AIArchitect

Great info in your post, I saw a report on TV last week about this same thing and since I am getting married in 6 weeks and the timing couldn't have been better! thanks for the post!

Can not believe Google thinks this is news!

Radar Golf at golf clubs. Aero Spark at callaway golf. Savant GPS at golf equipment. Butthead Covers at golf shoes. Swingrite at golf balls. Swing-eez at golf carts. Boomerang at golf bags and The Putting Arc.

Hey very nice blog! Man, I will bookmark your blog and take the feeds also.

Mr. Lloyd W. Goldrick RA, CDT, CSI, AIA.

Global warming is real. Human activity is contributing to it. Every time fossil fuel is burned, co2 that used to be underground and is embodied in that fuel is released and added to the co2 in the atmosphere. If, with your education you do not understand that given enough extra co2 added over a very short period of time, that a climate change has been triggered, and that change is now accelerating then you are a captive of ignorance. There is no point to quoting any self serving liar, whether or not they are in the senate or not. There is no point to debating a person who actually believes that the majority of the worlds climate scientists are involved in a hoax. What is the point? Give it up!

Experts have talked about this before. How many times have you read about the importance of ‘adding value’ for your audience? How many times have you read about ‘building trust’ with your readers/prospects?
Many, many times. You know it well. Every marketing guru has spoken about this topic. I’m sick of hearing it. But it STILL bears repeating. www.onlineuniversalwork.com

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To the estimable Mr Walker:

Would you like a source? How about the US Senate Committee on Environment and Public Works minority report? http://epw.senate.gov

As indicated by the articles partially quoted below, there apparently are some scientists who did not get the memo or do not think the science is all that settled and it is not a conspiracy to rob you of your closely held opinions, but a reasonable skepticism based upon analysis of fact.

According to this post as of 5 August 2008:

QUOTE "The Oregon Institute of Science and Medicine say they have a document signed by more than 31,000 scientists (including 9,000 PhD's) that says, " there is no convincing scientific evidence that human release of carbon dioxide, methane or other 'greenhouse gasses' is causing, or will cause in the future, catastrophic heating of the Earth's atmosphere and disruption of the Earth's climate."
The petition represents a direct challenge to former Vice President Al Gore and his allies' contention that arrogantly claims, " an overwhelming number of scientists have determined that catastrophic manmade global warming is real and that any further debate over the science is pointless."

When confronted with the petition, White House press secretary, Dana Perino reportedly said, " everyone is entitled to an opinion next question!"

In other words, Gore says scientists who challenge the theory are members of the "Flat Earth Society." Based on the petition put together by the Oregon Institute, the "Flat Earth Society" has a lot of very prestigious members. " CLOSE QUOTE

As an apparent member of the "Flat Earth Society" I may as well disclose that I also believe in God and therefore subscribe wholeheartedly to the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution of the United States as documents inspired by GOD.

All humans ARE "endowed by our Creator with certain unalienable rights. That among these are Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of Happiness". Freedom has resulted in exponential improvement in the lives of countless human beings. It is being embraced by the Indians and the Chinese to varying degrees in an attempt to improve the quality of the lives of their people.

I broach the subject of faith because your use of the term EVIL in connection with fossil fuels indicates that you may have conflated religion or philosophy and science. You have said we can do better. Perhaps, but for the foreseeable future fossil fuels will supply the bulk of our energy needs as alternative sources are developed. In short, the free market will provide solutions and not crackpot fixes hustled by ex-vice-presidents with political axes to grind.

Undoubtedly there are countless efforts underway to find less impactful energy sources not just here but abroad. However, the Chinese and Indians are not short on scientific and mathematical expertise.

Their economic demands are a principal source of the current high cost of energy. If there were a short term or long term alternative to fossil fuels to achieve their economic goals they would surely be using it.

Our power generation and industry are hundreds of times cleaner than the methods employed by the Chinese. If our use of coal is EVIL, what term must we apply to the Chinese sources of energy? We, I mean our markets, are working on long term solutions to our energy needs. Political impositions of policy as proposed by the UN and Kyoto are often followed by the revelation of unintended consequences, as witness the bio-fuels mandates now generally regarded as a mistake with disastrous effects upon the cost of food.

There is ample evidence of the lack of consensus:

QUOTE CONCERNING THE SENATE REPORT REFERENCED ABOVE "The man made global warming “consensus” just keeps falling apart. Now there is a new and detailed report that contains what scientists, some of whom were part of the IPCC really think:

Over 400 prominent scientists from more than two dozen countries recently voiced significant objections to major aspects of the so-called “consensus” on man-made global warming. These scientists, many of whom are current and former participants in the UN IPCC (Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change), criticized the climate claims made by the UN IPCC and former Vice President Al Gore.The new report issued by the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee’s office of the GOP Ranking Member details the views of the scientists, the overwhelming majority of whom spoke out in 2007. Even the some in the establishment media now appears to be taking notice of the growing number of skeptical scientists.

In October, the Washington Post Staff Writer Juliet Eilperin conceded the obvious, writing that climate skeptics “appear to be expanding rather than shrinking.” Many scientists from around the world have dubbed 2007 as the year man-made global warming fears “bites the dust.”" CLOSE QUOTE

and this:

QUOTE "This new report (Senate) details how teams of international scientists are dissenting from the UN IPCC's view of climate science. In such nations as Germany, Brazil, the Netherlands, Russia, Argentina, New Zealand, the Philippines and France, scientists banded together in 2007 to oppose climate alarmism. In addition, over 100 prominent international scientists sent an open letter in December 2007 to the UN stating attempts to control climate were "futile." (LINK)

Paleoclimatologist Dr. Tim Patterson, professor in the department of Earth Sciences at Carleton University in Ottawa, recently converted from a believer in man-made climate change to a skeptic. Patterson noted that the notion of a "consensus" of scientists aligned with the UN IPCC or former Vice President Al Gore is false. "I was at the Geological Society of America meeting in Philadelphia in the fall and I would say that people with my opinion were probably in the majority." "CLOSE QUOTE

It is comforting being a member of the Flat Earth Society to reflect upon the farms of Greenland which were productive during a period of time with a warmer climate than today and wistfully remember the good old days.

