Daily Podcast: The Ice Age Cometh

Robert Farago
by Robert Farago

I love TTAC's commentators. Whenever I'm scanning the net for stories or writing an editorial or editing a review, I've always got you guys and gals in the back of my mind. For one thing, your expertise keeps me on my toes. Without naming names, it's no secret that some of the writers published hereabouts have found themselves in possession of a new excretion-oriented orifice after confronting TTAC's best and brightest with half-baked analysis or factual errors. For another, you guys provide me a welcome anti-inflammatory. Whenever a commentator accuses the site of bias (comment which are removed as per our anti-flaming policy), I email the offender and challenge them to submit their "balancing" opinion in an editorial. Sensibly enough, most choose not to run your intellectual gauntlet. In fact, I can count on one hand the number of correspondents who rose to the challenge, and one of them regretted it to the point where I had to block him from my email. So thanks for keeping an eye on us. Those of us on this side of the e-fence depend on you for our honesty, integrity and, let's face it, entertainment. Oh, and this link says global warming is a crock of shit.

Robert Farago
Robert Farago

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  • Jurisb Jurisb on Feb 29, 2008

    I live in Latvia. not that you should know that, but.. today is february 29. And we don`t have snow. Actually throughout all the winter we have had snow for a couple of days only, and even then it was 5 cm, not more. Every year we break a new record of temperature, whether for median monthly, or the highest for the season. My parents told me and showed me pictures of their 70ies when snow was abundant and winters were cold. ( an average temperature for february in Latvia should be minus 15 degrees celsius, but it is now outside plus 8 celsius, with average for february plus 6.2)those who think that earth`s temperature is increasing naturally, should take into account that earth`s rather hot or cool periods have changed in eons, not decades. We have managed to push up median world temperature by 0,5 degrees just in 2 decades. That is alarming! And those who think, a couple of degrees here, or a couple there don`t matter,, should watch national geographic`s documentary ` 6 degrees changing the World`.

  • Shaker Shaker on Feb 29, 2008

    Death of the planet aside, I love that acorn-chasing critter from the movie. Kind of ironic, as no matter the cataclysmic events unfolding around him (all of the ice melting), he maintained his focus, his desire on that big, fat acorn, and all else be damned.

  • David C. Holzman David C. Holzman on Feb 29, 2008

    I was just at the annual meeting of th eAmerican Association for the ADvancement of Science. I went to several sessions on climate change. It's accepted in the mainstream. Like cigarettes and lung cancer, and cigarettes and heart disease. I predict that those of you who are skeptical will be singing a very different song within ten years. Nonetheless, I hope you are right. Nonetheless, the tech advances that could mitigate global heating would be generally good for the planet and good for the balance of payments, and for geopolitics, even if global heating isn't happening. And it would be good for the US to develop these technologies, rather than China or India or Europe.

  • Pfingst Pfingst on Feb 29, 2008

    If positive feedback ruled climate, we would have had heat problems well before this. The geological record shows worldwide evidence of periodic glacial activity going back millions of years. Glaciers form in cold, not heat. jurisb: Milwaukee averages 52.6 inches of snow per year. We hit that two weeks ago, and we can get snow here well into April, and sometimes May (and we got 3 more inches today). Latvia not getting much snow this year no more indicates global warming than Milwaukee's unusually high snowfall indicates global cooling. Neither does a couple of decades of higher temperatures. Remember, Earth: 4.5 billion years old. 30 years is nothing, and neither is 3000 years. The US, Canada, China, and others are in the middle of their coldest winters in decades. The Earth is a non-deterministic system. Sometimes you get extremes, and those extremes can last a long time (many human lifetimes). We know this from the geological record. Beyond that, we are only guessing. David Holzman: The mainstream (scientists and the great unwashed) once believed the Earth was flat and that the sun revolved around it. As for technological advances, I have no problem with any technology that is cleaner or better for the environment in some way, provided the government keeps its hand out of my pocket in the process. Products that use less energy are a good thing in the long term if for no other reason than they are cheaper to operate. And how in the world do we know what changes will mitigate global climate change (they don't call it warming anymore; you can cover both bases this way) if we can't even agree on what is causing the warming to begin with. Maybe we are causing it, maybe we aren't. Maybe this is a part of the normal cycle of behavior for this particular system, a system so complicated we have barely scratched the surface of understanding it. Actually, given that, don't you find it odd that such a complicated system could be pushed out of alignment so easily? I'm not saying it's impossible, just... odd. And if it's true, you better get ready for more, because the US and Europe "greening up" will do nothing to stop India and China, whose populations dwarf ours, from dumping more stuff into the atmosphere as they develop into first-world countries. I'd be more worried about running out of oil than warming the planet; it seems a more immediate and definite problem.

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