This is a beautiful description of the consequences of destruction of price discovery. Everything gets measured in “cool” until everything is destroyed and nobody understands why. Surely this is why I love Bill.
There is an interesting report in last week’s Economist magazine...”The New Interventionism”. Governments have done so well with Covid, why not keep going?
Robb - I have only recently discovered the delightful style of Bill Bonner and can honestly say that I find it informative,entertaining,amusing and inspiring in a world that is choking to death on politics and BS. As I head into retirement I look forward to my daily dose of Bonner at breakfast. Stay the course, and don't be dissuaded by the crabs in the bucket who only try to pull you down into their shitty little world.
How then to account for the additional costs paid by users and non-users alike in the form of uncharged use and destruction of the common air, land, and other ecological resources, which, if taken into account fully or partially, may result in a truer price signal and zero or negative profit to the producer? I think that is the question these moves are attempting to answer, much more than any virtue signaling. It is similar to the question of how a busy, hand-to-mouth and disinterested public can ever organize to overcome the concentrated well-funded lobbying and graft of special interest "crony capitalists". Would a financial move to counteract these "negentropic" forces be similarly discounted as virtue signaling or the pursuit of cool?
Seems we would have to consider the corruption factor through out the world, if that is even possible to take into account. Obama, for ex., would agree with you more than less.
"Cool" seems best left to the good and maybe not so good vibes between people, most of us trust our instincts. When applied to business and social consciousness, beware!
„honest profits are the only way of knowing whether you are making the world a better place, or not.” I beg to differ, Mr. Bonner. The military-industrial complex, for example, and its marketing arm, NATO, make very honest efforts to produce and sell weapons that can destroy entire countries or even the Earth, and thanks to their excellent marketing, the democratic world snaps them up like hot cakes. Profits never fail to accrue. But do they signal that you are making the world a better place? Or, on a smaller scale, medical research shows that a certain drug is very effective against a fatal disease. So you build a factory, produce the drug and get rich. A few years later people start to die of your drug left and right. Have you made the world a better place? Your bank account tells you so. But I beg to differ.
This proves having money doesn't buy everything (being cool).Bill,I think you have summed up Larry's position,Between a BlackRock and a Hard Place.Larry doesn't have the guts to say clean up Wallstreet of all the fraud and criminal activity and make it a fair playing field.I think the working class might regard that as"COOL" Richard
While I enjoy reading your intelligent commentary, I don't share your world view. I get it that you are a libertarian opposed to control by government, but for me, I care about income inequality and poverty and think that governments have a role to play in addressing these issues. I certainly agree that they have not been effective in doing that. I guess what I find hard to like about your assessment of things is that you are a critic with no solutions. Personally, I like the Swedish solution which is to provide a minimum level of social services with a high tax rate, This does not create income equality but does create a society with minimal poverty. I would certainly welcome more constructive thoughts from you on how to organize society rather the law of the jungle.
To be almost cool you have to be CEO of a bank and take a knee, oh and force the BofD to also take a knee. I would suggest the movie "BE COOL" and sell your super Yacht and handout the money via helicopter over any major city. Keep it a secret.
My Discover Card account says that I bought a subscription to your service as I attempted. My account status with you says I only have a”free” subscription. How do I resolve this?
You have a very narrow and money-focused idea of "the world," Bill. You state that making an honest profit is the only way of improving the world. Wrong. Dead wrong!
I can safely assume that you believe the oil companies have made "honest profits." But, what have those profits cost the world? Let's list them, shall we? Air, polluted by the emissions released as a by-product of drilling and the exhaust emissions of planes, trains and automobiles . . . water, polluted by the chemical wastes of drilling and oil spills . . . and, last -- but far from the least -- carbon dioxide emissions released by the burning of oil which is overheating the planet.