My hope that our world will continue to be a fit place to live for my children and theirs is buttressed by my faith in the ingenuity of mankind, using the God given gifts of reason and imagination, to meet the challenges of the future. Freedom will allow innovation, not government mandates, certainly not UN mandates.

You are obviously entitled to your opinions based upon the theories of the scientists who are proponents of the notion of man-made global warming.

In the meantime, and on a lighter note, I will remain a skeptic in company with the tens of thousands of scientists who do not share that view, and invite you to join us Flat Earthers at our next meeting this coming Autumnal Equinox at Area 51 in Nevada.

It promises to be most productive. We are going to demand that the government open the hangars and show us the sets used in the production of the lunar mission "broadcasts" to convince us that we have actually sent men to the moon.

Mr. "I don't need your hate mail." Now would be a good time to name your sources. The objective is to point out what appears to be false unsupported statements and minimise the damage they cause. False information as differentiated from opinion or interpretation, is a big part of the problem we all face in the search for climate change solutions. Such disinformation comprises a barrier we keep being forced to deal with.

So far as I can tell the following is a false statement:

"The IPCC report has already proven to be inaccurate and based on the typical "man-is-a-bad-animal" political views as much as it is based on science."

Could you please cite your source on this revelation? I am certain Mr. Gore, Mr. Mazria and many others would like to read that.

So far as I can tell The IPCC report has not been proven to be inaccurate by any person, agency or corporation.

There is no political view intended by the IPCC panel. I read the report and detect only a legitimate effort to present facts and tell the truth. I do not detect any "man-is-a-bad-animal" political view, or moral judegement of man. Such bias is simply not present in the science presented. The conclusion is clear human activity contributes to global warming.

Please tell us who has proven this report is inaccurate. Please tell us how it has been established that the IPCC panel set forth their report on climate change, on behalf of the UN, with a political purpose in mind? Tell us who has made that accusation please, so that it can be addressed.

If you can not support such statements what conclusions should we draw?

It is easy to jump on the bandwagon and begin to discuss what everyone else can do one way or the other. Fact is in just the last 50 years or so we have become so much more dependent on energy on a personal level. Appliances, cell phones, electronics, computers, etc. That it is a complete dis-connect from the lifestyle our grandparents seamed to thrive uppon. To me the bigger issue is the personal requirement for so much energy consuption in the first place. We have become so dependent upon transportation that it is hard to imagine a lifestyle without a car. Perhaps the focus of our profession should be the re-invention of our lifestyle and daily activities. It is my belief that a change in philosphy will be far more effective than finding ways to allow us more freedom in our vehicles and luxury in our homes.

The IPCC report has already proven to be inaccurate and based on the typical "man-is-a-bad-animal" political views as much as it is based on science. I don't put that much faith in the government view on these things (lump the govenments together on this issue - U.S., China, etc.) Let's take a big gulp and if we accept the premise that global warming is happening, then the real question is whether or not man is contributing to global warming to any siginficant and quantifiable degree. It seems that the evidence on this issue is far from conclusive and there is no consensus.

Now, let's talk about coal. Coal is inefficient and dirty. It pollutes the microclimate where it is used to generate electricity. Sustainable and eco-friendly design is a justifiable initiative on its own, without theunfounded scare tactics of global warming.

I have a lot more on this, but I haven't the time to be typing manifestos for cyberspace.

I'm not here to debate whether global warming is happening or not - the business world increasingly perceives it as an important issue to be addressed and that should be enough to make us sit up and take notice. Architecture is art, science AND business. What will we do about coal? Perhaps we should be asking what will Wal-Mart do about coal. Wal-mart is requesting its suppliers to green their business pratices and the suppliers are doing as asked because it is cheaper to go green than lose Wal-mart's business. I wonder what would happen if Wal-Mart - the largest purchaser of electricity in the United States - would request COAL-FREE electricity.

TO SET THE RECORD STRAIGHT

According to the honored and respectable Mr. Lloyd W. Goldrick RA, CDT, CSI, AIA: Among the Scientists on the IPCC there was a wide spread dissent. See above for his statements. This is a quote of what Mr. Goldrick said:
“For instance, have you read of the dissent of many of the scientists who participated in the IPCC process which objected to the conclusions portion of the report as a distortion of the science they participated in?”

OK here it is.
There is a BIG LIE right here. His statement was true, there was dissent, but as is crystal clear in the facts and news reported (see below), the dissent was in the opposite direction of Mr. Goldrick's implication, it was dissent by scientist's over the watering down of the scietist's conclusions by the politicians of the Bush administration!
PLEASE SEE THE ARTICLE BELOW.
“IPCC Scientists Vow Never to Participate Again.”
An international global warming conference approved a report on climate change April of 2007 after a contentious marathon session that saw angry exchanges between diplomats and scientists who drafted the report.

"We have an approved accord. It has been a complex exercise," chairman Rajendra Pachauri told reporters after an all-night meeting.

Finalizing the report, which was years in the making, came down to an all-night session, described as very contentious, reports CBS News correspondent Mark Phillips.

"I'm wearing the same suit I wore yesterday morning and I've been sitting in a chair all night," said Pachauri.

