ocean evaporation mentioned in the article is already incorporated in the current generation (since the article is several years old, it might be), but this is exactly the kind of greater detail I said above improves each new GCM.
The Science News article also mentions that Kiribati is already dealing with increased flooding & other effects. Now. Real observations. Not projections.
Since I'm in my 50s and have no known children, nieces or nephews, most of the worst impacts of climate change are not expected soon enough to strongly affect anyone I know well. I still urge strong action because I don't find the thought of humanity regressing to a new age of "nasty, brutish and short" lives appealing.
On a side note, I don't understand why some people talk as if the concept of global warming is a conspiracy invented by Al Gore. I could understand castigating Gore for running such a poor campaign in 2000 as to allow W to occupy the White House, but AFAIK Gore's contribution to the climate debate is simply popularizing. He made a movie a few years ago that brought it to the attention of a lot of people who had previously ignored it, but the science has been around for years for anyone who pays attention. Just as one example, James Hansen testified to Congress in 1988 about global warming. The Kyoto Protocol is an international agreement about limit greenhouse gases that was adopted in 1997, and it was partially a follow-up of a big 1992 international meeting. Politicians in the U.S. and other countries have blocked action on the Kyoto Protocol for a decade now, making any solution more difficult and expensive.
Returning from the collective reality models of science to the individual reality models I started with, the personal nature of each model of reality has a major impact on communication and learning. New knowledge must build on or be acceptable to a person's model of reality or it stands almost no chance of being accepted. As Plato's allegory of the cave reminds us, trying to teach anyone something contrary to their current beliefs is more likely to achieve hostility than learning. If someone is raised in a culture that devalues science, citing the realities of science will never convince them of anything. Kuhn's material on scientific revolutions makes a similar point, arguing that many advances in knowledge require the old guard who think otherwise to die off.
At the level of the individual, the limiting case of bad modeling of reality can be death. Long ago the proximate cause would have been starvation, disease, losing a competition with some large animal, or some other basic survival problem. In the modern world fatal accidents are much more prevalent. ("I'm strong / fast / sober / alert / etc. enough to handle this situation / these driving conditions / this job.") Unfortunately, we now live in a world where one person's bad modeling of reality can lead to many deaths beyond their own (like the many traffic accidents that kill multiple drivers). The climate situation is an extreme case of this phenomenon. If enough people continue business as usual long enough, all people will suffer. This is a case where natural selection will operate at the species level rather than the individual level--if our species collectively isn't smart enough to deal with reality, we will join the dinosaurs as fossils (though dinosaurs lasted much longer than humans have so far).
Despite the difficulties, learning does still happen. Sometimes the 10th or 100th rewording of a topic finds a match in a person's model of reality and they are finally able to learn about the topic. The faint hope of that is why I was willing to spend hours working on this post.
Figures and suggested reading (there is lots more data on most of the host sites than just the pages linked here):
Here is a graph of CO2 concentrations for a few recent centuries (trend: rising):
Here is a graph of over 150 years of global temperatures (trend: rising):
Here is a graph of 30 years of arctic sea ice (trend: falling):
Here is a graph of changes to glaciers (trend: more retreating than advancing):
Here is a UK site with lots of weather & climate change info for anyone claiming to distrust US sources:
Here is a site with lots of experts & comments:
This is just one page of many within the above site that gives some idea of how complex some climate questions are (in this case, possible sea level rise):
Here is a site for anyone with idle computer time who wants to actually make a constructive contribution to climate science:
UK Treasury Review Report on the Economics of Climate Change:
(The short version: doing nothing about climate will cost 5% to 20% of global GDP per year while acting will cost 1%.)
Here is a site that goes beyond science to get into policy issues:
Lots of statistics about energy use:
If you want official US EPA greenhouse gas data:
Here is a lot about energy alternatives:
A greenhouse stabilization proposal:
This describes a very recent meeting, one theme of which is that the situation is getting worse even faster than most people expected even a few years ago:
A recent show I happened to hear about melting glaciers:
James Hansen June 23, 2008 to Congress (20 years after 1988 testimony):
Back to top
Joined: 05 Apr 2007
Posts: 173
Posted: Thu Mar 19, 2009 3:21 pm
Post subject:
Man Made Global warming -- good for taking money out of your pocket.
$750 billion "green" investment could revive economy: U.N.
The synopsis: The UN will tax oil to raise money. Yeah. That's a bunch I'd trust with lots of money.
Antarctic Ice May Melt, But Not For Millennia (NPR!!!)
"The main reason that it collapsed in the past is the ocean has gotten warmer around the periphery of Antarctica, increasing the rate of melting of these floating ice shelves which fringe West Antarctica," Pollard says.
Wait a minute --
it's melted before???
I thought it was what
was doing
that was causing the problem.
Oh, yeah, the article streams toward "The Sky is falling!!!" but little snippets keep showing up like:
That's because there's now a clear history showing this massive ice sheet has melted before, under conditions that the Earth may soon experience. And while the full effect may not unfold for thousands of years, it would transform the planet into a place we would not recognize today.
Sooooo ... there's been climate change in the past. Yeah, we can agree on that. It's been catastropic. Yeah. But it was not man made -- not enough men around then to do it! So, maybe, just maybe, climate change, warmer, colder, drier, wetter, whatever, is *gasp*
normal and natural
. Course, if everyone accepted that, who would the likes of Al Gore get to buy their "carbon credits."
George Will, Washington Post
A corollary of Murphy's Law ("If something can go wrong, it will") is: "Things are worse than they can possibly be." Energy Secretary Steven Chu, an atomic physicist, seems to embrace that corollary but ignores
Gregg Easterbrook's "Law of Doomsaying": Predict catastrophe no sooner than five years hence but no later than 10 years away, soon enough to terrify but distant enough that people will forget if you are wrong.
In the 1970s, "a major cooling of the planet" was "widely considered inevitable" because it was "well established" that the Northern Hemisphere's climate "has been getting cooler since about 1950" (New York Times, May 21, 1975). Although some disputed that the "cooling trend" could result in "a return to another ice age" (the Times, Sept. 14, 1975), others anticipated "a full-blown 10,000-year ice age" involving "extensive Northern Hemisphere glaciation" (Science News, March 1, 1975, and Science magazine, Dec. 10, 1976, respectively). The "continued rapid cooling of the Earth" (Global Ecology, 1971) meant that "a new ice age must now stand alongside nuclear war as a likely source of wholesale death and misery" (International Wildlife, July 1975). "The world's climatologists are agreed" that we must "prepare for the next ice age" (Science Digest, February 1973). Because of "ominous signs" that "the Earth's climate seems to be cooling down," meteorologists were "almost unanimous" that "the trend will reduce agricultural productivity for the rest of the century," perhaps triggering catastrophic famines (Newsweek cover story, "The Cooling World," April 28, 1975). Armadillos were fleeing south from Nebraska, heat-seeking snails were retreating from Central European forests, the North Atlantic was "cooling down about as fast as an ocean can cool," glaciers had "begun to advance" and "growing seasons in England and Scandinavia are getting shorter" (Christian Science Monitor, Aug. 27, 1974).
Speaking of experts, in 1980 Paul Ehrlich, a Stanford scientist and environmental Cassandra who predicted calamitous food shortages by 1990, accepted a bet with economist Julian Simon. When Ehrlich predicted the imminent exhaustion of many nonrenewable natural resources, Simon challenged him: Pick a "basket" of any five such commodities, and I will wager that in a decade the price of the basket will decline, indicating decreased scarcity. Ehrlich picked five metals -- chrome, copper, nickel, tin and tungsten -- that he predicted would become more expensive. Not only did the price of the basket decline, the price of all five declined.
An expert Ehrlich consulted in picking the five was John Holdren, who today is President Obama's science adviser
. Credentialed intellectuals, too -- actually, especially -- illustrate Montaigne's axiom: "Nothing is so firmly believed as what we least know."
It was 1988, IIRC, when that great climatologist Ted Danson said we only had 10 (or was it 20??) years before it would be too late ... well????