Oh, but wait! Let's list the HUMAN cost of the oil companies' "honest profits." There's the economic havoc wreaked on the world every time the oil companies decide to raise their prices because they desire a little more profit, disproportionately harming low-income people . . . There's the damage caused to the health of people who have had drilling rigs set up near their homes and are forced to breathe the toxic fumes the rigs produce . . . There have been tens, if not hundreds-of-millions of human deaths resulting from the poisonous exhaust emissions of cars, ships, trains, planes, etc., which cause cancers, emphysema, and ravage those with severe asthma. Oh, and let's not forget the toxic water created by the oil companies in the process of drilling for "black gold." Who can forget the image that was broadcast, nation-wide, a few years ago, of the homeowner in Colorado who held a match up to the water coming out of their kitchen faucet and it ignited, literally turning into a stream of fire!
Gotta' LOVE those honest oil company profits! Really great measure of "a better world!" But, as long as the oil companies and their investors are raking in the big bucks, that's all that matters, right, Bill?
You claim that "carbon dioxide emissions released by the burning of oil is overheating the planet."
If this was the case the Carbon in the atmosphere would be increasing at a significant rate.
There are many monitoring stations around the world the oldest of which on Mauna Loa in the Pacific, installed in the 1960's and since joined by many others, all of which provide reasonably consistent results of the Carbon content in the atmosphere in the region of 420 parts per million increasing annually by less than 2 parts per million. This can be illustrated as 4 red tennis balls in a room of 10 000 yellow balls doubling to 8 red balls in over 200 years.This can be checked by googling a meteorological office near you.
Climate change is no doubt happening as it has done since the world began, when one reads about the various ice ages and hot ages that have happened. The Thames froze regularly in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries the last occasion being in 1820.
Carbon emissions would have had little influence in this warming.
Climate change is caused by sun spot activity, jet stream movements, the effect of planetary alignment, and the movement of high and low pressure areas over the earth's surface.
After searching through the web I have not been able to find any evidence of any scientific studies proving that the amount of carbon in the atmosphere affects the global temperature at all. If anyone can provide any reference of such a study or studies it will be very gratefully received.
I won't get into an argument with you over the reality of human-caused Global Warming. I'm a meteorologist and I know the science and research, and it's solid. Stop looking on the internet and go directly to the scientific research. The internet is a wasteland of misinformation, crackpot conspiracy theories and outright lies. Check out "Science," "Science News," "Scientific American," "New Scientist," "Bulletin of the American Meteorological Society," "Journal of Applied Meteorology and Climatology," "Journal of the Atmospheric Sciences." and many, many others. Virtually every meteorologist and climatologist on earth are in perfect agreement . . . human activity, primarily the burning of fossil fuels, is responsible for Global Warming. The only exceptions are a handful of so-called "scientists" who are on the oil companies' payroll or have been paid by them to lie in an effort to "debunk" the established science. If the fossil fuel corporations can convince people that Global Warming is a hoax, they get to keep raking in the mega-billions. They don't give a damn about you, or me, or Planet Earth . . . just their money.
I have for a long time been looking at the references you supply and others and have not found any scientific proof of any studies proving that an increase in Carbon in the atmosphere causes global warming/climate change.
Plenty of scientists and and celebrities such as Greta Thunberg and David Attenborough all proclaiming that they believe carbon emissions are causing climate change but no actual proof.
As a scientist yourself you must be able to point me in a direction of references to scientific experiments proving this to be the case especially considering the actual miniscule increases in carbon in the atmosphere from monitoring stations all around the world.
I would be very grateful if you could be so kind as to provide me with references of any experiments proving this to be indeed the case and not just general scientific journals so that I may be convinced that carbon in the atmosphere does actually cause climate change.
I really do hope you can supply some specific references to prove your convictions.
To everyone who was so upset by my comments, thank you. I know I hit a nerve. When people respond as you have, it confirms the old adage "The truth hurts." But, let's move on . . .