Several scientists objected to the editing of the final draft by government negotiators but in the end agreed to compromises. However, some scientists on the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change vowed never to take part in the process again.

The climax of five days of negotiations was reached when the delegates removed parts of a key chart highlighting devastating effects of climate change that kick in with every rise of 1.8 degrees Fahrenheit, and in a tussle over the level of confidence attached to key statements.

The United States, China and Saudi Arabia raised the most objections to the phrasing, most often seeking to tone down the certainty of some of the more dire projections.

The leader of distortion serving political interests was from the United States. The lead U.S. official at the meeting, Sharon Hays, said climate change is a global challenge that needs more study.

"Science in this area is evolving. Determination of the certainty that scientists can place any particular finding is important," she said. Pressed to describe changes sought by the U.S., Hayes would only say, "Every aspect of this report generated discussion."

The disturbing truth here is crystal clear. The Bush administration remains opposed to mandatory caps on greenhouse gas emissions, reports CBS News White House correspondent Peter Maer. It prefers international cooperation to curb pollution. The president has argued that the mandatory caps on greenhouse gas emissions would hurt the economy.

The Bush administration did what they could to conceal the truth. But the major thrusts of the report could not be watered down. It concludes that those who are already suffering most in this world, are going to suffer worst due to global warming, reports Phillips.

The final report is the clearest and most comprehensive scientific statement to date on the impact of global warming mainly caused by man-induced carbon dioxide pollution.

It predicts that:
up to 30 percent of species face an increased risk of extinction if global temperatures rise 3.6 degrees Fahrenheit above the average in the 1980s and 90s.

Areas that now suffer a shortage of rain, in particular the already parched areas of sub-Sahara Africa, will become even more dry, adding to the risks of hunger and disease, and making those areas less able to support populations.

The world will face heightened threats of flooding, severe storms and the erosion of coastlines. The low-lying areas of Asia — called the mega-deltas — will be most vulnerable.

"It is the poorest of the poor in the world who are going to be worst hit, least able to adapt," said Pachauri.

But the rich countries are not immune, notes Phillips. The report warns of increased risk of brushfires in California and of insect infestations and increased frequencies of heat waves in the American cities already prone to them.

And the U.S. has its own low lying areas in the Southeast whose vulnerability will increase.

Meanwhile, Britain, as president of the United Nations Security Council, has called an open meeting April 17 to debate what its ambassador, Emyr Jones Parry, calls "one of the big challenges for the world for the next century." It will focus on the impact of global warming on issues that can spark conflicts including border disputes and access to energy, water and food.

That will raise the level of international attention and include the idea that global warming presents threats to international security, with a view to action that could be taken by the United Nations to control human-created greenhouse gasses in the future," says CBS News foreign affairs analyst Pamela Falk.

Global warming is an issue that is already moving away from science and into politics, reports Phillips.

The IPCC report will be presented at a Group of Eight leaders summit in June in Germany, which the EU will use to pressure President Bush to sign on to international talks to cut emissions.

James Connaughton, chairman of the White House Council on Environmental Quality, rejected a reporter's characterization Friday morning that the administration is sitting out the Kyoto process as a "gross mischaracterization of the U.S. role internationally," reports Maer. Connaughton said the U.S. is engaging developing countries on strategies to reduce greenhouse gasses.

The final document will be the product of a United Nations network of 2,000 scientists as authors and reviewers, along with representatives of more than 120 governments as last-minute editors.

It will be the second volume of a four-volume authoritative assessment of Earth's climate being released this year. The last such effort was in 2001.

The new global warming report issued Friday by the United Nations paints a near-apocalyptic vision of Earth's future: more than a billion people in need of water, extreme food shortages in Africa, a planetary landscape ravaged by floods and millions of species sentenced to extinction.

READ THIS
But despite the harshness of its vision, the report was quickly criticized by scientists who said its findings were watered down at the last minute by government bureaucrats seeking to deflect calls for action.

"The science got hijacked by the political bureaucrats at the late stage of the game," said John Walsh, a climate expert at the University of Alaska-Fairbanks, who helped write a chapter on the polar regions.

Even in its softened form, the report outlined a range of devastating effects that will strike all regions of the world and all levels of society. Those without resources to adapt to the changes will suffer the greatest impact, according to the study from the U.N.'s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change.

The report is the second issued this year by the United Nations, which marshaled more than 2,500 scientists to give their best predictions of the consequences of a few degrees increase in temperature.

The first report, released in February, characterized global warming as a runaway train that is irreversible, but that can be moderated by societal changes. That report said, with more than 90 percent confidence, that the warming is caused by humans, and its conclusions were widely accepted because of the years of accumulated scientific data supporting it.

In contrast, the second report was more controversial because it tackled the more uncertain issues of the precise effects of warming and the ability of humans to adapt to it.

The report, in a sense, is a more focused indictment of the world's biggest polluters - the industrialized nations - and a more specific identification of the victims.

The last-minute negotiations led to deleting timelines for future events and scaling back the degree of confidence in some projections. Both actions will ease the pressure on industrialized nations to reduce their emissions of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases that are gradually warming the planet.

Several scientists vowed afterward that they would never participate in the process again because of the political interference.

"Once is enough," said Walsh, who was not present during the negotiations in Brussels, but kept abreast of developments with e-mails from colleagues. "I was receiving hourly reports that grew increasingly frustrated."

The report paints a bleak picture of the future, noting that the early signs of warming already are here:

Spring is arriving earlier, with plants blooming weeks ahead of schedule.

In the mountains, the runoff begins earlier in the year, shrinking glaciers in the Alps, the Himalayas and the Andes.

Habitats for plants and animals, both on land and in the oceans, are shifting toward the poles.

