Philips calls for a simple switch to reduce energy consumption

Um, note that the higher 10 degrees is also present in the winter. The city also has buildings which reduce the cooling effect of high winds. All of this helps reduce energy usage in people's furnaces in the winter. Your people at Exxon didn't plug ALL of the side effects in to the model, if they had done so they would have found that while the higher summer temps might increase fuel usage for cooling they were offset by the savings in the winter.

In addition, all the sun's energy would still be hitting the ground whether asphalt or concrete was present. That energy has to go somewhere. Since concrete is lighter than asphalt more of the energy is reflected, that is why concrete runs cooler. However, it's reflected as long waves to the atmosphere which are absorbed and so heats up the atmosphere. In other words net energy input is still the same.

Ted

People don't like to hear that kind of stuff, Ted, because it doesn't add to the warming hysteria. :)

What the greenies also ignore is that for every death on a given temperature increase from heat exposure, there is a net greater decrease in death from cold exposure (planetwide). But people only like to divulge information that supports their cause or the latest hysteria and ignore/hide facts that balance it out or even overwhelm it.

Bill Putney (To reply by e-mail, replace the last letter of the alphabet in my address with the letter 'x')

I thought that was called something like 'albedia' or something similar, and actually reflected out into space?

Years ago, maybe in the early 70's, I remember seeing a paper on the thermal impact of putting solar collectors in the desert, and one of the 'solutions' (or at least, one of the pieces to a solution) to balancing things to maintain the status quo of the desert was to paint the framework of the structures certain colors.

In many cases, asphalt also includes some recycled tires and such, rather than just asphaltic items and rock items. Some asphalt will even allow water to migrate through it, lessening rain runoff and such. I remember reading that Bill Ford had many of the parking lots at Ford plants paved with that sort of asphalt, as an environmental thing, before he was running the company this last time. Same with planting grasses on the plants' rooftops.

The issue of urban vs. suburban heating and ambient temperatures has been known for many decades. Nothing new there. It's also been observed that concrete "masses" (as in freeways and highways) can affect some weather patterns just as new (large) man-made lakes can and have done

Satellite photographs of the larger cities in China indicate a high degree of "grunge" in the air over these cities. Their main fuel-of-choice is coal. Atmospheres over the outlying areas show much less "grunge", so much less that you can see the city itself.

I suspect the basic "global warming" thing is a cyclical situation for the planet. How much of what they're now charting is directly attributable to mankind is still debateable--to me. Of course, we exhale "greenhouse gases" as a normal situation, not to forget about "methane" expulsion, too.

Just where the "tipping point" of no return is has YET to be determined, but is still being debated intensely. In that discussion, there does not seem to be a "right" answer, just speculation of where "wrong" starts.

Enjoy!

C-BODY

Of course it is. The Northern Hemisphere has been on a warming trend for over 10,000 yrs., with ups and downs. About 1,000 yrs ago NE Canada was warmer than it is now. The Vikings knew that. About 20,000 yrs ago Canada was almost totally covered with ice, which extended down into the northern USA. About 8,000 yrs ago Churchill. Ma emerged from the ice sheet. The land at Churchill is rising in relation to the rising ocean about 1 meter per

100 years, based on boat cleats in the shore rock from the 1770s. The Canadian permafrost line still is far south of Churchill.

Canada's Baffin Island in the far north had the climate of the Carolinas not that long ago geologically; based on the remains of swamp cyprus found there.

That's the big question, but our ever increasing population of energy users will have a impact. IMO we should minimize our impact.

Cows are much worse than us. Swamps are very bad. At some swamps you can see the methane bubbling up to the surface. There is low delta land near my house where you can smell the methane on a still summer night. Swamps we need, but cows and people should be reduced to reduce pollution.

Swamps make methane from rotting plant material. Plants grow very well in swamps when lots of pollution comes into the swamp, carrying high mineral and chemical content.

Keep in mind though you can almost completely dismiss all biological sources of carbon emissions. Where do cows get the carbon they emit in farts? From plants. Where do plants get it? From carbon dioxide in the air. It's a nice little cycle that doesen't put any more carbon into the atmosphere than what it takes out.

The only real sources of carbon that we need to care about are those from oil and coal and natural gas. Because, what happened is that the carbon in those materials was put into them millions of years ago when the plants took it out of the atmosphere.

What people who cite the existence of things like "ancient swamp cypress" as proof that the earth was warmer a long time ago don't seem to understand is that they are merely solidifying the proof of the global warming hypothesis, even then they think they are detracting from it. The reason is that the carbon we are worrying about putting into the atmosphere now from fossil fuels and such had to come from somewhere. Since those fuels came from plants the plants had to get it from somewhere. So they got it from the ancient atmospheres. What this proves is that if the earth was warmer in the past, as the detractors claim it was, then since all that extra carbon was present then, it is likely that it did in fact make the ancient earth warmer. As plant growth accellerated in the warmer periods it pulled that carbon out of the atmosphere, allowing the earth to cool to current temperatures. As carbon levels went down plant growth had less carbon dioxide and the earth got cooler and plant growth was then retarded.

Ted

This information MUST be suppressed!! (jk)

What do you think or know about the graphs that people like Al Gore show about temperatue rise always being accompanied by increased carbon dioxide? I have read that the actual un-faked data shows the temperature increase always preceeding the temp. rise, yet when these people present their data, they time shift the two parameters relative to each other to make it look like the opposite happens (i.e, that the temp. rise follows the CO2 rise).

Bill Putney (To reply by e-mail, replace the last letter of the alphabet in my address with the letter 'x')

Not really, you're falling into the trap that a warmer earth is created by carbon (CO2) in the atmosphere. What the cyprus swamp trees on Baffin Island say is the north has been much warmer previously, at least once. Man didn't cause it and likely carbon didn't either, as there is no proof of that.

Where I live there was 2,000 ft plus of ice cover 20,000 yrs ago. Last Wednesday the temperature reached a record 37°C. Thank goodness it has been warming for over 10,000 yrs. else I'd be living somewhere else.

As Bill P. says the GW activists fake the data, so they in error see carbon rising before the temperature.

IMO the GW activists are a con promoted by big business which hopes to profit from this GW scare.

While they are using that pointer in one hand, going all over the globe, pointing out the 'clues' to further this stupid agenda, watch closely where the other hand is. Usually, it's in your pocket.

'Why if we throw money at it, it'll go away!'

Then we'll end up with mercury reclamation programs because people won't pay to throw them away. When you toss an incandescent, it get's ground up into sand and a bit of aluminum. Toss one of these green bulbs and mercury is released that can get into the water.

Bill, You responded as if Ted was attacking greenies. Unless Exxon has joined the green movement your interpretation of his post is incorrect.

Art

As far as cow farts are concerned, I believe that the issue is that they consist mostly of methane which contributes much more to global warming than carbon dioxide.

The part of global warming that concerns me is the amount of vegetation under the ice caps. Millions of years of dead vegetation has been kept refrigerated by the ice caps. Once that begins to thaw and decompose producing carbon dioxide, slowing down the natural production of carbon dioxide will be pretty much impossible.