Ewan, I don't have to refer specific experiments to you to prove what has been known for over a hundred years. It is common, well-established science that gases such as carbon dioxide and methane absorb heat that is radiated from the earth's surface once it is heated by the sun and trap it, thereby heating up the atmosphere. If you want proof, simply go back and look through all those references you claim to have perused.
The mean temperature of the earth has risen steadily ever since the beginning of the Industrial Revolution. What else has risen steadily during that same time period? Humanity's use of fossil fuels! It's not a COINCIDENCE, for cryin' out loud! The evidence . . . the PROOF is right there for anyone to see. Your problem, and the problem of others like you, is that you refuse to accept any truth that you don't WANT to believe. There's nothing I can do about that. If you want to tell yourself that the sun is going to rise in the west, tomorrow morning, and set in the east in the evening, then, when it doesn't happen, you say "Well, that doesn't mean anything! I believe the sun is going to reverse it's course across the sky! You can't PROVE to me that it's going to rise in the east, tomorrow!" That's just plain stupidity and I can't fix stupid. You've fed at the trough of Trump lies for so long that you've lost the ability to think and reason.
You claim that the alignment of the planets account for Global Warming . . . Kindly explain THAT one to me. Do you even know what planetary alignment IS? I doubt it. Suffice it to say that it has absolutely NOTHING to do with warming the planet. It has everything to do with astrology, but, then I suppose you believe in that, too.
Oh, sun spots! Please explain how sun spots are heating up the earth!
Sun spots are the result of the fluctuations of the sun's magnetic field. They operate on an eleven-year cycle. Every eleven years the sun goes through a cycle when there are very few sunspots on the the surface of the sun and then the cycle reverses and there are a lot of sunspots. As the sun's magnetic fields twist and snake around for reasons that we still don't understand, cooler areas are created where the magnetic fields are concentrated and those cooler areas appear darker. But, that does NOT cause the entire sun to "cool down" so that the earth is receiving less heat. If you've ever done any gas welding, you've seen this same process in action for yourself.
If you keep your torch on a piece of steel long enough, it begins to glow red. Move the flame to one side, slightly, and the area where it was previously focused immediately gets darker. That's exactly what is happening on the surface of the sun. One area of the steel is ever so slightly cooler, but the overall temperature of the steel remains the same, because the acetylene flame is still there, heating up the entire thing. So, even though there are sunspots, the sun is NOT getting cooler and hotter, because it's burning at the same rate as always.
If sunspots were affecting the earth's temperature, we would see the earth heating up for five-and-a-half years, then cooling down for five-and-a-half years, throughout the eleven-year sunspot cycle. We DON'T observe that. What we DO see is the planet heating up more and more and more as human beings burn more fossil fuels and add more carbon dioxide to the atmosphere. The two are happening in perfect lockstep. THAT'S NOT A COINCIDENCE!
Doug Harrison, the process you refer to is called sublimation. It is NOT a fairy tale. It has been a proven scientific fact for over a century. If you live in a cold climate you've no doubt observed it for yourself, although you may not have realized it. Take note of a chunk of ice or a patch of snow that is sitting on the sidewalk, in a shaded area that doesn't get hit by the sun. The ice will grow smaller and smaller as the days go by, but you never see any melted water around it. THAT is sublimation. The ice is turning into a gas -- water vapor -- at a temperature that is below freezing. You can prove it for yourself . . .
Take an ice cube and set it out on the shelf in your freezer. Over the course of several days, the ice cube will grow smaller and smaller, BUT IT NEVER MELTS! It is sublimating. Have you ever heard the term "freezer burned?" That's when packaged frozen food loses it's water through sublimation and dries out. Again, you can prove this for yourself very easily.
Buy a package of frozen french fries. Leave it in your freezer for several months . . . maybe a year. Now, open the package. It's full of frost. Where did the frost come from? It's the water that sublimated out of the frozen potatoes and collected inside the plastic bag, because it was unable to escape. Cook some of those fries. They're going to taste like crap. They'll be hard and tough to chew because most of the water has sublimated out.