Nineteen of the 20 hottest years on record have occurred since 1980, according to previous studies. The report said more frequent and more intense heat waves are "very likely" in the future.

In some places, warming might seem like a good thing, at first. For example, worldwide food production is expected to increase with the first few degrees of temperature rise. For a time, an expanded fertile zone in the higher latitudes could offset losses in the tropics. But at a certain point, as drought conditions spread, crops everywhere will suffer.

By mid-century, temperature rise and drying soil will replace tropical forests with savannas in Brazil's eastern Amazonia, the report predicts.

In North America, snowpack in the West will decline, causing more floods in the winter and reduced flows in the summer, increasing competition for water for agriculture and municipal use. California agriculture will be decimated by the loss of water for irrigation, experts have previously said. Water will come more often around the world in its least welcome forms: storms and floods.

Rising temperatures will reconfigure coastlines around the world, as the oceans rise and seawater surges over land. The tiny islands of the South Pacific and the Asian deltas will be overwhelmed by storm surges as sea levels rise.

In the Andes and the Himalayas, melting glaciers will unleash floods and rock avalanches. But within a few decades, as the glaciers and snowpack decline, streams will dwindle, cutting off the main water supply to more than one-sixth of the world's population.

Africa will suffer the most extreme effects, with a quarter of a billion people losing most of their water supplies, the report said. Food production will fall by half in many countries and governments will have to spend 10 percent of their budgets or more to adapt to climate changes, the report said.

At least 30 percent of the world's species will disappear if temperatures rise 3.6 degrees Fahrenheit above the average levels of the 1980s and 1990s, the report said.

"Don't be poor in a hot country, don't live in hurricane alley, watch out about being on the coasts or in the Arctic, and it's a bad idea to be on a high mountain," said Stephen Schneider of Stanford University, one of the scientists who contributed to the report.

The Bush administration quickly made it clear that it would not be stampeded by the report into taking part in the U.N.'s Kyoto Protocol, which seeks to limit emissions of carbon dioxide. The U.S. withdrew from the protocol in 2001, saying it was too expensive and did not impose enough controls on developing nations.

"Each nation sort of defines their regulatory objectives in different ways to achieve the greenhouse reduction outcome that they seek," said Jim Connaughton, chairman of the White House Council on Environmental Quality, during a teleconference Friday from Brussels.

Sharon Hays, associate director of the White House Office of Science and Technology, noted in the same teleconference that "not all projected impacts are negative." Initially, the warming will increase agricultural output in the mid-latitudes and in northern regions.

Other governments, such as China, Russia and Saudi Arabia, had already expressed their displeasure with parts of the report by demanding changes - some of them seemingly minor in the grand scheme of climate change.

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi said in a prepared statement that political agendas need to be left behind and quick action taken to cut emissions.

"Global warming is already under way, but it is not too late to slow it down and reduce its harmful effects," she said. "We must base our actions on the moral imperative and the scientific record, free of political interference."

Hope that clears the matter up regarding who is distorting the facts.
TLW

IT IS BAD BUSINESS TO LOCK INTO OLD TECHNOLOGY

Many conservative business leaders are against coal plants. We wish more of them were outspoken about the dirty business of coal power plants. There are businesses people opposing coal plants in just about every state but some may be surprised that even in Texas coal power is seen as bad business. The reality is that in Texas many Texas business leaders are opposed to coal power.

The founders of the Dallas-based Texas Business for Clean Air, an unlikely coalition of conservative, practical, free-market prominent business leaders oppose Texas' 17 proposed pulverized coal power plants; they paid a visit to Austin early this year. Co-founder David Litman, the father of Hotels.com, argues that utilities' coal proposals, especially those of TXU (proposing 11 plants), don't reflect the plants' true costs, which will "go out the smokestacks and into the lungs of our workers and their children," exacerbating federal air-quality non-attainment status in places like Dallas and Houston and choking off growth statewide. "Bottom line, it's bad for business," Litman said.

Litman joined with Dallas real estate mogul Trammell Crow and Container Store co-founder Garrett Boone to start TBCA in 2006, and they've armed themselves for a showdown to fight the utilities using their own weapon of choice – lobbyists. Boone joked that between 40 and 60 of the lobbyists the group contacted prior to the legislative session were either directly engaged by or had a conflict of interest with TXU. They learned that even one of Crow Holdings' own lobbyists had a TXU conflict, Crow said. TXU listed 58 paid lobbyists on a recent Texas Ethics Commission report.
Coal plants are bad business. According to Boone, the TBCA's business-perspective problem with the coal plants is based on a number of unanswered questions, such as the plants' cumulative impact on air-quality attainment, their associated health-care costs, and their effect on the area's ability to attract the best and brightest employees and industries.

Coal has an enduring history of lung disease and other illnesses associated with it that spans more than 100 years.

Litman noted that Toyota and Boeing have already declined to locate near Dallas, as it struggles to reform its air quality.
With the world watching Texas' critical coal decisions, Boone said building the plants could solidify the state's reputation as a backwater when it comes to energy policy. The world is indeed watching not just Texas but the nation as a whole. Coal is a problematic energy solution and not the best choice anywhere.

There are better alternatives in Texas and in the rest of the nation as well. It is bad business to lock into old technology, particularly of the unhealthy variety. The TBCA and its three lobbyists are working to propose solutions both for the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality and the state's Public Utility Commission, Boone said. Coal and other fossil fuels should be held in reserve and used only as a last resort. He explained that the group favors "maximizing energy efficiency and renewable energy and using coal as judiciously as possible with the best available emissions control technology." He added, "We must take advantage of this time of rapidly advancing technology. It's a bad business decision to lock into old technology now."

Why stop with coal?