You think the Brits are falling for this? I see Mark quoted some UK sites. How about a court ruling in the United Kingdom "
barring the showing of Al Gore's "An Inconvenient Truth" in public schools without an explicit disclaimer that it is "partisan," "political" and is riddled with misleading exaggerations and factual errors
Here's what the UK court singled out as falsehoods in the movie:
* that sea levels will rise 20 feet in the foreseeable future due to ice melts;
* that people are evacuating Pacific island nations because of rising sea levels;
* that the "oceanic conveyor" belt is in danger of shutting down and triggering a new ice age;
* that rising atmospheric carbon dioxide levels have historically caused temperatures to rise;
* that global warming is causing a retreat of Mount Kilimanjaro's alpine glacier;
* that global warming is causing Africa's Lake Chad to dry up;
* that global warming contributed to Hurricane Katrina;
* that polar bears are dying due to receding sea ice;
* that global warming is causing coral reefs to bleach and die.
Here's some more detail:
In order for the film to be shown, the Government must first amend their Guidance Notes to Teachers to make clear that 1.) The Film is a political work and promotes only one side of the argument. 2.) If teachers present the Film without making this plain they may be in breach of section 406 of the Education Act 1996 and guilty of political indoctrination. 3.) Nine inaccuracies have to be specifically drawn to the attention of school children.
The inaccuracies are:
* The film claims that melting snows on Mount Kilimanjaro evidence global warming. The Governments expert was forced to concede that this is not correct.
The film suggests that evidence from ice cores proves that rising CO2 causes temperature increases over 650,000 years. The Court found that the film was misleading: over that period the rises in CO2 lagged behind the temperature rises by 800-2000 years.
* The film uses emotive images of Hurricane Katrina and suggests that this has been caused by global warming. The Governments expert had to accept that it was not possible to attribute one-off events to global warming.
* The film shows the drying up of Lake Chad and claims that this was caused by global warming. The Governments expert had to accept that this was not the case.
The film claims that a study showed that polar bears had drowned due to disappearing arctic ice. It turned out that Mr Gore had misread the study: in fact four polar bears drowned and this was because of a particularly violent storm.
* The film threatens that global warming could stop the Gulf Stream throwing Europe into an ice age: the Claimants evidence was that this was a scientific impossibility.
* The film blames global warming for species losses including coral reef bleaching. The Government could not find any evidence to support this claim.
* The film suggests that sea levels could rise by 7m causing the displacement of millions of people. In fact the evidence is that sea levels are expected to rise by about 40cm over the next hundred years and that there is no such threat of massive migration.
The film claims that rising sea levels has caused the evacuation of certain Pacific islands to New Zealand. The Government are unable to substantiate this and the Court observed that this appears to be a false claim.
Not all of the inaccuracies in the film were fully considered by the court as the judge requested a sample on which to consider the case. Professor Carter's witness statement (reproduced below) lists 20 inaccuracies in the film.
I lived through "the sky is falling!" in the 1970's when we were faced with "The New Ice Age." Now it's "global warming." Guess what? The planet has climate. It changes. Constantly. How much money you can make from the change depends on how many like Mark you can find to fall for your schtick.
"The White House isn't the place to learn how to deal with international crisis, the balance of power, war and peace, the economic future of the next generation." --- Joe Biden, 1988
Back to top
Joined: 22 Mar 2007
Posts: 1502
Posted: Thu Mar 19, 2009 11:21 pm
Post subject:
I'll keep this short: only one reference from LisaW about is from a scientist about the science. The rest contribute only hot air. In fact, George Will is mentioned on realclimate as a particularly egregious distorter and I already said Gore is a popularizer, not an expert. The scientific (npr) reference is about an Antarctic ice sheet, the melting of which would add MANY feet to sea levels. That particular melt isn't needed for the alarming rise many people are discussing.
As for climate change happening before, Earth's history has included the whole gamut from global ice ages ("snowball Earth") to periods of no ice at all. On long (many millions of years) time scales, Earth has done it all.
The point shown clearly by the real climate science for anyone willing to read it undistorted it that HUMAN ACTIVITY IS SPEEDING UP THE WARMING PROCESS, making it happen at a disastrous rate.
Back to top
Joined: 05 Apr 2007
Posts: 173
Posted: Fri Mar 20, 2009 11:56 am
Post subject:
Mark wrote:
I'll keep this short: only one reference from LisaW about is from a scientist about the science. The rest contribute only hot air. In fact, George Will is mentioned on realclimate as a particularly egregious distorter and I already said Gore is a popularizer, not an expert. The scientific (npr) reference is about an Antarctic ice sheet, the melting of which would add MANY feet to sea levels. That particular melt isn't needed for the alarming rise many people are discussing.
As for climate change happening before, Earth's history has included the whole gamut from global ice ages ("snowball Earth") to periods of no ice at all. On long (many millions of years) time scales, Earth has done it all.
The point shown clearly by the real climate science for anyone willing to read it undistorted it that HUMAN ACTIVITY IS SPEEDING UP THE WARMING PROCESS, making it happen at a disastrous rate.
You either ignore or call it immaterial -- but
Mark, look at the news. More and more qualified scientists (climatologists) are speaking up that man is not the cause of global warming. The sky is not falling now any more than it was falling in 1970 or will be falling in 2025 when the new boogey will be too much grassland or something equally ridiculous. Without the scare tactics, there's no big money grants.
"The White House isn't the place to learn how to deal with international crisis, the balance of power, war and peace, the economic future of the next generation." --- Joe Biden, 1988
Back to top
Joined: 05 Apr 2007
Posts: 173
Posted: Sun Mar 22, 2009 2:14 am
Post subject:
I wouldn't normally respond to myself -- but I thought this was worth sharing and putting this topic back up in the que.
The 'Global Warming Three' are on thin ice
The ony problem with a project to prove that Arctic ice is disappearing is
the fact that it is actually getting thicker, says Christopher Booker.
What a wonderful parable of our time has been the expedition to the North Pole led by the explorer Pen Hadow. With two companions, he is measuring the thickness of the ice to show how fast it is declining. His expedition is one of a series of events designed to raise awareness of the dangers of climate change before Decembers conference in Copenhagen, where the warmists hope to get a new treaty imposing much more drastic cuts on CO2 emissions.
Hadows Catlin Arctic Project has top-level backing from the likes of the BBC, the WWF (it could make a lasting difference to policy-relevant science) and Prince Charles (for the sake of our children and grandchildren, I pray that we will heed the results of the Catlin Arctic Survey and I can only commend this remarkably important project).
With perfect timing, the setting out from Britain of the Global Warming Three last month was hampered by an unusually heavy snowfall. When they were airlifted to the start of their trek by a twin-engine Otter (one hopes a whole forest has been planted to offset its carbon footprint), they were startled to find how cold it was. The BBC dutifully reported how, in temperatures of minus 40 degrees, they were battered by wind, bitten by frost and bruised by falls on the ice.
The idea is that the expedition should take regular radar fixes on the ice thickness, to be fed into a computer model in California run by Professor Wieslaw Maslowski, whose team, according to the BBC, is well known for producing results that show much faster ice-loss than other modelling teams. The professor predicts that summer ice could be completely gone as early as next year.
It took the Watts Up With That? science blog to point out that there is little point in measuring ice thickness unless you do it several years running, and that, anyway, Arctic ice is being constantly monitored by US Army buoys. The latest reading given by a typical sensor shows that since last March the ice has thickened by at least half a metre.
In most fields of science, comments WUWT drily, that is considered an 'increase rather than a 'decline.
"The White House isn't the place to learn how to deal with international crisis, the balance of power, war and peace, the economic future of the next generation." --- Joe Biden, 1988
Back to top
Joined: 22 Mar 2007
Posts: 1502
Posted: Wed Mar 25, 2009 12:47 am
Post subject:
It took a few days before I could get to fact checking the latest posts.
On the climate on Mars, this says it much more authoritatively than I could:
What it boils down to is that data distorters have grabbed hold of a speculation about Mars by one scientist to try to confuse the picture.
Even if the Mars climate speculation was right, it would indeed be irrelevant to an analysis of Earth climate. Weather and climate on other planets can be used for analogies, which can sometimes help thinking, but they do not provide directly useful data for the whole climate modeling process I described before.
On Arctic sea ice, the distorter quoted is slicker. I had to read the linked column twice to see that the columnist was not citing ANY data results from the expedition going on right now. The WEATHER the expedition is facing is mixed with a reference to other data (it was still winter in the Northern Hemisphere until a couple days ago, and even spring in the Arctic is no picnic).
It took a little poking around to find the real ice buoy data.