And, no, missouriboy, I don't want to see humanity revert to living in caves and gathering nuts and berries for food. I know that there are better technologies out there to generate the electricity we need to power civilization. YOU are guilty of what you are accusing ME of. You want to continue to use 19th Century technology -- burning coal, oil, and gas -- when we have moved beyond that and we can generate the power we need, cleanly, without producing air pollution that is killing people; water pollution that is killing people; and thermal pollution that is killing the entire planet. I suppose you think we should still be using horses and buggies, too.
Technology advances and civilization advances with it. You may want to hold on to the past, but the rest of humanity is moving forward. The world's auto-makers are building more and more electric vehicles . . . More and more electric utility companies are retiring coal-burning power plants and building solar energy farms and constructing wind turbines. Hydrogen fuel cell technology is advancing and one day we'll have electric cars, trains, ships and airplanes powered by hydrogen fuel cells . . . Research is on-going into nuclear fusion. A test tokamac just achieved the highest energy return, yet. Soon, we'll achieve break-even and fusion power will become a reality. Clean, limitless, energy for everyone.
Thank God, humanity is not allowing itself to be held back by people like you all! Oh, and since Bill's blog is primarily about money, you should take note of the fact that the smart money is getting on the "green energy" band-wagon. That, more than anything else, should tell you where things are headed. Hold on to the past if you want. The rest of us are headed for a better, brighter, future.
The recorded quantity of Carbon in the atmosphere is not significant and the recorded annual increase is miniscule.
If Carbon in the atmosphere really causes global warming there must be scientific studies published proving that carbon does do this.
With the substantial increase in population the amount of light produced at night has increased significantly all over the world.
Global warming has increased significantly over the same period of time. This could mean that the increase in illumination in our night skies has caused the global warming. It is so obvious you don't need me to prove it to you scientifically.
For your information all the heat in our world comes from the sun. The slightest change in the amount of heat being radiated from the sun by sunspots affects the temperature in the world significantly.
Let's not continue this discussion it is not going anywhere.
Okay, we can end the discussion, but I just have to point out how mistaken you are on some of your assumptions . . .
First off, the amount of carbon being added to the atmosphere is NOT minuscule. PBS recently broadcast an episode of NOVA, dealing with Global Warming in which they showed how much carbon human beings are adding to the atmosphere, annually. I suggest you watch it. You may learn something. Although, since you continue to reject scientific proof and truth of everything that you don't WANT to believe, you probably won't accept the facts that NOVA presents, either.
As far as your ridiculous claim that the lights we turn on at night are causing Global Warming . . . Man, PLEASE! Do you know how much the planet is heating up every year?! If streetlights were producing all of that heat they would be melting the asphalt on the roads and people walking their dogs at night would be bursting into flame from the heat being put out by the lights! Obviously, none of that is happening. I suggest you go to the library and pick up some books, do some research and learn a little science before you make such an asinine claim. The problem is, you prefer to believe whatever lie Donald Trump is crapping out of his ass. You're not interested in the truth. You don't care about facts. You only care what your great god, Trump, tells you. I truly believe that if Jesus came down to earth and proclaimed THE TRUTH to people like you, and Donald Trump then said the exact opposite and called Jesus a liar, you people would take Trump's word over the Word of God! You're hopeless! Goodbye!
Well well! He's a meteorologist another pseudo science that believes all sorts of fairy stories ( including that water can become a gas at temperatures way below boiling point.)
It's kind of obvious that Dale wants humanity to revert to living in caves and gathering nuts and berries for sustenance. Also, why blame the oil industry for responding to demand created by others? It seems like Dale tries to make it sound like those companies forced their product on the populace, instead of the other way around.
This is a beautiful description of the consequences of destruction of price discovery. Everything gets measured in “cool” until everything is destroyed and nobody understands why. Surely this is why I love Bill.
There is an interesting report in last week’s Economist magazine...”The New Interventionism”. Governments have done so well with Covid, why not keep going?
