[fizzissist]

Who would've thought that global warming could have been retroactive???

Hurricane Sandy’s ‘Unprecedented’ Storm Surge | Watts Up With That?

[handlewanker]

Hi all, having read the WUWT report and the posters impressions of what they think really was the cause, I have to say that no matter what the force of the Hurricanes, Cyclones, ill winds of no repute etc, the point is......Sandy can only be described as catastrophic by the size of the repair bill the country has to afford afterwards.

If the storm had passed mainly over unproductive low yield country with no prestige homes or industry, you probably wouldn't even switch your TV on to see the "devastation" that was not occuring.

People are like that, the bigger the devastation the bigger the Wow factor.....but the fact is, the people are not going to pay the bill, the insurers are, unless they can prove that it was an act of some god or other, and if they do then the Government agencies that handle emergencies will clear the mess.

It also depends on the priorities.......I hear that the very first consideration is to restore the Boardwalk.....can you believe it.......the foremost thought in the minds of the rich and lucky, a pile of wood planks on a rickety framework so people can go walk along the beachfront again.

How about first replacing the homes and possesions of those that lost the lot....but I forgot, the homes are owned by the idle rich who own all the beach front property, so the insurance companies will be working overtime to please their best customers, the rest of the not so well heeled can take out law suits attempting to prove it was not an act of the gods.....LOl.
Ian.

[petersenonmain]

Handlewanker" I hate to say this but you are right (that was hard to say)LOL until you got to the last two paragraphs. The boardwalk is more then just a glorified sidewalk to get people along the beach. It is hundreds of businesses that are built on it that employ thousands of people in that city and in 3 states. So it needs to be got up and running quickly to help get the area back to work. By the way I live in Kansas so this is not bothering me except how my insurance rates will go up, as the old saying goes there is no free lunch.

[fizzissist]

Handlewanker" I hate to say this but you are right (that was hard to say)LOL until you got to the last two paragraphs. The boardwalk is more then just a glorified sidewalk to get people along the beach. It is hundreds of businesses that are built on it that employ thousands of people in that city and in 3 states. So it needs to be got up and running quickly to help get the area back to work. By the way I live in Kansas so this is not bothering me except how my insurance rates will go up, as the old saying goes there is no free lunch.

Interesting to note AIG's profits pre-and-post hurricanes... they just seem to go up, bailouts and all....

[handlewanker]

Hmmmm, perhaps I saw it wrong on the news....there was a guy with a mike telling how the Boardwalk took a walk on the wild side and ended up/down in pieces in the back streets, but there didn't appear to be any shop remains or merchandise lying around, just wood planks etc, no glass, no tiles, no doors or windows etc.....just wood, but I take your word for it, we over the pond only see the devastation from the roving camera eye.

It must be comforting to the people who are on the streets homeless to know that the shops are more important than a roof over their heads....money makes money of course, silly me.....once the shopkeepers are all up and running they will be able to sell the goods to the people to rebuild their homes, but as the cost of the shop rebuilds is going to be enormous, the goods will no doubt be at a much higher price.

Isn't Kansas known as Tornado alley?.......I wouldn't live there if you guaranteed only one tornado in a lifetime, at sometime in your life today would be the day....I think I'd have to burrow undregrond like we did in the war when the blitz was on, at least your only problems might be rising damp.

Come to think of it, how would they (the council) rate a house that was completely underground......as a mining concern?.....LOL.....you buy the block of land and then spend time and money getting rid of most of it when you dig the hole, that would be classed as unreal estate.

I could imagine that living underground the lack of windows would make it claustrophobic......I would mount a few cameras on poles outside and have big LCD TV screens around the walls below to look like windows, even hang curtains on them.....cosy.....at least underground the temperature change would be minimal all year round....no heating or Airconditioning bills ever.

With underground Hobbit like living, the Climate Change would not exist....even if it froze completely over or ran a 40 deg C temperature for weeks at a time.

I suppose if the local council objected you could always go underground ( a big basement) and just have a wooden lean to shack above.
Ian.

[Coxsteve]

Totally Screwed.Yes you are,Try doing some real research use the Edgar 2 search facility on the American Securities and Exchange Commission site,You also have an equivalent in the UK.
In the UK one after much searching on the US site and following leads to the Carribean Germany and France then to Bahraignh and India and back to the UK you find that The Pope 'Al Gore' has a company listed in the UK that is classified more like a Biological Hazard by the UK Authorities when it comes to trustworthiness for investors,Once a crook and Liar always a Liar.