This is about one ice mass balance buoy:
This is a summary of ice melt data from many buoys:
This is a summary of the whole sea ice issue:
This shows ice extent maps from several recent years:
This discusses a recent satellite sensor failure that is already being grabbed as another talking point by data distorters:
What it boils down to is that the CLIMATE trend is consistent with all the science confirming global warming. Within the long-term climate trend there are year-to-year variations in WEATHER that fluctuate more. The buoy data for ONE year was made to sound like a long-term trend by the columnist. See the links above for the real long-term trend. Several of the sites I cited (or links from them) go into more detail, but basically more ice is melting, which causes even more rapid heating because water reflects less than ice.
The expedition now in progress has produced NO results yet. When they do get their data in, it can be used to integrate with and calibrate satellite sensor data. Since this is a single expedition, it can provide no year-to-year or long-term values.
I really don't understand why so many people fight tooth-and-nail against the whole concept of anthropogenic climate change. To me, the aspect of human causation makes a more empowering model than that of the data distorters. Early stages of warming are already there in recent past data--see the links in the opening post of this thread. If that warming was entirely from natural causes it would mean that humanity is heading into a climatic catastrophe with no ability to fix anything. The anthropogenic greenhouse gases explanation points to ACTIONS people can take to ameliorate the catastrophe.
Is it the planetary scale that make warming deniers balk? If so, what scale is the threshold for consequences of human actions?
Heat islands changing local weather around cities?
Extinctions of ancient American megafauna (with humans either contributing to or directly causing the extinctions, depending on who you ask)?
Extinctions of many species in recent history?
Ecological effects of invasive species (which can have continental scopes): diseases, plants (like the rogue aquarium plants taking over miles of sea bottoms), mollusks (like the zebra mussels messing up lots of US waterways & works), fish, insects (e.g., Africanized bees), birds, reptiles, mammals (like the rats destroying fauna on some islands), etc.?
Deforestation on massive scales?
Desertification from bad land-use habits?
Acid rain from uncontrolled air pollution?
Growing dead zones in coastal waters due to everything humans dump in rivers?
Overfishing that caused collapses of multiple fisheries over many years?
Recent extreme overfishing that is causing rapid forced evolution to smaller fish?
Near-extinction of whales by whaling before most countries stopped?
The mass-extinction many scientists believe is now in progress due to human actions (habitat destruction, pollution, climate change, over-predation)?
Humans do not live lightly on this planet. All our actions have impacts, many totally inconceivable to the people starting any given chain of actions. Why is it so hard to believe that the consequences of human actions now reach a scale changing the atmosphere and climate of the whole world?
Back to top
Joined: 05 Apr 2007
Posts: 173
Posted: Sat Mar 28, 2009 1:56 pm
Post subject:
Mark wrote:
I really don't understand why so many people fight tooth-and-nail against the whole concept of anthropogenic climate change. To me, the aspect of human causation makes a more empowering model than that of the data distorters.
First off, because it depends on what the trends show lately that makes those into anthropogenic climate change decide if man is making it colder (60's-70's) or warmer (now). I remember
very well
some of the same teeth gnashers bemoaning how the Earth was cooling and we were facing "A New Ice Age" ... until temperatures rose some and suddenly it became global warming. Gee, if in the 70's we were heading for the Big Freeze, why don't we just do now what we were doing then and cool things down. Of course, that fact that
still holds the record for hot, IIRC, helps add to it.
And, since the Global Warming crowd have already been shown to manipulate that data to fit their desired results, I think bringing up "data distorters" as a arguing point is light weight. These "Global Warming" advocates cannot even tell me what the weather is going to be next week accurately. Why should I believe they can predict 10 years? Wait -- weren't we told in the lates 80's "We only have twenty years!!!" If that's the case, it's too late to do anything, anyway. That's just one more instance verbalizing Gregg Easterbrook's "Law of Doomsaying": Predict catastrophe no sooner than five years hence but no later than 10 years away, soon enough to terrify but distant enough that people will forget if you are wrong. Except, oops, too many of us remember. It's the young kids on the block running around in panic.
"The White House isn't the place to learn how to deal with international crisis, the balance of power, war and peace, the economic future of the next generation." --- Joe Biden, 1988
Back to top
Joined: 26 Jan 2009
Posts: 812
Posted: Sat Mar 28, 2009 9:31 pm
Post subject:
To me it all boils down to the greatest potential harm. If we make heroic efforts to reduce greenhouse gases and develop renewable energy technologies, and climate change proves NOT to be as bad as current models indicate, some economic upheaval may result but it should not have a longterm impact on future generations. However, if we do nothing and the current models are correct, our children and their children and many future generations are well and truly screwed.
Why do we keep rationalizing our right to use every drop of resources we desire in spite of the fact that doing so shortchanges others now and will in the future? What does this wastefulness gain us? Does our selfishness know no bounds?
Justin managed to look superior and bored and disbelieving all at once. No mean feat for a man who'd just fallen from a tree.
Back to top
Joined: 05 Apr 2007
Posts: 173
Posted: Sun Mar 29, 2009 1:13 pm
Post subject:
iluvarake wrote:
To me it all boils down to the greatest potential harm. If we make heroic efforts to reduce greenhouse gases and develop renewable energy technologies, and climate change proves NOT to be as bad as current models indicate, some economic upheaval may result but it should not have a longterm impact on future generations. However, if we do nothing and the current models are correct, our children and their children and many future generations are well and truly screwed.
Why do we keep rationalizing our right to use every drop of resources we desire in spite of the fact that doing so shortchanges others now and will in the future? What does this wastefulness gain us? Does our selfishness know no bounds?
The problem is, Global Warming is not gearing toward finding new energy sources, it's geared toward making money. Period. Oh, yeah, the little guy sorting his garbage into recyclables, cutting back on his driving, planting his trees has a desire to help. But the big Poo-Bahs of Anthropogenic Climate Change is in it for the Power and the Money. If they were legitimate, would they have to lie about the relationship between CO2 and temperature rise? CO2 rise actually follows temperature rise (6 - 9 months later), not the other way around. If alternative energy has been so vitally important to the Democrats, why when there have been Democrat presidents with Democrat majority Congresses (Carter, Clinton) was nothing done? Instead there are calls to buy "carbon credits" which just happen to be sold by Al Gore's company.
The major problem is, the way the current Anthropogenic Climate Change is to be handled is to bring down the major Western Nation Economies while letting those nations who are still "growing" pollute as much as they like so they can catch-up. Free passes for China? For India? And, much of the third world is doing what it can to pollute. Shutting down those countries that have the ability to grow the world's food and develop new medicines to "Save the World" is going to bring the world to ruin.
What's the problem with conserving? Nothing. What's the problem with the Anthropogenic Climate Change movement? Everything.
The CO2 - Temperature link
17 12 2008
Guest Post By Frank Lansner, civil engineer, biotechnology.
The trend difference means, that from 1979 to 2008 the CO2-rise per year compared to the global temperatures has fallen 0,5 ppm/year, or the other way around: It now takes approx. +0,15 K global temperature anomaly more to achieve the same level of CO2 rise/year as it did in 1979.
How can this be? The CO2 rise/year now takes higher temperatures to achieve?
With the human emissions rising in the time interval 1979-2008, one could imagine that it would be the other way around, that CO2 rises came with still smaller temperature rises needed. But no, its becoming harder and harder to make CO2 rise in the atmosphere.
So generally, the human emissions effect appears inferior to other effects in this context at least.
Which effects could hold CO2 rise/year down as we see?
The fact that we today have higher CO2 concentration in the atmosphere than in 1979 does not favour more CO2 release from the oceans. However the fact that we approx 500 million years ago had several thousand ppm CO2 in the atmosphere implies that the 385 ppm today hardly does a big difference.
My guess is, that what we see is mainly the effect of the growing biosphere.
In short: A period with higher temperatures leads to higher CO2 rises/year and thus of course after some years higher CO2 concentration in the atmosphere.
"The White House isn't the place to learn how to deal with international crisis, the balance of power, war and peace, the economic future of the next generation." --- Joe Biden, 1988
Back to top
Joined: 22 Mar 2007
Posts: 1502
Posted: Thu Apr 02, 2009 9:59 pm
Post subject:
On cooling claims, I already cited this on March 1:
Claiming that there was a scientific consensus a few decades ago on cooling is a modern myth.
I already mentioned in the first post of this thread the limits that chaos imposes on predictions. Both weather and climate predictions are constrained by chaos, which means any predictions are probabilistic: this is expressed as x% chance of y phenomenon in a typical weather forecast. Unfortunately, the global warming problem has EXTREMELY HIGH PROBABILITY, so even though exact details will be filled in later the overall outline is very solid.
