Obligatory global warming scares of the day

Post lifted from Reason to Freedom

Warming Warning causes 139-car chain-reaction pileup on Ventura Freeway.

When scientists at the Golden State Global Warming Detection and Advanced Warning Center in Palo Alto detected a sudden, sharp increase of .0013 degree Celsius in the Global Warming Temperature Index (GWTI), they immediately initiated a Warming Alert, which caused all of the Warming Warning sirens in coastal Southern California to go off and emergency alerts to be broadcast over all media including XM radios, cell phones and iPods. Many drivers panicked and hit their brakes, causing a multi-car smashup that went on for thirteen minutes. No fatalities were recorded, but first-responders reported thirty-two cases of airbag deployment facial burns and at least seven incidents of hyperventilation. Most victims were treated at the scene and released back into their SUVs.

Eco-historians discover evidence of manmade global warming.

The common bow-and-arrow was the preferred "environmentally friendly" way of killing people for centuries, say eco-archeologists. However, the crossbow, a Chinese invention introduced into Europe in the 11th century, chucked iron bolts through the air at speeds greater than any manmade objects in the prior history of manmade objects. This human activity rent the ether and disrupted the celestial firmament, which contributed to the demise of the Little Ice Age (which most public school educated people have never heard of) and caused a return to "normal" temperatures which today we refer to as "global warming," a condition that will, among other things, allow England to once again develop vineyards and "fine English table wines" as was common before Global Cooling destroyed them.

Increased crime caused by GW-enhanced "fuller moon" effect

Crime increases during a full moon. But global warming, scientists say, has caused the moon to be even fuller than in the past. Here's how it all works, according to eco-urology specialist Albedo Greenhouse: human destruction of forests causes more birds to spend more time airborne. Flying birds urinate, leaving uric acid droplets suspended in the air. These droplets act as tiny magnifiers, which cause a full moon to appear even fuller than normal. Since the full moon causes crime, a fuller moon causes even more crime. While studies conducted over the years have completely pooh-poohed the notion that crime is affected by the full moon, Greenhouse pooh-poohs the pooh-poohing. "My studies say this all happens as I say it happens," insists Greenhouse, "and it must be true because the mainstream media printed it."

GW behind surge in silver screen pollution

Empirical evidence alone identifies the public's irrational fears about global warming as the primary trigger for the deluge of low budget, incredibly stupid made-for-TV Shlockbusters featuring old has-been and young unknown wannabe actors playing second fiddle to special effects such as blizzards, hurricanes, earthquakes, volcanoes, locust swarms and yet more remakes of cruise ships turned upside down by tsunamis. These movies teach us that when the earth is destroyed through our own arrogant refusal to pay higher ticket prices, the destruction of tall buildings will look suspiciously like old footage from The Towering Inferno and at least thirteen early Godzilla movies.

GW causes mental disease in otherwise healthy individuals

People who identify themselves as libertarians tend to be deeply skeptical of global warming claims because every "cure" inevitably demands colossal socialist-fascist style big government central planning schemes requiring massive infusions of our taxbucks and the total annihilation of all individual freedom. This suspicion generally renders libertarians resistant to a severe psychosis identified by psycho-political epidemiologists as "eco-obsessive syndrome." The disease typically manifests itself when the afflicted person babbles phrases beginning with "If I was president I'd force everyone to ." and then degenerates into incoherent gibberish featuring any of the following delusional clich‚s: ". recycle, bicycle, eat organic, worship Gaia, wear hair shirts, pretend the global cooling hysteria of the 60s never happened while riding in limousines to Hollywood fundraising dinners for future President and Planetary Savior Al Gore."

Unearthly warming disaster

Feeling completely left out of the GW mania that has made ecologists seem important and sexy, a group of astronomers has announced that the seasonal planet-wide dust storms on Mars is caused by global warming. Their proof rests on the unassailable evidence that they said it and the mainstream media printed it.

Bird flu

Global Warming will be the cause of the bird flu pandemic that hasn't swept America yet. This cannot be proved. But it is true nonetheless because some eco-hysteric said so and the mainstream media printed it.







TECHNOLOGICAL PROGRESS REDUCING POLLUTION

Georgia Tech researchers have created a new combustor (combustion chamber where fuel is burned to power an engine or gas turbine) designed to burn fuel in a wide range of devices ? with next to no emission of nitrogen oxide (NOx) and carbon monoxide (CO), two of the primary causes of air pollution. The device has a simpler design than existing state-of-the-art combustors and could be manufactured and maintained at a much lower cost, making it more affordable in everything from jet engines and power plants to home water heaters.

"We must burn fuel to power aircrafts and generate electricity for our homes. The combustion community is working very hard to find ways to burn the fuel completely and derive all of its energy while minimizing emissions," said Dr. Ben Zinn, Regents' professor, the David S. Lewis Jr. Chair in Georgia Tech's Guggenheim School of Aerospace Engineering and a key collaborator on the project. "Our combustor has an unbelievably simple design, and it would be inexpensive to make and inexpensive to maintain."

Attaining ultra low emissions has become a top priority for combustion researchers as federal and state restrictions on pollution continuously reduce the allowable levels of NOx and CO produced by engines, power plants and industrial processes.

Called the Stagnation Point Reverse Flow Combustor, the Georgia Tech device, originally developed for NASA, significantly reduces NOx and CO emissions in a variety of aircraft engines and gas turbines that burn gaseous or liquid fuels. It burns fuel with NOx emissions below 1 parts per million (ppm) and CO emissions lower than 10 ppm, significantly lower than emissions produced by other combustors.

