Anyone hear of the Oregon Petition? (in Debates)

http://www.oism.org/pproject/

I never did until just now.

31,000 scientists who believe that the already settled science of global warming is incorrect.

Who could have known that settled science had so many doubters?

I randomly googled the name Leonid Vulakh, and guess what I found...

Mr Vulakh is a PHD, all right, but of mathematics.

All of a sudden it doesn't quite seem credible that there are 31000 "scientists" who have signed the petition.

IDK,

I just see 31,000 PHD, science or not, believing that global warming/climate change is not the horror others seem to think.

Just makes we wonder who is really correct and is the science really completely settled.

New data from NASA, the CERN project, and data showing a middle ages mini ice age all make me personally wonder.

There's 7 billion people on earth, but certainly not that many scientists.
By your logic, it's safe to say that the view of those 31000 is small compared to the other people in the world.

The people whose opinions matter on this debate are the people who know the most about it, and it is not the concern of mathematicians, lawyers, veterinarians, to name a few. (which are occupations I have found people signing this to be in)

I doubt 7B people on earth have an opinion, at least an informed one on Global Warming.

But I think a PHD in some form would be just as well qualified as our ex-VP Al Gore with his degree in Law.

I do not know how many of the 31k scientists have a physical science background.

This directly from the wiki:

Signatories to the petition were requested to list an academic degree.[20] The petition sponsors stated that approximately two thirds held higher degrees.[19] As of 2008, the petition's website states that "The current list of 31,072 petition signers includes 9,021 PhD; 6,961 MS; 2,240 MD and DVM; and 12,850 BS or equivalent academic degrees. Most of the MD and DVM signers also have underlying degrees in basic science."[2]
Petitioners were also requested to list their academic discipline. As of 2007, about 2,400 people in addition to the original 17,100 signatories were "trained in fields other than science or whose field of specialization was not specified on their returned petition."[19] The petition sponsors state the following numbers of individuals from each discipline:[2]
Atmospheric, environmental, and Earth sciences: 3,697
Computer and mathematical sciences: 903
Physics and aerospace sciences: 5,691
Chemistry: 4,796
Biology and agriculture: 2,924
Medicine: 3,069
Engineering and general science: 9,992

This took me about 10 seconds to find:
http://debunking.pbworks.com/w/page/17102969/Oregon%20Petition

I think that I would need a petition with all the scientists on the other side signing it to illustrate to you that the petition you have listed is not quite authoritative.
As for settled science, nothing's ever really settled. There are theories, and until they get disproven, they're upheld as true.
It took Einstein's prediction for people to start believing relativity, after all.

Yea, LB I saw that also.

However, I really do want to know if the science is really settled like I hear from some politicians. To me, with all the new info from NASA and CERN, I have my strong doubts.

I assume you're referring to the neutrino particles moving past light speed?

Nope.

http://www.newsmax.com/Newsfront/NASA-Global-Warming-Alarmists/2011/07/28/id/405200

http://wakeup-world.com/2011/09/02/c-e-r-n-scientific-study-concludes-global-warming-is-caused-by-the-sun/

Just 2 quick articles I found on the subject.

Pfft.

The speed of light was never constant. ;)

And it's obviously effected by gravity! :P

Those cheeky neutrino's, stealing all the fame!

I am still highly skeptical.

Based on the qualifications, Ranger himself is "suitably qualif[ied] to evaluate the research data related to the petition".

I do have a better background then Al Gore on the subject, yes.

previous posts from you would make me think you were always a disbeliever?

I was looking at both sides of the discussion. The overhyping of the pro crowd really put me off as has our current intense push towards "green" energy. Things like Solyndra really put me off.

However, I am now leaning a lot more towards the no real conclusive proof of Global Warming/Climate Change.

as i have stated multiple times on here. global warming changes little for me. we need to wean ourselves off of foreign oil asap and we need to invest in renewable energy sources to do that.

instability in the regions where oil is primarily found is enough reason for me! i also don't like having to rely on others.

It's not like we gave them $500M or made them the soap box upon which we preached from!

http://press.web.cern.ch/press/PressReleases/Releases2011/PR15.11E.html

We've had a debate thread on that second article, not the exact same one but basically the same. This one I believe is a little more actually about the real science that was done.

It is the government and therefore our responsibility to loan money to companies that are going under. That have not been properly vetted, or have a failing business plan?


If we could get some of our own oil and natural gas here in America, we would be much less dependent on foreign oil.