On claims of alarmism, there is this little problem called inertia. The Earth's atmosphere contains a large (relative to human scale) volume of gases interacting in incredibly complex ways as I mentioned in earlier posts. Many atmospheric interactions take YEARS to happen. If all human greenhouse gas emissions stopped instantly, the climate effects of the gases already released would take DECADES or CENTURIES to play out. This means that so-called "alarmists" could be proved right by the climate several decades from now. You can't assume actions have no consequences just because you don't see results today. It's like a smoker saying tobacco smoke isn't hurting them because they haven't yet died of cancer.
There is also the matter of tipping points or critical thresholds. (The freezing and boiling points of water being examples in everyday life.) If a critical threshold is crossed, phenomena under study can undergo sudden radical changes. There are several possible tipping points, like total melting of Greenland or Antarctic icecaps, that are not expected with the conservative assumptions used in the ipcc climate models but could become serious problems if less conservative assumptions prove true.
If you want real examples of alarmism, just look at claims that acting to fix climate will cause economic collapse used by people who fight the concept of global warming. Daily news looks to me like the status-quo crowd already caused a pretty big economic collapse.
What I have been trying to make clear from the start of this topic is the science, not the politics. Here is a brief side trip to politics. I am frankly surprised by any accomplishments for the general good by politicians given the number in all political parties in all levels of office that are swayed (when not outright owned) by the people putting up the money that elects them or by lobbyists. There are some true public servants, but there are also an awful lot of self-serving politicians. Leaving that aside and making the rather huge assumption that the majority of even Democratic politicians will act for the good of people as a whole, this has been the balance of power in Washington, DC over the last 50+ years:
House Democratic majority: 1955-1994, 2007-now
House Republican majority: 1995-2006
Senate Democratic majority: 1957-1980, 1987-1994, 2009-
(Nominally filibuster-proof 1959-1968, 1975-1978)
Senate Republican majority: 1981-1986, 1995-2000, 2003-2006
Messy Senate splits: 1955-1956, 2001-2002, 2007-2008
Democratic Presidents: 1961-1968, 1977-1980, 1993-2000, 2009-
Republican Presidents: 1953-1960, 1969-1976, 1981-1992, 2001-2008
You can see from these dates that there was Democratic control of the Presidency, House and Senate during the years 1961-1968, 1977-1980, 1993-1994, and now. Of that time, only 1961-1968 and 1977-1978 included a nominally filibuster-proof Senate majority. Climate science was still far too young for consensus conclusions the last time before this year that one might have hoped for action from Democrats alone without Republican cooperation.
On the Wattsup site, the actual bottom-line conclusion is the opposite of what you quoted. Even with a lot of skimming it took a whole evening to read the original post and the many responses. The final conclusion is that the claim you quoted that temperature drives CO2 (with a time lag) rather than vice versa is another case of selective use of data. The initial claim took data from a limited range of years and came up with a formula that could be made to fit that data to describe a short-term feedback cycle involved in reaching new equilibrium values when atmospheric CO2 changes, an effect well-known by climate scientists and already incorporated into their calculations. Read the whole page, especially the many posts by Ferdinand Engelbeen. He demonstrated incredible patience in posting & rephrasing repeatedly over several months to get across the point that the short-term formula fails beyond a few years while the formula used by the climate scientists has been checked against and works with data for at least 400,000 years. The formula that works is based on CO2 driving temperature, a basic part of the global warming problem.
The discussion led me to a few more good graphs.
CO2 emissions & atmospheric CO2:
CO2 showing seasonal patterns:
Long-term CO2:
CO2 and temperature:
Very long-term CO2 and temperature:
The kind of claim in the original Wattsup post (which the discussion corrected) is why the labels of conclusion contorters, data distorters, fact fiddlers, science stretchers, etc. are appropriate for most arguments against the climate science warning of global warming.
I will try again to give a clear description of science. Science collectively builds models of the world. These models are TESTED and refined or discarded based on how well their retrodictions and predictions match real measurements of whatever aspect of the world the models are trying to describe. Fields of science grow and mature just as people do. An immature science can explore many varying models. A more mature science coalesces around one model or a small number of models that consistently provide the best match for the most data. An immature science can make radical changes in models. A more mature science generally only refines one primary model by filling in details and expanding coverage at any edges. An immature science is more open for useful contributions from dabblers and non-specialists. A more mature science is largely a field for specialists or large teams, though sometimes outsiders can still make useful contributions. An immature science can involve a small enough sum of knowledge that a newcomer can learn the whole field in a relatively short time. A mature science will usually include so much specialized knowledge that it takes many years of study to master the field, and sometimes includes so much knowledge that it has to be broken into more narrow specialties to be within the grasp of individuals. Wildly different models can be on almost equal footings in an immature science, giving mavericks and pioneers a chance to contribute. With a mature science, models radically different from the mainstream or consensus have a huge burden of proof to overcome--they have to give retrodictions and predictions as good as the consensus model for all data used to validate the consensus model AND give BETTER retrodictions and predictions of data the consensus model hasn't handled.
Perhaps an analogy can make the concept of a developing science clearer. Think of producing an image of a library or school globe as the model of reality you are trying to construct. Early attempts might focus on a reflection of the globe in a mirror or on a shadow of the globe, but eventually the focus will be on the globe itself. Early images might have only a few black-and-white pixels of detail, then a few colors, then more pixels, and so on, with each generation of image adding more pixels or more gradations of colors or both. Eventually the best single image might become a hologram or some other 3-D technology. Finally, multiple images will be used to show the globe from all sides or angles or to show a time sequence as the globe rotates. After the first few false starts looking at reflections and shadows, every image is recognizably of the same object and no image invalidates any previous image, but the clarity of each image has grown step-by-step by showing more details.
The science of modeling the Earth's climate was quite immature several decades ago, but in the past several decades the science has matured tremendously. As I said in earlier posts, there is a huge amount of detail to be filled in, but the broad framework is established. There is now a mainstream or consensus model (or set of models [GCM]), and that consensus is the source of warnings of global warming. People talking about global warming decades ago turned out to be pioneers. Now they are the mainstream of a much more mature science.
I mentioned in a March 7 post that the fossil fuel economy amounts to trillions of dollars per year. Having a bias toward idealism, I didn't follow through to a now (once pointed out) obvious corollary. I got a piece of mail recently that mentioned that people who like the status quo are spending over 1 million dollars PER DAY on Washington lobbying and political contributions to try to block any action on regulating greenhouse gases. Here is an EDF site that mentions money spent on climate change denial:
Here is a related EDF site giving some disinformation vs. reality checks:
This spending goes a long way toward explaining the volume of opposition to climate science. There probably are some people with sincere doubts, and there are unfortunately way too many people with poor understanding of science, but a huge amount of the noise is generated by people being PAID to squawk. So we have real climate scientists (of whom only an unknown subset might be good speakers to laypeople) who spend their time working on the science and paid communicators and persuaders who spend their time trying to squelch understanding of the science. With this in mind, it is actually surprising how many people do understand the dangers of business as usual.
This creates an obvious analogy to Big Tobacco and other merchants of death. It took many years, but eventually Big Tobacco sprang enough leaks for the facts to come out that those in charge of the industry had known how deadly smoking is for several decades during which they publicly denied such knowledge and did everything they could to prevent regulation of tobacco products. Now multi-million- (and billion-) dollar judgments against Big Tobacco are being upheld.
During those years of tobacco denial I heard a prominent psychologist or psychiatrist (I don't recall which he was) sometimes called a "stormy petrel" in his field claim that you could argue that cancer came from some personality factor rather than the smoking itself. More recent biochemical research into the many ways tobacco contributes to cancer definitely invalidates his claim, but when he said that in the 1970s or 1980s it was controversial but not provably wrong. I doubt that he was in the pay of Big Tobacco, but whether simply because he liked to argue or because he wanted to justify his own smoking or for other reasons I can't guess, his arguing of the point helped the Big Tobacco disinformation campaign.
It is clear that humans have widely varying levels of conscience, from followers of some religions that avoid killing anything down to the level of insects to members of some regimes that kill millions of fellow humans in deliberate genocide. I'm afraid I classify people who deliberately prevent amelioration of dangerous consequences of human actions as being toward the atrophied or stunted conscience end of the scale. I wonder how many years it will be before the fossil fuel promoters are called Big Carbon and viewed in much the same light as Big Tobacco?