Maybe you should investigate Enron one of Gores backers in Political days ( Hint Enron was a Gas Company and Coal (Carbon) was the opposition business wise,Here in Australia the Dumbass Prime minister calls it the "Carbon Tax" being so disengenuous as to not name it CO2,Oh nby the way our prime minister Gillard who plays a gender game against the leader of the opposition is a barefaced lying cow who gained power after issuing a statement "There Will be NO Carbon Tax under a Government I Lead" total lie lasted as long as the popularity of that Communist president elected in France.

There is no man made Global Warming there is continuous climate change and it is normal with a living planet,Due to the influence of that big yellow thing in the Sky, Sorry I forgot you are in the UK (That sickly weak yellow thing in the sky) which makes more of a change every day than 10,000 years of Predicted so called Climate Change AKA Man made Global Warming ( Sorry I forgot again your own UK Scientists have pointed out there has been not only no increase but cooling over the last 16 years.

[handlewanker]

Hmmmmm, I take it Coxy old chap that you is a right wing Conservative Abbot sychophant....you know Bicycle Bill Abbot the man who would die from asphyxiation if he thought the labour promoted clean air initiatives.

Following Abbot's opposition to everything will only make you even less credible as a poster.......Turnbull is now being polished to shove Abbot into the recycle bin.

I read your post, but soon lost track of which direction the "You" was aimed at, seeing as first you were on about The PM and a Bovine comparison, which makes you a Pig in the same comparison, and then you mention Al Gore and equities investment....for Australians???????.....he's a disgraced Yank or didn't you know.

Who is the "You" in the UK bit of your rambling?

Then you went on to mention the Climate Variation and the UK counterpart the Climate non existance Sun Cycle.....LOL.......sounds like you hit the turps last night and are still in a Halloween mode.

Pray tell, to whom was your post directed, as it was so slanted, nay biased?
Ian.

[dufas]

Climate Catastrophe Nearer, Al Gore Gives Us About 90 More Years - Forbes

Climate Catastrophe Nearer, Al Gore Gives Us About 90 More Years

Former vice president Al Gore posted on his webpage Friday that scientific studies of clouds and atmospheric pressure suggests that, “more likely than not, our planet will experience cataclysmic warming by the end of the century.”

That would take mankind to the year 2100 before all hell breaks loose.

Gore, who taught the world about the wonders of climate catastrophe in his famous documentary “Inconvenient Truth”, pointed out this article in The Washington Post from Thursday.

In it, climate scientists agreed that Earth will be hotter than they expected within the next 90 years.

“Warming is likely to be on the high side of the projections,” said John Fasullo of the National Center for Atmospheric Research in Boulder, Colo., a co-author of the Center’s report, which was based on satellite measurements of the atmosphere. The report said that the two degree average change in temperature that most scientists agreed on is more likely to average around 8 degrees warmer. That means more melting ice in the Arctic, dumping fresh water into the salty sea and making a mess of the all-important Gulf jet stream, which makes northern U.S. habitable.

Climate scientists around the world use supercomputers to simulate the Earth’s atmosphere and oceans. Sophisticated programs attempt to predict how weather patterns and temperatures will change due to fossil fuels evaporating into the atmosphere.

There’s also the problem that rising ocean temperatures will allow methane hydrates to escape. That’s gas. And that gas released into the atmosphere means faster erosion of the ozone layer, possibly speeding up the process and making matters even worse.

At this time, most leading scientists believe that problem can be curtailed.

Besides Gore’s cloud watching, Arctic ice is undergoing rapid warming, dramatic loss of icebergs and changing oceanographic conditions. That’s where science will spend more of their fortunes studying methane hydrates.

Meanwhile, keep looking to the clouds. More Superstorms are coming.

[Fastest1]

Maybe Gore should quit flying around in his personal jets to warn us of the impending doom. After all since he invented the Internet, couldn't he just have emailed us and saved us from ourselves?

[dufas]

I was reading a list of quotes and this turned up...Old hat but still telling.

"We have to offer up scary scenarios, make simplified dramatic statements, and make little mention of any doubts we may have. Each of us has to decide what the right balance is between being effective and being honest."