Mr. Mazria has my vote. Why do we continue to just allow coal as "big business" to continue "business as usual." Coal is not cheap. It is expensive in terms of miles of mountain streams being filled with mining rubble, entire mountains in Appalachia that are un-livable. Landscape, and way of life are destroyed. Mountaintops are levelled to get at "cheap" coal. We have elevated levels of mercury in our blood due to breathing the air around power plants. Carbon from burning coal is increasing greenhouse gasses. The truth is coal is not clean. Scrubbing does not make it clean. Coal must be stopped.

For your information:
The following article is published on the Web at
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/06/27/AR2006062700780.html

Scientists OK Gore's Movie for Accuracy
By SETH BORENSTEIN
The Associated Press
Tuesday, June 27, 2006; 9:15 PM
WASHINGTON -- The nation's top climate scientists are giving "An Inconvenient Truth," Al Gore's documentary on global warming, five stars for accuracy.
The former vice president's movie _ replete with the prospect of a flooded New York City, an inundated Florida, more and nastier hurricanes, worsening droughts, retreating glaciers and disappearing ice sheets _ mostly got the science right, said all 19 climate scientists who had seen the movie or read the book and answered questions from The Associated Press. The AP contacted more than 100 top climate researchers by e-mail and phone for their opinion. Among those contacted were vocal skeptics of climate change theory. Most scientists had not seen the movie, which is in limited release, or read the book.
But those who have seen it had the same general impression: Gore conveyed the science correctly; the world is getting hotter and it is a manmade catastrophe-in-the-making caused by the burning of fossil fuels.
"Excellent," said William Schlesinger, dean of the Nicholas School of Environment and Earth Sciences at Duke University. "He got all the important material and got it right."
Robert Corell, chairman of the worldwide Arctic Climate Impact Assessment group of scientists, read the book and saw Gore give the slideshow presentation that is woven throughout the documentary.
"I sat there and I'm amazed at how thorough and accurate," Corell said. "After the presentation I said, `Al, I'm absolutely blown away. There's a lot of details you could get wrong.' ... I could find no error."
Gore, in an interview with the AP, said he wasn't surprised "because I took a lot of care to try to make sure the science was right."
The tiny errors scientists found weren't a big deal, "far, far fewer and less significant than the shortcoming in speeches by the typical politician explaining an issue," said Michael MacCracken, who used to be in charge of the nation's global warming effects program and is now chief scientist at the Climate Institute in Washington.
One concern was about the connection between hurricanes and global warming. That is a subject of a heated debate in the science community. Gore cited five recent scientific studies to support his view.
"I thought the use of imagery from Hurricane Katrina was inappropriate and unnecessary in this regard, as there are plenty of disturbing impacts associated with global warming for which there is much greater scientific consensus," said Brian Soden, a University of Miami professor of meteorology and oceanography.
Some scientists said Gore confused his ice sheets when he said the effect of the Clean Air Act is noticeable in the Antarctic ice core; it is the Greenland ice core. Others thought Gore oversimplified the causal-link between the key greenhouse gas carbon dioxide and rising temperatures.
While some nonscientists could be depressed by the dire disaster-laden warmer world scenario that Gore laid out, one top researcher thought it was too optimistic. Tom Wigley, senior scientist at the National Center for Atmospheric Research, thought the former vice president sugarcoated the problem by saying that with already-available technologies and changes in habit _ such as changing light bulbs _ the world could help slow or stop global warming.
While more than 1 million people have seen the movie since it opened in May, that does not include Washington's top science decision makers. President Bush said he won't see it. The heads of the Environmental Protection Agency and NASA haven't seen it, and the president's science adviser said the movie is on his to-see list.
"They are quite literally afraid to know the truth," Gore said. "Because if you accept the truth of what the scientific community is saying, it gives you a moral imperative to start to rein in the 70 million tons of global warming pollution that human civilization is putting into the atmosphere every day."
As far as the movie's entertainment value, Scripps Institution geosciences professor Jeff Severinghaus summed it up: "My wife fell asleep. Of course, I was on the edge of my chair."

Hope that adds clarity.
TLW

Mr. Goldrick the science speaks for itself. If you want to advocate the use of fossil fuel when there are better alternatives go right ahead. For your information however, the credibility of science or scientific observations, or Mr. Gore or Mr. Mazria's public statements, or mine for that matter, are not determined in a court room.

Scientists do not care what the court decides because it is not relevent to scientific methods. Science is about establishing what is so by testing in physical reality. The arguements in the court room are to protect some vested interest between parties not to establish physical realities. The majority of scientist agree that in terms of cause and effect that human activity is the primary cause of global warming.

For a long time in the US court room there was insufficiently clear evidence that smoking caused cancer and the courts were deciding that claims that smoking did cause cancer were not supportable. Those defending the tabaco companies, many with fine credentials and good intentions, eventually found themselves out of touch with the physical realities. Enough said.

I am quite convinced that the great efforts to maintain the existing energy paradigm are rooted in fantasy rather than science. That is my opinion.

Although it is possible to clean the carbon from the gas arising from the use of coal for power generation, it is difficult to comprehend why this would be better than spending the same money on the solar alternative.

Here is what they have in mind:
Carbon Capture;
CO2 is captured using technologies that have been developed and proved in other applications. Currently, there are three main CO2 capture approaches:
• From combustion products from power plant flue gases
• Before combustion in gasification systems (see below)
• By burning coal or gas in oxygen to produce a concentrated CO2 flue gas.