As a reader of F&SF for several decades I've read a fair number of post-apocalypse stories or stories about visiting aliens trying to reconstruct what Earth's vanished civilizations might have been. I've also listened to a lot of real history since I discovered tapes from The Teaching Company several years ago. Names of historical periods are usually given by historians or archeologists living later. I have to wonder if some future (human or alien) historian will label the 20th & 21st centuries (C.E.) the Genocide & Greed Age or the Suicidal Stupidity Age.
Back to top
Joined: 05 Apr 2007
Posts: 173
Posted: Fri Apr 24, 2009 12:14 pm
Post subject:
Man Made Global Warming is a sham, a con, an attempt to control people by taxing them for "carbon" use. Hey -- carbon dioxide is not a toxin! Sure -- too much, people die -- well guess what
too much oxygen and a person dies!!
But more proof? Do not let anyone around who disagrees with Saint Al of the Carbon:
Report: Democrats Refuse to Allow Skeptic to Testify Alongside Gore At Congressional Hearing
UK's Lord Christopher Monckton, a former science advisor to Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher, claimed House Democrats have refused to allow him to appear alongside former Vice President Al Gore at a high profile global warming hearing on Friday April 24, 2009 at 10am in Washington. Monckton told Climate Depot that the Democrats rescinded his scheduled joint appearance at the House Energy and Commerce hearing on Friday. Monckton said he was informed that he would not be allowed to testify alongside Gore when his plane landed from England Thursday afternoon.
The House Democrats don't want Gore humiliated, so they slammed the door of the Capitol in my face, Monckton told Climate Depot in an exclusive interview. They are cowards.
According to Monckton, Rep. Joe Barton (R-Texas), Ranking Member on the Energy & Commerce Committee, had invited him to go head to head with Gore and testify at the hearing on Capitol Hill Friday. But Monckton now says that when his airplane from London landed in the U.S. on Thursday, he was informed that the former Vice-President had chickened out and there would be no joint appearance. Gore is scheduled to testify on Friday to the Subcommittee on Energy and the Environment's fourth day of hearings on the American Clean Energy and Security Act of 2009. The hearing will be held in 2123 Rayburn House Office Building.
According to Monckton, House Democrats told the Republican committee staff earlier this week that they would be putting forward an unnamed 'celebrity' as their star witness Friday at a multi-panel climate hearing examining the House global warming bill. The "celebrity" witness turned out to be Gore. Monckton said the GOP replied they would respond to the Democrats' "celebrity" with an unnamed "celebrity" of their own. But Monckton claims that when the Democrats were told who the GOP witness would be, they refused to allow him to testify alongside Gore.
The Democrats have a lot to learn about the right of free speech under the US Constitution. Congress Henry Waxman's (D-CA) refusal to expose Al Gore's sci-fi comedy-horror testimony to proper, independent scrutiny by the House minority reeks of naked fear, Monckton said from the airport Thursday evening.
Waxman knows there has been no 'global warming' for at least a decade. Waxman knows there has been seven and a half years' global cooling. Waxman knows that, in the words of the UK High Court judge who condemned Gore's mawkish movie as materially, seriously, serially inaccurate, 'the Armageddon scenario that he depicts is not based on any scientific view,' Monckton explained. Monckton has previously testified before the House Committee in March. (See: Monckton: Have the courage to do nothing...US Congress told climate change is not real ) Monckton has also publicly challenged Gore to a debate. (See: Al Gore Challenged to International TV Debate on Global Warming By Lord Monckton - March 19, 2007 )
A call to the Democratic office of the House Energy and Commerce Committee seeking comment was not immediately returned Thursday night.
"The White House isn't the place to learn how to deal with international crisis, the balance of power, war and peace, the economic future of the next generation." --- Joe Biden, 1988
Back to top
Joined: 22 Mar 2007
Posts: 1502
Posted: Fri Apr 24, 2009 6:43 pm
Post subject:
Monkton IS NOT A CLIMATE SCIENTIST. He is a journalist. His testimony would be as useless as Gore's--it would be hot air from laymen on both sides. See again everything I've said above about SCIENCE!
I wrote this recently when I was in a limerick mood:
Facing climate calamity
Doing naught is insanity
Yet the lovers of oil
Still do their best to foil
Efforts to save humanity.
Back to top
Joined: 05 Apr 2007
Posts: 173
Posted: Sat Apr 25, 2009 11:30 pm
Post subject:
Mark wrote:
Monkton IS NOT A CLIMATE SCIENTIST. He is a journalist. His testimony would be as useless as Gore's--it would be hot air from laymen on both sides. See again everything I've said above about SCIENCE!
I wrote this recently when I was in a limerick mood:
Facing climate calamity
Doing naught is insanity
Yet the lovers of oil
Still do their best to foil
Efforts to save humanity.
Al Gore IS NOT A CLIMATE SCIENTIST. His testimony was allowed in front of Congress -- Monkton's wasn't. See a little bias going on here? Of course -- by going for even more taxes, for "cap and trade" the politicians in Washington head more and more to controlling every bit of our every day lives ... because people are letting for fear "The sky is falling!"
Gee how about this:
Dinosaurs Lived in the Arctic
nd they weren't lost wanderers, either. The fossils include dinosaur eggshells - a first at high latitudes, and evidence of a settled, breeding population.
It's true
the Arctic was much warmer back then
, but it wasn't any picnic. The size and shape of fossilized leaves found with the bones enabled Godefroit's team to estimate a
mean annual temperature of 50 degrees Fahrenheit, with wintertime lows at freezing.
Gee -- just what did man do with his "modern" sticks to cause the warming of the Artic then?
Global Temperature fluctuations happen -- there are cycles -- and, right now, we are actually in a cooling cycle. Man is not so powerful that he can affect, all by his wittle wonesome, the global weather (no matter what the Chinese are trying!).
"The White House isn't the place to learn how to deal with international crisis, the balance of power, war and peace, the economic future of the next generation." --- Joe Biden, 1988
Back to top
Joined: 22 Mar 2007
Posts: 1502
Posted: Mon Apr 27, 2009 12:58 am
Post subject:
Read the science I've already cited. As I said in an earlier post, Earth's history has included everything from snowball Earth to iceless Earth, and such changes are ACCOUNTED FOR in climate science. Anthropogenic climate change is MODIFYING natural cycles!
Back to top
Joined: 05 Apr 2007
Posts: 173
Posted: Mon Apr 27, 2009 3:35 pm
Post subject:
Mark wrote:
Read the science I've already cited. As I said in an earlier post, Earth's history has included everything from snowball Earth to iceless Earth, and such changes are ACCOUNTED FOR in climate science. Anthropogenic climate change is MODIFYING natural cycles!
Okay ...
Here is a graph of CO2 concentrations for a few recent centuries (trend: rising):
Here is a graph of over 150 years of global temperatures (trend: rising):
When the CO2 concentration and temperature graphs are overlayed (well, by anybody but Al Gore for his movie ...), it shows CO2 rising 6 months
temperature rise.
UK Treasury Review Report on the Economics of Climate Change:
(The short version: doing nothing about climate will cost 5% to 20% of global GDP per year while acting will cost 1%.)
This would be the Lord Stern who says the CO2 concentration is "430 ppm" when it's actually less than 389ppm? Seems like something an "expert" ought to really know. But wait! There's more!
one would not expect a man whose institute is claimed to be "a world-leader in low carbon technologies" to claim, as he does in his book, that by next year wind energy "is set to account for 8 per cent of electricity generation in the UK", when the current figure is scarcely 1 per cent; or that "wind accounted for 35 per cent of total installed power capacity in the US in 2007", when two minutes on the internet could have shown him that wind power that year generated less electricity in the US than a single large coal-fired power station.
In fact, when the Stern Review came out in 2006, predicting that global warming could soon account for the extinction of 40 per cent of all species of life on earth, far from being universally lauded it was savagely criticised by some of the very people who might have been expected to praise it his fellow economists. No one was more excoriatory than the man on whose work Lord Stern claimed to have based many of his most scarifying predictions, the noted Dutch economist Dr Richard Tol.
