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Climate Change Still The Top Issue
Marlboro (MA) Enterprise ^ | 4/29/14 | Malachowski

Posted on 04/29/2014 11:19:56 AM PDT by pabianice

While Massachusetts is a national leader in creating green energy sources, area environmentalists say more work is needed to reverse the potentially devastating effects climate change could have on the planet...

"The signs indicate that it’s real," said Jack Clarke, director of public policy and government relations at Mass Audubon.

Environmentalists say the way to slow climate change is by reducing greenhouse gases by 40 to 70 percent by 2050 through development of green, or renewable, energy sources and conservation.

"The lack of urgency is pretty disturbing," he said. "By and large the environment comes in last of any evaluation of what we’re going to do, how we’re going to develop. Nobody even thinks about it."

As part of the group’s climate legacy campaign, von Mering called on Gov. Deval Patrick to keep the most extreme fossil fuels – coal, tar sands oil and natural gas produced by fracking – out of the state and ensure all new energy infrastructure built in Massachusetts is clean energy.

Von Mering also called on MetroWest and Massachuetts residents to fly and drive less and invest in solar energy to do their part locally to protect the environment...

"If you don’t do these things, it makes it worse," she said.

On the local side, environmentalist groups this weekend hosted Earth Day events to clean up areas of the region and educate residents on climate change and the proposed expanded Bottle Bill that will decrease litter and increase recycling.

The 30-year-old Bottle Bill places a 5-cent deposit on all soft drink, beer and malt beverage containers sold in the state. The proposed expanded bill would include water bottles, juices and sports drinks to improve recycling.

"It would help keep those out of landfills," said Donna Kramer Merritt, organizer of Framingham’s Earth Day celebration.

Pat Conaway, who runs Natick’s Earth Day festivities, said there is no excuse for a single use of a water or sports drink bottle.

"It’s killing us in so many ways," said Conaway, who organizes several town cleanups in Natick.

Environmentalists agree, saying that approving the expanded Bottle Bill in November is a step in the right direction.

"It will make a huge difference," said Clarke.


TOPICS: Business/Economy; Crime/Corruption; Culture/Society; News/Current Events; US: Massachusetts
KEYWORDS: bottlebill; demagogicparty; devalpatrick; jackclarke; massachusetts; memebuilding; partisanmediashill; partisanmediashills; patconaway
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In 2012, MA voted for Obama 66 to 33.
1 posted on 04/29/2014 11:19:56 AM PDT by pabianice
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To: pabianice

Still a “top” issue for who????? It sounds like its a top issue for the environmentalists whose life blood is the government $$$$$ that comes from “climate change” initiatives.


2 posted on 04/29/2014 11:22:40 AM PDT by Opinionated Blowhard ("When the people find they can vote themselves money, that will herald the end of the republic.")
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To: pabianice
These climate changers are simply nutso.

Tell them it's plane contrails that are causing the climate disturbance and that Bush's Haliburton is seeding the clouds to destroy the environment!

Man,who ever said liberals were smart? Liberals are a bunch of people who have rejected God and then search their whole lives trying to fill their void with worthless nonsense.

3 posted on 04/29/2014 11:24:04 AM PDT by Obadiah (I like Krabby Patties.)
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To: pabianice

It’s not a top issue for those of us who had a decent average in their physics and math courses.


4 posted on 04/29/2014 11:24:19 AM PDT by Da Coyote
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To: pabianice
""The signs indicate that it’s real," said Jack Clarke, director of public policy and government relations at Mass Audubon."

This, after the winter we just had.

These people are either nuts, balf-faced liars, or both.

I vote both.

Click the Gadsden flag for pro-gun resources!

5 posted on 04/29/2014 11:25:54 AM PDT by Joe Brower (The "American People" are no longer capable of self-governance.)
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To: pabianice

The use of fossil fuels and any products derived therefrom should be banned in Massachussetts.

Let’s see how well that works out for them.


6 posted on 04/29/2014 11:25:57 AM PDT by henkster
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To: pabianice
Environmentalists say the way to slow climate change is by reducing greenhouse gases by 40 to 70 percent by 2050 through development of green, or renewable, energy sources and conservation.

Not even theoretically possible. What the idiotic author was trying to say was "reducing emission of greenhouse gases by 40 to 70 percent by 2050."

7 posted on 04/29/2014 11:26:06 AM PDT by Sherman Logan
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To: pabianice

Yay! We’re gonna fight global warming by expanding our Bottle Bill to include water bottles, juices and sports drinks!

Emote Globally. Make Pointless Gestures Locally.


8 posted on 04/29/2014 11:29:02 AM PDT by Interesting Times (WinterSoldier.com. SwiftVets.com. ToSetTheRecordStraight.com.)
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To: pabianice

http://opinion.financialpost.com/2011/04/07/climate-models-go-cold/

Climate models go cold

By David Evans

The debate about global warming has reached ridiculous proportions and is full of micro-thin half-truths and misunderstandings. I am a scientist who was on the carbon gravy train, understands the evidence, was once an alarmist, but am now a skeptic. Watching this issue unfold has been amusing but, lately, worrying. This issue is tearing society apart, making fools out of our politicians.

