Chuck Alaimo said:
Great shots! I've never seen Niagra like that, pretty amazing. The winter rainbow is cool.
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Please share your snow/ Ice Photos with us in CR.
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Great shots! I've never seen Niagra like that, pretty amazing. The winter rainbow is cool.
Jack Douglas said:
Hey Jack, glad you like my trees. This one, no longer has its top half (lightning struck it many years ago)...and is partially hollow at the bottom. So it won't last forever, but I can honestly say that I have taken, and continue to take, "enough" pictures of it...haha. It also narrowly dodged the swarm of tornadoes that passed inches over it in April 2011. The limbs hanging vertically along the left edge of the picture, belong to what's left of a maple that wasn't so lucky.
Sorry you are tired of the snow up there, I guess you'll just have to move to the South! This was the heaviest snow we've had since 1993 (a couple of others since were only about 2/3 this deep). So, I know it's hard to imagine, but this snowfall was...highly unusual and not mundane for us! (March 1993 was 22 inches in one night, it was quite harrowing...a "snow hurricane" with blue lightning flashes all night long...moved up the east coast and killed around 1000 people I believe).
It's a shame that global warming has to cool things off so much, and for so long (17 years and counting). Don't you feel guilty using electricity and fossil fuels? I don't...
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CarlTn everytime it's a touch warm up here everyone is crying global warming. This winter I don't hear to many saying that. I think it's terrible that we humans pollute this planet like we do but I'm not sold on carbon dioxide being a pollutant, at least not yet. Better not say more cause it's off topic.
Still, I sure wish your cedars would grow here so I could post shots like yours.
Jack
Still, I sure wish your cedars would grow here so I could post shots like yours.
Jack
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Jack Douglas said:CarlTn everytime it's a touch warm up here everyone is crying global warming. This winter I don't hear to many saying that. I think it's terrible that we humans pollute this planet like we do but I'm not sold on carbon dioxide being a pollutant, at least not yet. Better not say more cause it's off topic.
Still, I sure wish your cedars would grow here so I could post shots like yours.
Jack
Carbon Dioxide is the exhaust of life! There is no way it's a pollutant. Every bit of evidence indicates that in times of high carbon dioxide (which is a TRAILING indicator of global temperatures, not a leading indicator), life flourishes. That makes sense, given the various ways life is designed and how it functions, and how that design and those functions are critically dependent upon the presence of carbon, and in great part to the presence of CO2 in the atmosphere.
That said, we HAVE and DO pollute. In the 80's and early 90's, the acid rain issue was no joke. We had been pumping the byproducts of burning "dirty coal" (not all coal is dirty...there are coals with high sulfur content, and coals with very low sulfur content...high sulfur content coal is "dirty") and some of the byproducts of it's burning are NOx and SO2...those compounds in our atmosphere are what seeded acid rain. Once we realized the damage that those TRUE pollutants were doing, we initiated a cap and trade regime in the early 1990's, which progressively required a reduction in their emission via the use of catalytic converters on power plants. That regime ended in 2010, as it was a raging success.
Today, our coal based power production is exceptionally clean compared to how it was thirty or forty years ago. EXCEPTIONALLY clean. Coal power plants emit carbon dioxide, but the emission levels of other compounds is in the 1% or less range now. That's thanks to using far cleaner sources of coal (like Wyoming coal, which is excellent) as well as catalytic conversion in exhaust stacks. Burning natural gas isn't any cleaner.
As far as carbon dioxide, it's produced by both animals as well as plants. Most plants, during their mature phases, produce as much carbon dioxide during night transpiration cycles as they consume. Carbon dioxide consumption increases during flowering phases, but that's temporary. People think that rainforests are our primary source of oxygen...that is incorrect. Rainforests are effectively a net neutral. In contrast to rainforests, however, is the Taiga. This frozen forest produces carbon dioxide at an exceptionally low rate, and produces oxygen at a much higher rate. The correlation here (and this is only one of MANY on the subject of CO2 in our atmosphere, CO2 as a pollutant or not, and the notion of anthropogenic global warming), is that carbon dioxide ratios in the atmosphere are a trailing indicator of temperature changes, not a leading indicator. The Taiga is a frozen forest, and it's CO2 production is low. The rainforests are some of the hottest places on earty, and their CO2 production is high. As the earth cools, eventually the levels of CO2 in our atmosphere will drop, as plant's react to the change and slow their rate of growth, reproduction, and life.
Cold is a dangerous circumstance for animal life as well. Fewer animals die when the earth is the temperature it was in the late 1990's than when the temperature was during the "Little Ice Age" some 300 years ago. With less animal life also comes lower CO2 production levels, again leading to a LAGGING drop in CO2 levels in the atmosphere as global temperatures drop (the drop in CO2 is the result of the consequences of colder weather on life, and any increase in CO2 is the result if an increase in life as a consequence of warmer weather...it is not the cause of temperature shifts in either case.)