Imagine an epitaph of " Gone Woke and Broke".......JJ
Robb - I have only recently discovered the delightful style of Bill Bonner and can honestly say that I find it informative,entertaining,amusing and inspiring in a world that is choking to death on politics and BS. As I head into retirement I look forward to my daily dose of Bonner at breakfast. Stay the course, and don't be dissuaded by the crabs in the bucket who only try to pull you down into their shitty little world.
A nice read....and how cool is it that you provide a comment column....very cool indeed!
How then to account for the additional costs paid by users and non-users alike in the form of uncharged use and destruction of the common air, land, and other ecological resources, which, if taken into account fully or partially, may result in a truer price signal and zero or negative profit to the producer? I think that is the question these moves are attempting to answer, much more than any virtue signaling. It is similar to the question of how a busy, hand-to-mouth and disinterested public can ever organize to overcome the concentrated well-funded lobbying and graft of special interest "crony capitalists". Would a financial move to counteract these "negentropic" forces be similarly discounted as virtue signaling or the pursuit of cool?
Seems we would have to consider the corruption factor through out the world, if that is even possible to take into account. Obama, for ex., would agree with you more than less.
"Cool" seems best left to the good and maybe not so good vibes between people, most of us trust our instincts. When applied to business and social consciousness, beware!
„honest profits are the only way of knowing whether you are making the world a better place, or not.” I beg to differ, Mr. Bonner. The military-industrial complex, for example, and its marketing arm, NATO, make very honest efforts to produce and sell weapons that can destroy entire countries or even the Earth, and thanks to their excellent marketing, the democratic world snaps them up like hot cakes. Profits never fail to accrue. But do they signal that you are making the world a better place? Or, on a smaller scale, medical research shows that a certain drug is very effective against a fatal disease. So you build a factory, produce the drug and get rich. A few years later people start to die of your drug left and right. Have you made the world a better place? Your bank account tells you so. But I beg to differ.
This proves having money doesn't buy everything (being cool).Bill,I think you have summed up Larry's position,Between a BlackRock and a Hard Place.Larry doesn't have the guts to say clean up Wallstreet of all the fraud and criminal activity and make it a fair playing field.I think the working class might regard that as"COOL" Richard
While I enjoy reading your intelligent commentary, I don't share your world view. I get it that you are a libertarian opposed to control by government, but for me, I care about income inequality and poverty and think that governments have a role to play in addressing these issues. I certainly agree that they have not been effective in doing that. I guess what I find hard to like about your assessment of things is that you are a critic with no solutions. Personally, I like the Swedish solution which is to provide a minimum level of social services with a high tax rate, This does not create income equality but does create a society with minimal poverty. I would certainly welcome more constructive thoughts from you on how to organize society rather the law of the jungle.
To be almost cool you have to be CEO of a bank and take a knee, oh and force the BofD to also take a knee. I would suggest the movie "BE COOL" and sell your super Yacht and handout the money via helicopter over any major city. Keep it a secret.
My Discover Card account says that I bought a subscription to your service as I attempted. My account status with you says I only have a”free” subscription. How do I resolve this?
We've sent you a personal reply via gmail Mr Leonard. If you didn't receive it, please email us directly at bonnerprivateresearch@gmail.com
You have a very narrow and money-focused idea of "the world," Bill. You state that making an honest profit is the only way of improving the world. Wrong. Dead wrong!
I can safely assume that you believe the oil companies have made "honest profits." But, what have those profits cost the world? Let's list them, shall we? Air, polluted by the emissions released as a by-product of drilling and the exhaust emissions of planes, trains and automobiles . . . water, polluted by the chemical wastes of drilling and oil spills . . . and, last -- but far from the least -- carbon dioxide emissions released by the burning of oil which is overheating the planet.
