If you've read the Edmonton Journal, you'll know that the speaker of those words was the famous AGW activist - Al Gore. Ironic.
Sadly, John Baird, didn't address the science around the assumed crisis or the alleged cause of the assumed crisis. Everybody seems to be happy with the assumption. The assumption is going to cost the Canadian economy at least $7 billion. Where's that money going to go? Who gets the carbon tax? Obviously, that money should go to study the assumption further. AGW Activism is huge business.
Monday, April 30, 2007
Friday, April 20, 2007
Global Cooling
The coast guard vessel Sir Wilfred Grenfell became stuck in ice earlier this week while trying to help stranded longliners.
(CBC)
2006 is probably the coldest year in the last 5 years
Sunspots Correlations with Temperature
From my review of the science behind Anthropogenic Global Warming (AGW), it seems to be much like the pseudo-science in Chariots of the Gods. The big difference between the efforts of the likes of Erich von Däniken and the AGW clique is that the later bears up the cudgel - Can we afford to ignore the consequences of AGW?
Post-normal science might have a valid role in specific situations. For example, in the face of clear and present danger and the established science (medicine, engineering, etc) is unable to answer the danger, I can understand going beyond the established to solve the crisis.
But with Global Climate, Global Warming as an ever increasing trend in temperature was never really identified. The planet has been both warmer and colder in the past. The crisis was never really established. Mass extinctions have been associated with Global Cooling - not Global Warming. In the past, when the planet has been warmer, life has flourished. In order for a crisis to exist, Global Warming would have to be unnatural, thus not subjected to natural checks and balances, thus out of control.
AGW seems like a crisis looking for post-normal science justification. The casual chain seems to go like this: human activity is bad for the planet -> human generate CO2 -> global CO2 increases global temperature -> global temperatures have seen periods of increase -> increases in global temperatures are anthropogenic and out of control -> Crisis: AGW -> Cudgel: we can't afford to ignore AGW -> loop back to human activity is bad for reinforcement of dogma.
We do generate CO2. But CO2 is not an effective "greenhouse gas". CO2 lags temperature change rather than lead it. The reason for this is pretty easy to understand. A huge sink for CO2 are the oceans. Cold water can dissolve more CO2. Warming water releases dissolved CO2. So, in cooling periods CO2 dissolves into the oceans and in warming periods CO2 returns to the atmosphere. Temperature of the ocean lags global temperature because it is also a huge thermal sink.
I've just read a few posts about the CO2 lag by AGW proponents. Their positions are basically the same: CO2 doesn't start the warming trend but contributes to it once it has started. Handy. AGW is still a crisis because the cause of the warming trend doesn't matter. I wonder how the planet could cool with so much CO2 in the atmosphere, so much so that the CO2 was driving the warming trend? The sad fact for the AGW cause is that the added potency of CO2 as a greenhouse gas diminishes with concentration. This means that quadrupling CO2 does not quadruple the temperature impact.
What is disturbing about the AGW phenomenon is that “science” is being used to create and sustain the crisis and then “science” is again used to react to the “crisis” all under the threat of the danger of ignoring the possibility that the crisis might be real. This isn't Science. This is Activism. Truth and Knowledge are often the first causalities in Activism.
AGW Activism seems to be activism against humanity. Why do I say that? Al Gore's movie talks about the human disaster of ignoring AGW. How is he against humanity? AGW Activists tell us that human industrial activity is bad. Therefore, human industrial activity must be reduced. Or taxed. Human industrial activity leads to human wealth. Pre-industrial societies are the poorest on the planet. With wealth comes electricity, health, education, and better living conditions. The heaviest hit targets of the AGW Activists are the human societies that could best benefit from industry. It is poignant and fair to contrast the AGW Activist poster child, Al Gore, living comfortably in his fully powered mansion with the hovel of an African farmer who lacks electricity.
Closer to home, AGW Activists seek to increase our cost of living. They seek to increase the cost of our fuel and heating. They seek to reduce our opportunity for employment. Living in an energy producing province, they seek to equalize our prosperity - shades of the NEP. Am I being an alarmist? Compared to warnings of billions dead from AGW, I think I'm being pretty mild.
Contrary to the AGW Activists' dire warnings, higher CO2 concentrations is good agriculture, which is good for humanity.
What about the Global Temperature? I don't really know. But I hope real science will find real answers. And I hope that our confidence in the Scientific Method isn't so brutalized by the AGW Activists that we are unable to recognize the real science.
Tuesday, April 17, 2007
Photoshop: From Basics to Magic
The site boasts:
Even if you know nothing about Adobe Photoshop at nine in the morning, you can be confidently working with this great software by three in the afternoon. We GUARANTEE it! Imagine creating artwork, changing photos...working in your own digital darkroom!
Our Adobe Photoshop tutorials are easy to follow. You'll see lots of clear screenshots and step by step instructions. Many courses even feature "live" on screen Photoshop tutorials. Best of all you will learn as you work on REAL WORLD projects!
Each lesson is "jargon free" and packed with information you WILL use. And each lesson is streamlined to get you started with Adobe Photoshop as quickly as possible. We offer courses on Photoshop basics as well as great Photoshop tutorials, techniques and tips for advanced users. Create artwork, graphics and presentations FAST!
After going through one of the tutorials, I'd say that the author's boast hits the mark. The language is clear and the examples are excellent. I recommend their tutorials.
Saturday, April 14, 2007
MovieMerge - Image blended over Movie
MovieMerge is a simple little application that you can use to blend images over top of movies. You can use it to quickly add text or watermarks to your movies. Using Photoshop, you could create interesting borders for your movie. A good place to learn how to create Photoshop magic is www.photoshopbasics.com.
The impetus for the application was that a friend of mine took some videos of his dog playing in the snow. However he took the videos in a portrait orientation. He wanted rotate the video plus make it 4x3 (rather than 3x4). The tools that I have kicking on my Mac could do the rotation easy enough. But when I tried to make it 4x3, invariably the movie got stretched.
With Cocoa, Core Data, and QuickTime, writing a custom application is very easy and very quick. Well.... okay. QuickTime and threads can be a real pain. Really great technology, QuickTime, but it shows its age when it comes to threads.
The software is released as Donationware. If you like it, donate some money to me, if you wish.
Thursday, April 05, 2007
Is it a Dell?
So far, the Parallel software is working really well. The Windows process isn't a CPU hog. I'm looking forward to installing Visual Studio and see how it works writing some software.
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