A "dirty" green word: development

The green choices we can make come in two basic types: the personal and the political. Some personal choices can make a big difference — forsaking meat, for instance. But other personal "green" decisions bring marginal or dubious benefits. How much, for instance, did buying the "sustainably harvested" bamboo pen cup that sits on my desk really do to reduce my carbon footprint? (I doubt it helped much, but the dappled grove on its packaging sure looked pretty.)

If only the policy options that could do the most to stem global warming came similarly wrapped. Unfortunately, many of the most effective policies to fight global warming sometimes come labeled instead with dirty little words. Words like "tax." No single measure would be more effective in controlling the nation's greenhouse-gas emissions than a well-implemented carbon tax, but there's no chance the policy will be adopted in America any time soon — partly because of our aversion to that three-letter word.

In Asheville, there's a different ugly word attached to the policies that could do the most to reduce our per capita carbon footprint. But here the word is a long one: development. Actually, it's more of a phrase: high-density, inner-city development.

There's nothing City Council could do to reduce our carbon footprints more than aggressively seeking to increase density — especially by encouraging development in and near downtown. Study after study from environmental groups and left-leaning think tanks, such as the Sierra Club and the Brookings Institution, have shown that sprawling suburban development patterns place a much heavier toll on the environment than intensive urban development.

The denser the neighborhood, these studies have found, the lower the carbon footprint. Apartments tend to be much smaller than detached single-family houses on half-acre suburban lots, and with lower ratios of exterior walls they are more efficient to heat and cool. What's more, apartments benefit from the heat produced in the apartments below them during the winter and from the air-conditioning produced in apartments above them during the summer.

Residents of dense neighborhoods also drive much less, both because their larger numbers are better able to support mass transit and because they live closer to jobs, schools, stores and services. Studies conducted by John Holtzclaw for the Sierra Club, for instance, have shown that residents of any given Bay Area neighborhood drive 20 to 30 percent fewer miles than those living in neighborhoods in the same region that are half as dense — and the trend holds for all income levels. Holtzclaw found similar, if slightly smaller, effects when he crunched the data for metropolitan Chicago and Los Angeles.

The smart-growth movement that emerged in the 1990s married these environmental arguments for dense, walkable and transit-oriented cities with fiscal arguments about the greater efficiency that density of this kind brings. More intensive development, after all, also means that fewer miles of pipe have to be laid to supply the same number of water customers and that fewer miles of roadway have to be maintained for the same population.

And to its credit, Asheville's Planning Department has adopted smart growth as its guiding philosophy. The development aims outlined in its 2025 Plan — including greater walkability and higher density, especially downtown and along transit corridors — are good ones. But Asheville's citizens haven't wholeheartedly embraced them.

My inner NIMBY

Part of the problem lies simply in the nature of people. We're not inclined to mess with a good thing. We like our city and our neighborhoods, so why risk changing them? Instead of a movement, the not-in-my-backyard phenomenon is more like an instinct — one that I certainly share.

When a developer wanted to put multifamily housing in the middle of my block in West Asheville a few years ago, I grew alarmed. The original plans called for a hideous building with unpunctuated expanses of vinyl siding on two sides. Various neighbors, including myself, spoke against the project at the Planning and Zoning Commission, where it was turned down.

The planning department then urged the developer to adopt various changes that would make the building a better fit for the neighborhood, and when it came to Council, where I didn't speak against it, it passed. But in total truthfulness, after P&Z turned the project down, one side of me simply wanted the project to go away.

The NIMBY instinct can have a big impact on Council votes. Back in 2003, surfing the Web one night, I compared recent Council votes on development issues to precinct results from Council elections. What I found was that Council members tended to vote against development in the precincts where they polled best. And the trend held at both ends of the political spectrum: For instance, Brian Peterson, a progressive who got a lot of votes in Montford and Hillside, voted against high-density neighborhood-corridor zoning for Broadway. On the other hand, conservative Joe Dunn, who did well in east and south Asheville, voted against controversial projects in Chunn's Cove and Oakley.

In extreme cases, populist politicians or candidates can go so far in pandering to this NIMBY instinct that they try to deny the underlying truths of smart growth.

Chasing at windmills?

Incoming Council member Cecil Bothwell, for instance, once spoke against building any structure tall enough to require an elevator because of the electricity they consume. (In fact, the power consumed by elevators is pretty negligible.) He also described the goal of increasing the tax base as "a quixotic adventure that has no provable benefit to current residents." Excuse me, I thought when I read that, but my family and I regularly benefit from the extra local funding provided to the city schools, from evening bus service and from recent improvements to parks. None of these would have been possible to the same extent without the fiscal efficiencies gained from the city's smart-growth approach to increasing the tax base.

Much to his credit, Bothwell underwent a transformation when he campaigned in the general election, going so far as to say that Asheville should use Manhattan as a model for reducing its energy consumption. He noted correctly that the borough's residents have the lowest carbon footprints in the nation.

So how can Bothwell and his colleagues on Council make Asheville's per-capita carbon footprint more like Manhattan's? Here are a few ideas:

• Develop guidelines for attractive small apartment buildings — like the kind that are dotted throughout older neighborhoods in north and West Asheville. Then allow them to be built anywhere within a quarter mile of a bus route — even in places now zoned as single-family residential.

• The high-density, mixed-use, shop-window-to-the-sidewalk zoning that has been adopted or considered for transit corridors like Merrimon, Haywood and Broadway is a good idea: Apply it in more places. But bump up the number of allowable floors that developers can build to at least six in all its iterations.

• If an opportunity arises to put intensive development on a site near downtown like the former Deal Auto site, grab it. And if neighborhood residents aren't uncomfortable with the size of the buildings you've allowed, then the buildings probably aren't big enough.

Taking these steps will indeed make Asheville more like Manhattan, Cecil, and bring down per-capita energy consumption. But doing so will also undoubtedly alienate some of your constituents. Such is the nature of your job.

[Longtime Xpress contributor Jonathan Barnard can be reached at jon.r.barnard@gmail.com.]

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243 thoughts on “A "dirty" green word: development

  1. entopticon

    I was very pleased to see the above letter, because it is a concern that has become a real pet peeve of mine as well. Thanks to Jonathan Barnard for drawing attention to this issue. In the environmental studies institute that I worked and studied at, as with virtually any environmental studies program, urban density was considered to be fundamentally important to sustainability, so when I encounter so many supposedly progressive friends here with a NIMBY attitude, trying to block buildings for their height etc, even when the structures are taking extra steps such as incorporating green building technologies, I am dumfounded.

    It really is shocking how many people I have encountered here who consider themselves to be progressive and environmentally aware, who have opposed development projects that would increase urban density. As Jonathan expressed, I can sympathize with people’s selfish desires to keep our urban areas quaint, but one of the most important tenets of environmentalism is that we can’t afford the sort of NIMBYism that blocks urban density.

  2. A few thoughts.

    My transformation was not as night and day as Jonathan Barnard suggests here. The greenest of Manhattan’s green citizens presumably live in walk-ups. Building up is not necessarily an improvement without the other pieces in place including high transit use, and walkable shopping and jobs.

    I suggested we should adopt the best practices of NYC and I have long been in favor of higher density along urban corridors.

    Six story apartment structures seem like a good target in a city of Asheville’s current and foreseeable scale, though there are aesthetic reasons to follow the Downtown Master Plan suggestions that taller buildings work best on lower ground and vice versa. Buildings significantly taller than their surrounding structures need to be carefully evaluated.

    1. What are the inherent solar rights of property owners and should such rights be protected and perhaps purchasable by developers of tall structures? With solar hot water, photovoltaics and even passive solar heat factored in, when does the a high-rise development encroach on existing property owners’ energy interests? Shouldn’t there be a cost for eliminating your neighbor’s sun?

    2. Energy efficiency of buildings is closely tied to climate. Probably the heating efficiency of dense development in NYC is less of a factor in Asheville’s more clement climate, and the increased need for air conditioning in dense development (versus natural ventilation via open windows) is a factor here too. My current stand-alone home has central air that I have never turned on (except to test it at time of purchase). My third-floor downtown condo required A/C to be tenable in mid-summer. There ought to be ways to meaningfully evaluate such differences. (And note that my 1905 home is significantly less thermally efficient than the 1985 retrofit condo.)

    3. Can we limit parking for taller residential and mixed-use structures to encourage transit use? In addition to NIMBYism concerning appearance and scale there is a very real concern about traffic (for example at the Deal property on Merrimon where traffic is already an issue and widening for turn lanes appears impractical).

  3. Jonathan Barnard

    Cecil, when you say, “Six story apartment structures seem like a good target in a city of Asheville’s current and foreseeable scale,” you mean along corridors away from downtown, right?

    What about for downtown? Surely, since you did cite Manhattan as the a model for reducing Asheville’s carbon footprint, you want much taller buildings there. Or not?

  4. Right, Jonathan. Six stories along corridors, and possibly higher, depending on the site and situation.

    Downtown taller seems good. The form-based design idea embodied in the Downtown Master Plan seems to me to help out with prevention of the concrete canyon feel of Charlotte, for one bad example.

    Of course, when people realize that residents of 12 story walk-ups are living longer than the rest of us, due to cardio-vascular exercise, we’ll presumably have to start building taller and taller buildings w/o elevators to meet the demand.

  5. travelah

    Hopefully, we will not see nanny-state liberals on city council forcing people to walk up and down 12 floors every time they want to leave their home.
    Perhaps when people see residents of 12 story walkups forced from their homes because of health conditions, we’ll presumably have to reconsider the asinine viewpoints we have held so long.
    Of course the reasonable democratic solution is to let people choose to walk up 12 floors or take the elevator instead.

  6. Betty Cloer Wallace

    “How City Council could cut our carbon footprint by supporting density”

    and

    “Of course, when people realize that residents of 12-story walk-ups are living longer than the rest of us, due to cardio-vascular exercise, we’ll presumably have to start building taller and taller buildings w/o elevators to meet the demand.”

    On, my. So density in AVL is a good thing? And are we rural grangers supposed to feel guilty now for not sympathizing with the travails of Asheville urbanites? And whom, exactly, do “the residents of 12 story walk-ups” really live longer than?

    For what it’s worth, folks, good air to breathe out here in the hinterlands ain’t all that bad; and there are more productive ways to get cardio-vascular exercise than climbing stairs.

  7. Betty Cloer Wallace

    Please bear with me while I try that “bold” thing again….

    “How City Council could cut our carbon footprint by supporting density”

    and

    “Of course, when people realize that residents of 12-story walk-ups are living longer than the rest of us, due to cardio-vascular exercise, we’ll presumably have to start building taller and taller buildings w/o elevators to meet the demand.”

    On, my. So density in AVL is a good thing? And are we rural grangers supposed to feel guilty now for not sympathizing with the travails of Asheville urbanites? And whom, exactly, do “the residents of 12 story walk-ups” really live longer than?

    For what it’s worth, folks, good air to breathe out here in the hinterlands ain’t all that bad; and there are more productive ways to get cardio-vascular exercise than climbing stairs.

  8. Carrie

    Cecil: I have a question. What are the legalities of building condos downtown without elevators? I thought they had to be handicap accessible. Do they have to be accessible only if they are a certain height or size? That’s two questions but I’d like to know if you do.

    Thanks.

  9. hauntedheadnc

    [b]On, my. So density in AVL is a good thing? And are we rural grangers supposed to feel guilty now for not sympathizing with the travails of Asheville urbanites? And whom, exactly, do “the residents of 12 story walk-ups” really live longer than?

    For what it’s worth, folks, good air to breathe out here in the hinterlands ain’t all that bad; and there are more productive ways to get cardio-vascular exercise than climbing stairs.[/b]

    Yes, density in Asheville is a good thing, particularly if you out there in the hinterlands enjoy your uncrowded lifestyle. People want to live in Asheville, and if they are not allowed to live in town the way they want, they’ll cheerfully settle for merely living near it. Likely, that means they’ll be setting up house in a subdivision where the woods next to your farm used to be.

    And who do urbanites tend to live longer than? Thanks to a city lifestyle that makes walking an option for getting around daily life, they tend to live longer than Southerners and other Sun Belt denizens who live in communities designed so that you can’t do anything without getting in your car to do it.

  10. Carrie

    “Yes, density in Asheville is a good thing, particularly if you out there in the hinterlands enjoy your uncrowded lifestyle. People want to live in Asheville, and if they are not allowed to live in town the way they want, they’ll cheerfully settle for merely living near it. Likely, that means they’ll be setting up house in a subdivision where the woods next to your farm used to be.”

    I agree with this. It would seem to me that anyone living near AVL would want it “up not out”. Saving so much land from being built upon. Betty, you seem angry but I didn’t read that anyone was making fun of anyone. I am curious, though, if you don’t live downtown why you don’t want more people there? Even if you do I can’t see why.

  11. travelah

    Carrie,
    The handicapped access law will have to be repealed if Cecil’s vision comes to pass. Make sure you do not ever have surgery of any kind that might require reabilitation if you end up in one of Cecil’s high rise exercise apartments. Good thinking, Cecil!

  12. Carrie

    travelah: It is a law, though? I’m really not sure what it is. I know our building has an elevator and a ramp to get to it which is wheelchair accessible. Wasn’t sure if it was by law or what?

  13. travelah

    Carrie,
    It is a legal requirement for access to common areas although Cecil’s vision could be realized under current ADA regulations. The individual living units do not require handicapped access although it could be argued rather well that somebody living on an upper floor could not reach the common areas of the building without elevator access.
    Now, the truth of the matter is that Cecil’s crackpot notions are not going to be realized. It is most likely that any high density housing in Asheville is going to take advantage of some Federal program that would require broad access to the handicapped. If there any plans to utilize HUD subsidies, Cecil’s non-elevator high rise pipe dream will go up in a puff of smoke and rightfully so. The handicapped have been discriminated against enough in our society.

  14. entopticon

    Cecil made a harmless joke about how there could become a greater demand for tall buildings when people hear about all of the health benefits of walking up and down the stairs. Somehow in travelog’s twisted imagination, that turned into mandatory 12 story buildings without elevators to torture handicapped people. The cartoonishness of the extreme right never ends.

  15. travelah

    Is entopticon opposed to handcapped access in high density housing in Asheville too? I don’t think Carrie is being cartoonish or extreme rightwing at all with her inquiry. In fact I think her questions are reasonable.

  16. Betty Cloer Wallace

    “Carrie” and “hauntedheadnc”:

    Well, actually, I live only a few blocks from Pack Square; and I also live on a farm just outside AVL where I grew up and where I work very hard trying to “preserve the land from being built upon” and “saving so much land from being built upon.” (Isn’t that a major aspect of what “up not out” and “green” is all about?)

    Whatever made you think I do not want more people in downtown AVL? The more the better, I say, and the more diversity the better. That’s what makes AVL a wonderful place to live. I just don’t want anyone fantasizing that breathing exhausts and walking up twelve flights of stairs is a healthy lifestyle. (Is NYC or any other high-density city really a healthy model for us? Or, for that matter, an economic model?)

    As for walking around AVL, I see far more people in motorized vehicles of assorted kinds than I ever see walking. Almost all, actually. Perhaps living well in AVL without an automobile is a myth? I’ve read a lot in MountainX forums about the unreliability of the public bus system, though, which might eventually encourage more walking, however inconvenient.

    How far is it from your home to any supermarket or to any other necessary place in AVL to which you walk regularly? Would living in a high-rise downtown be more convenient for you in your daily life than where you live now?

  17. entopticon

    No travelog, I am in favor of handicapped access. I was just pointing out the simple fact that you fabricated the whole thing. I didn’t say that Carrie was being a cartoonish right-wing extremist. I said you are one.

  18. Carrie

    WHOA People: I wasn’t making a statement or point of view. I was asking about the law. I see you too are getting in another argument but leave me out of it.

  19. travelah

    carrie … nope … no argument from me with him … I’m too concerned about the neighborhood children and small pets.

  20. entopticon

    I fear for the neighborhood children and small pets then, though I am not sure what they have to do with travelog’s fabrications about denying handicap access.

  21. Carrie

    To the two of you: Handicap access aside, do you agree or disagree with “build up not out” in Asheville?

  22. entopticon

    It’s a good question Carrie. As I mentioned in the first post in this thread, I am strongly for vertical development of urban areas. It is literally the most important single issue in environmentalism.

    It boggles the mind that so many progressives in Asheville reflexively protest vertical development in the downtown area, even for buildings that incorporate green building materials. The Ellington being the most obvious example. The environmental and geographic footprint of freestanding Mcmansions of comparable value in some development in the countryside would be comparatively gigantic.

    I do understand the selfish desire to keep Asheville as quaint as possible, but vertical development is far, far too important for the nimbyism that I have seen here on too many occasions.