Let’s set a few things straight.

The whole idea that carbon dioxide is the main cause of the recent global warming is based on a guess that was proved false by empirical evidence during the 1990s. But the gravy train was too big, with too many jobs, industries, trading profits, political careers, and the possibility of world government and total control riding on the outcome. So rather than admit they were wrong, the governments, and their tame climate scientists, now outrageously maintain the fiction that carbon dioxide is a dangerous pollutant.

Let’s be perfectly clear. Carbon dioxide is a greenhouse gas, and other things being equal, the more carbon dioxide in the air, the warmer the planet. Every bit of carbon dioxide that we emit warms the planet. But the issue is not whether carbon dioxide warms the planet, but how much.
Most scientists, on both sides, also agree on how much a given increase in the level of carbon dioxide raises the planet’s temperature, if just the extra carbon dioxide is considered. These calculations come from laboratory experiments; the basic physics have been well known for a century.

The disagreement comes about what happens next.
The planet reacts to that extra carbon dioxide, which changes everything. Most critically, the extra warmth causes more water to evaporate from the oceans. But does the water hang around and increase the height of moist air in the atmosphere, or does it simply create more clouds and rain? Back in 1980, when the carbon dioxide theory started, no one knew. The alarmists guessed that it would increase the height of moist air around the planet, which would warm the planet even further, because the moist air is also a greenhouse gas.

This is the core idea of every official climate model: For each bit of warming due to carbon dioxide, they claim it ends up causing three bits of warming due to the extra moist air. The climate models amplify the carbon dioxide warming by a factor of three — so two-thirds of their projected warming is due to extra moist air (and other factors); only one-third is due to extra carbon dioxide.
That’s the core of the issue. All the disagreements and misunderstandings spring from this. The alarmist case is based on this guess about moisture in the atmosphere, and there is simply no evidence for the amplification that is at the core of their alarmism.

Weather balloons had been measuring the atmosphere since the 1960s, many thousands of them every year. The climate models all predict that as the planet warms, a hot spot of moist air will develop over the tropics about 10 kilometres up, as the layer of moist air expands upwards into the cool dry air above. During the warming of the late 1970s, ’80s and ’90s, the weather balloons found no hot spot. None at all. Not even a small one. This evidence proves that the climate models are fundamentally flawed, that they greatly overestimate the temperature increases due to carbon dioxide.

This evidence first became clear around the mid-1990s.
At this point, official “climate science” stopped being a science. In science, empirical evidence always trumps theory, no matter how much you are in love with the theory. If theory and evidence disagree, real scientists scrap the theory. But official climate science ignored the crucial weather balloon evidence, and other subsequent evidence that backs it up, and instead clung to their carbon dioxide theory — that just happens to keep them in well-paying jobs with lavish research grants, and gives great political power to their government masters.

There are now several independent pieces of evidence showing that the earth responds to the warming due to extra carbon dioxide by dampening the warming. Every long-lived natural system behaves this way, counteracting any disturbance. Otherwise the system would be unstable. The climate system is no exception, and now we can prove it.
But the alarmists say the exact opposite, that the climate system amplifies any warming due to extra carbon dioxide, and is potentially unstable. It is no surprise that their predictions of planetary temperature made in 1988 to the U.S. Congress, and again in 1990, 1995, and 2001, have all proved much higher than reality.

They keep lowering the temperature increases they expect, from 0.30C per decade in 1990, to 0.20C per decade in 2001, and now 0.15C per decade — yet they have the gall to tell us “it’s worse than expected.” These people are not scientists. They overestimate the temperature increases due to carbon dioxide, selectively deny evidence, and now they conceal the truth.

One way they conceal is in the way they measure temperature.
The official thermometers are often located in the warm exhaust of air conditioning outlets, over hot tarmac at airports where they get blasts of hot air from jet engines, at waste-water plants where they get warmth from decomposing sewage, or in hot cities choked with cars and buildings. Global warming is measured in 10ths of a degree, so any extra heating nudge is important. In the United States, nearly 90% of official thermometers surveyed by volunteers violate official siting requirements that they not be too close to an artificial heating source.

Global temperature is also measured by satellites, which measure nearly the whole planet 24/7 without bias. The satellites say the hottest recent year was 1998, and that since 2001 the global temperature has levelled off. Why does official science track only the surface thermometer results and not mention the satellite results?

The Earth has been in a warming trend since the depth of the Little Ice Age around 1680. Human emissions of carbon dioxide were negligible before 1850 and have nearly all come after the Second World War, so human carbon dioxide cannot possibly have caused the trend. Within the trend, the Pacific Decadal Oscillation causes alternating global warming and cooling for 25 to 30 years at a go in each direction. We have just finished a warming phase, so expect mild global cooling for the next two decades.