Far from being a global-warming sceptic, Dr Tol has played a key part in the UN's Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change and wrote the UN Handbook on Methods for Climate Change Impact Assessment. But he could not have been more withering about the way the Stern Review went out of its way to cherry pick the most alarming possible predictions about the impacts of climate change and then to exaggerate them still further. Where Tol had, for instance, given a range of costs up to $14 per ton of CO2, while saying that the actual cost was "likely to be substantially smaller", Stern had more than doubled his figure, to $29 a ton. Stern's report, Tol pronounced, could be "dismissed as alarmist and incompetent", and his doomsday prophecies were simply "preposterous".
Hmm ... doesn't look like everyone with the know-how is agreeing with your sources.
Okay so ...
James Hansen June 23, 2008 to Congress (20 years after 1988 testimony):
Well, he did give his report -- but
to "Congress" -- rather to the House Select Committee on Energy Independence and Global Warming
The global warming committee is chaired by Massachusetts Democrat Ed Markey, who first became famous for opposing clean nuclear power. Oh, and for opposing Reagans approach to winning the Cold War.
Guess he was wrong on that one.
It was in Markeys ghetto committee that Hansen delivered his remarks.
There were plenty of chairs for the interns.
But, well, gee ... Hansen can't seem to make his points without, well, using
When Canadian mining engineer Steve McIntyre discovered in 2007 that the U.S. governments NASA Goddard Institute for Space Studies -- led by Hansen -- had screwed up its figures and erroneously (and conveniently, for Hansen) reported that 1998 is the warmest year on record instead of 1934, Hansen flipped out. He referred to those who caught the error as court jesters, charging they did the bidding of unnamed captains of industry.
Dr. Hansen apparently believes the world is as stupid as, well, as stupid as the world seems to be.
All of the October surface station temperature from Russia was corrupted. So what did Hansen do? He simply copied and pasted Russias temperatures for September into October and reported that October 2008 was the hottest October on record.
Why isnt James Hansen in prison? The AGW argument has lost so much steam that hes resorted this level of lying, fraud, and deceit. So fast are the data disproving Hansens theories that hell stoop to bald faced lies to protect his crumbling reputation.
Meanwhile, 2008 is shaping up to be below average across the vast majority of the United States.
And, there average temperatures Jan - Oct 2008
were cooler than normal
. The temps are dropping.
But, if you "cook the books" you can make your point -- of course, its lying, but, hey, if it sounds good, right:
Lest you're ever tempted to believe the liberal establishment's shrill lies about the nonexistent climate crisis:
A surreal scientific blunder last week raised a huge question mark about the temperature records that underpin the worldwide alarm over global warming. On Monday, Nasa's Goddard Institute for Space Studies (GISS), which is run by Al Gore's chief scientific ally, Dr James Hansen, and is one of four bodies responsible for monitoring global temperatures, announced that last month was
the hottest October on record
This was startling.
Across the world there were reports of unseasonal snow and plummeting temperatures
last month, from the American Great Plains to China, and from the Alps to New Zealand. China's official news agency reported that Tibet had suffered its "worst snowstorm ever". In the US, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration registered 63 local snowfall records and 115 lowest-ever temperatures for the month, and ranked it as only the 70th-warmest October in 114 years.
The GISS got the alarming numbers it wanted
by carrying over some temperatures from the previous month
. As even Al Gore probably knows, September tends to be warmer than October.
Hansen et al. were caught out not by the increasingly irrelevant mainstream media, but by the blogs Watts Up With That and Climate Audit.
The GISS's response was to discover a new "hotspot" in the Arctic
despite the fact that sea ice there is 30% more extensive than it was at this point last year.
"The White House isn't the place to learn how to deal with international crisis, the balance of power, war and peace, the economic future of the next generation." --- Joe Biden, 1988
Back to top
Display posts from previous:
All Posts
1 Day
7 Days
2 Weeks
1 Month
3 Months
6 Months
1 Year
Oldest First
Newest First
AAR Forum Index
The Wild Wild West Forum
All times are GMT - 5 Hours
Goto page
Jump to:
Select a forum
Announcements Forum
Let's Talk Romance Novels
Let's Talk Romance Novels Forum
Romance Potpourri
Romance Potpourri Forum
Writer's News
Writer's News Forum
General Chat
General Chat Forum
Wild Wild West
The Wild Wild West Forum
post new topics in this forum
reply to topics in this forum
edit your posts in this forum
delete your posts in this forum
vote in polls in this forum
Powered by
© 2001, 2005 phpBB Group


text:
ZF-12115: Zend_Validate_File_Count fails on Zend_Form_Element_File when isValid called more than once & a new file destination is set
Zend_Validate_File_Count fails if you set a new file destination after isValid is called, and then call isValid again.
An example will better illustrate:
define('UPLOADS_PATH', '/path/to/uploads');
class Bug_Form_FileCountValidator {
public function init() {
$this->addElement('file', 'uploadElement', array(
'label' => 'Label text',
'valueDisabled' => true,
'validators' => array(
array('Count', true, array('max' => 1))
// ...
$form = new Bug_Form_FileCountValidator();
if ($form->isValid($_POST)) { // A
// set a new destination
$form->uploadElement->setDestination(UPLOAD_PATH . '/newpath');
$uploadElement->receive(); // B
- The validation error message we get is: "Too many files, maximum '1' are allowed but '2' are given"
- isValid is called twice on: A & B.
A quick look at Zend_Validate_File_Count and you can see that by setting a new destination after isValid is called, it causes the file count validator to add another file reference to its count when isValid is called again with a new destination. However, two files don't actually exist, we have simply changed the destination of the file that the file count validator already knows about.
I hope that makes sense?
No comments to display

subset: commoncrawl


text:
Windows comes with a small set of games that you can play whenever you're in the mood for a bit of fun. This article gives a brief overview of each game. For more specific instructions, click View Help on the game's Help menu.
The games that come with Windows are located in the Games folder, the central location for games on your computer.
Chess Titans brings the classic strategy game of chess to life with three-dimensional graphics and animation. Highlighted squares show where you can move your pieces. Choose a porcelain, marble, or wooden board, and rotate the board freely to the view you want.
Number of players: 1 or 2
Difficulty levels: 1 (beginner) to 10 (expert)
Typical playing time: 10 to 60 minutes
Chess Titans is not included in Windows Vista Home Basic or Windows Vista Starter.
Mahjong Titans is a solitaire game played with tiles. Remove matching pairs of tiles from the board; if you can remove all the tiles, you win! Choose from four different tile designs, six different tile layouts, and a variety of backgrounds. This game is different from the ancient game of mahjong, although it uses similar tiles.
Number of players: 1
Difficulty levels: Varies by tile layout
Typical playing time: 10 to 30 minutes
Mahjong Titans is not included in Windows Vista Home Basic or Windows Vista Starter.
In InkBall, your goal is to get bouncing balls into holes of the same color. Steer the balls by deflecting them with ink strokes that you draw with your mouse or tablet pen. Don't let any balls go into the wrong hole, or the game is over!
Difficulty levels: Beginner, novice, intermediate, advanced, expert
Typical playing time: One to ten minutes
InkBall is not included in Windows Vista Home Basic or Windows Vista Starter.
In Minesweeper, you must locate all of the mines concealed beneath a playing field of squares. Click a square to reveal what it contains. Some squares contain numbers that help you find nearby mines. But watch out—if you click a square with a mine, all the mines on the board explode and the game is over!
Difficulty levels: Beginner, intermediate, advanced
Purble Place is actually three games in one: Comfy Cakes, Purble Shop, and Purble Pairs. At the beginner level, these whimsical games are especially suitable for children, helping to teach skills in memory, pattern recognition, and reasoning. The higher difficulty levels will challenge players of all ages.
Comfy Cakes. This game puts you in Chef Purble's bakery, where you must complete an order for a batch of cakes. The bakery's customers are very particular, so you'll need to make the cakes exactly as ordered, with the right combination of shapes, batters, fillings, icings, and decorations. Work fast because the cakes will keep on coming!
Typical playing time: One to five minutes
Purble Shop. This game tests your powers of deduction. Your goal is to make your Purble's face match the mystery Purble behind the curtain. Choose hair, eyes, nose, and lips from the shelves, then learn how many—but not which—features you have right!
Purble Pairs. In this game, your goal is find all the matching pairs of pictures on the board before time runs out. Flip a tile over to reveal a picture, then try to find its match. Use a "sneak peek" token to get a glimpse of all of the tiles on the board.