– Stephen Schneider, environmental activist, in "Discover", Oct. '89

[dufas]

Developing Story: People Arrested for Trying to... | Gather

Developing Story: People Arrested for Trying to Close Citibank Accounts
October 15, 2011 09:10 PM EDT

More ridiculous arrests coming out of New York today, as Citibank proves it's just as bad, or even worse than Bank of America in how it treats its customers. Earlier today, about two dozen people formed a queue inside the Citibank building in order to close their accounts as a part of the Occupy Wall Street protests. Instead of allowing them to take their money elsewhere, the genius managers and security people in charge locked them inside and had them arrested.

It's not clear why the people were arrested, but speculation is that when the bank would not allow customers to close their accounts, the customers began to protest. When this happened, that's when the genius managers decided to lock them all in and call the police. Nice work, police, protecting your corporate masters.

The arrests were so contrived that you can't help but laugh in bemusement. One woman who was talking angrily with police outside the building was manhandled by what appears to be a plain clothes officer and dragged inside by about five other officers.

Reports from around the internet are saying that two people who succeeded in closing their account left the bank but were forced back inside by police and security officials. In the video posted online, you can see how one woman was practically carried into the bank by a plain clothes officer, where she and the rest of the bank's customers were subsequently arrested. So, if you were just in the neighborhood, and arrived before these people and closed your account, you'd have been arrested for disorderly conduct, whether you were a part of this protest or not. What the hell is this country coming to when you get arrested for simply asserting your right to do what you want with your own money?

[Fastest1]

Plenty of odd behavior going on in our country right now. What is more odd, is it appears many are happy about it. They didn't understand history IMO. On climate change, I will say the serenity prayer, save my money and realize that the next generations will have to deal with the problems of their time with the tools of their time.

[handlewanker]

Hi Dufa, re-post #8531, I know that is hard to believe, but.......it actually happened????, I mean the bank protecting it's money, er, the customers money by "protecting" the customers from themselves so that they would not act in haste and do something everyone would regret, mainly the bank of course, silly me, but the customers too, BUT....... if the customers HAD closed their accounts, the couple who were dragged back inside again that is, IE, no longer a customer of connected to/with Citibank, wouldn't that be interpreted as a kidnap felony by the Bank and all those involved in the "kidnap" and attempted unlawfull seizure of property and assets.....the bank were themselves almost bank robbers......LOL.

I think in the cold hard light of day one could only say......"only in America".....and that's a sad testimony to the land of the free.

A year ago down in OZ Citybank had a kiosk set up in our local shopping mall, and as you attempted to pass without being accosted or manhandled by the asggressive kioskers trying to entice you to move your assets from an OZ bank to a dubious Citybank account, the only thing that put them off was the reference to Citibank being charged with fraud for manipulating customers bank accounts and investments.

I use the same tactic when the Mormons come knocking on the door.......I kid you not, the other day two characters dressed like hoboes knocked on the door and wanted me to "see the light" now that all other religious denominations were either guilty or had been guilty of paedophilia of some long term standing, supported condoned and actively supported by non other than the Catholic Church right at the top......one mention of the Meadows Massacre and they turned and evaporated.

LOL......... when the other denominations call at my heavily barred steel security front door begging for some money to promote their version of the origin of the Human species, I usually just give them the rams head sign, the clenched fist with fore finger and pinkie extended like horns and say "Only good Pagans live here".......well it's true....no Pagans in the last 500 years have ever been accused of paedophilia or unnatural acts of a s*xual nature....show me the record otherwise.

Lucky Citybank is not a popular institution in OZ, so we sleep sound at night.......maybe if the Yanks ditched Citibank their fortunes would take on a more healthy appearance.

Perhaps now that President Barak Obama and his administration is finally acknowledged to be the best man the Yanks have to get the good ship USA once more afloat again, (you can't beat being asked by the majority of the people to come back and do your thing again), the barnacles that crusted the hull can be scraped off and dumped, but that'll take a lot of scraping by all accounts, some of those barnacles gonna cling on to the bitter end.....maybe Citibank will be one of them....LOL.
Ian.

[fizzissist]

Developing Story: People Arrested for Trying to... | Gather

Developing Story: People Arrested for Trying to Close Citibank Accounts
October 15, 2011 09:10 PM EDT

More ridiculous arrests coming out of New York today, as Citibank proves it's just as bad, or even worse than Bank of America in how it treats its customers. Earlier today, about two dozen people formed a queue inside the Citibank building in order to close their accounts as a part of the Occupy Wall Street protests. Instead of allowing them to take their money elsewhere, the genius managers and security people in charge locked them inside and had them arrested.