With such a Sky is Falling type of rhetoric, we are throwing money at companies like Solyndra that have a failing business model. And then they get more money infused and the government has their loans relegated to back status if there is a bankruptcy.

It may very well be Obama's Watergate.

i really tire of trying to have civil discussions with you ranger. how do you get what you typed below my first quote from my quote? you aren't an idiot so i have to assume you are putting words in my mouth for some other reason?

as for "much of our dependency", define that?

So this is how many might actually be qualified? Even then it includes several other sections so...

Perhaps then I misunderstood.

You stated that you want to wean us off foreign oil and therefore have to invest in renewable energy. no?

Then you type about instability in those regions where get get foreign oil. no?

I was saying we could stop the reliance of foreign oil if we drilled and obtained the oil and natural gas that are here in America.

I am unsure what you are upset about.

My second quote was about those that use Global Warming as an excuse to throw money at companies that have no chance of generating energy without a significant loss. Yes, I know you do not care about Global Warming.

not upset, just trying to figure out how you make these leaps.

why do you assume i meant government when i said "we" need to invest?

for what, a year? then we would be out. you have a great strategical mind...surely you have thought of having strategic reserves?

more likely whitewater. millions of our tax dollars spent with no roi. ; )

I do know exactly how long it would extend our usage.

However, being able to drill here, with the jobs that entails, with the taxes these companies and the people they employ pay, would certainly help in this economy. And every barrel we get means one less barrel we have to import.

People pushing green energy put you off? Is that your subtle way of saying that you don't like green energy?


Of course, things like Solyndra should piss off everyone, as it was a waste of taxpayer money, but no less then the Iraq war, or any other taxpayer boondoggle. Unfortunately, you also make the next leap though. You use the fate of Solyndra to write-off green energy. Do you think solar energy is not worth investing in? Do you think Hybrid technology is not worth investing in? Do you think building structures that take advantage of natural forces to cool them in addition to regular methods is not wise? If you think those things are silly or not worth investing money in, I would like to know why.


Did you mean there was no real conclusive proof of "man-made" global warming/climate change? I know climate change is happening right now: http://climate.nasa.gov/keyIndicators/index.cfm#globalTemp
I read through some of the graphs and papers on climate change, but they are pretty complicated. Then again, I don't have my computer science degree yet, however, once I do, I'll be qualified to have an opinion on this matter! Hooray!

I guess the better question to ask regarding some of these contentious issues is what conclusive proof do you need regarding this matter?

strategically i see it as every barrel we use is one less barrel we have in reserve.

We already have a strategic reserve. Designed for the military in case of inability to import oil.

We need to drill and get our own oil on the path to energy independence.

I am totally for nuclear energy as clean energy. However right now the cost for solar and wind energy is too high to make it profitable. And throwing 1/2 a billion dollars at companies that have a flawed business model from the start is not helping things.

you really might want to research just how long this would hold us before adopting it as a soapbox moment. from what i have seen if we went totally independent and drilled all of our oil our independence would be extremely short-lived.

i would suggest using the updated figures on all the reserves and not using the best case scenario numbers on those reserves.

the strategic reserves for the military is great. who else uses petroleum though on a daily basis...

Jesus Jose Smith....
1) It was against signing Kyoto. Not the entire global warming fad.
2) If you also saw that it was a fraud beforehand, then why post at all!?
3) That newsmax article didn't say climate change is wrong now did it.
4) "Global Warming is Caused By The Sun!" I need read no further, but I did, and facepalmed.
5) Oil is finite. Plants, poop, solar, wind, etc. are not finite.

Beijing had to shoot smog from their sky with AA cannons. That's not good. Yet by your denotations spending money to combat poison air should incite fury over spending not the quality of air. I don't even feel this line put words in your mouth as so much of your thought process thus far is inexcusable.
You withheld knowledge that the petition might be a vast lie. You link bias website article authors. Your only scientific objections to climate change are of clear monetary value. Wow. That's science. I'm not an alarmist, and I don't sniff for weather webgems, but your self centered values in the matter are grossly offensive. Deserving of scorn.

Honestly, I am not worried at all about global warming or global cooling, at least not from the perspective of human-driven reasons for it. What I *am* worried about however is the quality of air and water, pollution control in general.