  23. travelah

    Carrie,
    I am of mixed opinions on this issue. I have no problem with building up in the downtown area of a town this size as long as the town is accepting of the change. Personally, I don’t think it is a good solution to the housing issues in Asheville. Frankly speaking, there are too many people moving into the area for the infrastructure and services to support. If Asheville builds up, keep in mind the gentrification that will certainly follow. Downtown will not be the mixed income housing and “equal opportunity” environment some are seeking. It will be a gentrified money investment only. I don’t think that is what people really want in Asheville. Of course I may be wrong.
    I currently spend a lot of time in the Charleston, SC area. Building up is restricted here for historical preservation reasons along with coastal storm precautions. That restriction has preserved much of the character of old Charleston. Now, the down side is that development has pushed heavily into the Mt. Pleasant and Johns Island areas yet that itself has fueled strong economic growth in the region. Asheville needs to ask itself what it wants to look like 20-30 years down the road and for whom.

  24. Betty Cloer Wallace

    All you have to do is google-search current buzz words such as “build up not out” and “high density (building, living)” to see the latest trends under discussion in cities and small towns all across the country, even in the small towns of WNC. On the surface, it all sounds enticing. In actuality, though, with few exceptions, high-rise buildings (commercial and residential) in Downtown, USA, are falling vacant for assorted reasons and being abandoned in droves.

    Fortunately, except for a few unfortunate buildings in downtown Asheville, we have had the good sense to remain aloof from the faddishness of trends, and that is why our little city is still unique, still a good place to live. We need to tread lightly and make sure we retain the characteristics that have served us well so far. We didn’t make all those “top ten” lists by being like everyone else.

  25. entopticon

    I have to disagree with you there Betty. Environmentalism may seem like a fad if reduced to a Google search of buzzwords, but it is science, and extremely important science at that. In fact, our species, and countless other species depend on it if we are going to stick around. It is not group of arbitrary beliefs that make urban density the crux of environmentalism; it is the overwhelmingly compelling findings of a veritable mountain of research by intelligent and qualified experts.

  26. Carrie

    Betty: I thought I read you didn’t live downtown. You use the word “we” when describing it. Do you live downtown? Why do you care? What are you contributing besides opinion to it? I’d like to know.

  27. Carrie

    Hey e & t : Thanks for responding. I like your comments so thanks. I knew you too had more in common than you thought:)

  28. Betty Cloer Wallace

    Carrie, yes, I live two places (see about ten posts earlier)–downtown and also on a farm outside Asheville–the best of both worlds. My family has lived here for many generations and will continue to do so, which is why I care.

    Environmentalism and sustainable forestry are at the heart of everything I do–from renovating my AVL house in the greenest manner possible to planting more than 8,000 native hardwoods on my farm last year.

    Now may I ask you the same questions you asked me? Where do you live, and why do you care, and what are you contributing besides opinion?

    Asheville Proper does not function in isolation. What is good for AVL is good for the region, and vice versa. We are all in this together.

  29. hauntedheadnc

    [b]Asheville Proper does not function in isolation. What is good for AVL is good for the region and vice versa. we are all in this together.[/b]

    That’s pretty much the entire point that advocates of denser downtown growth have been trying to make.

    Dense growth in the central city is good for the following reasons:

    — It utilizes land that is already well-served by utilities, saving the cost of laying new utility lines. In addition, it avoids the explosive growth that new utilities can generate in suburban areas. Think about it: if you run a water line out into the county, it attracts growth, most of it suburban sprawl, which in turn generates traffic, air pollution, and litter. Wouldn’t it be better to build on one of downtown’s parking lots or vacant lots?

    — Concentrating growth helps Asheville become a city where people can easily live without a car. Downtown Asheville used to be the region’s premiere shopping district and employment center. There’s no reason it can’t be that again, as well as one of the city’s most desirable residential neighborhoods.

    — Placing residential development downtown helps make downtown safer by putting a lot more eyes on the streets.

    — Dense residential development downtown helps downtown businesses by putting that many more customers within easy access.

    — Unlike yourself, the vast majority of people moving here won’t own two homes within a few miles of one another. In the simplest terms, a hundred people living a hundred condos in a building downtown are a hundred people not living in a hundred houses on a hundred acres in Fairview.

    — The added vibrancy that new residents can add to downtown will help boost tourism. Already we draw tourists because our downtown is one of the best in the state. If you have hundreds and hundreds more residents generating additional demand for businesses and new businesses, that only boosts the vibrancy that the tourists come here to see in the first place. They’re not just coming here for the mountains, you know. Nobody comes downtown hoping to see a deer.

    I’m not sure what it is that you’re advocating, Ms. Wallace. It seems to me you’re saying that building up downtown won’t benefit the city and I fail to see why you would think that.

  30. glad at least one person understood that my 12-story walk-up was offered in jest. Actually, I only want to pass a law that requires people with no sense of humor to live in tall buildings without elevators.

    (Although, people who routinely walk up long flights of stairs are almost always in better cardio-vascular health than the national average.)

    And, Carrie, I really don’t know about accessibility via elevator, but I would guess that like other ADA rules it would only apply to public buildings, not private.

  31. entopticon

    Betty, it sounds like we are ultimately on the same page about the importance of environmentalism and I am truly appreciative that you are finding ways to make a positive impact on that front. It’s not always easy to wade through the sea of information, and I will have to assume that you just haven’t yet delved into the single most important issue, bar none, in environmentalism, which is urban density based on vertical development and low-impact transit. Not only is it not a fad, it is central to the planet’s survival in countless ways, and virtually every other environmental action becomes a pointless token if it is not accompanied by it.

    I completely agree with you that we should do everything that we can to encourage architectural character in Asheville as well, which means emphasizing green building technologies and thoughtful design, but not at the expense of urban development. I would LOVE to see Asheville start incorporating things such as living walls and green roofs. It would be amazing and entirely fitting if Asheville became a pioneer on that front. We already have a remarkable concentration of green building related businesses here, and as the national economy moves towards more focus on green collar jobs, it would be great to be a shining example of what is possible. I think that means encouraging urban density through vertical development with a focus on green building technologies.

    Some fun examples of living walls: http://chemicallygreen.com/10-incredible-living-walls/

    And green roofs:
    http://www.ecogeek.org/content/view/902/

  32. entopticon

    I agree with Cecil the majority of the time though perhaps not always, and I certainly think he is a local treasure that we are very fortunate to have in our community.

  33. Barry Summers

    I appreciate this discussion. One point however – too often, I’ve heard the ‘progressives are opposed to development’ charge. This has clouded the debate. There have only been a handful of controversial developments, and the most glaring involve people trying to build luxury condos on public park land.

    There have been many buildings erected in Asheville in recent years without a whisper of opposition. Growth is going to happen, and higher density downtown is a good thing, especially if some of it is affordable housing. Just don’t try to build on our parks, or there will be opposition. And please don’t paint progressives as ‘anti-development’.

  34. travelah

    Growth is going to happen, and higher density downtown is a good thing, especially if some of it is affordable housing.

    It is that last part that is sticky. It is generally expensive to build up and rents and costs are generally higher as a result. I think it is unreasnable to expect moderate, affordable housing to result from such endeavors. Deveopers do not build and invest their resources out of charitable intentions. They do it to earn a fair return on ther invenstment. I would like to see some good exemples of what people have in mind for downtown and see that bounced off expectations.

  35. My view is that trying to force affordable housing into downtown is a waste of time. As I’ve mentioned repeatedly during the recent campaign, low downtown rents were the result of white-flight and the growth of suburbs after WWII. Now that folks have rediscovered the convenience and “cool” of downtown living, it is being bid up again. So affordable housing will move to its historic location: at the margins of the city.

    Hence, the best way the city can abet workforce housing is to create the best possible transit system for those who work in the city but can only afford to live at the margins.

  36. entopticon

    Well said, I think you make very good points there Cecil. Inexpensive and comprehensive public transit, and better infrastructure for affordable, low impact means like bicycling and walking are indeed the key to sustainable development.

  37. Phillip Gibson

    Regarding living in downtown Asheville, it is too expensive for even moderate incomes. My wife and I were interested in moving from the county into the city. The rates we found were $350,000 for 700 sq ft. condos. Forget that. We live and care for our parents. We need adequate living space. The taxes and other fees make it impossible. I would rather stay in the county, grow some of my own food (which we do), have bees (which I have), and a bit more opportunity to see the stars at night.

  38. Barry Summers

    Thanks Phillip – whatever positive environmental conscience and action there is in WNC, Warren Wilson College has been a big part of it. Keep up the good work.

  39. hauntedheadnc

    I realize that downtown land prices will necessitate higher prices, but I don’t see why new residential developments couldn’t include at least some affordable units. As I’ve advocated before, just tack on a couple of floors of smaller, less luxurious units and sell them as workforce housing. Let the rest of the building be as ritzy as planned. It would help keep downtown economically diverse, and the threat of homogenization is usually why people start screaming and running in circles whenever the threat of a new store or new development looms downtown.

  40. travelah

    hauntedhead, the market determines the sales price of even lower end units. Given what prefab basic box houses go for in Asheville, moderate income people are not going to afford to live in new construction in the downtown area. Of course, the city could build HUD financed low income housing wherever it wants.

  41. Jonathan Barnard

    I agree with Cecil: it doesn’t make sense to be too concerned with forcing affordable housing downtown. Better to put that money into better transit. But one thing is for sure: restricting the supply of housing downtown will only make it more expensive. And, conversely, encouraging the construction of units downtown will reduce its price (or the rise of its price) somewhat.

  42. hauntedheadnc

    Asheville’s housing prices have been inflated for years by people gambling with the market. I wouldn’t be opposed to requiring by law that a portion of new residential developments be affordable. Not much, say ten percent or fifteen percent. Requiring it as part of a larger development would probably be healthier than building large concentrated areas of low-income housing because when you concentrate poverty you concentrate dysfunction. Look at Asheville’s abysmal public housing projects for proof.

  43. travelah

    haunted,
    What do you think some of the ramifications of such dictates might be on future investments in the city? I’ll give you a hint. Existing moderate, middle and upper middle class housing in developments around the city would become pricier overnight. Development would move out of the city and into the surrounding counties. It would accomplish exactly the opposite of what you are trying to do, increase the density of the city to avoid further development in the countryside.

  44. hauntedheadnc

    Considering that developers will likely already be willing to abide by the restrictions of the downtown master plan, which dictates interesting architecture, I’m willing to be they’d be willing to abide by any mandate for a percentage of affordable housing. All it means is adding another floor or two to a building. It’s not as though any of the luxury units are being taken away.

  45. A significant problem with “affordable” housing is deciding who gets the benefit and how the beneficiaries can be held accountable later on.

    For instance, if person A meets some low wealth rule and is able to purchase a condo that would nominally sell for $200,000 for $100,000, what is to prevent that person from reselling later? I believe that some affordable units are sold with the proviso that the owner cannot resell for a given length of time … but there is still the potential for a huge windfall at some point when the low initial price segues into actual market value with owner B or C or D.

    It’s my understanding that Mountain Housing Opportunities and other such organizations include such provisions, but it can rapidly become unworkable in the free market.

    Try this one: Person A buys the affordable unit. Person B buys the market-value unit next door. Later, Person C buys A’s unit, and still later, Person B buys C’s unit, and knocks out a wall to form a mega-condo worth a million dollars. Who deserves to reap the benefit of the original “affordable unit.”

    Jonathan’s right: the main way that development rules can meaningfully affect affordability is in terms of quantity.

    Also, I’d note that artificially low fuel prices make country living much cheaper in the U.S. than in the rest of the developed world. We are skewing our development patterns by subsidizing oil. If we’d be honest and pay for our mideast wars with a gas tax the development pattern could emerge on a more rational basis.

  46. Asheville Dweller

    Won’t have to worry about Carbon footprints much longer since Global Warming has been debunked as fraud. Looks like Al Gore will have to get a real job.

  47. Peacewarrior

    The last thing we need is to be copying ANY part of New York City, Manhattan notwithstanding. NYers have moved here in droves the past decade. Why? Because mettlesome liberal government has made the city very expensive to live in. Very high taxes. Middle class people cannot buy a house, the American dream. Do-gooder projects not only haven’t made that place a better place to live, but has help make it even more unliveable that it has been lo these past 50 years or so. Rampant crime. An alienated populace who looks the other way when old ladies are beaten for their purses. grafitti everywhere. trash and grime everywhere. There is no “hell on earth”, but New York City comes awfully close.

    No thank you. Leave Asheville just as it is. Develop only very carefully and make sure any new building does not change the character our our dear city.

  48. travelah

    Cecil, are you anti-rural in your outlook and policies? What are the subsidies you are talking about? It sounds like you favor the inflationary escalation of fuel prices for grandiose liberal schemes. Should we be forced into higher and higher fuel costs to heat our homes and cook our food in order to serve a leftist-liberal mantra of “business is bad!”?

    It is a good thing sidewalks and potholes are more important on city council than leftist ideological musings …. oh I forgot , this is Asheville .. it is the other way around.

  49. travelah

    haunted, I have not seen that developers are on board with the restrictions and additional cost measures you propose. High rise construction is already far more expensive than residential neighborhood developments. Consider what the finance people are going to consider. Developer A can earn a 6% return on investment in downtown Asheville with its radical restrictions. Developer B can earn a 22% on the same funds out in the one of the counties. Who is the banker more comfortable with?
    Add two more floors? You saw what happened with that idea when the last two hotel projects came up before the city.

    Instead of trying to find ways to subsidize and perpetuate low income lifestyles, why not focus instead on those things that lift people out of poverty, education and opportunity?

  50. travelah

    cecil … here is an idea …. why don’t you propose a city wide tax on fuel …. like maybe a $1 a gallon. See how it goes over. You could be the pilot city of America

  51. travelah

    Oh heck, why stop at $1 … jack the city tax to $2. I mean, Asheville is often referred to as the Paris of the South, right? That would make you more like the Europeans an then you can pay a lot of tax for gas and be just as happy as they are!!

    There would then be a source of funds to pay for bike lanes.

  52. entopticon

    Leftist-liberal-Marxist-socialist-Hitlerian-gay-black-immigrant-Muslim-Godless-French-lesbian-business hating-alien-statists are trying to brainwash traveliar with their secret transmitter rays, but that traveliar, he’s too smart for that. That’s why he always uses a double layer on his tinfoil helmut.

  53. entopticon

    “Won’t have to worry about Carbon footprints much longer since Global Warming has been debunked as fraud.”

    This is just fricking idiotic beyond belief. Virtually every major climate scientist on the planet disagrees with your right wing extremist anti-scientific nonsense.

  54. Oh, travelah, you are a piece of work.

    Subsidies for gasoline include: war, health care necessitated due to particulate air pollution, parking spaces, police traffic patrols, low cost oil leases, automobile company bailouts and more. Yes, folks in other countries pay more for gas, but they pay less for the rest.

    Fuel taxes are principally federal and state matters and no small town like Asheville could possibly enforce a gas surtax.

    As a long-time rural resident here, I am hardly anti-rural — though I did discover that my energy consumption was reduced enormously when I moved into the city.

    The best way to encourage up-versus-out that I’ve heard about is Transferable Development Rights, with which farmers and wood-lot owners are permitted to sell their development rights without selling their property. The buyers can then use them to purchase up-zoning in targeted development districts. This is working in other states to preserve green space while affording the rural owners a cash value for such preservation, and directing higher density development to the transit corridors.

    Unfortunately, NC (so far) prohibits transfer of development rights between municipalities. (That is, we can’t create a system in which land preservation in Buncombe is traded for higher density in Asheville.) That means that the argument for “up-not-out” remains entirely theoretical. A developer (using travelah’s example) can earn 6 percent in one place plus 22 percent in another. It isn’t as if doing the one is in any sense a trade-off for doing the other under current policies.

  55. entopticon

    Apparently Peacewarrior has been in a protective time capsule since the mid 1980’s. Last I checked, Avl’s murder rate per capita was worse than NYC’s. What a deranged collection of xenophobic nonsense.

  56. travelah

    Subsidies for gasoline include: war, health care necessitated due to particulate air pollution, parking spaces, police traffic patrols, low cost oil leases, automobile company bailouts and more. Yes, folks in other countries pay more for gas, but they pay less for the rest.

    Cecil, speaking of a piece of work, this is pretty over the top isn’t? It would seem that everything in society (grasp the hyperbole here) is related to some sort of mythical oil subsidy.

    A developer (using travelah’s example) can earn 6 percent in one place plus 22 percent in another. It isn’t as if doing the one is in any sense a trade-off for doing the other under current policies.

    This is an example of why statist fundamentalists should never be trusted with anything regarding finance and general business. It will lead to failure as it has with their tinkering with the policies of risk. Basic finance lessons are needed here. Capital is limited and projects are financed based on the expected return of the project, most often measured with some form of ROI. A bank or investor is not looking at whether the project has a positive return or not. He is looking at the expected return compared to other known alternatives. As long as there are projects far more profitable than the low margin project, the higher margin projects always win out (except among the idiot investors). That means that after the investor funds the 22% project, he is not going to turn to the 7% project out of charitable intentions.

