Interesting graphs and charts department

[xoxoxoBruce]

What are the green lines, shipping channels, flight lines?

[Lamplighter]

Originally Posted by Undertoad

but that is neither a graph nor a chart.

Originally Posted by Undertoad

Knee jerk assumptions department: after 50 years of cleaning up vehicle engine emissions,
what's worse for the environment: a 6210cc engine Ford F150 truck, or a 30cc engine leaf blower?

Not even close.
...
In fact the car and truck actually cleaned the air:

http://www.edmunds.com/car-reviews/f...af-blower.html

UT, when I read your posts such as these, I assume you are allusively addressing climate change.
And they give me the impression you believe that either it does not exist, it is not man-made,
it is not worth worrying about, and/or nothing can/should be done about it.

For example, in the earlier post cited above, your comment seems to be that
those autos' exhaust are less polluting than the exhaust from leaf blowers.
But the table in that post does not extend the quantities of pollutants to totals
based on number of units (cars vs blowers) and the number of hours each would be in (worldwide) operation.

Likewise, does the "CO" in your table refer to carbon monoxide only, or both carbon mono- and di-oxides ?
My understanding is that concerns over climate change are primarily an issue of carbon dioxide,
and so your table and comment do not seem to focus on climate change, per se.

Have you formed specific opinions for yourself about arthropogenic climate change,
and what, if anything, should or could done about it ?

.

[glatt]

Originally Posted by xoxoxoBruce

What are the green lines, shipping channels, flight lines?

Gotta be shipping. They go around land masses instead of across them.

[Undertoad]

Originally Posted by Lamplighter

UT, when I read your posts such as these, I assume you are allusively addressing climate change.

LL my position on almost everything is Politics Makes Us Stupid.

What happens is, once an issue becomes political, we change the nature of how we discuss it and immediately the facts are less important than winning the argument on behalf of "our side".

Immediately we only digest the facts that are important to us, and interpret everything as if we were aiming to "win"

Even when we don't do that ourselves, everyone else does it; we get our information from everyone else; and after a while, we're ALL Stupid.

And the worst part: scientists are now political. Global warming doesn't necessarily doom us. Science becoming political DEFINITELY DOES. It's the very worst thing EVER. It's a total DISASTER.

That's my position.

[Lamplighter]

I thought I was asking a straightforward question, not researching your philosophy of politics.

As far as that goes, you certainly can have whatever beliefs you want about politics.
In a serious way, that is what politics comes to... the interaction of beliefs.

There certainly are instances where scientists have entered the political arena, for various reasons.
But to argue that science has become political and is dooming us is only your own political spin.

If you have decided, for yourself, that "global warming doesn't necessarily doom us"
that comes closest to answering my question.

Of course, I disagree with your position that "Politics make us stupid".

[xoxoxoBruce]

Scientists don't "choose" to enter the political arena, they are all in it, as are you and I.
You don't seem to understand that what we call scientists are not gurus on a mountain top, but people who work for someone. As such, like anyone in any occupation, must to be concerned with their future groceries. They are told what to work on, what will be funded, and unfortunately in some cases the results desired.

While Joe Scientist may be pure as the driven snow(although that purity is in question), they are controlled by the people holding the purse strings. People who are always politically aware of the implications. Where the money comes from, and what it must be spent on to insure the reputation of the institution as a worthy recipient for more groceries. These days, the large sums of money trickled down to scientists is controlled by the politics of the benefactors.

When global warming was first investigated, it appeared to be happening, appeared to be influenced by human activities, and scientists seeking funding proposed investigating most every subject which could tie into it. This produced tons of reports on what human activity contributes to global warming. Although the predictions of how bad it would get, and when, were hotly debated.

Now what should we do to mitigate this problem? Ah, the fly in the ointment. Some people/industries will be greatly affected, if not devastated, by these solutions, so will fight tooth and nail. First we change the name to climate change, because global warming and the local weather reports, confuse non-scientists. Then the hundreds of contributing activities had to be pared down to the worst few. Fluorocarbons were tagged and there was not much resistance because it meant profitable solutions were an opportunity. Although methane is worse, they finally decided CO was the one to be named the bad guy, the one to grace their banners and shields as they rode off to battle the skeptics, who are fueled(financed) by those who would bear the brunt of regulations.

So from the scientist worrying about groceries, to the battles in the halls of congress, it's all controlled by politics(money). By nit picking mono vs Di, oxides, you show you completely miss what's going on here in reality, which is politics.

[Undertoad]

If you have decided, for yourself, that "global warming doesn't necessarily doom us" that comes closest to answering my question.

It very much informs me that this is the debate. Apocalypse is a narrative we humans are very attracted to, and we always share. The end of the world is nigh. When we believe something is the end of the world, it is extremely important that we share this information and convince everyone. Even rumors about the end of the world are widely shared. Every religion includes it. Some say environmental apocalypse is our modern replacement for religion.

[glatt]

That reminds me that I heard that somebody was saying the world was going to end like yesterday or today or something?

*does quick search*

Oh phew...
It was yesterday. Still here. We're cool.

Carry on.

[Lamplighter]

Originally Posted by Undertoad

It very much informs me that this is the debate.
Apocalypse is a narrative we humans are very attracted to, and we always share.
The end of the world is nigh. ...

Actually, UT, such is the result of excessive exaggeration. To wit:

Originally Posted by Undertoad

...
And the worst part: scientists are now political.
Global warming doesn't necessarily doom us.
Science becoming political DEFINITELY DOES.
It's the very worst thing EVER. It's a total DISASTER.

That's my position.

The "scientific questions" are:
Is climate warming real (regardless of cause(s)) ?
If it is, what are the consequences ?
If these are serious, can we (mankind) do anything about it ?

My question to you was along the lines of how do you answer such questions ?
.

[Undertoad]

Let's put this discussion into this thread where I've already said a bunch of stuff:

http://cellar.org/showthread.php?t=30453

[xoxoxoBruce]

The story of Amtrak is one of a crooked bailout where we, as we so often do, get left holding the bag for a bunch of rich corporate criminals. First, they looted Penn Central’s subsidiaries by making them pay dividends to the parent company, so they got paid while running those companies into the ground. Secondly, they secretly sold off their shares while this dividend scam was making it look like the company was doing well. So they got paid a second time. Thirdly, when the company was on the rocks, they went to the government and said “The rail system is too big to fail!” and got a bailout to the tune of $750 million, getting paid a third time. The US got CONRAIL (the freight system) and Amtrak. CONRAIL was sold and became a private company in 1986, and rapidly became profitable. Amtrak has never turned a profit in its existence and is run by the Department of Transportation. So if you’ve ever wondered why it sucks so much (and I am an enthusiastic Amtrak rider), now you know.

link

[Lamplighter]

Fun and games with tables and graphs... from here

Country___Population_______Area____Density__Spending/Density

China__1,313,973,713___3,600,927___365 _______0.351

US______298,444,215___3,539,225____84_______0.017

UK_______60,609,153______93,278___650_______0.009


.

[xoxoxoBruce]

But that link says:
Canada...... Population = 33,098,932..... Land Area(sq mi) = 3,560,217..... Density(per sq mi) = 9

But Canada aint got no sq mi, only sq kilometers.

[xoxoxoBruce]

Trippin'

[glatt]

That's an interesting route. The speed they have to drive changes dramatically. During some months, they need to go car speeds, and during other months, they can go a walking speed.