The main technology in use today involves separating CO2 from flue gases or other streams using an amine solution, and then recovering the CO2 by steam stripping.
Hydrogen production / Carbon dioxide separation
Gasification of fossil fuels (see above) produces a hydrogen and carbon monoxide gas stream, which when reacted with steam (the water shift reaction) produces a mixture of hydrogen and carbon dioxide, which can be separated (by pressure swing adsorption).
The hydrogen can then be used as:
• A chemical feedstock,
• A fuel in a gas turbine combined cycle plant or a fuel cell to produce electricity,
• A fuel for transportation.
The carbon dioxide can then be stored or sequestered in some way.
Perhaps CO2 Compression and transport
after capture CO2 is compressed to a liquid state at ~80 atmospheres pressure and pumped to the storage site. The CO2 may then be injected into the target geological formation. Really?
CO2 is largely inert and is already transported in high pressure pipelines. For example, the Weyburn project in Canada currently transports over 1 million tons of CO2 through 320 kilometer long pipeline.
Is sequestration or Carbon Storage Feasible?
For CO2 storage to be an effective way of avoiding climate change, the CO2 must be stored for several hundreds or thousands of years.
CO2 storage also requires minimal environmental impacts, low costs to be affordable, and conformity to national and international laws.
The main options for storing CO2 underground are in depleted oil and gas reservoirs, deep saline reservoirs and un-minable coal seams.
CO2 is stored in gas-tight natural reservoirs, such as those that already hold oil, gas or water. These must be at depths greater than 800m, where the CO2 can be stored in a comparatively dense form.
Monitoring and verification

If CO2 storage is to be used as a basis for emissions trading or to meet national commitments on emission reductions, it will be necessary to verify the quantities of CO2 stored. We would have to prove that it was not leaking back into the atmosphere.

Measurement of the amounts of CO2 injected during geosequestration uses established and well understood technologies. However the quantities that would need to be stored are formidable. The issue is making sure the CO2 stays where it is placed; and hence requires both;
An understanding of the reservoir geology, and recognition of both secure versus potentially leaky storage sites; and
An ability to measure CO2 both at point of placement and thereafter should it leak.
Major oil and gas companies and their contractors can track gas flows in underground reservoirs using seismic and well logging techniques and reservoir simulation tools. These technologies are being successfully applied in sequestration projects in Europe and North America.
Further development of these technologies is required, along with the demonstration of techniques for measuring and controlling small gas leakages.
What has actually been done in coal-fired capture?
There are commercially operating plants throughout the world that utilize CO2 captured from the flue gas of coal fired power stations. This is then used as a raw material for use in food and chemical processing plants. However these operations typically only recover of the order of one to two hundred tons of CO2 per day which would represents less than TWO PERCENT (2%) of the DAILY TOTAL of CO2 emitted from a typical 500 MW coal fired power plant. (SEE http://www.tmm.com.au/zets/faq/faq.htm )
Little or no actual demonstrated feasibility.
The goal of carbon sequestration is to take CO2 that would otherwise accumulate in the atmosphere and put it in safe permanent storage. This can be done in really big natural or man made bottles underground or chemically trapped. We must question what sorbet would be used in the latter case and how that sorbet could be recycled if at all. You see whatever it is; it will take a lot of it to scrub the CO2 from all that coal. It will have to be kept scrubbed for a very long time.
It is kind of like nuclear waste you see. There is really no place to put the waste product.
On site capture may be a sensible approach for the large sources such as a coal plant if there was some place to put the captured CO2, but obviously it is not feasible for small or mobile sources. Where do we dump it? How do we secure it? How much is that going to cost? What make that the best alternative?
A paper written by Klaus S. Lackner, Pattrick Grimes and Hans-J Ziock explores the options and suggests that extraction of CO2 from free air flow could provide a viable cost effective alternative to changing transportation infrastructure to non carbonaceous fuels. This paper suggests that first we burn the coal and consequently pollute the air, live in that polluted air and then clean it in a big air laundering facility.
Although possible, in reality the feasibility of 100% CO2 capture has not been demonstrated anywhere and is simply not available for implementation at this time. The sorbents required to my knowledge have not been identified and are not available. Before you wade in with your right wing rhetoric please show us your science. Before we build those coal plants show us an operating economically feasible cost competitive working model.
This is not high school science. In a classroom experiment we can bubble air through calcium hydroxide solution and remove the CO2 component. Under controlled conditions we can scrub CO2. However, in real life we are faced with the scale of the task which can not be economically addressed! Where do we put the calcium carbonate? How do we keep the CO2 chained to it?
Giberto Rozenchan arrived at the price of $10 to $15 per ton of CO2 using capture and storage by an active recycles sorbent. The significant cost involved in carbon capture and storage is the capture process. Various studies by the IEA GHG R&D program and others have assessed the costs of capturing CO2 from new pulverized coal, integrated coal gasification and natural gas combined cycle power plants, which range from approximately US$15 to 90 per ton CO2 avoided or about 75 percent of the whole problem solution cost of CO2 capture, transport and sequestration.
It is estimated that transport and storage costs are typically in the range US$5 - $15 per ton, depending on transport distance and storage method.
Current estimates from the Electric Power Research Institute on the cost of electricity from power plants with carbon capture and storage indicates a 40 – 50 % increase in the cost of electricity for new integrated gasification combined cycle plants and approximately an 80 – 90 % increase for new pulverized coal plants utilizing conventional processes.
Is the coal option viable where the cost of solar collection plant has at the most a one time installation cost of $30/kwh without the forever cost burden of the fossil fuel itself and the associated cleanup burden.
We are currently adding globally a net 10 billion tons of carbon to the atmosphere every year! Wake up to the reality that the amount of CO2 is measurable, has been measured and that this is hard science and not political smoke.
According to US agencies, that is simply what is so.
The net zero carbon economy works better than expanding the fossil fuel economy, obviously existing solar power plants in operation do not add to the CO2 burden at all. Obviously they are also cheaper when subjected to a rational analysis of the cost. We have reason for high hopes.
Where we have hydro electric facilities we save power as water behind the damn that will be there when we need it each year. With existing fossil fuel plants we will have plenty of fossil fuel in the ground as a back-up fuel supply. All of the necessary existing plant and distribution infrastructure, the externality, is in place and long since amortized.
The pundits will talk about the cost. So while we are at it let us defuse the argument. The installation price of photovoltaics and other alternative energy production options are actually just an externality.
The high initial installation cost is a sunk cost, not an ongoing cost like those of fossil fuels. Does anyone take into account the cost of building the entire drilling, shipping, storage and refining infrastructure for crude oil, when analyzing the price of gasoline? No they do not. Or the similar costs when analyzing the price of coal plants or hydro-electric plants? No they don't. These costs are long-ago amortized, and are no longer reflected in the price we pay.
The economic problem associated with photovoltaics isn’t their ongoing operational or replacement cost, which is minimal; it is the cost of building a photovoltaic infrastructure on American rooftops- building the installed base - from scratch. The current cost wholesale to build that infrastructure is about $10.00 per watt installed.
Coal is not a sustainable source of power. There is simply no logic in planning a future around non-renewable sources of power.