The arrests were so contrived that you can't help but laugh in bemusement. One woman who was talking angrily with police outside the building was manhandled by what appears to be a plain clothes officer and dragged inside by about five other officers.

Maybe the people were just there to get their free Obamaphones...

[petersenonmain]

Handlewanker: It is likely that with that group they were trying to start a run on the bank and in this country that is illegal.
No one should feel sorry for these Occupy people they are the anarchists of yesterday that have come to spread thier stupidity in another time.

[handlewanker]

LOL....Petersenonmain, "a run on the bank".....with a few accounts, I would have thought that a run on the bank would have had a queue a mile long or around the block at least.

If that had been the case you would have had to have an army of enforcers to arrest the people involved, and the bank doesn't employ that many bouncers to make it happen or have the authority to arrest people.

Does that mean that if you open an account in an American bank the fine print states that you may/will be arrested if you attempt to close the account.....strewth mate that is worse than being in a Communist country, and an enemy of the state no doubt.

In OZ, if you "misbehave" with a bank account you will get it closed no argument, and be barred from other banks too probably....no credit cards....black balled by everyone.

Imagine having to carry around a wad of dough all the time.
Ian.

[dufas]

Plus...Wasn't it not too long ago that scientists told us that there was no such thing as 'intelligence genes'...???
snip============================================== =============================

Are Humans Losing Their Smarts? | LiveScience

Are Humans Becoming Less Intelligent?
Tia Ghose, LiveScience Staff Writer
Date: 12 November 2012 Time: 12:14 PM ET

snip============================================== ============

Humans may be gradually losing intelligence, according to a new study.

The study, published today (Nov. 12) in the journal Trends in Genetics, argues that humans lost the evolutionary pressure to be smart once we started living in dense agricultural settlements several thousand years ago.

"The development of our intellectual abilities and the optimization of thousands of intelligence genes probably occurred in relatively non-verbal, dispersed groups of peoples [living] before our ancestors emerged from Africa," said study author Gerald Crabtree, a researcher at Stanford University, in a statement.

Since then it's all been downhill, Crabtree contends.

The theory isn't without critics, with one scientist contacted by LiveScience suggesting that rather than losing our smarts, humans have just diversified them with various types of intelligence today.

Life or death situations

Early humans lived or died by their spatial abilities, such as quickly making a shelter or spearing a saber-toothed tiger. Nowadays, though almost everyone has the spatial ability to do ostensibly simple tasks like washing dishes or mowing the lawn, such tasks actually require a lot of brainpower, the researchers note.

And we can thank our ancestors and the highly tuned mechanism of natural selection for such abilities. Meanwhile, the ability to play chess or compose poetry likely evolved as collateral effects.

But after the spread of agriculture, when our ancestors began to live in dense farming communities, the intense need to keep those genes in peak condition gradually waned.

And its unlikely that the evolutionary advantage of intelligence is greater than it was during our hunter-gatherer past, the paper argues.

"A hunter-gatherer who did not correctly conceive a solution to providing food or shelter probably died, along with his/her progeny, whereas a modern Wall Street executive that made a similar conceptual mistake would receive a substantial bonus and be a more attractive mate. Clearly, extreme selection is a thing of the past," the researchers write in the journal article.

Intelligence genes

Anywhere between 2,000 and 5,000 genes determine human intelligence, and these genes are particularly susceptible to harmful changes, or mutations, the researchers write. Based on knowledge of the rate of mutations, the team concludes that the average person harbors two intelligence-stunting genetic changes that evolved over the last 3,000 years.

The hypothesis is counterintuitive at first. After all, across the world the average IQ has increased dramatically over the last 100 years, a phenomenon known as the Flynn Effect. But most of that jump probably resulted from better prenatal care, better nutrition and reduced exposure to brain-stunting chemicals such as lead, Crabtree argues.

But just because humans have more mutations in their intelligence genes doesn't mean we are becoming less brainy as a species, said psychologist Thomas Hills of the University of Warwick, who was not involved in the study. Instead, removing the pressure for everyone to be a superb hunter or gatherer may have allowed us to evolve a more diverse population with different types of smarts, he said.

"You don't get Stephen Hawking 200,000 years ago. He just doesn't exist," Hills told LiveScience. "But now we have people of his intellectual capacity doing things and making insights that we would never have achieved in our environment of evolutionary adaptation."