Oh, but wait! Let's list the HUMAN cost of the oil companies' "honest profits." There's the economic havoc wreaked on the world every time the oil companies decide to raise their prices because they desire a little more profit, disproportionately harming low-income people . . . There's the damage caused to the health of people who have had drilling rigs set up near their homes and are forced to breathe the toxic fumes the rigs produce . . . There have been tens, if not hundreds-of-millions of human deaths resulting from the poisonous exhaust emissions of cars, ships, trains, planes, etc., which cause cancers, emphysema, and ravage those with severe asthma. Oh, and let's not forget the toxic water created by the oil companies in the process of drilling for "black gold." Who can forget the image that was broadcast, nation-wide, a few years ago, of the homeowner in Colorado who held a match up to the water coming out of their kitchen faucet and it ignited, literally turning into a stream of fire!
Gotta' LOVE those honest oil company profits! Really great measure of "a better world!" But, as long as the oil companies and their investors are raking in the big bucks, that's all that matters, right, Bill?
Dale
You claim that "carbon dioxide emissions released by the burning of oil is overheating the planet."
If this was the case the Carbon in the atmosphere would be increasing at a significant rate.
There are many monitoring stations around the world the oldest of which on Mauna Loa in the Pacific, installed in the 1960's and since joined by many others, all of which provide reasonably consistent results of the Carbon content in the atmosphere in the region of 420 parts per million increasing annually by less than 2 parts per million. This can be illustrated as 4 red tennis balls in a room of 10 000 yellow balls doubling to 8 red balls in over 200 years.This can be checked by googling a meteorological office near you.
Climate change is no doubt happening as it has done since the world began, when one reads about the various ice ages and hot ages that have happened. The Thames froze regularly in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries the last occasion being in 1820.
Carbon emissions would have had little influence in this warming.
Climate change is caused by sun spot activity, jet stream movements, the effect of planetary alignment, and the movement of high and low pressure areas over the earth's surface.
After searching through the web I have not been able to find any evidence of any scientific studies proving that the amount of carbon in the atmosphere affects the global temperature at all. If anyone can provide any reference of such a study or studies it will be very gratefully received.
Ewan
I won't get into an argument with you over the reality of human-caused Global Warming. I'm a meteorologist and I know the science and research, and it's solid. Stop looking on the internet and go directly to the scientific research. The internet is a wasteland of misinformation, crackpot conspiracy theories and outright lies. Check out "Science," "Science News," "Scientific American," "New Scientist," "Bulletin of the American Meteorological Society," "Journal of Applied Meteorology and Climatology," "Journal of the Atmospheric Sciences." and many, many others. Virtually every meteorologist and climatologist on earth are in perfect agreement . . . human activity, primarily the burning of fossil fuels, is responsible for Global Warming. The only exceptions are a handful of so-called "scientists" who are on the oil companies' payroll or have been paid by them to lie in an effort to "debunk" the established science. If the fossil fuel corporations can convince people that Global Warming is a hoax, they get to keep raking in the mega-billions. They don't give a damn about you, or me, or Planet Earth . . . just their money.
Thanks Dale
I have for a long time been looking at the references you supply and others and have not found any scientific proof of any studies proving that an increase in Carbon in the atmosphere causes global warming/climate change.
Plenty of scientists and and celebrities such as Greta Thunberg and David Attenborough all proclaiming that they believe carbon emissions are causing climate change but no actual proof.
As a scientist yourself you must be able to point me in a direction of references to scientific experiments proving this to be the case especially considering the actual miniscule increases in carbon in the atmosphere from monitoring stations all around the world.
I would be very grateful if you could be so kind as to provide me with references of any experiments proving this to be indeed the case and not just general scientific journals so that I may be convinced that carbon in the atmosphere does actually cause climate change.
I really do hope you can supply some specific references to prove your convictions.
Kind regards
Ewan
To everyone who was so upset by my comments, thank you. I know I hit a nerve. When people respond as you have, it confirms the old adage "The truth hurts." But, let's move on . . .