I agree with Edward. In review of others comments, whether one believes in global warming or not, it comes down to simple stewardship and responsibility. Our current situation would be markedly different,in my opinion, if our leaders had acted on the ecological concepts of "the 1970's" referenced by Mr. Moya. We have become unbalanced (the key word here)in the pursuit of monitary wealth over all else. My hope is that we move forward as quickly as possible to respect and renew the environment.

to quote...

"Because oil and gas are becoming increasingly scarce and therefore soon will be prohibitively expensive"

I say...

Soon, Soothsayer? What the hell do you know? Tell me what the temperature at your house will be tomorrow.

You God-men think alot of yourselves, don't you.

Gonna control the whole planet, climate and all, huh?

Mr. Edgerton thinks that the threat of global warming equals that of our enemy on Omaha or Utah Beach. I'm sorry, but that threat had " heavy lead" attached to it and the "Warming campaign" is still talk, soft air and speculative at best.

If you have an open mind you may want to read the following paper: http://epw.senate.gov/repwhitepapers/6345050%20Hot%20&%20Cold%20Media.pdf

The irony is that if all these "promoters of planet doom" are right about global warming being caused by human activity, some of those most to blame are some of the same people we hold in highest regard: the Orvilles and Wilburs, the Thomas Edisons, the Henry Fords, the James Watts, the Johannes Guttenbergs, and in our industry, the Otises and the Carriers; or in other words the innovators.

Put another way, we may be the victims of our own success. When the printing press was invented 500 years ago we had several hundred million people on the planet, total. In 1950 we had 2 billion. Now we have 6.5 billion, and some projections estimate 9 billion by 2050.

To think there are not going to be major environmental challenges related to this explosion seems a little crazy, or am I missing something.

Mazria's real points for our industry are that (1) building's energy usage contributes significantly to the problem, and (2) we have the smarts, resourcefulness, imagination, ingenuity (see list of smart people noted above), to design and build in ways that use a fraction of the fossil fuels we currently use.

Somehow this all also seems to relate to the Eliel Saarinen quote about designing a table for the room it goes in, a room for the building, a building for the neighborhood, a neighborhood for the city, in other words always design for the next larger context, which in this case might be a stressed environment.

Ed Mazria is right!

The science is beyond dispute, and there is NO need to continue to develop coal resources (or any other resources derived from fossil fuels) even if the industry promises us "clean" coal energy. It will never be clean enough! We have already put too much carbon into the atmosphere!

We CAN produce ALL the energy that we need with renewables; we just have to decide to do it!

Obviously, this will require an enormous commitment, but we have demonstrated that we, as Americans, are up to this sort of commitment when the stakes are high.

After the attack on Pearl Harbor, the United States of America demonstrated what can be done with this sort of commitment, and because of this commitment we were able to stop the tyranny of the Japanese and the Germans!

It is time to do it again!

The stakes are even more dire with the threat of Global Warming than they were at the time that we entered World War II.

The need for leadership and pulling together as a nation have never been greater, and we must collectively follow Ed Mazria's advice!!!

With all due respect to Mr. Walker, Kim, Mr. Mazria, Mr. Gore (congratulations for the peace(?) prize)and the reputable scientists who support the IPCC report of recent note, it is hardly settled science that mankind's activity is the primary agent fueling the engine (you should pardon the expression) of the global warming we are currently experiencing. There is ample opposition to the conclusions drawn by these worthies based upon available evidence, Kim, should you be inclined to read that.

For instance, have you read of the dissent of many of the scientists who participated in the IPCC process which objected to the conclusions portion of the report as a distortion of the science they participated in? Like Mr. Moya, I remember the hue and cry of the '70's when I was in college.

According to the tone of that time, there was little time left before oil would be gone altogether, 25 or so years, which time frame ran out around 1998. Mass starvation was also "inevitable" as the "population bomb" exploded. Space will not allow an extensive refutation of these premises, suffice to say that time has not borne them out (the starvation of millions in Africa in the '80's was not caused by incapacity in production, but by the political calculation of local tyrants).

Additionally, the recent court case in the UK, which found that 11 major errors of fact in Mr. Gore's movie must be reported to school children if the movie is to be shown to them, indicates that some grains of salt are in order. Is the hyperbole Mr. Walker uses based upon fact or the implementation of the Big Lie, a favorite tool of the Nazzis (sic) he so decries?

