Chrysler Vans Sitting Idle As Oil Boom Robs Rail Capacity

> Well if that ain’t a perfect epilogue to those hysterical, CAPS-ON “Peak Oil” rants from 2008. Next up: Scientists Unanimously Call for Urgent Action on Global Cooling. The comic irony here is that the petrochem engineers behind Hubbert peak theory are also typically the "scientists" lined up to deny climate change. Some folks just can't seem to catch a break.

The nuances and mechanisms of climate changes are indeed still under study and debate - but the overarching fact that adding CO2 will result in a warmer Earth is only disputed by the "hired guns" of the fossil fuel giants. They have engineered our economy and our short-term well-being to the use of fossil fuels, and the "average Joe" would suffer if we attempt to change to more renewable sources. They have blinded the average citizen to think that abundant fossil fuels will produce a better world, when the exact opposite is true. Oil will have a place in the future, to produce plastics, chemicals and medicines that can only come from substances that Nature took millions of years to produce - burning them is sheer folly when we have alternatives right on our doorstep.

@shaker Oh, the effect of CO2 is disputed by reputable scientists who think there are multiple causes, many man-made, like deforestation-and not just in the Amazon, the growth of mega-cities with their heat island effect, and other land use activities. Water vapor is an even stronger warming agent than CO2, and the land use changes on a global scale are changing rainfall patterns and atmospheric water distribution. They see CO2 as a minor effect being touted as the cure-all that's doomed to failure, setting back efforts to address the other causes.

@Lorenzo At the risk of displaying my ignorance on the subject, I'll "give it a go". :-) CO2 has been proven to raise the temperature of the globe. However, this has been shown to have happened in the distant past, yet life as we now know it has managed to evolve, despite natural fluctuations in CO2 levels. This suggests that our biosphere harbors "compensatory" mechanisms to moderate these fluctuations. I humbly suggest that frozen and liquid water are the primary mechanisms to absorb the increases in atmospheric temperature increases due to elevated CO2 levels - the basic "kitchen science" involved with the latent heat of frozen and liquid water. The melting ice of the Arctic and Antarctic are absorbing large amounts of heat in the process of melting, as well as the ice of Greenland and thousands of shrinking mountain glaciers. (I'll not even go into the reduced albedo that results in more sunlight being absorbed by the planet). The permafrost of the Northern Hemisphere's Arctic regions also absorb heat by melting, and previously frozen organic matter (now above freezing) are broken down by bacteria, releasing methane (another powerful warming gas) into the atmosphere. The oceans themselves absorb tremendous amounts of heat from the atmosphere through the process of evaporation, which, in turn adds water vapor to the atmosphere, another warming component. At present, the ocean's currents provide enough mixing to replace the warmed water at the surface, so that the production of water vapor is moderated by the vast amount of cold water at depth that can still absorb this heat. At some point (the oft-quoted "tipping point", that many believe has become the focus of debate, not the accepted fact of AGW itself), these compensatory mechanisms will become overwhelmed, and rapid, irreversible warming of the entire planet will occur. This will either be due to the melting of ice beyond a certain point, a breakdown of the ocean currents leading to a massive build-up of warm water at the surface, or (if the ocean currents persist), a rapid destruction of vast quantities of "methane ices" that exist at great ocean depths, in a fragile "equilibrium" state. These things could happen in 50 years, 100 years, or maybe (if we're lucky) 200 years, which may give us a chance to reverse what we've done. Let's just hope that Mother Earth will have the ability to absorb the punishment that we're dealing her, and that she won't abandon us to our fate.

@Lorenzo > the effect of CO2 is disputed by "reputable scientists" who think there are multiple causes > This suggests that our biosphere harbors “compensatory” mechanisms to moderate these fluctuations. Just a suggestion. If being right matters it's best to read people who do the relevant sciencing or can at least understand the papers instead of those who believe it that's just their opinion.

@u mad scientist At this point, the "opinion" of voters (who have a chance to influence policy and wrest power from the fossil-fuel lobby) are at the center of the battle. It matters little if the "pro warming" climate scientists come up with "the answer", if that happens when it's too late. So, they have to battle minority opinion of scientists hired by the oil/gas industry, but since the "pro-warming" scientists do not yet have "ironclad proof", then doubt can be sown amongst voters. So, we're back to the fact that "opinion" not only matters, it's crucial to the future of this quest.

@u mad scientist Your intuitive is correct that there are two distinct battlefields here, one for science and one for popular opinion. My point is the science is a settled issue, or at least about as settled as evolution. Climate physics is a technically more deterministic problem than genetic shift, though the evidence hasn't been mounting as long. Popular opinion has basically nothing to do with science, as evidenced by the fact ~50% of americans still don't entirely believe in evolution; more or less the same half as AGW.

@u mad scientist "Popular opinion has basically nothing to do with science, as evidenced by the fact ~50% of americans still don’t entirely believe in evolution; more or less the same half as AGW." Which is why the "states rights" initiatives in education (adding creationism as an alternative to science) are so troubling - and I'm sure that people like the Kochs are behind funding for many of these.

Creationists are not the only religious zealots in this discussion. We also have the global warmists themselves, who divide the world into "believers" and "non-believers", who mock and marginalize dissenters in exactly the same way as the Flat Earth Society mocked and marginalized Galileo, and who worship men in robes who tell stories about the world being created in a millisecond from a single particle smaller than an atom. They are so confident in their theories, and so certain of their intellectual superiority, that you could cut the hubris with a knife. Kindly note that I am not taking sides here. Frankly I think both sides are full of crap, which probably explains why people are losing interest in the whole discussion.

u mad scientist, there's no such thing as "settled science", no matter what Al Gore says. Attempts to disprove relativity are still being conducted. Any little exception opens up a world of new possibilities. The mass of AGW studies with all their assumptions, all the computer modeling runs with a limited suite of other assumptions, and the consensus of any number of scientists/experts, are incapable of settling any science. Demonizing those who point out flaws in studies, simplistic computer models and expert pronouncements is not a defense of AGW, but a tactic used by religious fanatics to defend their dogma.