    Perhaps you need to sit down with the enemy and learn a little more about these matters before you start throwing votes around making matters worse than they are now.

  57. travelah

    Fuel taxes are principally federal and state matters and no small town like Asheville could possibly enforce a gas surtax.

    Cecil, you need to research these matters more. There are nine states that allow counties and cities to tax fuels. Now there …. you have new spark to fire up that statist imagination!

  58. travelah

    Now, if no small town could possibly enforce a fuel tax at the pumps in their community, how in the world can they possibly enforce any other taxing authority in their jurisdictions? What prevents a city or county from enforcing a potential fuels tax on sales in their jurisdictions?

  59. entopticon

    traveliar loves the term “statist fundamentalism,” which is downright hilarious considering that he clearly doesn’t understand the definition of either statism or fundamentalism.

    Oil subsidies are mythical? Apparently in traveliar’s fantastical parallel universe, common knowledge and incontrovertible facts are “mythical.”

    If anything, the collusion between the oil industry and the government is in fact a form of statism, as with the government’s keeping fuel prices artificially low through subsidization.

    traveliar, a fundamentalist evangelical, can’t seem to grasp the irrefutable fact that the term “fundamentalism” was coined by and about evangelical Christian conservatives in reference to their belief in the infallibility of biblical scripture. When the term is used as a metaphorical comparison to other people or groups, it refers to a fundamental belief in the infallibility of whatever is being advocated.

    By definition, a fundamentalist statist is someone that believes in the infallibility of statism. Mussolini was a statist, Cecil Bothwell is not. It is laughably pathetic for traveliar to keep flinging such ridiculous jargon around, when he clearly has no understanding of the meanings of the terms that he is using whatsoever. He is merely parroting the mindless, ignorant rhetoric of extreme right windbags such as Rush Limbaugh and Glenn Beck, who never passed a college course in their lives. There are few things more entertaining then when traveliar tries to sound intelligent.

  60. Asheville Dweller

    Sorry not right wing just a someone that lives in the real world. I dont believe in R’s and D’s, I don’t follow either blindly, I dare to ask questions, not just follow along with the heard. Say it all you want when this comes crumbling down and Mr Gore is pointed out as a fraud and accused of lying to the world he will lose that Peace Prize and be just another nobody.

    Just because there is PROOF, that Global Warming was fabricated. something that Global Warming can’t back up with Proof doesnt make it happen. Its a scam, its a Ponzi scheme to sucker people out of their money for the “Sky is falling”. Funny now its on the other foot.

    http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/georgemonbiot/2009/nov/25/monbiot-climate-leak-crisis-response

    http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/news/jamesdelingpole/100018003/climategate-five-aussie-mps-lead-the-way-by-resigning-in-disgust-over-carbon-tax/

  61. Last I checked the Guardian and the Telegraph were not peer-reviewed scientific journals.

    But, who knows? There are undoubtedly Web sites that have proof the earth is flat, and someday someone may sail off the edge and prove them right!

  62. entopticon

    Now that is truly hilarious Asheville Dweller. Two opinion pieces, one by right-wing extremist James Delingpole from the Telegraph, and another by a guy who believes that the science behind climate change is in fact “unimpeachable,” offered as proof that climate change isn’t real. The Telegraph piece most certainly did not prove that climate change is a hoax. The Guardian piece, which criticized questionable practices at the University of East Aglia iin Australia, was absolutely not trying to imply that climate change is a hoax. Quite the opposite. It is hard to imagine you would have included that piece to support your argument if you had actually read it, because it in no way supports your conclusion.

    And you say you are someone who lives in “the real world”? A “real world” that goes against virtually every major climate scientist on the planet. A “real world” that substitutes the opinions of weathermen and right-wing extremist crackpots for the overwhelming, unimpeachable mountain of evidence from the world’s foremost climate scientists. Now that is rich.

    The notion that every major climate scientist on the planet is involved in a giant conspiracy to perpetrate a massive Ponzi scheme to sucker people out of their money, is so beyond asinine that words cannot possibly convey the truly astonishing idiocy of such a claim.

  63. Phillip Gibson

    Yes, the Ds, the Rs and the Is (as I am) have been suckered into believing that 1) global climate change exists, and 2) that it is exacerbated by human actions. We should pray for them all… the large numbered lot that they are.

    http://www.cnn.com/2007/POLITICS/09/28/bush.climate/index.html#cnnSTCVideo
    George W. Bush called on “all the world’s largest producers of greenhouse gas emissions, including developed and developing nations,” to come together and “set a long-term goal for reducing” greenhouse emissions. “By setting this goal, we acknowledge there is a problem, and by setting this goal, we commit ourselves to doing something about it,” he said.

    …the first President Bush pledged to “fight the greenhouse effect with the White House effect.” “I was proud to work with his father on the Clean Air Act amendments in 1990,” says Jeffords. http://www.alternet.org/story/18283/

    McCain vows to fight global warming
    http://www.boston.com/news/politics/politicalintelligence/2008/01/mccain_vows_to.html

  64. travelah

    Dweller, the true believers of statist inclinations are not going to pay attention to the facts. The Wall Street Journal weighed in with an opinion piece by Kimberley Strassel on this matter.

    http://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2009/11/27/cap_and_trade_is_dead__99322.html

    What Cecil is intentionally overlooking here is the fact that the journals are being manipulated to reflect the opinions of only those who agree with the alarmists (if the released email and document evidence is correct). With that in mind, dismissing criticism as invalid if not supported by the alarmists themselves is a specious argument.

  65. entopticon

    Bwaaaaaaahahahahahaha! Specious argument? That is a riot. It is downright hilarious to see the most extreme wingnuts of the far right, like Rupert Murdoch’s own Kimberly Strassel and the theocratic lunatic Jim Inhofe, strain to convolute the emails from E Aglia University into some kind of dismissal of the overwhelming consensus of every major climate scientist on the planet. The cartoonishness of the extreme right is without limits.

    The people that travelah refers to as “the alarmists” are virtually all the leading climate scientists on the planet. They are the ones with relevant Ph.D’s in front of their names. Fundamentalist nutbags like Jim Inhofe, with no relevant scientific training whatsoever, have absolutely no business pretending that they know more than the overwhelming consensus of leading scientists. Inhofe is such a raving lunatic that he even claimed that CO2 is not a pollutant. His rationalization that global warming can’t be real because God promised not to flood the Earth again is beyond insane. In the battle between theocratic climate change deniers and virtually every leading climate scientist on the planet, the scientists win.

  66. Mysterylogger

    Global Warming is still a Giant Joke, and the joke is on the brainless that follow it. Don’t worry it will pass along with the “Ice Age” craze of the 70’s and 80’s.

    Those Opinion pieces have facts where the myth of Global warming does now.

  67. travelah

    Well, climate change is a natural, expected event and for over two decades we saw what appeared to be a correlation between warming temperatures and CO2. Unfortunately, the correlation between the two ceased several years ago and has not returned. For the past several years we have had a cooling trend while CO2 has increased. Hopefully, with a large scale fraud being exposed with the recently released email and documentation detailing how pervasive the fraud has been among a tight knit and overly influential group, more and more people will recognize how they have been had by statist fundamentalists and their agenda.
    The following is an interesting article discussing an engineer’s multi-year examination of the alleged numbers presented by the alarmist community.

    http://pajamasmedia.com/blog/climategate-the-travails-of-a-global-warming-hobbyist/

    Of course, this is off topic.

  68. entopticon

    Mysterylogger, I have to say, it is pretty fricking hilarious to see you calling every leading climate scientist on the planet “brainless” as if you and a handful of Ayn Rand reading mouth-breathers knew better than them. I have news for you: the leading climate scientists on the planet aren’t the brainless ones. You are.

    They have based the unimpeachable case for global warming on a mountain of scientific evidence. Your denial is based on the ignorant rambling of people who have no business pretending that they know anything about climate science whatsoever. The comparison to the ice age theory from the 1980’s is pure ignorance. No legitimate climate scientist would seriously question the existence of global warming at this point, because the evidence is beyond question. The only debate left is about the details.

  69. entopticon

    Well traveliar, you statist fundamentalist you, it is so nice to see that you know more than all of the leading climate scientists on the planet combined. You must be some kind of genius superhero; a mildly mannered right-wing extremist wackjob by day, and the world’s leading climate scientist by night. How brilliant.

    In reality, there are few things more completely imbecilic than the absolutely asinine anti global-warming rhetoric of the extreme right. I have sat a table with some of the world’s leaning climate scientists from NASA, who were ready to pull their hair out because they were so completely exasperated over the fact that there are still people pushing the extreme right’s ludicrous rhetoric, which has no basis in serious science whatsoever.

    The reason that traveliar the statist fundamentalist and others from the extreme right are always citing weathermen, tv personalities, crackpot engineers, and right-wing extremist journalists on the subject of climate change, is because no serious climate scientist (the people who actually know what they are talking about) would ever be caught dead spouting that ridiculous, laughably ignorant tripe.

    The climate scientists that I have spoken with are desperate to educate the public on the actual science, and put an end to the shameful, ignorant, and completely fabricated disinformation campaign from the far right. Fortunately, there are even some conservative evangelicals who are finally waking up to the fact that there is nothing ethical or Christian about the far right’s disgraceful disinformation at the expense of the human race.

    Maybe someday you too will wake up to that, traveliar the statist fundamentalist.

  70. travelah

    all of the leading climate scientists on the planet combined.

    That is an often repeated claim by the alarmists but the truth of the mter it isn’t even close to reality. A relatively small number of “scientists” control the peer review process and the evidence coming to light is revealing just how corrupt that process is.

    entopticon’s rude and obnoxious manner is an all too common reaction the alarmists have when their social designs come to light.

  71. entopticon

    Yet more lies from traveliar the fundamentalist statist. How many of the world’s leading climate scientists have you discussed the issue with at your bible study meetings traveliar? As usual, you are just parroting the ignorant rhetoric of right wing extremists with no education on the subject whatsoever.

    What a laughable understanding you have of the peer review process. That relatively small number of scientists is virtually all the leading climate scientists on the planet. That’s not an opinion, it’s a fact.

    I make no bones about the fact that I am obnoxious to people who spread disgraceful disinformation, such as you. At least I am not a fundamentalist troglodyte, and unlike you, at least I’m not a liar. Calling all of the world’s leading climate scientists “alarmists” is beyond imbecilic; it is truly disgraceful.

  72. travelah

    I’m throwing another smokey log on the fire just in honor of entopticon. I don’t really need it but it feels good and there really isn’t anything an alarmist can do about it.

  73. travelah

    More and more leading scientists are beginning to distance themselves from the political agendas of the alarmists. Claude Allegre, Ph.D., Habibullo Abdussamatov, Ph.D., Freeman Dyson, Ph.D., Eigil Friis-Christensen, Ph.D. and Richard Lindzen, Ph.D. among many others have taken steps to reposition themselves in this political and media circus. These alone represent some of the brightest scientific minds in leading institutions around the world.
    What is actually beginning to happen with greater frequency is that people in positions of influence and scientific inquiry are questioning the mantra of a consensus of blaming anthropogenic global warming linked to CO2 for average temperature increases (increases that actually stopped several years ago and began declining).

    Those who regard themselves with even a modicum of intellectual integrity are stepping away from the shrill voices of the alarmists and are beginning to realize that there are far too many unanswered questions and conflicted evidences. There is too much evidence opposed to the idea that global climate change is the primary result of anthropogenic causes. Hopefully, those who pride themselves with having a healthy intellectual curiosity will begin to examine the issues more closely and not allow themselves to be swallowed up ignorant rhetoric.

  74. entopticon

    What a surprisingly apt, accidental double entendre from traveliar. The disgraceful, ignorant, and frankly moronic rhetoric of climate change deniers is indeed nothing more than a smokescreen.

    Some of the climate scientists that I have heard express exasperated rage over the anti-scientific idiocy of global warming deniers such as travelah are actually fiscally conservative Republicans. In the end, it is not an issue of conservative verses liberal, it is a matter of informed, irrefutable science verses misinformed, ignorant idiocy.

    It is not just some magical coincidence that all of the world’s leading climate scientists agree that the evidence for climate change is absolutely unimpeachable. And it is not just a coincidence that the deniers are uneducated (on climate science) theocratic wingnuts such as traveliar.

    The most powerful global corporations in the history of the world have spent outlandish fortunes trying to debunk climate change, only to fail miserably when confronted with the mountain of incontrovertible evidence. Instead they have to rely on the immoral, ignorant delusions of gullible, easily manipulated right wing extremists such as traveliar.

  75. entopticon

    Claude Allegre is a far right-wing, politically motivated geologist, and his crackpot theories are not taken remotely seriously by climate scientists.

    Habibullo Abdussamatov is a Russian astrophysicist, whose theory about solar radiation being the cause of global warming is also not taken seriously by climate scientists.

    Freeman Dyson, writes some entertaining books and he is an interesting old man, but as with the others, his views on climate science are completely irrelevant. He is a theoretical physicist, not a climate scientist.

    Eigil Friis-Christensen is a geophysicist specializing in space physics with a competing theory on galactic cosmic rays, which is not taken seriously by climate scientists.

    Richard Lindzen is the first relevant scientist on traveliar’s list. He has made an enormous fortune from the oil industry for his views, and he is literally outnumbered by thousands to one. He is not a complete climate change skeptic, but he thinks the evidence is weak. He also thinks that the evidence connecting cigarettes and lung cancer is weak.

    And that’s traveliar’s smokescreen for you. On my side, is the World Meteorological Organization and the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (made up of 2,500 scientists) which acre comprised of virtually all of the world’s leading climate scientists. Simply put, traveliar’s right-wing extremist disinformation is a pathetic, ignorant joke.

  76. travelah

    ALL opposing viewpoints are irrelevant to the alarmists.
    Claude Allegre is one of the first scientists to have jumped on board the AGW train. Having reviewed the data far more carefully than entopticon, his conclusion now is that the causes of climate change are unknown. He is also a member of the US National Academy of Science and rather than being a right wing crackpot (ALL people who are not radical in entopticons mind are right wing extremist nut cases)he is one of the leading scientists that are NOT on board this political perversion of science.
    The idea that Habibullo Abdussamatov is not taken seriously in the science community might have some validity were it not for being a complete fabrication. He runs the International Space Station’s Astrometria Project. He is on record as stating that anthropogenic causes of climate change have been based on misrepresentation of the correlations between temperature changes and CO2.
    Freeman Dyson, a Princeton physicist and highly respected in the field is an expert on modeling, very experienced with data interpretation and is not dismissed as an “interesting old man”. His voice carries significant weight with regard to how the alarmists polluted their models with extrapolated estimates and unfounded calculation factors. There are few people on earth more qualified to judge scientific modeling than he.
    Eigil Friis-Christensen is a well respected Dane whose work in the study of the sun and molecular energy stands in contradiction to the politically motivated work of teh alarmists. To suggest his work is not scientifically respected is rather strange.
    Richard Lindzen is a professor at MIT in the field of meteorology and is a participating member of the National Research Council Board on Atmospheric Sciences and Climate. He has studied the models and like many others finds them sophomoric and intentionally misleading.
    Each of the men mentioned above (and they represent only a small sampling of the scientific and professional opinion opposed to the alarmists) have questioned the integrity of the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). Christenson for example approached the IPCC to request they consider the effect that solar energy has on climate change on Earth. Because the IPCC mission was to support the specious claim of anthropogenic causes and only those causes, they refused to consider anything else as a principle cause.

    Those who regard themselves as intellectually honest need to incorporate far more into their viewpoint than the politically motivated alarmism of the United Nations, the personal greed of Al Gore and the repugnant bile of fundamental statists whose motivations are purely self serving and opposed to the interests of our country.

  77. entopticon

    traveliar, it is amazing what a glutton for punishment you are. No matter how badly your flimsy arguments are destroyed, you just keep coming back for more. Apparently you have serious reading comprehension issues. Only one of the people that you listed is a relevant climate scientist, and he has made huge sums from the oil industry for casting doubt. They literally pay him thousands of dollars a day for his unsubstantiated rhetoric. And as I showed, he is literally outnumbered by a magnitude of thousands to one.

    I didn’t say Abdussamatov was not taken seriously in the science world. I said his ideas on climate science aren’t and that’s a fact. He should stick to the space station.

    Unlike me, I seriously doubt that you have ever read a Freeman Dyson book in your life, or spent any time with faculty from the Institute for Advanced Study. Your ham-fisted attempt to pretend that you know what you are talking about really is amusing. He is a smart old man, but he has no credentials in climate science whatsoever. It is funny as hell that you would cite him though, because he disagrees with you on virtually everything.

    The IPCC, which consists of the world’s leading climate scientists, doesn’t take Christenson’s solar theory seriously because it is not serious climate science.