That being said, I am in favor of learning to design buildings that make conservative use of limited natural resources both during construction and operation, and intelligent use of site characteristics. However, hysteria is not science, and facts should not be blown out of proportion in order to achieve some desired policy objective, which objectives have an annoying habit of spinning 180 degrees as the winds of prevailing dogma change (as Mr. Moya has pointed out).

By the way, I DO bike to work or take the bus. I have a 5.5 year old car that had 18,000 miles on it and gets 30 mpg. I've replaced most of the electric lights in my house with compact fluorescents and use between 100 and 120 kilowatt hours per month of electricity. I use a washing machine but dry my clothes on a clothesline when weather permits. I also replaced the single-pane windows in my house with double-paned low-e windows. My energy use is quite low and this is without even thinking about solar water heating or photovoltaic panels. Getting energy use down isn't that hard if you decide you want to do it. Do you?

Bill Burke

One of the reasons we're not freezing since the 1970s is that the world economy has grown much more energy efficient, but could become much more so. California is not known for its spartan lifestyle, but because of energy codes our per capita energy consumption has remained flat since 1975. In the rest of the USA it has climbed by 50%. California's energy standards have certainly NOT limited economic activity. Think about Silicon Valley! Why the USA can't set a national energy code that recognizes regional climates (along the lines of ASHRAE 90.1-2004) is beyond me. Congress makes Daylight Saving Time run into November to save energy but doesn't seriously address building energy use.

If you would like to read scientific articles on human activity and climate change, check the web site of the IPCC at http://www.ipcc.ch/. Or get a copy of The Weathermakers, by Tim Flannery.

Also, from a simple economic standpoint, is making our economy more efficient a bad thing? Doesn't it improve our economic competitiveness? I can't thank Ed Mazria enough for the work he has done!

Unclean coal and fossil fuel power plants are the agent of EVIL, just as the automobile is the agent of CHAOS in this nation. We can do better.

The technology to clean the product of coal combustion is not feasible or demonstrated at this time. Even if it is done in the future it is still a problematic energy alternative compared to better choices.

The post's here by Mr. Adams, Mr. Moya and John are examples of selective ignorance and bias. The statements reveal traitors to reason and strangers to the truth. They have an agenda, shared by many, they will not give up. This agenda can not be overcome by reason since it obviously exists by choice and serves a polarized purpose coupled with a dogma divorced from physical fact & science and designed to serve special interests.

I would direct each of you to simply use your computer and internet connections to read the information already placed in front of you. You have this power. If you want to dwell in the shadows and proclaim that some global liberal conspiracy exists, go ahead and live that way.

There is however, no debate that endures in the scientific community, except among fringe elements. The vast majority of scientists’, having examined the facts, agree that global warming exists and is caused by human beings.

Since just about every nation. and every scientist of every nation in the world, through the organizations and governments they work for, have already placed all the information and science on the internet, and in a massive amount of white paper in the journals, in much more quantity than anyone could ever ask for, regarding global warming and components of that phenomena; it is both pointless and redundant for you to ask this author and all the other authors on earth to establish their credibility and name their sources. It has already been done.

The credibility of Mr. Mazria and Mr. Gores facts and the science, has been established. I know I personally examined each fact in every article. The science has been validated by the worlds most credible scientists and many architects like myself. The Nobel peace prize has been awarded to the UN panel on global warming and Al Gore, it is not awarded for "Best Propaganda of the Year", the content is closely examined, the facts are well established and the award is justly deserved.

The suggestion that everyone that has not traded their SUV for a Smart Car or remodeled with solar panels. has therefore no right to advocate sound environmental policy and practice, is to descend to a propaganda tactic invented by NAZZI Germany and I just can not respect that kind of rhetoric. It is simply vile.

The truth in physical terms is that Coal Power is dirty. Coal can not economically be cleaned up. The co2 and other carbon based products of burning the coal, can not be scrubbed or separated and then stored somewhere on earth for the next 250,000 years. The damage from such power plants is beyond the scale of our capacity to overcome with good building practices. It is also beyond our capacity to correct the damage they will inflict.

Coal plants are an act of deliberate "war" on the Earth itself and all the life on it and that includes all the human populations that dwell on this planet. In short it is evil.

The persons promoting coal are doing so in the context of known science and published facts about the damage this will cause. They know they are damaging the Earth and I want to invite and propose a public debate between promoters of these coal power plants and a panel composed of credible scientists from around the world. Let us argue the cost impact of "the least expensive alternative" in a public forum.

For the sake of God's creation and Peace on Earth, please find a clean acceptable alternative to building coal power plants. Stop the lies and insanity! This is not a business as usual situation.

Kim, do you use candles to light your way? What about getting to the office? A bike perhaps. The promoters of planet doom promote selective science to the masses and continue to live like everyone else, including driving their hummers and bathing in their mansions, i.e., Mr Gore.

Denial does not stop what reputable scientists all have predicted about a tipping point after which there is no stopping global warming. The science is there, go read it. Educate yourself and stop expecting others to hand feed you information, the next generation depends on it. All the "save the children" cries are hypocrisy when coming from those driving hummers and living in mcmansions with no regard for energy consumption--no responsibility for their own actions.
Yes, it is scary to think we could be ending life as we know it by driving and living day to day with no concern for tomorrow, but fear will not resolve this, only educated action.
Be responsible and open your mind to the fact that other people just might know more than you. This is not a contest, it's a team sport saving the planet for all life, not just humans. Although a study shows that if humans became extinct, nature will still have life forms that will adapt and go on without us. Be careful what you wish for -you might get it- is an appropriate cliche.

Remember back in the 70's, we were all going to freeze to death! I'm willing to wager, Ed and others like him will continue to attempt to rally forces behind their causes without cold, or should I say, Hot, hard facts.

Could the author please put forth proof of his assertions?