Xyrus

Is There Profit In Tree Hugging?

Bjorn Lomberg is a mathematician (a statistician more accurately), not a climatologist. You might as well read Dilbert for insight into open heart surgery.

If you are serious and open minded, you may want to study the volumes of research world scientists have been producing about climate change. And if you're technically inclined, you can even download the models they use and run them yourself.

Despite what people such as Brian here would have you believe, there is no global conspiracy. The research methodologies, the data, and even the source code to the models themselves are available to the public. A few minutes using google and some technical know how could have you running the models yourself.

Given the intelligence of the average American and the general decline of education in math and hard sciences, I find it amusing that people would rather listen to those who have no training in the climatological sciences than those who have spent their lives researching the subject. This would be like getting sex tips from a monk.

To put it another way, if it isn't in a peer-reviewed science journal, then it doesn't mean squat. Any idiot can write a book promoting or decrying the favorite trend of the month. However, you have to have a VERY solid case before you get published in a science journal.

So until we start seeing peer-reviewed and duplicated results showing that no warming is happening, I'm going to have to go with the researchers.

Peak Oil Myth? You mean like how world demand will outstrip supply this year without an increase in production? Peak oil simply means the point where demand outstrips supply. That's been threatening to happen for the past couple of years, and looks likely to occur this year. Can supply increase? Sure. But can it increase to the point to exceed demand again considering countries like China and India are ramping up? Maybe. But when processing tar sands begins to look profitable you may want to consider that the glory days of easy oil might be coming to an end.

Unlike global climate change, we don't have the world monitoring technology that would allow us to know how much oil is left. We can make some decent approximations based on known reserves, but we don't know if there is a little more, a lot more, or no more places to look (yet).

Yes, there is plenty of profit in tree hugging. As energy and materials continue to climb, Joe Sixpack is going to find that alternatives are becoming competitive. If oil goes to $200, you may see a lot more solar panels.

~X~