We are now at an extraordinary juncture. Official climate science, which is funded and directed entirely by government, promotes a theory that is based on a guess about moist air that is now a known falsehood. Governments gleefully accept their advice, because the only ways to curb emissions are to impose taxes and extend government control over all energy use. And to curb emissions on a world scale might even lead to world government — how exciting for the political class!

Even if we stopped emitting all carbon dioxide tomorrow, completely shut up shop and went back to the Stone Age, according to the official government climate models it would be cooler in 2050 by about 0.015 degrees. But their models exaggerate 10-fold — in fact our sacrifices would make the planet in 2050 a mere 0.0015 degrees cooler!
Finally, to those who still believe the planet is in danger from our carbon dioxide emissions: Sorry, but you’ve been had. Yes, carbon dioxide is a cause of global warming, but it’s so minor it’s not worth doing much about.

Financial Post
David Evans consulted full-time for the Australian Greenhouse Office (now the Department of Climate Change) from 1999 to 2005, and part-time 2008 to 2010, modelling Australia’s carbon in plants, debris, mulch, soils, and forestry and agricultural products. He is a mathematician and engineer, with six university degrees, including a PhD from Stanford University in electrical engineering. The comments above were made to the Anti-Carbon-Tax Rally in Perth, Australia, on March 23.


9 posted on 04/29/2014 11:29:42 AM PDT by Titus-Maximus (Light from Light)
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To: pabianice
"The lack of urgency is pretty disturbing," he said. "By and large the environment comes in last of any evaluation of what we’re going to do, how we’re going to develop. Nobody even thinks about it."

Well Captain Clueless, maybe because it's 48 in Boston today and everybody is still picking ice shards off their roofs from last winter.

10 posted on 04/29/2014 11:36:24 AM PDT by AU72
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To: henkster

Idiocy rules the day!!! Drive less he desires. New regulations to achieve environmental purity:
1. Internal combustion engines over 50hp to be banned.
2. All employment limited to a distance of 15 minutes WALKING time to eliminate exhaust emissions.
3. Big box SUPERMARKETS to be closed and mom/pop grocery stores be located within easy walking distance from residences.
4. Horse drawn public transportation be re-introduced in Massachusetts.
5. Out of state tourists encouraged to go elsewhere to greatly lessen highway usage and auto emissions, especially in the already hot summers.
6. Auto parking around large athletic facilities must be greatly reduced, again to lessen auto emissions.
7. The usage of ELECTRIC and/or GAS washers and driers be outlawed to lessen power and gas demand.
The above (7) are idiotic enough to be enacted, aren’t they?


11 posted on 04/29/2014 11:36:57 AM PDT by CaptainAmiigaf (NY TIMES: We print the news as it fits our views.)
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To: pabianice

My father cared about the environment, and I was raised to care, too. Back then, it was called conservation. It was about taking proper care of our natural resources, forests, lakes, rivers, etc., so that they could be enjoyed by future generations. It wasn’t this current mad craze to regulate virtually every aspect of human life in order to save the planet.


12 posted on 04/29/2014 11:37:14 AM PDT by CitizenUSA (We can't have an American people that violate the law and then just walk away from it!)
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To: Sherman Logan
Not even theoretically possible. What the idiotic author was trying to say was "reducing emission of greenhouse gases by 40 to 70 percent by 2050."

Correct.
Reducing CO2 by 40 to 70 percent would result in world wide famine due to reduced plant growth......
But maybe that's their intent ";^)

13 posted on 04/29/2014 11:37:58 AM PDT by Politically Correct (A member of the rabble in good standing)
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To: pabianice
environmentalists say more work is needed to reverse the potentially devastating effects climate change could have on the planet.
There we go again - "potentially" and "could have."
14 posted on 04/29/2014 11:38:46 AM PDT by oh8eleven (RVN '67-'68)
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To: pabianice
"The signs indicate that it’s real," said Jack Clarke, director of public policy and government relations at Mass Audubon.


15 posted on 04/29/2014 11:39:45 AM PDT by Fresh Wind (The last remnants of the Old Republic have been swept away.)
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To: CitizenUSA
It wasn’t this current mad craze to regulate virtually every aspect of human life in order to save the planet.

It's called the "War on Humans"

16 posted on 04/29/2014 11:40:28 AM PDT by Politically Correct (A member of the rabble in good standing)
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To: CaptainAmiigaf
Econocar dittos.


17 posted on 04/29/2014 11:43:52 AM PDT by pabianice (LINE)
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To: pabianice
Climate Change Still The Top Issue

But.....the debates over......right?

18 posted on 04/29/2014 11:46:21 AM PDT by Puppage (You may disagree with what I have to say, but I shall defend to your death my right to say it)
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To: Joe Brower

They see the signs in their marijuana leaves.


19 posted on 04/29/2014 11:54:50 AM PDT by Paladin2
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To: pabianice
"The signs indicate that it’s real," said Jack Clarke, director of public policy and government relations at Mass Audubon.

Reading chicken entrails still does not qualify as Science.

20 posted on 04/29/2014 12:15:44 PM PDT by Timocrat (Ingnorantia non excusat)
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