    Does it really completely elude you just how pathetic it is that you can only cite one legitimate climate scientist, and he has taken absurd amounts of money for his dissent, which is actually not nearly as strong as you would imagine, yet I can cite 2,500 of the world’s leading climate scientists, or are you really that intellectually dishonest. Either way, dumb or dishonest, it really is pretty pathetic.

  78. travelah

    Also of note, the World Meteorological Organization and the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change are essentially the same thing. The latter is a program of the former. Also, the membership consists predominantly of politicians and not scientists, contrary to the claims of those who are promoting the United Nations program. In a nutshell, entopitcon is saying “well, I have the UN on my side”. Heck, so did the Somalies.

  79. entopticon

    Please traveliar, stop talking out your ass for once. The IPCC is literally a who’s who of climate science. Your asinine claims are complete garbage.

  80. entopticon

    I guess it’s my fault for trying to point out the irrefutable fact that there is overwhelming consensus among the world’s leading climate scientists to a fundamentalist dingbat that doesn’t even believe in evolution.

  81. travelah

    I would be interested to know what the alarmists tout as legitimate credentials for being a scientist in the field of “climate”. World renowned physicists with expertise in computer modeling procedures and processes don’t count according to the alarmists. The truth is the only thing that is acceptable among the alarmists and the body of politicians that make up the majority of their numbers is agreement with their social and political agenda.
    In the words of that great mentor of our Statist Fundamentalist Leader, Oba Mao, Jeremiah Wright told us the “chickens are coming home to roost, America”.

  82. travelah

    Another note regarding the IPCC. Not only is it predominantly a political body, but it does absolutely no research, monitors no data and has no direct hand in any climate research. It is essentially a publication arm with a political agenda. In other words, kids, the nannies at the UN have pulled a lot of green wool over your eyes.

  83. travelah

    The following site provided by two very well qualified “climate scientists” has addressed several of the inherent errors of the various IPCC reports that statist fundamentalists have used to fuel the ongoing hysteria.

    http://www.warwickhughes.com/blog/?page_id=2

    Of course the alarmists begin to froth at the mouth when these evidences are presented but that is part of the game they play. Demomize the opposition and convince you to look the other way.

  84. entopticon

    The nonsense that you substitute for evidence is absolutely unconscionable. The IPCC consists of thousands of the world’s leading climate scientists, who have collectively amassed a veritable mountain of unimpeachable evidence.

    It really is kind of funny that I am arguing about this with a guy who thinks that dinosaurs are a conspiracy too.

    Funny too, how when I mentioned that Anthony Freeman often works directly with members of the Institute for Advanced Study at Princeton, that counts for nothing, but all of a sudden when travelah thinks it serves him, even though Dyson is no climate scientist, it becomes a big deal. Too funny. The hypocrisy never ends.

  85. travelah

    I am assuming that most “progressives” took science instruction in their grade school educations and that most paid enough attention to learn that CO2 is basically plant food and part of our natural respiratory process. The IPCC and other political activist groups have gone to such extremes that CO2 is now declared to be pollution. That is a pretty absurd position even for Statists. What is the real story?

    “CO2 is not a pollutant. In simple terms, CO2 is plant food. The green world we see around us would disappear if not for atmospheric CO2. These plants largely evolved at a time when the atmospheric CO2 concentration was many times what it is today. Indeed, numerous studies indicate the present biosphere is being invigorated by the human-induced rise of CO2. In and of itself, therefore, the increasing concentration of CO2 does not pose a toxic risk to the planet.” – John R. Christy, Ph.D. Professor of Atmospheric Sciences, University of Alabama

    “Carbon dioxide is not a pollutant but a naturally occurring, beneficial trace gas in the atmosphere. For the past few million years, the Earth has existed in a state of relative carbon dioxide starvation compared with earlier periods. There is no empirical evidence that levels double or even triple those of today will be harmful, climatically or otherwise. As a vital element in plant photosynthesis, carbon dioxide is the basis of the planetary food chain – literally the staff of life. Its increase in the atmosphere leads mainly to the greening of the planet. To label carbon dioxide a “pollutant” is an abuse of language, logic and science.” – Robert M. Carter, Ph.D. Professor of Environmental and Earth Sciences, James Cook University

    “To suddenly label CO2 as a “pollutant” is a disservice to a gas that has played an enormous role in the development and sustainability of all life on this wonderful Earth. Mother Earth has clearly ruled that CO2 is not a pollutant.” – Robert C. Balling Jr., Ph.D. Professor of Climatology, Arizona State University

    OK, kids, repeat after teacher … “CO2 is Gooooood, not baaaaad”.

  86. travelah

    entopticon, this isn’t about your heretic Freeman or big Dinos or whether your screen door stays shut or not.
    Asserting your unfounded claims of IPCC research doesn’t substantiate anything you state. It remains the IPCC doesn’t do research. How could it? It is comprised mostly of politicians. Now, I realize the facts are uncomfortable for you but seriously, why would an absolute nobody in Candler stake so much drool over running to the rescue of a group of people he doesn’t know, doesn’t have any real knowledge of and stands to pay out the nose if the idiots have their way? … kooky … thats all it can be … kookiness.

  87. travelah

    a veritable mountain of unimpeachable evidence.

    … like the central selling point of their falsified data, the Hockey Stick Curve? I can impeach it with a single phrase … urban heat sink.

    You have no credibility. Write a letter about the anthropomorhic implications of Candlerese Pigmies and their integration into the sub consciouness of Patton Avenue. Somebody somewhere in that crazy town will agree with you.

  88. entopticon

    And the award for the most disgracefully racist quip of the day goes to…… traveliar, for his shameless effort to tie Reverend Wright to a global warming conspiracy. Congratulations traveliar, you have won a new merit badge to pin to your hooded robe.

  89. travelah

    Now, just out of curiosity, what is racist about this statement?

    In the words of that great mentor of our Statist Fundamentalist Leader, Oba Mao, Jeremiah Wright told us the “chickens are coming home to roost, America”.

  90. travelah

    Well, I got an answer to one of my inquiries, as to what constitutes a “climate scientist”

    According to the IPCC itself, “…the fields of Earth system science, meteorology, ecology, economics, engineering, the social sciences and many more are represented…”.

    It looks like, well, just about anybody can be a climate scientist except of course those many who disagree with the IPCC methods and motivations.

  91. entopticon

    “Now, just out of curiosity, what is racist about this statement?”

    If you seriously have to ask, you are not going to understand.

  92. travelah

    I am guessing that nobody could understand except the fundie who made the accusation of racism.

    You have played all your cards, entopticon … go to the back of the trailer and soak your blistered behind …. I am off to enjoy downtown Charleston for the afternoon.

  93. entopticon

    Oh golly traveliar, I see the light. The overwhelming consensus of the scientific community is wrong, and a fundamentalist creationist with an addiction to spamming us with factoids from google is right. Gee, how could virtually all of the leading climate scientists have been so wrong? Good thing we have you around to clear things up.

    If only you had been there when I sat down with some of NASA’s head climate scientists to discuss ways to educate the public on global warming.You could have explained to them that all of their degrees and research were just a waste of time. They really would have benefitted from your theory that CO2 is just great!

    You need to set them straight, because you are just so much smurter than those scientisty types. And while you are at it, you could set the science world straight about that silly ol’ evolution stuff.

    And I will definitely have to pass your valuable insights along to my close friend who is representing many of the world’s leading climate scientists for 350 in Copenhagen.

    I mean, so what if there are a thousand leading climate scientists that believe that the evidence is beyond doubt for every one dissenter. If a brave fighter for truth like you had to get hung up on things like reality, you wouldn’t even believe that a 2000 year old magician used to make loaves of bread magically appear.

    You are beyond a joke.

  94. entopticon

    While we both know that you spend most of your free time fantasizing about blistering men’s behind’s your trailer remarks are always a bit offensive. I live in a house. Like it or not, most of the people living in trailers are actually your compadres; evangelicals, which is the poorest religious demographic in America.

  95. entopticon

    Here is a concise explanation of why the right-wing extremist climate deniers’ solar activity explanation is absolute hogwash, as well as about 20 studies confirming that those specious claims have no merit:
    http://www.skepticalscience.com/solar-activity-sunspots-global-warming.htm

    And here is the painful reality that right-wing extremist climate change deniers like traveliar can’t handle: 97.5% of actively publishing climate scientists believe in man made global warming.

    According to a comprehensive study of the issue:

    “It seems that the debate on the authenticity of global warming and the role played by human activity is largely nonexistent among those who understand the nuances and scientific basis of long-term climate processes. The challenge, rather, appears to be how to effectively communicate this fact to policy makers and to a public that continues to mistakenly perceive debate among scientists.”

    Here are some organizations that officially endorse the inarguable fact that there is overwhelming consensus that most of the global warming effect can be attributed to human activities:

    National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration
    Environmental Protection Agency
    NASA’s Goddard Institute of Space Studies
    American Geophysical Union
    American Institute of Physics
    National Center for Atmospheric Research
    American Meteorological Society
    The Royal Society of the UK
    Canadian Meteorological and Oceanographic Society
    American Association for the Advancement of Science

    You can side with the 97.5%, which includes virtually all of the world’s leading climate scientists, or you can side with fundamentalist windbags like traveliar who also think that dinosaurs and evolution are a liberal conspiracy.

  96. travelah

    And here is the painful reality that right-wing extremist climate change deniers like traveliar can’t handle: 97.5% of actively publishing climate scientists believe in man made global warming.

    The alarmists secret in all of this is that it is only a relatively small group of researchers that control peer reviewed publishing, control the vouching for IPCC recommendations and have controlled the raw data used to fuel alarmist hype. A large block of the data has mysteriously been lost and the very same group that is so instrumental in the above is now being exposed as a corrupt and conspiring group of career and politically motivated criminals. In other words, the alarmists have been conducting a campaign of lies and deceit intended to preserve their selfish, vested careers. It is not a large group. It is a rather small group that is making very big news now. They have been busted.

  97. entopticon

    Now that is absolutely hilarious traveliar…. You do love your liberal conspiracies. An independent study found that 97.5% of all actively publishing climate scientists on the planet believe that global warming is man made, and your argument is that it is actually a vast international conspiracy from all the peer reviewed scientific journals on the planet. And you thought I was the “kooky” one. You are completely flipping insane.

    The above list of organizations, which is a veritable whose who of climate science, all officially endorse the fact that the evidence for global warming is unimpeachable, but you think that they are all just in on the conspiracy. And you think I am the “kooky” one. You seriously need to have your head examined.

    Amazingly, your actual argument is that I am “kooky” for trusting the astonishingly overwhelming consensus, 97.5%, of the foremost climate scientists, and you are the non-kooky one for believing that the 2.5% aren’t statistical outliers, they are the victims of a vast international conspiracy perpetrated by the world’s leading climate scientists. It really doesn’t get any funnier than that.

    Ironically, it is the miniscule minority that has made a small fortune from big energy and other heavily polluting global corporations, for their role in creating a smokescreen for the ignorant, shameless tools of the far right such as traveliar. The truly amazing thing is that such an overwhelming majority of the scientists have rejected the fortunes offered to them by those corporations because the truth and safety of the planet is ultimately more important to them.

  98. entopticon

    Okay, now brace yourself traveliar, I hate to burst your bubble, but guess what……

    We know that you get your science from a combination of the bible and the Flintstones, but the reality is that dinosaurs aren’t a liberal conspiracy either. And unlike in the Flintstones, they didn’t exist at the same time as people. And cave men didn’t drive cars with stone wheels. Despite what you think, the earth is not six thousand years old.

    Those pesky scientists haven’t been conspiring to trick us into believing that the Earth is actually 4.5 billion years old. It really is. And all of the scientists in the world aren’t part of a secret plot to deny evolution either. Evolution is real too. Santa Clause on the other hand, is not real. Sorry to break the news.

  99. entopticon

    You addressed the fact that you get your science from a ridiculous medley of Pajamas Media, the Flintstones, and the bible? I don’t think so. Your argument that a vast international liberal conspiracy has complete control over peer reviewed scientific journals, and that explains why 97.5% of the world’s leading climate scientists are in agreement, is idiotic to the point of lunacy.

    Gay dinosaurs and Reverend Wright are out to get you traveliar. It’s all a giant, international liberal conspiracy, just as you claim. All those scientists keep trying to trick you with their carbon dating and genetic mapping, but you know better. Evolution is a communist plot. Your idol Sarah Palin knows that science is just a vast liberal conspiracy too. She even said that they found human footprints inside of dinosaur footprints, proving that dinosaurs were around at the same time as people, and she is way smurter than any dumb ol’ scientisty type. Careful not to drive off the edge of the Earth on your way to bible study today.

  100. entopticon

    Words cannot describe how truly imbecilic that statement is. I proved that an absolutely overwhelming 97.5% of the world’s foremost climate scientists agree with me. I proved that virtually all of the foremost climate study organizations in the world officially endorse my argument. And I proved that numerous studies have debunked the claims that you made. For you to turn around and say that I have no sustainable argument is beyond idiocy. You have no sustainable brain.

    You truly are the Black Night, traveliar, writhing on the ground with no limbs, declaring victory. I completely obliterated your ridiculous claims with the weight of the overwhelming consensus of the scientific world, yet you are still acting like your argument isn’t the pathetic joke that I have fully exposed it to be.

    I guess I shouldn’t be too surprised that a fundamentalist wackjob who thinks that dinosaurs and evolution are liberal conspiracies has such a laughably pathetic understanding of the science of climate change.

    Here you are as the Black Night in the Holy Grail. Pay attention when Arthur says, “Look you stupid bastard, you have got no arms left!”
    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dhRUe-gz690

  101. Here you are as the Black Night in the Holy Grail. Pay attention when Arthur says, “Look you stupid bastard, you have got no arms left!”

    IS NOT! IT’S ONLY A FLESH WOUND!

  102. travelah

    Apparently you cannot grasp that is it a relatively small group of people that control the peer review, the recommendations to the IPCC and control the various databases that have been manipulated for self-serving ends.

    As I stated,you have no sustainable argument, entopticon. That is very clear.

  103. travelah

    Here is more incredible news about just how pervasively corrupt the whole anthropogenic global warming movement is. The small group of people who have controlled all the information flow in constructing this massive fraud have now admitted to having destroyed raw data used to develop their faulty models keeping only that data that supported their conclusions.

    http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/environment/article6936328.ece

    There are not many thousands of people who have ecxamined data and come to conclusions regaridng this matter. ALL the support for this fraud came from the information generated by these frauds.

    Nobody who has children to raise and care , mouths to feed and families to look after, even those students who ever hope to find a decent job in our economy should continue to fall for these idiots and their complete falsehoods. The statist fundies intent is to tax your future out of existence in the name of this false and criminally corrupt “science”. Fools have been given Nobel prizes for this massive fraud. I am guessing there are some of you who are starting to feel like you have been had and the truth is you have. It’s never too late to wake up and turn around.

  104. travelah

    Let’s expose another statist fundie lie, that being that only climate scientists (whatever that might be) are qualified to speak on these matters. Engineers are dismissed, world renowned physisists are ignored and slandered, meteorologists opposed to anthropogenic causes are given the finger etc. What is the reality of the matter? Rajendra Kumar Pachauri is the head of the IPCC, the top dog in this fraud perpetrated by the slimeball liars at East Anglia. He, along with Al Gore (a serious profiteer based on shrill noise science) received a Nobel Prize for this slops. Is Pachauri a climate scientist? Does he have the secret gnostic understandings that only those few souls in East Anglia seem to be allowed to possess? Absolutely not. His entire educational background is in Engineering and Economics (graduating from NC State). He has absolutely no background in “Climate Science”. He has no environmental certifications, no meteorological experience, absolutely nada …. same goes for that frothing Al Gore, nothing at all.

    It is a complete ruse to dismiss engineers and other scientists come legitimate consideration in these matters when the very head of the UN IPCC is a durn mechanical engineer!

    Wake up kids before you can’t even afford a stocking cap. You have been lied to and it’s all coming to light.

  105. travelah

    How corrupt is the IPCC, Pachauri and Phil Jones of the CRU at East Anglia?

    From: Phil Jones

    To: mann@xxxxxxxxx.xxx
    Subject: Fwd: CCNet: PRESSURE GROWING ON CONTROVERSIAL RESEARCHER TO DISCLOSE SECRET DATA
    Date: Mon Feb 21 16:28:32 2005
    Cc: “raymond s. bradley” , “Malcolm Hughes”

    Mike, Ray and Malcolm,
    The skeptics seem to be building up a head of steam here ! Maybe we can use
    this to our advantage to get the series updated !
    Odd idea to update the proxies with satellite estimates of the lower troposphere
    rather than surface data !. Odder still that they don’t realise that Moberg et al used the
    Jones and Moberg updated series !
    Francis Zwiers is till onside. He said that PC1s produce hockey sticks. He stressed
    that the late 20th century is the warmest of the millennium, but Regaldo didn’t bother
    with that. Also ignored Francis’ comment about all the other series looking similar
    to MBH.
    The IPCC comes in for a lot of stick.
    Leave it to you to delete as appropriate !