The project's initial goal was to develop a low emissions combustor for aircraft engines and power-generating gas turbines that must stably burn large amounts of fuel in a small volume over a wide range of power settings (or fuel flow rates). But the design can be adapted for use in a variety of applications, including something as large as a power generating gas turbine or as small as a water heater in a home. "We wanted to have all the clean-burning advantages of a low temperature combustion process while burning a large amount of fuel in a small volume," Zinn said.

The combustor burns fuel in low temperature reactions that occur over a large portion of the combustor. By eliminating all high temperature pockets through better control of the flow of the reactants and combustion products within the combustor, the device produces far lower levels of NOx and CO and avoids acoustic instabilities that are problematic in current low emissions combustors.

To reduce emissions in existing combustors, fuel is premixed with a large amount of swirling air flow prior to injection into the combustor. This requires complex and expensive designs, and the combustion process often excites instabilities that damage the system.

But Georgia Tech's design eliminates the complexity associated with premixing the fuel and air by injecting the fuel and air separately into the combustor while its shape forces them to mix with one another and with combustion products before ignition occurs.

Source







I'll Have a Big Mac, Three Disposable Planets, and a Large Coke, Please

Post lifted from Agoraphilia

I am proud and happy to announce that if everyone on the planet lived like me, we would need 6.5 planets -- this according to BBC News Online's Disposable Planet Quiz.

I suppose I should feel suitably chastened, trade in my car for a bicycle, become a vegetarian, reduce my electricity usage to what I can pull from solar panels in my windows, and (most important of all) support the recommendations of the U.N. Commission on Sustainable Development.

I'm not buying. The Eco-Footprint approach relies on the same faulty assumptions behind Paul Erlich's _Population Bomb_ (which was supposed to explode a couple of decades ago -- what happened?) and other Malthusian nightmare scenarios. The quiz's result is based on the number of "biologically productive global hectares" available in the world, relative to how many I allegedly consume. There are, the site says, only 1.8 such hectares per person worldwide, whereas the average American creates an "Ecological Footprint" of 9.7 (I beat the average with a whopping 11.7!). The problem is that this term "biologically productive global hectare" is based only on current technology. How many hectares are biologically productive (that is, usable for agriculture or similar purposes) and how much they produce will undoubtedly change in the future. As the Quiz authors admit in their explanatory page, "Technology can alter the productivity of land, or the efficiency with which resources are used to produce goods and services."

But, you might say, we don't know technology will improve, so we have to assume current technology. I don't buy that, because market economies create powerful incentives for technological innovation. But even if we assume current technology, the Eco-Footprint still underestimates the productivity of the planet, because "the calculations assume that the technologies used in resource exploitation are the average of those prevailing in the world today." Remember that the incredibly low-tech agricultural techniques used in many underdeveloped nations of the world are included in that average. In short, the Eco-Footprint tells us nothing about what the planet's productivity would be if currently available technologies became more widespread.

In addition, as Julian Simon argued in his book _The Ultimate Resource_, "resource" is not a physically defined entity. A resource is whatever human beings have found a way to use productively. Things not currently perceived as resources will be so perceived with future technologies. (Think about the value of silica before the invention of silicon chips and fiber optics.) This is yet another reason why the fixed pie assumptions underlying the Eco-Footprint approach just don't fly.

So eat, drink, drive, live in a big house, blast your A/C, turn up the TV, and be merry.







Australian public broadcaster gets a slap on the wrist over Greenie bias

The media regulator has given the ABC's Four Corners program a slap on the wrist for using emotive language and providing inaccurate information during an "impartial" report on the forestry industry in Tasmania. The finding comes more than two years after the first complaint was made about the program, Lord of the Forests, which appeared on the ABC in February 2004 and included allegations by a close connection between the Tasmanian government and the forestry industry, in particular the timber company, Gunns Limited.

"The manner in which the report was presented would have given an ordinary reasonable viewer the impression the program favoured the anti-forestry, anti-logging perspective," the Australian Communications and Media Authority said in its 25-page report. "The many instances of subjective and emotive language over the course of the program are sufficient to find that the program was not impartial." The authority told the ABC to review its procedures for preparing television current affairs programs so "every reasonable effort is made to ensure the impartiality of those programs".

A spokeswoman for the ABC said the matter would be referred to its board. In an earlier response to the findings, the ABC defended reporter Ticky Fullerton's use of language. It said many of the phrases highlighted by the regulator - including "overwhelming devastation" and "voracious appetite for timber" - were taken out of context or were "reasonable journalistic descriptions".

The authority said yesterday the ABC was found to be in breach of its code seven times in the 12 months to June 30 last year. A spokesman conceded the investigation took a long time to complete. He said the authority's boss, Chris Chapman, wanted to improve investigation processes.

The ABC has often come under fire from the Government because of claims of impartial reporting. During a senate estimates hearing earlier this year the news director, John Cameron, was pummelled with questions from a Liberal senator, Michael Ronaldson, about a former ABC policy banning journalists from calling members of Hamas and Hezbollah terrorists. Three years ago, the then communications minister, Richard Alston, hit the ABC with 86 complaints about its Iraq coverage.

Source

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Many people would like to be kind to others so Leftists exploit that with their nonsense about equality. Most people want a clean, green environment so Greenies exploit that by inventing all sorts of far-fetched threats to the environment. But for both, the real motive is to promote themselves as wiser and better than everyone else, truth regardless.

Global warming has taken the place of Communism as an absurdity that "liberals" will defend to the death regardless of the evidence showing its folly. Evidence never has mattered to real Leftists

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