Windows comes with four card games: Hearts, and three variants of solitaire (a family of single-player card games). For each game, you can choose from a variety of deck designs and backgrounds.
FreeCell is a variant of solitaire. To win, you must make four stacks of cards, one in each suit, in ascending order (ace to king). To build these stacks, you'll draw from seven columns of cards that you build in descending order, alternating red and black. Use the "free cells" to hold cards temporarily.
Difficulty levels: One level
Typical playing time: 10 to 20 minutes
Hearts is a card game that you play in rounds against three computer opponents. Avoid taking the undesirable cards—all hearts and the queen of spades—unless you're planning to shoot the moon! The player with the lowest score wins.
Number of players: 1 (against 3 computer opponents)
Solitaire is based on the most popular variant of solitaire, Klondike. To win, you must build four stacks of cards, one for each suit, in ascending order (ace to king). To build these stacks, you'll draw from seven columns of cards that you build in descending order, alternating red and black.
Typical playing time: 5 to 15 minutes
Spider Solitaire is a variant of solitaire that uses two decks' worth of cards (104 cards). The object is to remove all of the cards from the ten stacks at the top of the window in the fewest number of moves. Remove cards by making a complete stack in descending order (king to ace).
When you're ready for more entertainment, there are thousands of games available for Windows, either for purchase or for free. Categories include puzzle and word games, action games, adventure games, sports games, card games, simulation games, and strategy games.
To learn more about the games available for Windows, go to the Microsoft Windows Gaming website.


text:
Conditions of Loan & Exchange
Updated May, 2011
1. Purpose of loans and Exchange
a. Specimens are generally available on loan for scientific research in the public interest through activities and procedures that will not endanger the safety and integrity of the specimens as archival objects. The safety and security of the specimens is of prime importance.
b. Loans are made for non-destructive examination of external morphology, gross anatomy, field notes and other annotations, for taxonomic, biogeographic and historic research purposes. Loans for DNA or phytochemical sampling, or for anatomical, palynological, ecological, geographic, ethnobotanical or historical studies, or for display or educative purposes, will be considered if alternative materials are unavailable, and if the proposed use will not involve undue impact on specimens.
c. If any of the loan conditions cannot be met due to local policy or operational requirements, please contact the Curator of the Herbarium to discuss the nature of the difficulty and explore possible alternative arrangements.
2. Negotiation and responsibility for loans
a. Loans are negotiated and made on behalf of botanical institutions and their directors, not by individual researchers. Loans will not be made to individuals and will only be made to destinations where safe and secure transport and storage arrangements exist.
b. Formal requests for loans or samples from voucher specimens, should be made in writing or email to the Curator of the Herbarium (email@example.com) by the head of a recognised botanical institution on behalf of the researcher. The head of the borrowing institution will take responsibility for the security, documentation and safe return of all specimens, and for adherence to the conditions of the loan. Loans will not be dispatched until these conditions are agreed to.
c. Requests for loans or vouchered samples should include the following information:
i. the names of researchers on whose behalf the loan is made;ii. the nomenclatural and taxonomic scope of the work;iii. the geographic or regional scope of the work;iv. the relationship of the work to other projects (e.g. national or regional floras or checklists);v. an outline of any commercial arrangements bearing upon the use of the material.
3. Use of material for commercial purposes
a. Use of loan or exchange specimens in projects of a commercial nature requires separate and specific permission. 'Commercial purposes' does not include the sale of research-derived publications that are in the public domain. It does include the sale, or transfer or transmission (other than for public-domain research), of unpublished information (e.g. lists or databases of specimen or taxon attributes) or images, to third parties.
b. If the project has commercial aspects, we would like to know:
i. the scope of projectii. the parties involvediii. the sources of fundingiv. any provisions for intellectual propertyv. any provisions for commercial-in-confidence material
c. We will require separate negotiation and written agreement with all parties before loan or exchange material may be used for commercial purposes. A separate Materials Transfer Agreement is required where commercial development of derivatives of herbarium specimens, and other biological material, is anticipated.
4. Liability and suitability for purpose
a. Specimens and data supplied on loan or exchange, or in response to requests for samples, is provided in good faith for research purposes. No warranties or assurances of reliability, suitability or fitness for a particular purpose of specimens or data are offered. Assessment of suitability of such material and data for intended use is the responsibility of receiving institutions or researchers.
b. No responsibility or liability is accepted for the identity, locality or other data associated with these specimens.
5. Retention of material
a. Loan requests may be declined, in whole or in part, if the Curator considers the request excessive, disruptive or incompatible with existing or proposed herbarium programs, or feels that specimens might be subject to misuse, damage or deterioration. The quantity of outstanding loans at the borrowing institution will be taken into account when new loans are requested.
b. Normally, entire holdings of taxa are not lent and borrowers are encouraged to provide a list of specimens they have seen already so that these can be excluded from the loan. Occasionally, a special case can be made for borrowing duplicate material.
c. Normally, representative sheets of a taxon will be withheld from a loan and retained for reference purposes; if necessary these can be borrowed when the primary loan is returned.
d. Type specimens, material preserved in liquid, separate fruits and woodblocks, dissection cardsand other supplementary material will not be sent on loan unless specifically requested or when no other material is available.
6. Period of Loan
a. The normal loan period is 12 months, but an extension may be granted upon written request.
b. Loans should be returned in their entirety as soon as possible after the completion of study.
c. Partial returns of loans are acceptable and should be negotiated with the Curator of the Herbarium.
7. Security of Loan
a. Loan specimens must not be removed from the receiving institution except by written permission of the lending institution. The head of any institution to which a loan is transferred must accept responsibility in the terms of these conditions.
b. Loans must be stored under secure protective conditions. Sheets or packets should not be bent, folded, or handled in any way likely to cause detriment to the specimens. Except during actual examination, specimens should remain in their original folders or packets. The original folders and packets must be returned with specimens.
c. In the event of damage to a specimen, a signed slip must be attached providing details of the damage.
d. The lending institution should be consulted if the loan is likely to be subject to any special fumigation or treatment with persistent chemicals, microwaving or irradiation. If the specimens are treated, a slip detailing the date, nature, dose and duration of treatment should be affixed to each specimen.
e . Specimens loaned for display purposes must be housed under the following conditions:
- Temperature of 20°C or less with <5% variance
- Relative humidity of 50% or less with <5% variance
- Low light levels with a maximum of 50 lux
- Enclosed in a secure cabinet safe from excess handling and insect damage
- Displayed on a flat surface (may be slightly raised to enable viewing)
- Display period for any one specimen of no longer than three months at any one time
- No material is to be removed from any loan specimen for display purposes
8. Removal of material, extracts
(see also Policy on Destructive Sampling from Herbarium Specimens)
a. Removal and dissection of parts of loan specimens, and extraction of pollen, spores, DNA or phytochemicals, from normal dried specimens and from specimens preserved in liquid is permitted for descriptive research purposes. This must be done judiciously and only when the tissue or organ concerned is in sufficient quantity on a specimen to leave similar material intact.
b. Material removed for study should be reattached to the specimen in an archival packet, or placed on the specimen packet, box or spirit container.
c. Particular restraint must be exercised when dissecting Type specimens or intended Types.
d. Removal of material from under tape on dissection cards is not permitted.
e. Portions removed from dried specimens may be rehydrated but must then be thoroughly air-dried, placed in an archival packet with a slip bearing the collector name and number, or the sheet registration number, and reattached to the sheet or replaced in the specimen packet or box.
f. Fragments removed from spirit material should not be allowed to dry out and should be replaced in the same container as soon as possible following study.
g. No material or extracts may be removed from loan specimens for permanent retention or for transmission to any third party without written permission from the Curator of the Herbarium. Where permission is granted, slips indicating the type of material removed, by whom at what institution, the date and the general nature of the project, should be attached to the sheet or container, or included in the box or packet.
h. The following classes of material must not be made available to any third parties without written permission and a separate Materials Transfer Agreement from the lending institution:
i. specimens, or fragments of specimens (taken from loans or supplied separately), orii. derived material (eg: aliquots, extracts), oriii. images, oriv. formulae or synthetic pathways for substances originally derived from specimens on loan
9. Return of loan and packaging
a. For its return a loan should be sent by traceable mail, and carefully packaged to prevent damage in transit.
b. Specimens should be securely packed and prominently labelled; using the original packing materials is preferred.
c. Original specimen folders and specimen packets are to be returned with the specimens.
d. When returning loan material to Australia, there must be a label on the outside of the packaging stating:
"Herbarium Specimens for Scientific Research. No Commercial Value. List Included"
e. Include a declaration printed on institution letterhead with the package.
f. Include the current Import Permit Number and/or printed import permit with the package.