    Cheers
    Phil
    PS I’m getting hassled by a couple of people to release the CRU station temperature data.
    Don’t any of you three tell anybody that the UK has a Freedom of Information Act !

    http://www.climate-gate.org/email.php?eid=498&keyword=Pachauri

    What a smelly stinky lying mess the statist fundies have made …. this stuff doesn’t even scratch the surface.

  106. travelah

    Before some nanny minded spelling cop wets his britches, physisists should have a “c” in there.

  107. entopticon

    I have discovered the true identity of traveliar…. he is actually Baghdad Bob, the Iraqi information officer that kept announcing that they had defeated the Americans as the city quickly fell. Funny, funny stuff.

    Thanks for the belly laugh traveliar, you statist fundamentalist. Unlike me, you have never published in a scientific journal in your life. Unlike me, you have never refereed articles for a scientific journal. Unlike me, you haven’t reviewed countless scientific papers. Unlike me, you haven’t ever consulted climate scientists on the issue of communicating global warming data to the general public. And unlike me, you think evolution and dinosaurs are liberal conspiracies too.

    In actuality, you have no relevant experience whatsoever. You are just a fundamentalist windbag, and you have absolutely no business pretending to have a clue about the peer review process behind scientific journals.

    Your smokescreen after smokescreen just gets funnier and funnier. No matter how you slice it, 97.5% of the world’s leading climate scientists disagree with you. No serious climate scientist thinks that the U of E Aglia thing in any way undoes the unimpeachable mountain of evidence. It is just a smokescreen.

    Dinosaurs are real. Evolution is real. Global warming is real. You have no business pretending to know something about science. Your paranoid delusions about massive international liberal conspiracies are pure idiocy. The consensus of 97.5% of the world’s leading climate scientists speaks for itself. Your imbecilic right wing extremist disinformation is nothing but a joke, as are you.

  108. travelah

    It looks like I have every business engaging this issue as I have left you incapable of responding with anything except droolings about barney dino, the theory of common descent and Baghdad yet not a word to rebut anything on topic. … all bluster, no substance.

  109. entopticon

    You seem to be under the impression that the crap that you cut and pasted from some idiotic right-wing extremist climate denier’s site was in some way pertinent to the issue. It is not.

    My oh my, what a conundrum… who to trust….. A right-wing extremist fundamentalist wackjob who thinks that dinosaurs evolution, and climate change are a massive international conspiracy to create higher taxes…. or the astonishingly overwhelming consensus of 97.5% of the world’s leading climate scientists, and virtually every major climate change research organization in existence?

    Golly, it’s just so hard to decide between the two. People who think that the Earth is really 6,000 years old and that science is a massive liberal conspiracy are just such great sources of scientific info. Why on Earth would anyone in their right mind trust the overwhelming consensus of virtually all of the world’s leading climate scientists, when they could trust traveliar the right-wing extremist fundamentalist wackjob instead?

    BWAAAAAAAAHAHAHAHAHA!!!

  110. travelah

    still no rebuttal … and your Ren and Stimpy routine continues ….. This is absolutely fascinating … classic entopticon .. it doesn’t get any better.

  111. entopticon

    What exactly is it that I am supposed to be rebutting? As I already showed above, there is no serious debate about global warming being real and caused by man. I showed you that every major climate science organization on the planet agrees that it is an incontrovertible fact. I showed you that 97.5% of the leading climate scientists on the planet believe the evidence is incontrovertible. Yet you still want to debate it as if there is something to argue?

    Right-wing extremist fundamentalists and science just go so well together. Do you really think that anyone in their right mind would actually take a right wing extremist fundamentalist seriously on scientific issues? You people blew your credibility a long time ago. You are the laughing stocks of the planet. You have yet to explain why I should take anything that you say seriously. I mentioned that I have discussed the issue personally with some of NASA’s leading climate scientists. Explain to me why exactly I should take you, a fundamentalist windbag that thinks evolution and dinosaurs are all part of a liberal conspiracy (in other words you are completely insane and know absolutely nothing about science) seriously?

    I would have to be even more insane than you to actually privilege your imbecilic nonsense over the overwhelming consensus of virtually every leading expert on the planet.

    You really are completely delusional. The president is not part of a secret Marxist, Islamic conspiracy, and he was not born in Kenya. Evolution is not a conspiracy. The Earth is not 6,000 years old. It is 4.5 billion years old, and that is not a liberal conspiracy. Dinosaurs are real, and they didn’t exist alongside man, and that is not a conspiracy. There are no death panels. Nancy Pelosi does not have a secret plan to destroy healthcare. And the scientific community believes that there is absolutely no question that global warming is real and largely man made. It is not a liberal conspiracy to increase taxes, which is completely insane and totally nonsensical.

  112. travelah

    That’s the foxes in the henhouse counting the feathers …. The emails and datafiles were not actually hacked. They were copied off a public server. Why they were on a public server, only the CRU knows but rather than “rightwing extremist hype”, the content are the musings and incriminations of the “actual climate scientists”.

  113. entopticon

    Ahhh…. I see…. Even though those climate scientists that concisely explained the facts of the matter aren’t from that university, and they cogently demonstrated that there was clearly no actual wrongdoing, certainly nothing whatsoever that threatens consensus on global warming, we should ignore them because they are all part of of a vast international conspiracy of liberals who want to raise taxes. Apparently it’s the same scientisty types that perpetrated the dinosaur fraud. Yeah, that’s sane.

    Their private emails weren’t hacked? They just magically ended up in public with their consent? Yes the CRU does know how they ended up in public. They were hacked. Tell us traveliar, are you the most intellectually dishonest person on the planet, or the most ignorant? It is hard to believe that even you believe your ludicrous bs.

  114. Johnny

    Purchasing well-packaged bamboo pen holders is not how to reduce one’s carbon footprint.

    “Buy more and save”

  115. travelah

    The extreme rightwing nutcase fruitcake news organization, Associated Press, reports that the chief Anthropogenic Global Warming alarmist of the CRU is having to step down in light of the allegations of misconduct and fraud. Time will tell whether he will get his job back or ever be able to show his face among real scientists.

    UK climate research center says scientist at center of e-mail scandal to temporarily step down
    By Associated Press
    2:16 PM CST, December 1, 2009
    LONDON (AP) — Britain’s University of East Anglia says the director of its prestigious Climatic Research Unit is stepping down pending an investigation into allegations that he overstated the case for man-made climate change.

    The university says Phil Jones will relinquish his position until the completion of an independent review into allegations that he worked to alter the way in which global temperature data was presented.

    The allegations were made after more than a decade of correspondence between leading British and U.S. scientists were posted to the Web following the security breach last month.

    The e-mails were seized upon by some skeptics of man-made climate change as proof that scientists are manipulating the data about its extent.

  116. Betty Cloer Wallace

    Johnny, you are absolutely correct in your statement that “purchasing well-packaged bamboo pen holders is not how to reduce one’s carbon footprint.”

    But, planting bamboo and using bamboo in larger quantities in lieu of hardwood will help. Much of the rest of the world has long understood and appreciated the sustainability of bamboo for a great variety of significant construction, and we in North America are slowly taking note.

    Check out the American Bamboo Society and, closer to home, the Southeastern Chapter of the American Bamboo Society: http://sec-bamboo.org/

    The NC Arboretum in Asheville has hosted several southeastern bamboo conferences and is becoming more active in encouraging the planting of new bamboo groves in WNC. In fact, the SE chapter will host the 2010 national meeting in Savannah, GA, in November.

    My personal bamboo experience is that I’m an enthusiastic student. I’ve floored a kitchen and another full floor in my downtown AVL house with bamboo, and last year I planted nine varieties of bamboo, eight of which I think will prosper on my farm. (The ninth is a hopeful experiment.)

    Bamboo….. ’tis a good thing.

  117. Betty Cloer Wallace

    Travelah, since bamboo spreads by underground rhizomes or clumping, all you have to do is “corral” it to keep it under control.

    ‘Tis a lot easier to control bamboo than the multitude of exotic invasives spread by airborne seeds. Multiflora roses, Chinese honeysuckle, and privet are my greatest problems….. especially privet, the seeds of which the birds love to spread.

  118. travelah

    Yeah, I ran into a problem with it some time ago. It had been planted yet not root contained and spread like the dickens all over a back part of the guy’s property. I think he ended up ripping the ground up to clear it … a major mess.

  119. Betty Cloer Wallace

    Travelah, some varieties are good to eat (the new shoots, that is, which are especially good in stir-fry). Eating is not a remedy for spreading, but it can ease the pain a bit.

    Containment can be accomplished with maintaining a two-feet-deep ditch or a roadway around the grove, but if you ever neglect it, it can certainly create some headaches.

    Since flowering and seeding of most varieties of bamboo occurs only once every a hundred years or so, though, airborne spreading in not a problem.

  120. GoodGrief

    I am just baffled by anyone who seriously doubts the truth of Global Warming. My 4 year old could explain it to Travelah, MysteryLogger, etc, but really Entopticon did it best. I think perhaps why they doubt it is because they feel little effect in their lifetime, as brief as that may be, which is sad. There can be a future for our children that isn’t on the brink of environmental catastrophe if only people gave a damn.

  121. entopticon

    Oh golly traveliar, he’s temporarily stepping down during the investigation. How Earth shaking (not). Right-wing theocratic lunatics like Inhofe and Michelle Malkin are pretending that it somehow threatens global warming consensus, but that is not taken seriously by the overwhelming majority of climate scientists. For the actual opinions on the issue of the world’s leading climate scientists, try going here:
    http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2009/11/the-cru-hack-context/

    Now why am I not surprised that you didn’t chose to quote this part of that same article.

    “The degree of skepticism among real scientists is very small.”

    Evolution is real. Dinosaurs are real. Global warming is real. The Easter Bunny is not real. I know it’s very hard for you to keep that all straight.

  122. travelah

    Well, chainsaw, since you haven’t formulated a response to anything presented in the thread, perhaps you could offer up your four year old’s explaination just for kicks.

  123. travelah

    In the words of Myron Ebell …

    …RealClimate is a global warming alarmist propaganda effort run by Mann and several of the others up to their necks in Climategate. Going to RealClimate is the same kind of thing as was checking with Nixon’s White House press office to get straight about Watergate….

  124. travelah

    Well, chainsaw, since you haven’t formulated a response to anything presented in the thread, perhaps you could offer up your four year old’s explaination just for kicks.

    Heck, what am I thinking … entopticon beat you to it.

  125. entopticon

    Myron Ebell?!?!? Bwaaaaaaaaaaaaaaahahahaha! I almost fell out of my chair laughing. Yeah, he is just so respected in the world of climate science….. about as respected as Sarah Palin is in the world of quantum thermodynamics research.

    Conversely, Michael Mann has published more than 80 prominent articles on climate change in peer reviewed journals. Among other things, he won the outstanding scientific publication award of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, and Scientific American selected him as one of 50 leading visionaries in science and technology.

    You are an absolute riot. Did you forget where you parked your dinosaur?

  126. entopticon

    Here it is traveliar, put simply enough that a 4 year could grasp what completely eludes you….

    97.5% of the world’s leading climate scientists believe that the evidence is beyond question. That is what’s called scientific consensus. Right-wing extremist nutjobs who are trying to cloud the issue for the oil industry do not trump the overwhelming consensus of the actual experts.

    Of course, unlike you a 4 year old could also understand the basic principles of evolution. Then again, some may glean their science from bible fables and the Flinstones, just like you.

  127. travelah

    Dr. Richard S. Lindzen, a distinguished “climate scientist” at MIT has a brief common sense article in the Wall Street Journal today that thinking liberals who actually care about the future of their children and their economic lives would do well to read.

    http://online.wsj.com/article/SB20001424052748703939404574567423917025400.html

    All the blowhard alarmist-speak aside, it is past time that liberals who take some pride in thinking for themselves pause to consider what is being stated by those who do not buy into the constant Al Gore / UN propaganda machine. There are too many academics and professionals taking notice of what appears to have been a shoddy campaign of career protectionism. If anything at all, thinking liberals owe it for the benefit of their own future well being to begin digesting a taste of reality.

  128. travelah

    … and entopticon, since it severely alludes you, the reason you claim a consensus is because so many of the people you think agree with you based their “consensus” on the work of a relatively small number of “scientists”. That work is now being called into question with strong evidences of deliberate misrepresentation, personal scapegoating and an orchestrated campaign to smear those who had no trust in their (now clearly)disreputable results.

  129. travelah

    I’ll take New Phrases for $100 …
    entopticonned …
    What is it when a “scientist” deliberatly misrepresents data to produce a fraudulent claim that is then sold to the unknowing community at large? ….

  130. entopticon

    I think I just threw up in my mouth a little. traveliar the fundamentalist right wing extremist that thinks that global warming and evolution are conspiracies just said that liberals owe it for the benefit of the future to ignore the science and jump on the right-wing extremist bandwagon. Don’t speak for liberals traveliar.

    Apparently you don’t even know the meaning of “common sense.” Richard Lindzen is part of the 2.5% of climate scientists who don’t believe that the evidence is beyond question. By definition, that means that his opinions are not “common sense,” they are on the extreme fringe and completely contradicted by 97.5% of the experts in the field.

    Unlike Mann, Lindzen receives thousands of dollars a day to create a smokescreen from some of the worst polluters in the history of humanity. And that’s who you think liberals should listen too?!?? That really is a gas. In Rupert Murdoch’s private mouthpiece, the WSJ no less. You are a riot.

    Apparently you didn’t even read the AP article that you linked to yourself. There isn’t even proof that there was wrongdoing. There is an investigation. And it certainly is not the smoking gun for some vast international liberal conspiracy. You know, like evolution.

  131. travelah

    entopticon, you have reduced yourself to the online equivalent of a cartoon. Is there any liberal anywhere in Asheville who would dare be seen with you knowing the bile you produce?

  132. travelah

    ClimateGate just keeps getting better and better. Bret Stephens of the Wall Street Journal exposes the big money trail and motivations of the science frauds at CRU. It seems that money for these criminals is one of the main driving motivators for why they would manipulate and deceive so many people with faulty, lying models and data.

    … Consider the case of Phil Jones, the director of the CRU and the man at the heart of climategate. According to one of the documents hacked from his center, between 2000 and 2006 Mr. Jones was the recipient (or co-recipient) of some $19 million worth of research grants, a sixfold increase over what he’d been awarded in the 1990s….

    http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748703939404574566124250205490.html

    The love of money is the root of all evil or in this case the motive for a grand lying scheme.

  133. entopticon

    Speaking of cartoons, you are too, too, too funny. The love of money? Oh, you mean like the millions and millions that the global megacorporations with the worst history of polluting on the planet have put into creating bogus smokescreens via right-wing Rupert Murdoch owned media like the WSJ? You are seriously trying to compare the war chests of virtually all of the world’s worst polluters to research grant money, which by the way, is spent on research, as opposed to the thousands of dollars a day that Lindzen receives from some of the most unethical corporations imaginable? The idiocy of your arguments is limitless.

  134. entopticon

    Oh, and speaking of cartoons, Dino, Fred Flintstone’s pet dinosaur, wasn’t real. The Earth is 4.5 billion years old… not 6,000 years old. Unlike on the Flintstones, dinosaurs didn’t actually coexist with people. They went extinct millions of years ago. Birds are a distant relative of the dinosaurs, through evolution. That’s right traveliar, not only is global warming not a vast international liberal conspiracy, evolution isn’t a conspiracy either. It’s all real. Don’t be scared, just because you are ignorant.

  135. entopticon

    Hilarious news…. Charles Johnson, cofounder of traveliar’s beloved media, has officially breaking with right-wing politics:
    http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/12/01/little-green-footballs-ch_n_375357.html

    Among the reasons that he cited for doing so, was that he came to understand that the pseudo-science of climate change deniers, as he used to be, is absolute nonsense. He now refers to the global warming deniers as a “huge, ongoing campaign of disinformation and denial.”

    According to Johnson:

    “CRU-gate” is an absolutely phony scandal, deliberately trumped up and distorted to sabotage the Copenhagen climate summit meeting.”

  136. entopticon

    traveliar, you could learn a whole lot from Charles Johnson’s 10 point list of reasons for why he parted ways with the right:

    “1. Support for fascists, both in America (see: Pat Buchanan, Robert Stacy McCain, etc.) and in Europe (see: Vlaams Belang, BNP, SIOE, Pat Buchanan, etc.)

    2. Support for bigotry, hatred, and white supremacism (see: Pat Buchanan, Ann Coulter, Robert Stacy McCain, Lew Rockwell, etc.)

    3. Support for throwing women back into the Dark Ages, and general religious fanaticism (see: Operation Rescue, anti-abortion groups, James Dobson, Pat Robertson, Tony Perkins, the entire religious right, etc.)