Ewan, I don't have to refer specific experiments to you to prove what has been known for over a hundred years. It is common, well-established science that gases such as carbon dioxide and methane absorb heat that is radiated from the earth's surface once it is heated by the sun and trap it, thereby heating up the atmosphere. If you want proof, simply go back and look through all those references you claim to have perused.
The mean temperature of the earth has risen steadily ever since the beginning of the Industrial Revolution. What else has risen steadily during that same time period? Humanity's use of fossil fuels! It's not a COINCIDENCE, for cryin' out loud! The evidence . . . the PROOF is right there for anyone to see. Your problem, and the problem of others like you, is that you refuse to accept any truth that you don't WANT to believe. There's nothing I can do about that. If you want to tell yourself that the sun is going to rise in the west, tomorrow morning, and set in the east in the evening, then, when it doesn't happen, you say "Well, that doesn't mean anything! I believe the sun is going to reverse it's course across the sky! You can't PROVE to me that it's going to rise in the east, tomorrow!" That's just plain stupidity and I can't fix stupid. You've fed at the trough of Trump lies for so long that you've lost the ability to think and reason.
You claim that the alignment of the planets account for Global Warming . . . Kindly explain THAT one to me. Do you even know what planetary alignment IS? I doubt it. Suffice it to say that it has absolutely NOTHING to do with warming the planet. It has everything to do with astrology, but, then I suppose you believe in that, too.
Oh, sun spots! Please explain how sun spots are heating up the earth!
Sun spots are the result of the fluctuations of the sun's magnetic field. They operate on an eleven-year cycle. Every eleven years the sun goes through a cycle when there are very few sunspots on the the surface of the sun and then the cycle reverses and there are a lot of sunspots. As the sun's magnetic fields twist and snake around for reasons that we still don't understand, cooler areas are created where the magnetic fields are concentrated and those cooler areas appear darker. But, that does NOT cause the entire sun to "cool down" so that the earth is receiving less heat. If you've ever done any gas welding, you've seen this same process in action for yourself.
If you keep your torch on a piece of steel long enough, it begins to glow red. Move the flame to one side, slightly, and the area where it was previously focused immediately gets darker. That's exactly what is happening on the surface of the sun. One area of the steel is ever so slightly cooler, but the overall temperature of the steel remains the same, because the acetylene flame is still there, heating up the entire thing. So, even though there are sunspots, the sun is NOT getting cooler and hotter, because it's burning at the same rate as always.
If sunspots were affecting the earth's temperature, we would see the earth heating up for five-and-a-half years, then cooling down for five-and-a-half years, throughout the eleven-year sunspot cycle. We DON'T observe that. What we DO see is the planet heating up more and more and more as human beings burn more fossil fuels and add more carbon dioxide to the atmosphere. The two are happening in perfect lockstep. THAT'S NOT A COINCIDENCE!
Doug Harrison, the process you refer to is called sublimation. It is NOT a fairy tale. It has been a proven scientific fact for over a century. If you live in a cold climate you've no doubt observed it for yourself, although you may not have realized it. Take note of a chunk of ice or a patch of snow that is sitting on the sidewalk, in a shaded area that doesn't get hit by the sun. The ice will grow smaller and smaller as the days go by, but you never see any melted water around it. THAT is sublimation. The ice is turning into a gas -- water vapor -- at a temperature that is below freezing. You can prove it for yourself . . .
Take an ice cube and set it out on the shelf in your freezer. Over the course of several days, the ice cube will grow smaller and smaller, BUT IT NEVER MELTS! It is sublimating. Have you ever heard the term "freezer burned?" That's when packaged frozen food loses it's water through sublimation and dries out. Again, you can prove this for yourself very easily.
Buy a package of frozen french fries. Leave it in your freezer for several months . . . maybe a year. Now, open the package. It's full of frost. Where did the frost come from? It's the water that sublimated out of the frozen potatoes and collected inside the plastic bag, because it was unable to escape. Cook some of those fries. They're going to taste like crap. They'll be hard and tough to chew because most of the water has sublimated out.
