Religion in schools again

i hate that this becomes an issue of debate.  what is wrong with wanting to reduce pollution and green house gas emissions?  why is it a talking point that the government is evil for regulating pollution levels? shouldn't we all want to keep it as clean as possible regardless?  one side is obviously wrong while the other might be overly cautious.  i'd err on the side of caution when the future of humanity and the entire global ecosystem rests in the balance....

He's an interesting guy, to say the least. Definitely not some anti-science nut, he's got serious scientific credentials. He was one of the authors on the 1995 report on Global Warming. He was very angry about how the summary that was written took on a political slant but thought the science was excellent. He agrees global warming is happening, than man-made activity is contributing to the process, but that the models used to predict warming are inaccurate and don't take into account other factors which will eventually counteract the warming.

He's also retracted some critical papers due to scientific errors. So I'm not going to his Temple any time soon.

Conservationalists like myself support reducing pollution.  We don't buy into politically driven bs with goals based on financial gain though so I don't blindly follow the "global warming" crowd.  Likewise, I don't buy into the business driven bs with goals based on financial gain so I don't blindly follow the anti global warming crowd.

There is a balance and why err on either side when it's not necessary.  Invoking an appeal to emotion with "...future of humanity and the entire global econsystem rests in the balance" is an immediate flag.

It may surprise you, but generally speaking I'm not in disagreement with you.  I try to live a fairly green life, in that I buy fuel efficient vehicles, and I'm fascinated by alternate power and plan to install solar and wind at our next house in the country.  I just don't buy into the alarmist viewpoint that has no science behind it.

When it comes to personal choice I absolutely agree with you that we should err on the side of being good stewards of the resources we have.  However, when it comes to the government spending 100's of billions of dollars to prop up "green" businesses that have no ability to succeed all in the name of saving the world from destruction I have a big problem.

I think the people who take umbrage with global warming are the people who are sick of how the government uses it to do whatever the heck they want and to control us. Many agree that the EPA is out of control and a lot of their regulations make no sense whatsoever, and it is all done in the name of global warming.

Take diesel engines for one. In 1997 you could buy a diesel pickup that would get 22-25mpg reliably. In 1998 the EPA instituted regulations on diesels that directly caused the mpg to drop. In 2007 the regs changed again and the mpg's dropped dramatically. I have an 06 diesel engine that gets 18-20mpg in my truck. My dad has the exact same truck but with an 07 compliant engine, he gets 12mpg. It is well documented that if he takes the EPA junk off the truck it will get 20mpg just like mine, the only reason he gets worse mileage is all the EPA required emissions stuff on his truck.

So to save some tailpipe emissions we lower the mpg by almost 50%. I don't have solid numbers but I assume that the pollution created by drilling, refining, transporting etc. that extra 40% of fuel is far more than the tail pipe emissions they saved us from.

This is just one example of how the government has used "global warming" to institute regulations that cost people a lot of money and do absolutely no good and may even make the situation worse. 

I'd say the bolded statement sums up about 90% of the government.  lol

Reductions of GHGs through vehicle emissions standards (aimed at CO2 but also N2O and methane) are achieved through increased fuel efficiency standards (CAFEs).  They're computed on a fleet basis, so if even your model truck's mpg decreased due to adding pollution controls, overall, the truck fleets mpg have increased - the standard for light trucks was 20.7 mpg in 1996 and 24.1 mpg in 2011.

It's so ridiculous. God gave me a brain... why in the world would he not want me to explore his world and the wonders in it?

It's just knowledge, it should not be a "moral" issue.

Yet, the other side does just the same with it... that "science proves" God does not exist. Uhhh... no it doesn't. Why in the world would you think it does?

It's all silly.

Now as far as taking a text written by men as a historical and "scientific" recording of the world that it is only 10,000 years old. Ya, you loose a lot of credibility on that one.

The gas trucks are getting slightly better in MPG but the diesel trucks suffered heavily from 07 to 2013 when more standards went into affect. So perhaps the gas trucks are coming up slightly but there is no way either set of trucks match those standards. So no, for those years the overall did not increase.

Now with the new urea systems that are going on diesel trucks they have come back up a bit. But I guarantee there are no diesel trucks meeting a 24mpg "standard" and there are only 2 gas truck models that are currently doing it, both are V6 models.  

I think you are backwards on the global warming skeptics position because it doesn't have anything to do with the religious right.  It has to do with Science itself and I'm arguing that the alarmist global warming crowd is ignoring and manipulating the science in order to forward a political (er religious) ideology.  If you take a step back, it's almost exactly what you stated only the "religious global warmers" are the ones with a war on science.

For example this scientific study was just published last week
Overestimated global warming over the past 20 years

Recent observed global warming is significantly less than that simulated by climate models. This difference might be explained by some combination of errors in external forcing, model response and internal climate variability.

Here's a brief on the same study:  http://www.pacificclimate.org/sites/default/files/publications/pcic_science_brief_FGZ.pdf

The alarmist global warming community will ignore this study completely because it doesn't support their ideological (er religious)  belief.

I do agree with you completely that we have to take care of the earth, but having a government force taxes and spending down our throat in the name of a false doctrine and fear is not "taking care of the earth".

I have no clue on this topic, but I do tend to agree that logic doesn't seem to support an overall increase in MPG when all the diesels are getting less MPG.  Sounds like somebodies cooking the books. 

You are not actually trying to argue that a majority of global warming skeptics do indeed disagree with it on religious grounds are?

Whether admitted or not... and I'm not at all saying this about you... religious conservatives most certainly make a large portion of those "skeptics".

lol, no not at all. I was just poking fun of the MIT dudes religion charge and how it is somewhat analogous to the behaviors of the alarmist global warmers.  There are good scientists on both sides of this debate who are genuinely trying to figure out the science, and then there are politicians and alarmists who manipulate their data for their overall agenda's.

I do agree that there are religious conservative types who are very much in the denial camp, but my experience has been that there's a pretty good balance of people who are skeptics.  Most of the prominent scientists who consider themselves skeptics are pretty far left university types.

Nevertheless, the regulations requiring catalytic converters, other pollution control equipment and changes to use low-sulfur diesel had nothing to do with GHGs or climate change, that's all human-health related regs.

Nobody expects the Spanish Inquisition!

Good to know. Thanks!

I work for a diesel engine manufacturer, and can talk at-length(ad nauseum, actually) about the in's and out's of diesel fuel economy, how it is intimately related with pollution controls, etc.

If people are curious I can start a thread in CoJ.  Or just hit me up with a PM.

The part I find fascinating about this whole AGW thing is I've yet to see any proof that more CO2 is a bad thing.