    4. Support for anti-science bad craziness (see: creationism, climate change denialism, Sarah Palin, Michele Bachmann, James Inhofe, etc.)

    5. Support for homophobic bigotry (see: Sarah Palin, Dobson, the entire religious right, etc.)

    6. Support for anti-government lunacy (see: tea parties, militias, Fox News, Glenn Beck, etc.)

    7. Support for conspiracy theories and hate speech (see: Alex Jones, Rush Limbaugh, Glenn Beck, Birthers, creationists, climate deniers, etc.)

    8. A right-wing blogosphere that is almost universally dominated by raging hate speech (see: Hot Air, Free Republic, Ace of Spades, etc.)

    9. Anti-Islamic bigotry that goes far beyond simply criticizing radical Islam, into support for fascism, violence, and genocide (see: Pamela Geller, Robert Spencer, etc.)

    10. Hatred for President Obama that goes far beyond simply criticizing his policies, into racism, hate speech, and bizarre conspiracy theories (see: witch doctor pictures, tea parties, Birthers, Michelle Malkin, Fox News, World Net Daily, Newsmax, and every other right wing source)

    And much, much more. The American right wing has gone off the rails, into the bushes, and off the cliff.

    I won’t be going over the cliff with them.”

  137. travelah

    The Atlantic Magazine offers up more regarding ClimateGate and they can hardly be considered some “extremist rightwing nutcase rag” (although I am sure unstable souls might try to portray them as such.

    from Clive Crook’s column

    …I’m also surprised by the IPCC’s response. Amid the self-justification, I had hoped for a word of apology, or even of censure. (George Monbiot called for Phil Jones to resign, for crying out loud.) At any rate I had expected no more than ordinary evasion. The declaration from Rajendra Pachauri that the emails confirm all is as it should be is stunning. Science at its best. Science as it should be. Good lord. This is pure George Orwell. And these guys call the other side “deniers”.

    http://clivecrook.theatlantic.com/archives/2009/11/more_on_climategate.php

    This is truly a sick scandal.

  138. entopticon

    Well now you have heard of him traveliar. He co-founded a little website called Pajamas Media. One of your favorites. His web blog, Little Green Footballs, used to be one of the top 100 blogs on the internet, and it used to be a right-wing blog, but no more.

    No one has ever heard of me? You really do say some amazingly retarded bs sometimes. I’m sure you are famous traveliar.

    Here is an article from another former climate change denier, Bryan Appleyard, who now knows that he was just ignorant and misguided:
    http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/environment/article6931598.ece?token=null&offset=0&page=1

    He now understands that to deny climate change “is to put yourself beyond the bounds of rational discourse.” In other words, to be you.

  139. travelah

    Well that would explain it. I do not follow much individual blogging activity and I was not following the contributions of Pajamas Media during his tenure.

    As for being famous, I have no such desires nor do I make any such claims. You should take such thoughts to heart for you are surely a complete unknown.

  140. travelah

    I am curious however. What does a blogger’s switch of political affiliations have to do with anything whatsoever?

  141. travelah

    Here is some great news …. The Australian Senate has voted down it’s Government’s cap and trade fiasco. It looks like their Prime Minister Mr. Rudd will NOT be going to Copenhagen to blaze a new trail of economic destruction.
    We are going to see the same thing here in the US either by Senate rejection of the House bill or by throwing the bums out of office in 2010.

    http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20091202/ap_on_re_as/climate_australia

  142. entopticon

    Wow, you never cease to up the ante on idiocy. He is the co-founder of the blog site that YOU have repeatedly cited. He was a climate change denier. Now he is not. He wrote an article about it. Funny that that is just too hard for you to follow. Just like the article that the right wing economist Clive Crook (apt name) wrote for the Atlantic, which is indeed a right-wing publication.

    The Crook piece isn’t actually proof of anything, it is just right-wing spin, which you would be profoundly naive not to expect. Conversely, the Bryan Appleyard article that I cited has plenty of proof.

  143. entopticon

    Anyone that would seriously take science advice from a fundamentalist windbag that thinks that evolution is a conspiracy, would have to be completely insane.

    Anyone who would take the word of that fundamentalist windbag over the overwhelming consensus of the scientific community, is more than just insane, they would have to be complete imbecile.

  144. travelah

    Nobody has to take it from me. Everybody can read it for themselves. ClimateGate is a big deal and it has the alarmists in a frenzy.

  145. travelah

    Oh … what a silly question … everybody knows Andrew Sullivan is a rightwing blowhard! LOL I think you have redefined foolishness ….

  146. entopticon

    As the former climate change denier that I cited said, “climate gate” is in fact a smokescreen being blown out of proportion to the point of absurdity by right-wing extremists in service of global megacorporations with the worst pollution records in the history of the world, in a desperate attempt to derail the upcoming climate talks.

  147. entopticon

    Your willingness to humiliate yourself by ignorantly talking out your butt certainly is amusing. The Atlantic is basically the center-right version of Harper’s. It’s not exactly a secret. Come out from under your rock once in a while.

    Andrew Sullivan has been a conservative libertarian commentator for years. Just because he has been disgusted by the perversion of conservative values. by the Republican party, it doesn’t make him a liberal. From Andrew Sullivan’s wiki page:

    “Sullivan describes himself as a libertarian conservative who has argued that the Republican Party has abandoned true conservative principles.[12] He views true conservatism as classical libertarian conservative, where economic control of a citizen’s daily life by the government is very limited.”

  148. entopticon

    I am curious to know… what exactly is your bizarro-world rationale for why the Atlantic would have a prominent right-winger such as Clive Crook as their senior editor if they were actually a liberal magazine? It is just too hilarious how you have absolutely no regard for the facts whatsoever. You are such a joke. Thank you.

  149. travelah

    Sullivan is one of the most whacked out Bush haters imaginable. He is an alarmist, Palin hating liberal crackpot with a mouth and mind only half as bad as yours. Anybody who considers him to be servng extreme right wing publications as you suggest is a drooling fool.

    ClimateGate is ripping you a new orifice and it is about time. You are a bloodied mess.

  150. travelah

    Clive Crook is what most thinking people refer to as a well educated and articulate thinker. His bio from The Atlantic.

    Clive Crook is a senior editor of The Atlantic Monthly, a columnist for National Journal and a commentator for the Financial Times. He was formerly on the staff of The Economist, latterly (from 1993 to 2005) as deputy editor. A graduate of Oxford and the London School of Economics, he has served as a consultant to the World Bank and worked as an official in the British Treasury. He lives in Washington, DC.

  151. entopticon

    Sullivan is a libertarian conservative. That’s not really an arguable fact. And now yet another lie from you traveliar…. I clearly stated that the Atlantic is a “center-right” publication, which anybody who knows anything about it knows perfectly well that it is. I never called it an “extreme right wing” publication, nor would I. As I said, it is commonly considered to be a center-right version of Harpers. Of course the extreme right has issues with Sullivan. Among other things he’s gay.

    I personal don’t agree with Clive Crook on much, but regardless of that, you miss the point entirely, as usual. He’s certainly a well known conservative, so if the Atlantic is such a left-wing liberal rag, as you falsely claim, it would be inconceivable that they would hire a famous conservative, and climate change denier no less, as their senior editor. There is no conceivable way to argue your way out of that, because your idiotic claim is demonstrably false (in other words, par for the course for you).

    I am sure your violent orifice fantasies sustain you, but you might want to see a psychologist about that.

    I am a bloodied mess? An overwhelming consensus of virtually all of the leading climate scientists on the planet completely supports my position and rejects yours, and you think I am the one that is a bloodied mess?!?!?!?!? You are insane. You really are an exact replica of the black Knight, writhing around on the ground with all of his limbs cut off, declaring victory. In the words of Arthur, “What are you going to do, bleed on me?”

  152. entopticon

    Yet another article pointing out how ridiculous the fabrications of the global warming deniers concerning the CRU hack are:
    http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/12/02/climategate-the-7-biggest_n_371223.html

    15 years of hacked emails, and the best they could do was a few sentences taken out of context, that are easily explained, and absolutely nothing whatsoever that questions the existence of global warming. It’s just another desperate, flailing attempt of megacorporations with nightmarish records of polluting the planet trying to confuse the issue.

    Here are a few quotes:

    “More interesting is what is not contained in the emails. There is no evidence of any worldwide conspiracy, no mention of George Soros nefariously funding climate research, no grand plan to ‘get rid of the MWP’, no admission that global warming is a hoax, no evidence of the falsifying of data, and no ‘marching orders’ from our socialist/communist/vegetarian overlords. The truly paranoid will put this down to the hackers also being in on the plot though.”

    “Even if every bit of mud slung at these scientists were true, the body of scientific work supporting the theory of human-caused climate change—which spans hundreds of thousands of scientific papers written by tens of thousands of scientists in dozens of different scientific disciplines—is too vast to be budged by the flaws in the works of the three or four scientists being subject to the fiercest attacks.”

    “There is strong consensus in scientific community that global warming is real and is caused by humans. The top scientists in the world have just released a new report on the realities of global warming. Kevin Grandia summarizes some of the key points about emissions, melting ice sheets, and rising sea levels. The emails don’t change any of this reality.”

    “”ClimateGate” itself is a misnomer, the nickname should be “SwiftHack” for the way people with political agendas have “swiftboated” the global warming reality. As world attention turns to the climate conference in Copenhagen this December, this email hack acts as a distraction from the huge task at hand of getting world leaders to commit to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. As professor Richard Somerville says, “We’re facing an effort by special interests who are trying to confuse the public.”

  153. travelah

    You wrote:
    Clive Crook (apt name) wrote for the Atlantic, which is indeed a right-wing publication.

    You then wrote:
    I clearly stated that the Atlantic is a “center-right” publication, which anybody who knows anything about it knows perfectly well that it is

    Which is it ….. right wing, center right or in reality anthing to the right of you has been cnstantly labeled extreme right wing?

    I’ve tired of you … you have beaten to a pulpy mess.

  154. entopticon

    “I’ve tired of you … you have beaten to a pulpy mess.”

    …. said the Black Night as he wriggled around on the ground with no arms or legs left.

    Hilariously, you conveniently left this quote out, which completely obliterates your argument:
    “The Atlantic is basically the center-right version of Harper’s.”

    It is a right wing publication that is on the center-right. It is truly amazing that you are actually too dense to understand what that means. Those two facts are not in contradiction with one another, as you ignorantly implied.

    I never claimed that the Atlantic is an extreme right publication, nor would I. It is just another case of you bearing false witness, which by the way, is punishable by eternity in a lake of fire according to the bible. Be sure to bring plenty of sunscreen to the afterlife traveliar.

  155. travelah

    It is just another case of you bearing false witness, which by the way, is punishable by eternity in a lake of fire according to the bible. Be sure to bring plenty of sunscreen to the afterlife traveliar

    If that were the case, I would surely be standing on your neck. You have been bloodied … case closed.

  156. entopticon

    “If that were the case, I would surely be standing on your neck. You have been bloodied … case closed.”

    Thus said the Black Night (also known as traveliar) spurting blood, wriggling around on the ground with no arms or legs, as Arthur walked off into the sunset. You have no leg to stand on traveliar, so you won’t ever be standing on anyone’s neck. Liars go to hell traveliar.

    Your idiocy is truly astounding. Is it really that hard for you to understand that a segment of the right wing is the center-right? You certainly shine light on the astonishing ignorance of fundamentalists. It’s no wonder that you people are the least educated religious demographic, with the lowest IQ’s in America.

  157. entopticon

    “And the devil who had deceived them was thrown into the lake of fire and sulfur, where the beast and the false prophet were, and they will be tormented day and night forever and ever.” ~Revelations 20.10

  158. JWTJr

    Maybe I was thinking about the Ring of Fire .. oh that was Johnny Cash. I get Dante, Revelations and Johnny Cash confused.

  159. Peacewarrior

    Enepticon: “Apparently Peacewarrior has been in a protective time capsule since the mid 1980’s. Last I checked, Avl’s murder rate per capita was worse than NYC’s. What a deranged collection of xenophobic nonsense.”

    ROFL,is there anyone here that really thinks Asheville is a more dangerous place than New York City? I can’t think of anywhere in Asheville I would be afraid walking at midnight. But New York City is a hellhole of danger. The Bronx. Brooklyn. Hell’s Kitchen. Take your pick. No one in their right mind would walk anywhere in these 2 areas at midnight without a police SWAT escort.

    Even with the influx of culturally mis-fit northerners, Asheville still retains it’s Southern charm and neighborliness. And how lucky we are to live here in a town that is still a lot like 1950s America. Those that think NYC is safer should move back home.

  160. travelah

    I think Jon Stewart said it best ….

    “Poor Al Gore. Global warming completely debunked via the very Internet you invented. Oh, oh, the irony!”

  161. entopticon

    You have truly jumped the shark traveliar. Now you are quoting John Stewart. You are the ultimate example of the study that proved that right-wingers lack the ability to understand when they are being made fun of.

    Here’s a quote from the same exact bit to help you along….

    “Does it disprove global warming? No, of course not!”

    And this was actually a pretty funny line too…

    “We knew Inhofe was going to say that. That guy thinks global warming is debunked every time he drinks a slushy and gets a brain freeze.”

  162. JWTJr

    The guys in the UK clearly messed up.

    2 aspects of human nature threaten climate research and one of them has shown its ugly head. Over zealousness and greed. Over zealousness in that they truly believe that man is affecting climate trends, but since weather/climate is the most complicated thing on the earth, its hard to definitively prove. No model has predicted anything accurately yet. And greed in that there are jobs and big money in the research. Humans are fallible.

    I bet there is more to come of this type of thing.

    If we are to develop realistic climate models for prediction purposes, we have to have the best possible data. Making things look worse than it really is is as bad as underestimating it.

  163. entopticon

    JWT Jr, you make a reasonable point, but it is important to note that the investigation of the hacked emails has just begun, and as of yet there is no proof of wrongdoing whatsoever. A few sentences taken out of context in 15 years of emails is hardly compelling evidence. If the investigation does discover wrongdoing, than it will certainly be valid to criticize those researchers.

    More importantly, climate science is indeed complex, especially when it comes to predictions, but global warming is most certainly not a case of two sides with equally valid arguments. It is a case of 97.5% of the worlds leading climate scientists, which is an astonishing consensus in the scientific world, against a miniscule 2.5%, most of whom don’t even deny it, they just try to cloud the issue, and nearly all of that 2.5% is making huge sums of money from heavy polluters for their service.

    The former climate change denier, Bryan Appleyard, put it very well:

    “The climate is warming. It is almost certain this is caused by emissions of greenhouse gases caused by human activity. Nobody has come up with an alternative explanation that stands up. If the present warming trend continues, nasty things will probably start happening to humans within the next century, possibly the next decade. Something must be done. If nothing is done, then the benign climatic conditions that have sustained human civilisation for 10,000 years are in danger of collapse to be replaced by… well, write your own disaster movie.

    You will note that there is some wiggle room in these statements. It is “almost certain” that humans are responsible; nasty things will “probably” happen. That is because all science can ever be is the best guess of the best minds. Also, the climate is a complex system, meaning it can behave in ways that are opaque beyond our most sophisticated calculations. But, as I have often been told, those statements are as true as any scientific statements can be, and nobody — I repeat, nobody — has been able to refute this. In short, to deny any of these statements is to put yourself beyond the bounds of rational discourse.”

  164. JWTJr

    I agree with most of what you said but the 97.5% thing. I bet its more like 70/30. 30 or anything close is very statistically significant.

    I’m also not convinced that the most creepy emails were taken out of context.

    I have big issues with the blatant and irresponsible bashing of any dissenting opinion. Bashing with tabloid type responses instead of scientific rebuttal. You cannot dispute that there are very significant attempts to exclude dissent instead of disprove it. The hockey stick graph and how long it took to closely evaluate it is a perfect example.

    I want to see scientific debate. That is how progress is made. Not when “everyone” is on the same page. Following each other off a cliff is a bad idea too.

    Humans affect our environment in a lot of ways. No doubt. The question is how much. I want to know the real answer. Starting with a preconceived notion and working backwards is bad.

  165. JWTJr

    To follow on with that … AlGore and some others have put very specific time lines on solutions and/or ‘do or die’ points in time to react. There is NO science that can pin a date down like that. Its purely political. Politics and Science are oil and water.

  166. entopticon

    The difference is, your 70/30 split is an imaginary confabulation with no basis in science, or reality for that matter. If you really do want to see scientific debate, don’t just make things up. When you start throwing out imaginary quasi-scientific confabulations like that, there is no rational debate. The 97.5% number is not a matter of opinion; it is the direct result of an independent study of the the world’s climate scientists.

    I don’t expect you to be convinced that the hacked emails are innocent. So far, I have been entirely satisfied by the explanations, but the investigation has not yet concluded. Either way, it most certainly does not threaten the overwhelming scientific consensus, which is based on hundreds of thousands of research papers, by tens of thousands of scientists, in dozens of scientific disciplines.