CO2 is not, has never been, and will never be a "pollutant". Carbon is one of the single most important elements in life, alongside oxygen, hydrogen, and nitrogen. CO2 levels in the atmosphere have long been known to lag temperature changes, not lead them, and they have never directly correlated with global temperatures. Anthropogenic global warming is probably one of the greatest hoaxes perpetrated on the people of Earth, ever. I recently read an article that provided some pretty intriguing evidence that instead of being on the cusp of the hottest temperatures the earth has seen in millennia, we are actually probably on the cusp of another "little ice age", and the single primary driver of the changes (such as the record-breaking cold winter we've just had) are the sun and the gas giant planets. The sun and it's larger satellites operate in specific cycles, including the ~11 year cycle that drives sunspots, as well as 70-90 year cycles and 200-400 year cycles. The global temperature changes that ultimately spurred the Little Ice Age started around 600 years ago, and lasted for about 300 years.
Personally, I am FAR more afraid of an ice age, than of a warmer earth. Life likes warmth. Every nature documentary demonstrates that....from the hot temperatures of rainforests to the volcanic vents abyssal trenches to the Polar Bears (yes, polar bears, despite what Al Gore would have you believe...their populations were at rock-bottom levels in the 1940's, with less than 5000 extant, where as today their populations are "stable" at nearly 30,000, and they peaked OVER 30,000 when temperatures were at their recent highs, in 1997-1999.)
Anyway...had to respond. You shouldn't even have to wonder about whether CO2 could be a pollutant or not. It isn't, can't, never will be. It's a trailing indicator of global climate shifts, not a leading indicator. All of the modern "science" that points to CO2 as a cause of anything is easily falsified, because it's science that is chasing a lagging indicator that itself is chasing the actual cause. (Not to mention the fact that the whole "global warming" issue has given a lot of politicians a lot of power and control over the unaware populace who hasn't ever taken the time to investigate the issue for themselves, or look for evidence contrary to the political agenda.) If there is any indication lately, the fact that we are entering a multi-decades long solar lull and the impact it's had on this recent winter should be of greater concern. The recent "solar maximum" was a rather pitiful one in the grand scheme of solar peaks, and winter couldn't wait to crush the 2013 summer with some of the largest flooding (globally) on record, and some of the coldest cold snaps in decades. If your sick and tired of this winter...just wait until it's 55° during the heart of summer and -45° during the heart of winter, and your energy bill skyrockets to become your primary expenditure next to your mortgage... (Of course, if/when that happens, I'm sure someone will figure out a way to blame humanity for causing it all...
)
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Jrista, that was tongue in cheek designed to poke fun and now you've gone and made it a serious topic! Don't worry, as an electrical engineer I was forced to assimilate a certain amount of chemistry, although that was long ago
Americans have Al Gore, Canadians have David Susuki! All these guys live the life while trying to put guilt trips on everyone else.
Here in Alberta we're supposed to feel guilty about having lots of "dirty" oil. LOL
Jack
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Jack Douglas said:
Don't worry, as an electrical engineer I was forced to assimilate a certain amount of chemistry, although that was long ago
Americans have Al Gore, Canadians have David Susuki! All these guys live the life while trying to put guilt trips on everyone else.
Here in Alberta we're supposed to feel guilty about having lots of "dirty" oil. LOL
Jack
LOL
And, if it wasn't for Obama's blocking the pipelines, you guys could be shipping all that "dirty" oil down here to us US consumers, making a boatload of money off of it.
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jrista said:Anyway...had to respond. You shouldn't even have to wonder about whether CO2 could be a pollutant or not. It isn't, can't, never will be. It's a trailing indicator of global climate shifts, not a leading indicator. All of the modern "science" that points to CO2 as a cause of anything is easily falsified, because it's science that is chasing a lagging indicator that itself is chasing the actual cause. (Not to mention the fact that the whole "global warming" issue has given a lot of politicians a lot of power and control over the unaware populace who hasn't ever taken the time to investigate the issue for themselves, or look for evidence contrary to the political agenda.) If there is any indication lately, the fact that we are entering a multi-decades long solar lull and the impact it's had on this recent winter should be of greater concern. The recent "solar maximum" was a rather pitiful one in the grand scheme of solar peaks, and winter couldn't wait to crush the 2013 summer with some of the largest flooding (globally) on record, and some of the coldest cold snaps in decades. If your sick and tired of this winter...just wait until it's 55° during the heart of summer and -45° during the heart of winter, and your energy bill skyrockets to become your primary expenditure next to your mortgage... (Of course, if/when that happens, I'm sure someone will figure out a way to blame humanity for causing it all...