I don't really care that city X now finds itself with more inclement weather (be it too hot or too cold or maybe "too continental"), or that city Y is facing increased flood frequencies, or that around city Z arable land needs more irrigation or any other such things that derive from climate change, regardless of whether that change is part of a natural cycle or humans accidentally "helped" trigger it.
I do care that you can't go out into city A because you will spit your lungs out if you take a few deep breaths, I do care that city B has to import tap water from hundreds or thousands of miles away because no local water supply can be used for drinking even with heavy processing, I do care that farms around city C can no longer grow anything because the soil is beyond reasonable hope of recovery due to various contaminants.

So, you know... basically, I think a lot of people are completely misguided in the DIRECTION of their efforts.

Sickone, that was a masterful post. You hit the nail on the head beautifully.

People focus on the reasonability of climate change / CO2 emissions, and use that to justify all manner of horrible anti-environmental activity. There is no end the list of atrocities that we have committed against this planet, of which climate change is just one.

Example:
http://www.foxnews.com/us/2010/10/10/toxic-coal-sludge-pollutes-ky-town-years-later/

(Oddly enough, that's a FOX article....)

It's always available:
http://www.spr.doe.gov/dir/dir.html

For reference, the max we can store is 727m barrels

At 21m barrels/day, that gives us a current maximum holding of 34 days (ignoring drawdown rates, which vary by holding site (there are 4 sites). One site, for instance, can only draw down 1m barrels per day). As of last week, we have 696m barrels, or 33 days.

I like real numbers. Much better than guessing games.

As I stated, the strategic reserve is for military use. I am sure the military uses less than 21M barrels a day.

We have a bit less than our max amount due to Obama releasing some hoping to get gas prices a bit lower. Which did not work.

how large is the strategic reserve again? how much do we go through in america each day?

That's not true at all. Why do you think that?

It's not just size vs use. The reserve can only pump out 4.4m per day.

Seconded.

http://fossil.energy.gov/programs/reserves/spr/spr-facts.html

Best site about the SPR.

I was told my a marine friend I have, that it was designed primarily in case of an interuption in oil supply so we would have enough for our military forces. I had always believed his statements as they were echoed many times on TV.

that sounds right from what i know. i still think we would be wise to keep some other oil in reserve here as well though. i used the words strategic and reserve together but wasn't really referring to that and was more talking about not using all that we have found and keeping some for strategic reasons.

a somewhat related article:

http://www.livescience.com/16251-earth-overshoot-day-2011.html?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+Livesciencecom+%28LiveScience.com+Science+Headline+Feed%29&utm_content=Google+Feedfetcher

As with many esoteric corners of the government, popular opinion is wrong.

It's for the economy. To get oil from it, you have to be a refinery (not a batallion commander or something else militaristic). You have to demonstrate a critical need. After Katrina hit, Bush sold oil to refineries in the area that had critical needs, for instance.

The Navy has their own oil reserve, which is separate (and it's gottan a lot smaller...) Clinton downsized most of it.

There's also the home heating oil reserve for home owners. To request oil from that, you need to be a homeowner with an oil tank.

The site you linked to is the same as the one I provided. You should read it... it's very accurate, and very different from what "TV" says.

Very true.

I remember when I first heard about the "SuperFund" (well, and really understood what it was for and how bad some sites were). Entire towns, sometimes entire counties decimated by pollution. Granted, plenty of pollutants other than fossil fuels out there, but it's still a mess.

But of course, as Michelle Bachman so eloquently tells us, the EPA is most certainly at the top of the list for gov't agencies that should be dis-banded/defunded. Yeah, she's such a brilliant star in our dark, dark sky. Are there any GOP candidates who DON'T immediately advocate a dismantling of the EPA? I'll have to check that out...

As far as I know, she is the only one. And she advocates disbanding the DoE as well.

As far as the other candidates, they want less burdensome regulations from the EPA. Estimates of the new EPA guidelines call for another 250k employees to the EPA just to do the new work.

Apparently the data process used to arrive at the administrationﾒs determination that greenhouse gases endanger ﾓthe public health and welfareﾔ violated the Environmental Protection Agencyﾒs own peer review procedure. According to this report, and I preface that with I did not read the report, all 99 pages of it:

http://epw.senate.gov/public/index.cfm?FuseAction=Files.View&FileStore_id=e0584e33-d3da-4fba-b95a-e93548105e09

And this is a quote, yes from a Republican, that should worry people:

"The endangerment finding is no small matter: Global warming regulations imposed by the Obama-EPA under the Clean Air Act will cost American consumers $300 to $400 billion a year, significantly raise energy prices, and destroy hundreds of thousands of jobs. This is not to mention the ﾑabsurd resultﾒ that EPA will need to hire 230,000 additional employees and spend an additional $21 billion to implement its [green house gas] regime. And all of this economic pain is for nothing: As EPA Administrator [Lisa] Jackson also admitted before the Environmental and Public Works] committee, these regulations will have no effect on the climate"

I believe Cain also said the first department he would eradicate would be the EPA, but maybe that was just a hypothetical debate question.