    I certainly can and do dispute that there is even such a thing as significant dissent in the science world on the issue of global warming. As the leading climate scientists on the planet have said over and over again, the eforts to make it appear that there is some kind of debate about the verity of global warming are completely fallacious lies cooked up by heavily polluting global megacorporations that are funneling money into right-wing advocacy groups in an attempt to cloud public perception, as if there really was serious debate among climate scientists. There most certainly is not. There is overwhelming consensus. As former denier Bryan Appleyard put it:

    “But, as I have often been told, those statements are as true as any scientific statements can be, and nobody — I repeat, nobody — has been able to refute this. In short, to deny any of these statements is to put yourself beyond the bounds of rational discourse.”

    Just as he said, there is no such thing as absolutes in science, but debating the verity of global warming is roughly equivalent to debating if the Earth is round or flat. The notion that there is a legitimate debate is in itself a ruse created by the unconscionably unethical polluters with the most to lose.

    Again, read carefully this finding from an independent, comprehensive study of the world’s climate scientists:

    “It seems that the debate on the authenticity of global warming and the role played by human activity is largely nonexistent among those who understand the nuances and scientific basis of long-term climate processes. The challenge, rather, appears to be how to effectively communicate this fact to policy makers and to a public that continues to mistakenly perceive debate among scientists.”

  167. JWTJr

    97.5% – site your source. How big was the sample? Who took it? What were the questions?

    Climate science debate being compared to the earth being round or flat? That would fail in debate class. Comparing a massively complicated predictive modeling science plagued by politics to a single verifiable fact? That is the type of rhetoric that defiles the debate.

    You were doing good there for a while.

  168. entopticon

    Fine, Jr, here is my source for the scientific study. It was a study showing that there is indeed an astonishingly large consensus of 97.5% among active climate scientists:
    http://tigger.uic.edu/~pdoran/012009_Doran_final.pdf

    Now where is the source for your completely bullsh*t confabulation?

    You can disagree all you want, but I am not exactly the only person comparing climate change deniers to flat-earthers:

    http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2009/mar/10/nicholas-stern-accuses-climate-change-deniers

    Again, read what Bryan Appleyard said above. To deny climate change is indeed “to put yourself beyond the bounds of rational discourse.”

    And again, read the above statement from the researchers behind the study that I cited. Among the leading climate scientists, the debate is largely nonexistent, because the consensus is based on hundreds of thousands of scientific papers from tens of thousands of scientists. The notion that there is real debate about it is a red herring generated by the heavily polluting global corporations with the most to lose, in an effort to cloud the issue. Sitting down at a table full of NASA’s top climate scientists to discuss the issue of how to better communicate that fact to the general public in the face of the far right’s disinformation campaign (many of those scientists are conservatives themselves, but they are flabbergasted by the lies and smokescreens) was certainly an informative experience for me.

  169. entopticon

    Oh, and by the way Jr, Al Gore is completely right to set goals for action based on scientific projections. You will have to excuse me for trusting the word of someone who actually won the Nobel Prize for his work on climate change issues over a medical assistant that doesn’t even know enough about climate science to understand the scientific consensus behind it.

  170. JWTJr

    I enjoyed reading that article. BTW, I agree that we have ‘some’ impact on climate change.

    However, the statistical method has a significant flaw in that any survey that invites participants is flawed from the start. Their motivations for participation affects the data in ways that are almost impossible to quantify.

    Your 97% statistic comes from a tiny component of a flawed sample. Therefore, its error/bias is magnified.

    The question asks if we are warmer now than back then and if humans play a ‘significant’ factor. What are the other ‘significant’ factors? They are not asking if its the only factor. What else is going on that could be causing warming? We hardly understand ocean currents, clouds and temps and air currents a different atmospheric levels. We are just now developing the technology to collect the amount of precise data needed to make predictions that have a shot at being close.

    Its interesting data, but it has massive amounts of statistical bias. I’ll take my hat off to the first guy/gal/team that creates a model that predicts the future accurately.

    I never said my number was proven.

  171. entopticon

    Is there such a thing as a survey that does not invite participants to participate? I think their study is reasonable. You have offered no proof that the data is in any way flawed, and unless you can offer some cogent counter-information, I will stick with the study by those professional researchers, instead of your personal opinions.

    Yes, the second article was from an economist. An economist who also happens to be the Chair of the Grantham Institute for Climate Change and the Environment at the London School of Economics, so I think he may have a pretty good idea of what he is talking about.

  172. JWTJr

    “Is there such a thing as a survey that does not invite participants to participate? I think their study is reasonable. You have offered no proof that the data is in any way flawed, and unless you can offer some cogent counter-information, I will stick with the study by those professional researchers, instead of your personal opinions.”

    This survey would fail statistics 101 if you tried to present the results as statistically valid. A study on opinion is the most statistically insignificant when the participants are ‘invited’ in this manner. The margin of error is enormous. The data shows to me that most scientists agree that we are creating climate change, but the 97% number is is anecdotal.

  173. JWTJr

    To take a statistically valid survey is extremely difficult. That is why there are giant companies that spend huge money taking and evaluating them. They have to throw out results all the time.

    This survey had a 30% response rate … huge problem … they didn’t even quote a margin of error or a standard deviation. Why? Because the data is flawed if you want to draw specific results.

  174. JWTJr

    Here is the bottom line. You said:

    “It is a case of 97.5% of the worlds leading climate scientists, which is an astonishing consensus in the scientific world, against a miniscule 2.5%, most of whom don’t even deny it, they just try to cloud the issue, and nearly all of that 2.5% is making huge sums of money from heavy polluters for their service.”

    The survey does NOT say that. Anywhere. It says that 97.4% of the ‘participants’ with that specific grouping of qualifications say that. 70% didn’t even respond. It also says that 75% of the whole group believe man is a significant factor.

    My 30% number is more correct than yours when you look at the whole group. You cherry picked the most dramatic statistic that only represented the opinion of 76 of the 3000 respondents.

    You misstated the survey results.

  175. Peacewarrior

    JWTjr, do you really think you can have a two-way debate with a woman who thinks NYC has a lower murder rate than Asheville? I guess it is fun to argue though. :)

  176. travelah

    Economists that provide support for the Ent of Candler’s oulook are considered climate science experts. Ha’el, even the guy that pumps out the Ent’s septic tank behind his trailer in Candler is a climate scientist if he agrees that Ent is a shmart ma’an.

  177. travelah

    The head of the IPCC is a climate scientist and he is a railroad engineer!!! What a crock!

  178. entopticon

    It is just hysterical how when traveliar is completely obliterated by the facts, he usually brings up that he figured out that I live in Candler by a little cyber-stalking. And since traveliar, the fundamentalist from Maine stereotypes Candler, he constantly makes idiotic jokes about me living in a trailer. In actuality, my home is a modest craftsman bungalow that has been featured in quite a few professional photo shoots.

    Yes traveliar, I do in fact think that the Chair of the Grantham Institute for Climate Change and the Environment at the London School of Economics has some expertise on climate change. Golly, probably even more than you, but he has to rely on reading and working with internationally renowned climate scientists, whereas you clearly glean all of your scientific info from a hodgepodge of the bible, right-wing extremist conspiracy sites, and the Flintstones.

    It really is absolutely hilarious that a fundamentalist lunatic that thinks that evolution and dinosaurs are vast liberal conspiracies, is trying to pretend that he is a champion of science.

  179. entopticon

    No Jr, here is the bottom line…. You are becoming a serial confabulator. Your confabulated 30% is nonsense. You said:

    “This survey would fail statistics 101 if you tried to present the results as statistically valid. ”

    Fail statistics 101? You are unconscionable. Peter T. Doran, the author of the study, is a prominent professor of earth and environmental studies at one of the top universities in the world. The study was published in EOS, a peer reviewed journal of the American Geophysical Union. He is the author of over 50 peer reviewed scholarly articles. He is a lead scientist for NASA and he is a sitting member of the NASA Subcommittee on Planetary Protection.

    In other words, your contention that the study, which was published by a major peer reviewed scientific journal by a scientist with impeccable credentials, “would fail statistics 101” is yet another demonstrably false, and rather shameless confabulation on your part.

    The study speaks for itself. 97.4% (to be exact) of actively publishing climate scientists in the study believe that human activity is a significant contributing factor in changing mean global temperatures. If you had any understanding at all about the issues at hand, you would understand what that means. Clearly, you don’t. That is why the researchers, who are a hell of a lot more qualified to interpret their results than a Fox News obsessed medical assistant, concluded:

    “It seems that the debate on the authenticity of global warming and the role played by human activity is largely nonexistent among those who understand the nuances and scientific basis of long-term climate processes. The challenge, rather, appears to be how to effectively communicate this fact to policy makers and to a public that continues to mistakenly perceive debate among scientists.”

    The chance of me accepting your word over theirs is virtually 0%.

  180. JWTJr

    Its a simple survey … not a study. Everything in the article couches the results as a percentage of the participants. Not of the industry.

    You don’t even know the difference between a study and a survey. You keep mistating the results. You are a big part of the problem. Ignorance about the math.

    I did make up my number. But you know what? Your survey showed that I’m more right than you. Hate if if you will, but you are wrong and I am right.

    You should stick to analyzing art.

    Peacewarrior – I’ll listen to you now. Ent listens to no one.

  181. entopticon

    A scientifically conducted survey is a type of study, and it was published in a prominent peer reviewed scientific journal. I guess they skipped over that in vocational school. You should stick to being a medical assistant. You keep misstating the results. You have not been able to offer anything but your Fox News infused psychic fabrications.

    The study most certainly did not support your ignorant, confabulated claim. Again, read the conclusion of the scientists, who are a hell of a lot more qualified than you:

    “It seems that the debate on the authenticity of global warming and the role played by human activity is largely nonexistent among those who understand the nuances and scientific basis of long-term climate processes. The challenge, rather, appears to be how to effectively communicate this fact to policy makers and to a public that continues to mistakenly perceive debate among scientists.”

    No matter how you slice it, that supports my claim entirely, and refutes yours entirely. The important part of the study, which is apparently over your head, is that the numbers are lower for the ill informed, like you for example, but among actively publishing climate scientists, i.e, the people who actually understand the issue, 97.4% of them agree that man is responsible for climate change.

    Good lucking listening to Peacewarrior/Namvet, yada-yada-yada

  182. JWTJr

    I never said I disagree with the survey. I just pointed out that you keep misstating and the results. There is a big difference between the two.

    You are doing an excellent job of demonstrating the problem with the debate. There is no debate as long as people like you can’t understand the simple math.

  183. entopticon

    Again, read the conclusion of the researchers! It completely supports my contention, and completely negates yours. As it concluded from the results, and completely contrary to your misinterpretation of the study: “It seems that the debate on the authenticity of global warming and the role played by human activity is largely nonexistent among those who understand the nuances and scientific basis of long-term climate processes.”

    Clearly, it is you that is misunderstanding the results. Have you ever published anything in a peer reviewed scientific journal? I have. Have you spoken with any of the world’s leading climate scientists? I have. You are talking out your ass.

    As the researchers above said, the debate itself is a distraction, because people who actually understand the issue know that the evidence is overwhelming. As the former climate change denier Bryan Appleyard finally came to understand, it is people like you that are demonstrating the problem with the debate. You are simply regurgitating propaganda fed to right-wing extremist advocacy groups by the corporations with the most to lose. As Appleyard put it, to deny climate change “is to put yourself beyond the bounds of rational discourse.” That means you.

  184. JWTJr

    What you said and what he said are two different things.

    How can that be?! Especially since you are a lyrical genius! Was that you on stage at the Music Awards? You looked familiar.

    You have clearly had zero statistics classes.

  185. entopticon

    That’s entertaining, but exactly what part of “It seems that the debate on the authenticity of global warming and the role played by human activity is largely nonexistent among those who understand the nuances and scientific basis of long-term climate processes” don’t you understand?

    That’s what I am saying, and have said all along; that among people who actually understand the issues, the debate is largely nonexistent (97.4%). The illusion that there is not overwhelming scientific consensus is just a smokescreen. It has no basis in reality. It is a red herring to confuse the easily confused (i.e, you). As the article concluded, the real challenge is finding ways to communicate that fact to ignorant people like you that have been duped into believing that there is not overwhelming consensus among active climate scientists.

  186. entopticon

    Oh, and my favorite part of your Kanye West analogy is that apparently that makes you Taylor Swift. Or perhaps the Faux News obsessed progeny of Taylor Swift and Sean Hannity.

  187. JWTJr

    There you go misusing the 97.4% stat again. We are back to square one. Your over zealousness, which you agree is a significant issue, is causing you to make you argument less credible. I agree with you on the bigger picture. You seem to have forgotten that.

    Why don’t you explain to us the data collection methods and statistical tests you performed in your paper?

    Regarding the Kanye thing, I was one of the people in the crowd cringing at ego maniac on the stage.

  188. JWTJr

    Let’s look at those 76 you are so enamored with.

    Given your earlier acknowledgment that greed, along with over zealousness, is a significant problem in research, one could say that this group has the most to gain financially with their position on this issue. Their desire for a job/grant money could easily taint their work. Especially when the pier review process only includes like minded scientists.

    The validity of that statistic is still fading. Maybe down to about 75%

  189. entopticon

    Speaking of statistics, I almost forgot to give Peacewarrior a smack down with the irrefutable facts of the matter concerning murder rates. Asheville’s murder rate is in fact significantly higher than NYC’s. Asheville’s murder rate is actually 1.5 times the national average, and NYC’s is only .96 the national average. The murder rate per capita is nearly twice as high as NYC’s:
    http://www.cityrating.com/crimestatistics.asp

    And by the way, there was actually a murder in a building that I own in town.

  190. entopticon

    56 Papers In 45 Countries Publish Joint Editorial On Climate Change: A ‘Profound Emergency’:
    56 Papers In 45 Countries Publish Joint Editorial On Climate Change: A ‘Profound Emergency’

    This is completely unprecedented. This was an amazing response from responsible news sources that all came together to combat the disinformation campaign of deceptive smokescreens that try to give the public the false impression that the science is still up for debate, which is something that we cannot afford while the planet heads towards disaster.

    From the article:

    “The science is complex but the facts are clear. The world needs to take steps to limit temperature rises to 2C, an aim that will require global emissions to peak and begin falling within the next 5-10 years. A bigger rise of 3-4C — the smallest increase we can prudently expect to follow inaction — would parch continents, turning farmland into desert. Half of all species could become extinct, untold millions of people would be displaced, whole nations drowned by the sea. The controversy over emails by British researchers that suggest they tried to suppress inconvenient data has muddied the waters but failed to dent the mass of evidence on which these predictions are based.”

  191. entopticon

    I’m sorry Jr, but you seriously have some kind of reading impediment. The researchers came to the exact same conclusion that I did; that the debate among people who actually understand the issue is virtually “nonexistant.” Their conclusions in no way support your ignorant claim that 30% of active climate scientists question global warming. Your argument has absolutely no basis in reality.

    Why don’t you tell us all about the scientific research that YOU have published in peer reviewed scientific journals? I am not a researcher. My area of expertise has been in the philosophical implications of the intersection between art and cognitive neuroscience. I have both published and refereed papers for cognitive neuroscience journals. Climate science is certainly not my expertise, but I have consulted on major international projects for increasing public awareness of the science behind global warming.

    Astonishingly, you said, “Given your earlier acknowledgment that greed, along with over zealousness, is a significant problem in research, one could say that this group has the most to gain financially with their position on this issue. Their desire for a job/grant money could easily taint their work.”

    That is the danger of parroting Faux News when you clearly have absolutely no idea of what you are talking about. In reality, any prominent climate scientist could easily make a fortune if they were willing to twist the facts for the world’s heaviest polluting companies. Those megacorporations are literally willing to pay thousands of dollars a day, not for research costs, but actual payment, to anyone unscrupulous enough to take up their cause. The notion that a climate scientist would support global warming because of money is so, so much more completely laughable than you realize.

    “Maybe down to about 75%”

    While 75 may in fact be the average IQ of climate deniers, your claim is nothing more than a completely baseless fabrication born out of your obsession with Faux News.

    Speaking of cringing, on your stab at humor with the Kanye thing… definitely don’t quit your dayjob.

    As the unprecedented 56 major newspapers from around the world just stated:

    “The science is complex but the facts are clear.”

  192. travelah

    56 Papers In 45 Countries Publish Joint Editorial On Climate Change: A ‘Profound Emergency’:

    Big deal … George Will alone is carried in over 450 newspapers

  193. entopticon

    Well traveliar, if you took your head out of George Will’s ass long enough to actually read the article, you would know that in fact, it is a very big deal indeed. Unprecedented in fact.

  194. travelah

    You have been kicked bloody again. 56 papers vs. 450 just for one man … nah, nothing impressive about it.

  195. entopticon

    “You have been kicked bloody again. 56 papers vs. 450 just for one man … nah, nothing impressive about it.”