And, no, missouriboy, I don't want to see humanity revert to living in caves and gathering nuts and berries for food. I know that there are better technologies out there to generate the electricity we need to power civilization. YOU are guilty of what you are accusing ME of. You want to continue to use 19th Century technology -- burning coal, oil, and gas -- when we have moved beyond that and we can generate the power we need, cleanly, without producing air pollution that is killing people; water pollution that is killing people; and thermal pollution that is killing the entire planet. I suppose you think we should still be using horses and buggies, too.
Technology advances and civilization advances with it. You may want to hold on to the past, but the rest of humanity is moving forward. The world's auto-makers are building more and more electric vehicles . . . More and more electric utility companies are retiring coal-burning power plants and building solar energy farms and constructing wind turbines. Hydrogen fuel cell technology is advancing and one day we'll have electric cars, trains, ships and airplanes powered by hydrogen fuel cells . . . Research is on-going into nuclear fusion. A test tokamac just achieved the highest energy return, yet. Soon, we'll achieve break-even and fusion power will become a reality. Clean, limitless, energy for everyone.
Thank God, humanity is not allowing itself to be held back by people like you all! Oh, and since Bill's blog is primarily about money, you should take note of the fact that the smart money is getting on the "green energy" band-wagon. That, more than anything else, should tell you where things are headed. Hold on to the past if you want. The rest of us are headed for a better, brighter, future.
Hi Dale
We must just agree to differ.
The recorded quantity of Carbon in the atmosphere is not significant and the recorded annual increase is miniscule.
If Carbon in the atmosphere really causes global warming there must be scientific studies published proving that carbon does do this.
With the substantial increase in population the amount of light produced at night has increased significantly all over the world.
Global warming has increased significantly over the same period of time. This could mean that the increase in illumination in our night skies has caused the global warming. It is so obvious you don't need me to prove it to you scientifically.
For your information all the heat in our world comes from the sun. The slightest change in the amount of heat being radiated from the sun by sunspots affects the temperature in the world significantly.
Let's not continue this discussion it is not going anywhere.
Regards
Ewan
Okay, we can end the discussion, but I just have to point out how mistaken you are on some of your assumptions . . .
First off, the amount of carbon being added to the atmosphere is NOT minuscule. PBS recently broadcast an episode of NOVA, dealing with Global Warming in which they showed how much carbon human beings are adding to the atmosphere, annually. I suggest you watch it. You may learn something. Although, since you continue to reject scientific proof and truth of everything that you don't WANT to believe, you probably won't accept the facts that NOVA presents, either.
As far as your ridiculous claim that the lights we turn on at night are causing Global Warming . . . Man, PLEASE! Do you know how much the planet is heating up every year?! If streetlights were producing all of that heat they would be melting the asphalt on the roads and people walking their dogs at night would be bursting into flame from the heat being put out by the lights! Obviously, none of that is happening. I suggest you go to the library and pick up some books, do some research and learn a little science before you make such an asinine claim. The problem is, you prefer to believe whatever lie Donald Trump is crapping out of his ass. You're not interested in the truth. You don't care about facts. You only care what your great god, Trump, tells you. I truly believe that if Jesus came down to earth and proclaimed THE TRUTH to people like you, and Donald Trump then said the exact opposite and called Jesus a liar, you people would take Trump's word over the Word of God! You're hopeless! Goodbye!
Well well! He's a meteorologist another pseudo science that believes all sorts of fairy stories ( including that water can become a gas at temperatures way below boiling point.)
Please see my reply to Ewan, above. I reply to you, too.
It's kind of obvious that Dale wants humanity to revert to living in caves and gathering nuts and berries for sustenance. Also, why blame the oil industry for responding to demand created by others? It seems like Dale tries to make it sound like those companies forced their product on the populace, instead of the other way around.
Please see my reply to Ewan, above.