A quarantine declaration template for printing on institutional letterhead when sending specimens to CANB is available in Microsoft Word format at: http://www.cpbr.gov.au/herbarium/CANB_quarantine_declaration.doc
CANB's current import permit is available in PDF format at: http://www.cpbr.gov.au/herbarium/CANB_import_permit-2014-2016.pdf
A summary of the guidelines for sending herbarium materials to CANB is available in PDF format at: http://www.cpbr.gov.au/herbarium/CANB_quarantine_guidelines.pdf
If you have any questions about sending material to CANB please contact firstname.lastname@example.com before mailing.
10. CITES and taxa of conservation significance
a. Overseas loans and exchanges of specimens of taxa listed in CITES appendices (Convention on Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora) are made only to approved CITES-registered institutions and within provisions of the Convention and relevant Australian legislation.
b. Overseas loans and exchanges of specimens of any Australian native species are made only to approved CITES-registered institutions or to institutions registered with the Department of Sustainability, Environment, Water, Population and Communities for facilitated exchange of scientific specimens.
c. Researchers should try to ascertain the conservation status of taxa under study. Many taxa occurring in Australia are listed and protected under various National, State or Territory legislation.
d. For "sensitive" taxa such as those likely to be subject to heavy amateur or commercial collection, conservation authorities may prefer that precise localities not be cited and consideration should be given to generalising a locality, e.g: "...N of Albany...", rather than "22.3 km N of Albany on Hassell Hwy", while retaining enough other data in the citation to allow unambiguous identification of the specimen.
11. Photography
a. Photography of specimens is allowed and encouraged.
b. If specimens are photographed, it is requested that a slip giving location and identification details of the negative, transparency or digital image be attached to each sheet concerned.
c. Where possible the herbarium label and other annotations showing the origin of the specimen should be clearly visible.
d. Copies of photographs are appreciated, particularly for Types or intended Types. Copies of photographs can be provided as prints, negatives or on CD in the case of digital images.
e. If specimen images are to be placed on the Internet, clear indication of the origin of the specimen should be shown; the URL of the image would be appreciated.
12. Annotations
a. All annotation slips should be on archival quality paper.
b. Determinavit or Confirmavit and other annotation slips should be attached to every sheet used for revisionary or Flora studies, with a signature, date and any relevant comments, using typescript or indelible ink (not ballpoint pen).
c. Determinavit or Confirmavit slips for cryptogams should be annotated and placed loose and completely inside every packet or box concerned.
d. For in-liquid labels, please use a heavy pencil.
e. Specimens that cannot be positively named, or those found to belong to taxa not under consideration, should be annotated to the extent possible.
f. Where material on a sheet is found to represent two or more collections or taxa, each element should be indicated with a separate Determinavit slip. Do not cut up sheets or try to separate the material.
g. Reliable clarification or enhancement of the data with a specimen is appreciated, especially locality, latitude, longitude, date, collector, collector's number, or type status. However, no alterations, erasures, strikethrough, removal or obscuring of pre-existing data may be made. Annotations should be made and attached on new slips.
h. Under no circumstances should any non-archival contact-adhesive labels or tape be attached to herbarium sheets, cryptogam packets or boxes.
13. Intellectual Property
a. Exchanges or gifts of specimens are sent to the receiving institution on the understanding that there are certain rights to benefits arising from exchange or gift material provided for under the Convention on Biological Diversity and other international agreements. The sending institution acknowledges similar residual rights to benefits to originating countries or institutions over material received as exchange or gift from other institutions.
b. A separate Materials Transfer Agreement is required where commercial development of derivatives of herbarium specimens is anticipated.
14. Unpublished and manuscript names
a. Manuscript names, provisional names or name-formulae on specimens may be provisional, or may represent work in progress or in press. It is strongly advised that the researcher who coined these names be contacted before such names are widely used.
15. Citing Specimens
a. Herbarium CANB includes previously separate herbaria such as CBG and FRI and this is reflected in the herbarium codes and registration numbers on some specimen items. The numerical portion of these registrations may coincide with those of other CANB specimens with a different herbarium abbreviation. CANB registration numbers take precedence and should be used if more than one registration number is present.
b. For example, cite specimens as "CANB 1234" if a CANB-prefixed number is on the sheet. If not, cite as, for example, "CBG 1234 at CANB".
16. Acknowledgement
a. The lending institution must be acknowledged appropriately in any publications or other materials that present results derived from use of the loan specimens.
b. A copy of any publications resulting from study of loan or exchange material would be appreciated.


text:
Cave Aged
Quick View
Consider Bardwell Farm
RupertVermont ain't the Alps, but their Alpines ain't shabby. Try Rupert-a golden-yellow wheel with deep, round flavor followed by a hint o'butterscotch.
2011 American Cheese Society Winner Read More
Quick View
Cellars at Jasper Hill
Moses SleeperAyrshire cow's milk is formed into discs a bit larger than your typical Camembert, then aged with care in the Cellars at Jasper Hill for the next six weeks. Once released, Moses usually has a classic white bloomy rind, with a smattering of exotic mauve- and dandelion-hued molds heightening its complexity. Read More
Quick View
Brie FermierMade at the ''Farm of rejuvenation'' in Northern France, this brie is the best we've found yet. Mushroomy and fungal, gooey and creamy, you'll get hints of fresh shucked oysters and a tiny bit of iron.We think we're in love. Read More


text:
Having trouble sticking to an exercise routine? You might not be doing the right one for your blood type, suggests naturopath James L. D'Adamo, creator of the Blood-Type Diet. D'Adamo's new book, Just an Ounce of Prevention… is Worth a Pound of Cure, proposes that each blood type has evolved with its own fitness needs. "When you cater to your type, not only does your physical body change, but your mind changes as well," he says. Locate your own type, below, to discover his Rx.
If you're an O… YOU'RE AN ATHLETE
According to D'Adamo, the most common blood type in the world was also the first, going back to the caveman and hunter. "The basic O is an athlete," he says. " She has more physical strength, and needs exercise to release stress, worries, fears and anxieties. Doing so helps her better assimilate information more quickly later on." For an O, vigorous exercises such as hiking, bicycling, swimming and jogging are best—and an a.m. routine suits her well. "If an O exercises first thing in the morning, she goes through the day calmer, more peaceful, and better at problem solving," he explains.
If you're an A… YOU'RE A BUNDLE OF NERVES
"God's gift to the A is the intellect," notes D'Adamo. "The thing that stands in her way is her nervous system." Possessing the characteristics of the first farmers, from whom he says they descend, As are deeply sensitive and need inner resolution, which exercise can help bring about. "You need to create peace," he says. "Hatha yoga, tai chi and qi gong, all of which stretch muscles, are good; they eliminate tension. Meditation also helps calm the mind." Avoid aerobic exercises, he adds: They tend to fix the body in certain tense positions that can, over time, be detrimental to the joints of a blood-type A.
If you're a B… YOU'RE WELL-ORGANIZED
"Bs like everything in its proper place," D'Adamo points out. Evolving millennia after the caveman and the farmer, they bear elements of both. "They're not as physical as O, but close to it," the naturopath says. "For them, exercise is also important to release tension, and help focus the mind." Capable and centered, Bs often do very well in sports, and bring a thoughtful element to competitive games. To keep the type-Bs charged, D'Adamo recommends 30 minutes of aerobic exercise in the morning, plus regular swimming, jogging, yoga, gymnastics, tai chi, qi gong or hiking.
If you're an AB… YOU'RE PROGRESSIVE
People with this rare blood type combine aspects of both type As and Bs, D'Adamo says: "Generally, they have the sensitive qualities of an A with the organizational capabilities of a B. Exercise would be calming and allow their abilities to unfold." A morning yoga routine helps turn their focus inward, while a late-afternoon bout of aerobic exercise, lasting 10 to 20 minutes, gives them a boost. "Generally speaking, ABs tend to be very progressive in their thinking, and it is sometimes difficult to understand them," he says. The balance of activities helps unleash their real power.
For a more precise fitness prescription, check out Just an Ounce of Prevention, which offers quizzes that help illuminate distinct aspects of your blood type.