    … Said the Black Knight, wriggling around on the ground without arms or legs, spurting blood in every direction. The goofy nonsense that you substitute for cogent argumentation certainly is amusing.

    Nobody said that George Will’s column, or anyone else’s column for that matter, is or isn’t carried by many newspapers. What was said is that it was unprecedented that the editorial boards of 56 major newspapers from 45 countries got together speaking with one voice through a common editorial because they believe that humanity faces “a profound emergency.” Your attempt to conflate the two is laughably naive, even for you traveliar.

  196. travelah

    How interesting … out of 192 participating nations at Coppenhagen, only 45 countries provide just 56 newspapers running the political spot. George Will alone has that beat by a mile just counting his US syndication every week. I mean, less than even a 4th of all the nations particpating can find one newspaper to run this propoganda. Now THAT is what is the very big deal.

  197. entopticon

    Your buffoonery is legendary. Are we really supposed to believe that if a historically unprecedented 56 major newspapers came together for a single editorial supporting some view that supported you, you would still be making such a ridiculously asinine argument? You are comparing the distribution of a syndicated column to 56 of the world’s leading newspapers’ editorial boards all coming together for one joint editorial, which has never happened before. It really is beyond cartoonish.

  198. travelah

    56 newspapers running the same commentary? What is unusual about just 56 newspapers having a similar ideological line? What are the U.S. newspapers participating in this event and how come so few are doing so??

  199. travelah

    And by the way, there was actually a murder in a building that I own in town.

    Are you implying that you are a slum lord in Asheville???

  200. JWTJr

    Just exactly where did I say that 30% believed? Your inability to interpret results and analyze simple math is makes me sad for our educational system. Its all I should expect from an art major I guess.

    I said, just like the survey said, that 30% of the invitees responded. The sample size represents a minor portion and not all of the scientists invited. Nowhere did the survey do any math to correlate this sample to the whole group … like you did. Is that so hard to understand? Do you need to stay after school for tutoring?

  201. JWTJr

    My 75% percent came directly from the survey you provided. It’s discussed in the very the beginning. Hard to miss. Thanks.

  202. entopticon

    After school tutoring? I have an ivy league graduate degree. I was graduated a year early. How about you Jr? Did you go to an ivy league vocational training school?

    I’m sorry to tell you Jr, but you are seriously dense. The study that I cited mentioned a different study, which was widely criticized, that came up with the 75% figure. It’s not the same study. Hard to miss for anyone that can actually read. Thanks.

    The study that I cited specifically concluded that 97.4% of actively publishing climate scientists believe that global warming is real and caused by man.

    Exactly what part of “…the debate on the authenticity of global warming and the role played by human activity is largely nonexistent among those who understand the nuances and scientific basis of long-term climate processes” don’t you understand? The fact that that is over your head is kind of sadly pathetic.

    Hilariously, you actually asked: “Just exactly where did I say that 30% believed? Your inability to interpret results and analyze simple math is makes me sad for our educational system.”

    You really are a gas (bag). I specifically said: “Their conclusions in no way support your ignorant claim that 30% of active climate scientists question global warming.” Apparently your inability to understand simple English is a sad statement about our vocational educational system.

    And this is what I had responded to:

    “I agree with most of what you said but the 97.5% thing. I bet its more like 70/30. 30 or anything close is very statistically significant.”

    Do you huff glue as you post?

  203. JWTJr

    “The study that I cited specifically concluded that 97.4% of actively publishing climate scientists believe that global warming is real and caused by man.”

    Wrong. It did not state that. Kayne – did your ivy league indoctrination have any math in it? You don’t seem to want to answer that. I’m doubting it. I’m an Economics major from an excellent school. Lots of math. Obviously way more than you.

    18% of the respondents answered yes to question 2. Pretty close to my 30% guess. That is the most statistically significant figure in the whole survey. But you don’t get that because you don’t know what ‘statistically significant’ means.

  204. JWTJr

    70% didn’t respond. How would they have voted? What is the makeup of that 70%? Are there more of those published types in there?

    No one knows because your survey didn’t explain or try to correlate that. Until you know that, the 97.4% statistic cannot be mathematically correlated to the whole group … like you keep doing.

    He didn’t do it, why do you insist on abusing his hard earned data?

  205. entopticon

    I am sure you are an “excellent” driver too rain man. Are you so brain dead that you simply can’t explain how the conclusion of the researchers, that “…the debate on the authenticity of global warming and the role played by human activity is largely nonexistent among those who understand the nuances and scientific basis of long-term climate processes” fits inot your ridiculous confabulations.

    It’s a commonly cited study, and my understanding of it is the same as that of the researchers. Yours is in clear contradiction of the researchers. As I proved, the researchers concluded, and rightly so, that the debate is essentially NONEXISTENT among people who actually understand the science. Over and over again you have been confronted with the fact that that completely contradicts your asinine claims, and you have no argument against it whatsoever because you have been talking out your ass.

    Yeah, you are just such a bright bulb; that neuroscience stuff sure is simple. It’s not like it is brain science or anything. Golly, I guess you showed me. Although many of the world’s leading cognitive neuroscience researchers have sought my opinions on on countless occasions, I will probably never rise to the superdy duperdy smartness of a medical assistant like you.

    Although I have sat down with some of the world’s foremost climate scientists from NASA and NOAA, to discuss this very issue, and they agree with me entirely and are very saddened by your ignorant, Faux News addled notion that there is significant debate about global warming, I could never hope to be as smart and informed as someone like you. All of those internationally renowned scientists are mere peons compared to you and the profound understanding of climate science that you have gleaned from being medical assistant here in rural Appalachia.

  206. JWTJr

    For the one millionth time … I’m not debating their written … not calculated … conclusion to their survey.

    You are putting words in their numbers.

    Since you’ve had no math since your junior year in high school, I can understand why you don’t understand the difference.

  207. entopticon

    I haven’t taken math since college, but it is not just math that you are clearly not understanding, it is basic logic. Since you have clearly never studied basic logic in your life, I can see where it is lost on you.

    The reason that the researchers concluded that the debate is virtually NONEXISTANT among people who actually understand the science, is because 97.4% of the actively publishing climate scientists responded that global warming is real and caused by man. The fact that you can’t follow that is almost as sad as it is funny.

    It was a published, peer-reviewed, scientifically conducted survey, and unless you can show otherwise, I am going to continue to trust their data and their conclusions, and the word of the top climate scientists on the planet over that of a Faux News obsessed failed economics major turned medical assistant.

  208. JWTJr

    This is what the survey said:

    “In our survey, the most specialized and knowledgeable RESPONDENTS, who have published …. pier reviewed … 79 total … 76 of 79 answered yes to #2”

    OF RESPONDENTS … NOT THE WHOLE GROUP
    OF RESPONDENTS … NOT THE WHOLE GROUP
    OF REPSONDENTS … NOT THE WHOLE GROUP

    If you stare at this for a while, you might get it.

    You are making assumptions about the 70% who did not respond that the survey authors did not.

    You are misstating their factual results.

  209. entopticon

    “You are making assumptions about the 70% who did not respond that the survey authors did not.”

    Okay, this is absolutely imbecilic. I didn’t know somebody could actually be THAT dense. The conlsuon of the survey authors is the EXACT SAME as the conclusion that I made. This is their conclusion:

    “…the debate on the authenticity of global warming and the role played by human activity is largely nonexistent among those who understand the nuances and scientific basis of long-term climate processes”

    That completely supports what I said. The 97.4% isn’t for all respondents, it is for the respondents who are actively publishing in the field of climate science, i.e., the people who in their words, ” understand the nuances and scientific basis of long-term climate processes.”

    Your claim that I am making assumptions that the authors did not is absolute garbage, and I have proved it over and over again. Their assumption is that from their data, it is safe to say that:

    “…the debate on the authenticity of global warming and the role played by human activity is largely nonexistent among those who understand the nuances and scientific basis of long-term climate processes”

    Try to get it through your skull already. You have no argument.

    As for the 75% figure from the study from Oreskes that was mentioned in the article, you are wrong about the implications of that as well. Oreskes, director of the Program in Science Studies at the University of California, found that of 928 papers on climate change, 75% specifically endorsed the stance that climate change is caused by man. Of the remaining 25% in that study, not a single one argued against the consensus position position. Not one.

    This is the conclusion that Naomi Oreskes drew from her study:

    “Many people have the impression that there is significant scientific disagreement about global climate change. It’s time to lay that misapprehension to rest. There is a scientific consensus on the fact that Earth’s climate is heating up and human activities are part of the reason. We need to stop repeating nonsense about the uncertainty of global warming and start talking seriously about the right approach to address it.”

  210. JWTJr

    What about the remaining 70% of the whole population who has the same credentials and didn’t reply? You’re assuming that everyone with those credentials responded. They don’t say that.

  211. entopticon

    The study can’t speak for the people who didn’t reply, as with any other study. It’s conclusions were drawn from the results of the people who did reply. If you are seriously trying to argue that for some magical reason, that would dramatically change the results, you are even more far gone than I had imagined.

  212. E-piff-any

    [b]Do you huff glue as you post? [/b]

    Actually, it really helps make sense of all of this…
    …..
    ….
    …………..

  213. JWTJr

    You conflict – “The study can’t speak for the people who didn’t reply”

    But then you say – “If you are seriously trying to argue that for some magical reason, that would dramatically change the results”

    Which is it? It can or can’t?

    You almost have it but you still seem to be missing something. You used that stat to the tenth of a decimal making a point about the whole industry. I told you that you were misusing that particular stat and now with your first statement above you may be half way figuring it out.

    Ever heard that figures don’t lie, but liars figure? Misusing stats like that is the way of the liars who figure.

    You are learning statistician-son

  214. entopticon

    Your conflict- the facts of the matter don’t gel with your asinine contentions, and even though I have provided evidence from qualified experts at the top of their field contradicting your claims, you keep blathering on as if you had a legitimate argument. You do not.

    What part of Doran’s conclusions don’t you understand?

    “It seems that the debate on the authenticity of global warming and the role played by human activity is largely nonexistent among those who understand the nuances and scientific basis of long-term climate processes. The challenge, rather, appears to be how to effectively communicate this fact to policy makers and to a public that continues to mistakenly perceive debate among scientists.”

    What part of Oreske’s conclusion don’t you understand?

    “Many people have the impression that there is significant scientific disagreement about global climate change. It’s time to lay that misapprehension to rest. There is a scientific consensus on the fact that Earth’s climate is heating up and human activities are part of the reason. We need to stop repeating nonsense about the uncertainty of global warming and start talking seriously about the right approach to address it.”

    The two foremost studies on the issue of consensus to date, published in peer reviewed scientific journals, both concluded that among people who actually understand the issues, active climate scientists, the notion that there is significant debate over whether global warming is real and caused by humans is “nonsense.”

    You take issue with their conclusions because you can’t get your head out of Rush Limbaugh’s ass, but you have offered no legitimate counter argument or evidence whatsoever. I trust the conclusions of the studies more than I trust a Faux News obsessed halfwit like you. I trust the numerous climate scientists from NASA and NOAA that I have spoken to more than I trust you. I trust my closest friend in town, who is currently in Copenhagen for projects related to his climate science work with NASA and NOAA, who is also representing a prominent group of climate scientists (350.org) there, more than I trust a Faux News obsessed medical assistant.

    I did not misuse their statements. They concluded the EXACT SAME thing from the data that I did. Their conclusions are absolutely in line with mine, and absolutely out of line with your ignorant, asinine contention that there is significant debate among actual climate scientists. Your arguments are a joke.

  215. JWTJr

    You tried to tell us that everyone that was anyone was surveyed and that 97.4% of them united.

    At least you now admit you misused that stat.

  216. If you find yourself in an argument with an idiot, make sure that your opponent is not in the same position.

  217. entopticon

    Jr, you are completely deranged. I have said the same exact thing all along and I have been right all along, and you have been wrong all along. 97.4% of the actively publishing climate scientists in the study believe in global warming and that it is caused by man. That is why the researchers concluded that among people who actually understand the issues, the debate is largely nonexistent. The fact that you still fail to grasp that is mind-boggling.

    Get it through your skull already. According to the research, your fabricated claim that there is significant debate among active climate scientists is, in the words of the authors of the two foremost studies on consensus to date, “nonexistant” and “nonsense.” If you took the time to pull your head out of Rush Limbaugh’s ass for 5 minutes and actually listened to the people who understand the science for once, you would understand what they have been telling you all along:

    “Many people have the impression that there is significant scientific disagreement about global climate change. It’s time to lay that misapprehension to rest. There is a scientific consensus on the fact that Earth’s climate is heating up and human activities are part of the reason. We need to stop repeating nonsense about the uncertainty of global warming and start talking seriously about the right approach to address it.”

  218. entopticon

    Since I never claimed to be Kanye West or a mathematical genius, I guess I shouldn’t be too surprised to see that you are now claiming to be both. I liked you better as Taylor Swift, but it’s all good. There are certainly many mathematical geniuses among the tens of thousands of climate scientists that believe that the evidence for anthropogenic global warming is irrefutable.

    You can question me all you want, but don’t expect me to humor the quasi-scientific misinformed Faux News disinformation that you keep spouting. As Oreskes said, “We need to stop repeating nonsense about the uncertainty of global warming and start talking seriously about the right approach to address it.”

    My friend at the Copenhagen conference just sent me a link to a scientific visualization tool that was designed to help people such as you that have been confused by the counterfactual disinformation of the far right to better understand the truth:
    http://www.informationisbeautiful.net/visualizations/climate-change-deniers-vs-the-consensus/

  219. Ashehome

    The argument about global warming can go on indefinitely, but what we do know, right here, right now is the following:

    -Acid rain killed most of the evergreen trees on Mnt. Mitchell.
    -Asheville and WNC has some of the worst air quality in the country.
    -The French Broad is horribly polluted.

    These are facts that can not be disputed, it’s here, it’s now and we need to stop wasting time fighting and address the here and now realities of our present time climate problem.

  220. entopticon

    “These are facts that can not be disputed’

    Ashehome, your “facts” can indeed be disputed, and the notion that arguments about the verity of global warming are a “waste of time” is very dangerous and misguided. Acid rain, WNC’s air quality, and pollution in the French Broad are all real problems, but they certainly aren’t any more real or indisputable than the threat of global warming. We need to be addressing the threat of global warming every bit as much, if not more so.

    By the way, the oft repeated claim that WNC has some of the worst air quality in the country is misinformed hyperbole, at best:
    http://wncairquality.org/Air Quality/asheville_aqi.htm

  221. Alan Ditmore

    This column is like a breath of fresh air, but some of the attitude is still very wrong. City government need not act “aggressively” to increase density. All it needs to do is stop aggressively limiting density (and height) and aggressively seperating jobs, shops and homes with conventional ZONING. The smartgrowth people like the author and the antizoning people have a great deal in common when we realize that conventional zoning ACTIVELY, not passively, increases commuting distances and causes sprawl.
    Conventional zoning is the common enemy of BOTH property rights AND smartgrowth. These movements are allied and won’t admit it.
    Government is not neglecting to stop sprawl, it is actively causing sprawl. NO ZONING!!!

    As for the carbon tax, call it a tax transfer and make it revenue neutral with equivelent cuts in working and middle class income tax. Obama’s “targeted tax cuts” was vague because he usually didn’t specify what the taget was.

  222. travelah

    It looks like the Russian scientific community has busted the same science manipulators for falsifying climate data regarding it’s huge landmass (11% of the world).

    http://icecap.us/images/uploads/BOMBSHELL.pdf

    … The data of stations located in areas not listed in the Hadley Climate Research Unit Temperature UK (HadCRUT) survey often does not show any substantial warming in the late 20th century and the early 21st century….

    It is startng to look like the real flat earthers are the AGM alarmists themselves.

  223. entopticon

    It is startng to look like the real flat earthers are the AGM alarmists themselves.

    Thank goodness I didn’t have any food in my mouth when I read that. traveliar actually just linked to the wingnut Joseph D’Aleo’s propaganda site Icecap as evidence that the 97.4% of active climate scientists in the world who believe that global warming is anthropogenic are wrong. Bwaaaaaaaaaaaaaahahahahahaha!!!!!

    Stick to arguing with Calvinists over which cult is crazier traveliar. And lay off the Pajamas Media a little; it will rot your brain.

  224. entopticon

    Climate change is a hoax that was started by an ancient and powerful secret society of Yeti, Werewolves, grey space aliens, and Loch Ness Monsters who worship the Liberty Bell and Cheetos. Scientists are merely minions of the secret society, spreading the lie of global warming.

    The hoax doesn’t end there though. The secret society also wants you to believe in these other hoaxes:

    1) Electricity! (Your appliances are powered by elf tears)
    2) Air (as if there was something really there; you can’t even see it!)
    3) Toast! (You can’t brown bread with the heat of a toaster, only sin)
    4) Stars (nothing but the distant twinkle of cosmic disco balls)

    Don’t believe the lies!

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