It's a "greenhouse gas", if you want to get technical. Thanks for weighing in though, you and I are in agreement on issues like these. (An even stronger greenhouse gas is methane...not that you didn't know.)
Indeed, it's amusing that the same "climate change scientists" (really a political party, nothing more...and NASA is even rife with them. Hey the government had to pay them to do something after killing the Constellation program and wasting hundreds of billions in the process!)...These same scientists, all admit that 4000 to 5000 years from now, the area where New York City is now, will be under a mile of ice...because of the next coming ice age. It can't be stopped! The next ice age is coming, no matter how much "global warming" happens in the immediately coming centuries. Why? The theory I have seen that is popular, the cause of the ice ages...is when the two Americas were joined together by continental drift (at the narrow thin central American connection)...It cut off an ocean current that helped regulate global temperature previous to this "modern era". So I guess the world is right for blaming America (both north and south Americas)...but they need to blame us for the cold!!
So with the two continents connected...it divided the Atlantic and Pacific in an unnatural way. Global temperature can't be regulated like it did for the 200 million years since the breakup of Pangea. So you get a periodic ice age whose cycle is approximately 15 to 20,000 years.
The last one ended 10 to 12,000 years ago. So the next one is coming soon!! Will the polar bears survive to see it? I don't know. But is it worth another civil war because we bankrupted our country by making a hollow, vane effort just so we can feel good about ourselves, and lower global temperature by two tenths of one degree 100 years from now (while its net rise is still going to be another one or two degrees)? (And that's if the whole world gives up all fossil fuels, and electricity!!)
I'm sorry though, I didn't mean to hijack the thread!!
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Jack Douglas said:CarlTn everytime it's a touch warm up here everyone is crying global warming. This winter I don't hear to many saying that. I think it's terrible that we humans pollute this planet like we do but I'm not sold on carbon dioxide being a pollutant, at least not yet. Better not say more cause it's off topic.
Still, I sure wish your cedars would grow here so I could post shots like yours.
Jack
Thanks, but you have beautiful white pines and fur trees, amongst many others up there, don't you?
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CarlTN, talk about off topic, but In Alberta (on the prairies) we have mainly Aspen Poplar. Spruce, Willow, Birch, and some Pine are native and some others grow if coaxed, like Fir but mine are 1/4 the size they should be. None of these are really huge trees. A 3 hour drive places me squarely in the Rocky Mountains and that's another story.
Big Cedar in my yard - oh how I wish.
Jack
Big Cedar in my yard - oh how I wish.
Jack
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CarlTN said:jrista said:Anyway...had to respond. You shouldn't even have to wonder about whether CO2 could be a pollutant or not. It isn't, can't, never will be. It's a trailing indicator of global climate shifts, not a leading indicator. All of the modern "science" that points to CO2 as a cause of anything is easily falsified, because it's science that is chasing a lagging indicator that itself is chasing the actual cause. (Not to mention the fact that the whole "global warming" issue has given a lot of politicians a lot of power and control over the unaware populace who hasn't ever taken the time to investigate the issue for themselves, or look for evidence contrary to the political agenda.) If there is any indication lately, the fact that we are entering a multi-decades long solar lull and the impact it's had on this recent winter should be of greater concern. The recent "solar maximum" was a rather pitiful one in the grand scheme of solar peaks, and winter couldn't wait to crush the 2013 summer with some of the largest flooding (globally) on record, and some of the coldest cold snaps in decades. If your sick and tired of this winter...just wait until it's 55° during the heart of summer and -45° during the heart of winter, and your energy bill skyrockets to become your primary expenditure next to your mortgage... (Of course, if/when that happens, I'm sure someone will figure out a way to blame humanity for causing it all...
It's a "greenhouse gas", if you want to get technical. Thanks for weighing in though, you and I are in agreement on issues like these. (An even stronger greenhouse gas is methane...not that you didn't know.)
It is a greenhouse gas. The fallacy is in the notion that the greenhouse effect caused by such gases is infinite. It is not. The greenhouse effect has it's limits, the warming caused by such gases has an asymptotic relationship in terms of gas volume to effect ratio. BTW, the single most powerful "greenhouse gas", by a MASSIVE margin, is water vapor. The only reason CO2 has been demonized is is radical environmentalists couldn't find a way to demonize water vapor. ;P I'd also note that methane is also a significantly more powerful greenhouse gas than CO2. As far as CO2 goes, given it's minuscule ratio in our atmosphere, has an impact on global temperatures that is effectively "noise" relative to H2O and CH4.
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Fluffy certainly has attitude, or is it character! Does she eats birds? Or is it only mice?
Jack
Does she eats birds? Or is it only mice?Jack
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Don Haines said:
That cat clearly considers you responsible for the snow Don, and having seen it wearing the Christmas reindeer antlers I'm not surprised
(That picture was one of the funniest I've ever seen) ;D
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