[handlewanker]

It would seem from the study that we had too many genes doing nothing but devise contermeasures for all our stupid blunders.

I seem to recall that several thousand years ago, many of us lived in crude mud huts and chased the game with pointed sticks to get a meal......how come, with all those genes working at fever pitch, we hadn't invented space travel?

It was indeed a very clever move to reverse the pointed stick and push the sharp end into the ground so as to allow the food to come to us......very intuitive, or just plain laziness, or perhaps the game had more genes too and learned to outrun us.

Then if we were so much better adapted to think clearly for the occasion, there would have been a much better reason to leave this ball of mud than to go and plunder another civilisation just because we were better armed etc, and even God hadn't been invented until the last 2,000 years.

If the sign of superior inteligence is the survival instinct, I would tend to agree somewhat.

3,000 years ago nobody in their right mind would jump off a high place with only a piece of elastic tied round their ankles and expect to live.....today it seems we have worked out that to guarantee survival you must also tie the other end of the elastic to a solid object, but it took 3,000 years to come to that conclusion, that's a very slow learning curve.....LOL.....but there are more survivors today from conclusive thinking than 3,000 years ago by intuitive acting......so therefore I debunk that theory of latter day cleverness in favour of the "riding on the backs of Giants theory" to get where you need to go.
Ian.

[dufas]

7NEWS - Ignored on campaign, global warming talk heats up - News Story

Global warming talk heats up, revisits carbon tax

Posted: 11/14/2012
Last Updated: 6 hours ago

By: SETH BORENSTEIN, AP Science Writer

WASHINGTON - Climate change is suddenly a hot topic again. The issue is resurfacing in talks about a once radical idea: a possible carbon tax.

On Tuesday, a conservative think tank held discussions about it while a more liberal think tank released a paper on it. And the Congressional Budget Office issued a 19-page report on the different ways to make a carbon tax less burdensome on lower income people.

A carbon tax works by making people pay more for using fossil fuels like coal, oil, and gas that produce heat-trapping carbon dioxide.

The idea was considered so radical that in 2009, when President Barack Obama tried to pass a bill on global warming, that he instead opted for the more moderate approach of capping power plant emissions and trading credits that allowed utilities to pollute more. That idea, after passing the House, stalled in the Senate in 2010 and has been considered dead since.

snip============================================== ============

On Wednesday, former Vice President Al Gore launches a 24-hour online talkfest about global warming and disasters. Another group, 350.org, headed by environmental advocate and author Bill McKibben, is in the midst of a 21-city bus tour.

Gore compared the link between extreme weather and "dirty energy" from coal, oil and natural gas to the links between cigarette smoking and lung cancer or the use of steroids and home runs in baseball.

"Mother Nature is speaking very loudly and clearly," Gore said in a phone interview from San Francisco. "The laws of physics do apply and when we put 90 million tons of global warming pollution into the atmosphere every day, it traps a lot of heat."

Climate change worries have had a high profile in New York, post-hurricane. Mayor Michael Bloomberg, who had not planned to endorse a presidential candidate, changed his mind after Sandy struck, throwing his support to Obama and citing climate change as an issue.

[handlewanker]

I would rather be faulted for taking avoiding action to offset an event that probably won't happen than be incarcerated for killing millions from an event that did happen, and was considered a possibility.

Everybody takes avoidence strategy planning very seriously, it's part of your survival awareness forward planning routine.

The Carbon Tax is just a method to put into place the machinery that will undo the practices of those that think money is more important than the well being of people.

If money has been more important than people's health, then so be it, let the money be tapped into to ensure that the effects of this missapropriation is nullified.

We have the Carbon Tax in OZ, and despite dire warnings of a widespread bancruptcy trail, it has sunk to the back burner.

There is no record of anyone claiming to have been put out of business by the imposition of the Carbon Tax.

If you wish to produce your products with methods that produce hazadous by products, then you must also be prepared to rectify the possible outcome from that occupation.

Being wise after the fact is not an option for survival.

It would be nice in a thousand years time to look back and say the effects of the Carbon build up was wildly exagerated and did nothing to affect the weather patterns.

Being, as Humans usually are, a penny wise and a pound foolish, when a thousand years pass, if the effects were significent, then closing the door after the horse has bolted will ensure a lot of people will look back and curse this generation for it's shortsightedness.
Ian.