I know the GOP wants the EPA gone or severely cut back. Their reasoning behind that is simple -- there's no money in it. They don't care. And the horrible pollution sites left over by large scale manufacturing and mining are exactly what the SuperFund is trying to clean up. The GOP sides with big business -- simple as that.

I'm not saying the EPA is a bastion of purity and holiness. They are over-bureaucratic and a black hole of obfuscation. I can provide more intimate, first-hand details related to their recent policies on rodenticide since I work for the world's largest rodenticide manufacturer.

But I also know the EPA is a fat sow because there is no large gov't entity that ISN'T such a sucking wound, and that includes the blessed Department of Defense. The only difference is that the DoD's budget is around 500 billion a year while the EPA's is 10 billion. Hm, I wonder which one could use more cuts?

So do you think we should also cut Medicare/Medicaid and Social Security as they are larger than the Defense department in terms of expenses?


A nice broad brush stroke that misses the mark. The GOP sides with all business. Big and small.

But the Democrats are just as much in bed with Wall Street as the Republicans, perhaps even more as one can see by the donations in the 08 election and the Too Big to Fail policies.

As a Republican, I want less intrusive regulations. Not no regulation as some try to profess. And regulations that are subject to congressional review. Unlike the EPA and NLRB right now.

As far as program size vs. viability, I'm focused on bang for buck. Every day, people are getting care from Medicare and are able to live their lives with help from Social Security. Are those programs perfect? No. But I see them as important and the type of things that should not be privatized because they are the sort of programs where the question "is there money in it?" almost immediately forces a disintegration in efficacy. I am fully aware that in the other direction lies red tape and other inefficiencies, but I prefer that to capitalism in these scenarios. You can call me a socialist or even a communist based on that, I'll take no offense. I'll take it as a compliment.

Contrast that with Defense. Rather, compare, first. There is no doubt that defense is something the gov't needs to do -- privatizing the military = mercenaries. That's not to say the "military industrial complex" isn't already a privatization of sorts. But I digress.

Moving on to bang for buck, I fail to see (and I'll throw in the DHS, too) how a TSA officer cupping my testicles is a good expenditure of my tax dollars. I fail to see how two wars (with somewhat specious origins) are advancing my quality of life or the image of the nation I live in. I fail to see how spending money on massive military projects only to have them axed when they are proven to have been overly speculative and optimistic from the start as a bad investment. You think half-a-billion to Solyndra is bad? Then what about failed military programs and the dollars that were sunk with little or no benefit (no, I'm not providing links, you can find plenty of information on your own if you want to). And much of what goes on in the Defense Industry isn't even fully known. At least Solyndra had to fold right in the public spotlight.

So yeah, I like Medicare and Social Security simply because they are constructive, not destructive, and I see that as doing more for our nation than current military endeavors (especially the ones that are actually constricting personal liberty, e.g. my TSA example.)

You are right, the GOP is for all business, I won't disagree with that. It's where my "is there money in it?" statement comes from, though, so saying that it really is ALL business isn't exactly a counter to what I've stated.

And yes, Dems are in bed with plenty of influences I would consider unsavory. But, for example, they aren't trying to essentially dismantle the EPA, are they? If it is just all a friendship game, who-s in bed with who, then I guess I simply prefer the Dems bed-fellows to those the GOP shacks up with. *smile*

I want regulation to be reasonable as well. But that's where the differences arise. What you might consider an onerous EPA restriction, I see as a helpful reduction in pollution -- a long-term investment in a cleaner future.

I didn't read all the posts as its pretty long but I would like to ask a question, isn't the extreme temp fluctuations, causing extreme weather changes, and the giant ice berg that floating around proof that we are killing the ozone?

I mean kill the ozone, weather gets hotter, melts more of the ice caps(freshwater), changes currents in the ocean(saltwater), one thing will affect the next thing..

kinda like "The Day After Tomorrow" but not to that extreme.

Im not saying i do or don't believe in the stuff they signed.. just personal observations/thoughts.