Mar 172008

THIS PAGE HAS BEEN ACTIVATED AS THE NEW STATESMAN BLOG IS NOW CLOSED FOR COMMENTS

At 10am this morning, the New Statesman finally closed the Mark Lynas thread on their website after 1715 comments had been added over a period of five months. I don’t know whether this constitutes any kind of a record, but gratitude is certainly due to the editor of of the New Statesman for hosting the discussion so patiently and also for publishing articles from Dr David Whitehouse and Mark Lynas that have created so much interest.

This page is now live, and anyone who would like to continue the discussion here is welcome to do so. I have copied the most recent contributions at the New Statesman as the first comment for the sake of convenience. If you want to refer back to either of the original threads, then you can find them here:

Dr David Whitehouse’s article can be found here with all 1289 comments.

Mark Lynas’ attempted refutation can be found here with 1715 comments.

Welcome to Harmless Sky, and happy blogging.

(Click the ‘comments’ link below if the input box does not appear)

 

10,000 Responses to “Continuation of the New Statesman Whitehouse/Lynas blogs.”

  1. Re: Post # 1081

    1) Are you worried about the health effects of living in a polluted environment?
    A. Yes

    2) Are you concerned that the IPCC , a leading international body who have consulted thousands of experts on the world climate, have recently published a report outlining the dangers of carbon emissions to the world’s climate?
    A. No

    3) Are you concerned that many experts have warned that carbon emissions could cause the Arctic ice could disappear within twenty years leading to the extinction of the polar bear?
    A. No

    4) To reduce carbon dioxide emissions would you support some government intervention by way of a carbon tax or a carbon trading scheme?
    A. No

  2. Re: Post 1081

    1) Are you worried about increasing government taxation?
    A.Yes

    2) Who do you think is better placed to decide how your money should be spent. You or the government?
    A. Me

    3) How much trust do you have in politicians, political parties and governments? A lot, a little or none?
    A. None

    4) To reduce carbon dioxide emissions would you support some government intervention by way of a carbon tax or a carbon trading scheme?
    A. Hell No

  3. Re: # 1093
    This survey is designed to determine your views about climate change – or, more specifically, global warming:

    Q1 Do you think the world’s temperature has increased over the course of the twentieth century?

    ?Yes [respondents go to Q2]
    O No [respondents exit the survey]
    O Don’t know [respondents exit the survey]

    Q2 Which of the following is closest to your view of the cause of twentieth century global warming?

    O It is wholly or largely man-made – because of greenhouse gas emissions.
    O It is partly man-made – because of greenhouse gas emissions.
    O Mankind’s greenhouse gas emissions may have contributed to it.
    O Mankind’s greenhouse gas emissions had little if anything to do with it.
    ? Mankind had nothing at all to do with it.
    O Don’t know.
    O Other (please specify)

    Q3 Which of the following is closest to your view of the likely effects of global warming?

    O It is likely to be seriously harmful.
    O It is likely to be fairly harmful.
    O It may cause a few problems.
    O It will not cause any problems.
    ? It may be slightly beneficial.O It is likely to be fairly beneficial.
    O It is likely to be very beneficial.
    O Don’t know.

    Q4 Do you agree that taking action to reduce global warming should be at or near the top of the priority lists of world governments?

    O Yes – this is the most important issue facing mankind today.
    O Yes – this is a critically important issue.
    O No – there are other more important priorities.
    ? No – I don’t think government action is necessary.
    O No – I don’t think government action would make any practical difference.
    O Don’t know

    Q5 Do you agree that taking action to reduce global warming should be at or near the top of your personal priority list?

    O Yes – this is the most important issue facing mankind today.
    O Yes – this is a critically important issue.
    O No – I have other more important priorities.
    O No – I don’t think personal action is necessary.
    ? No – I don’t think personal action would make any practical difference.
    O Don’t know

  4. Bob,

    Hey Brute, don’t get upset, I’m just teasing you.
    (And I hope TonyN won’t banish me!)

    Not upset, you have a right to your, (misguided), position. I don’t think Tony will ban you……this isn’t Climate Progress.

  5. Peter: if Max and some IPCC scientists have the same view (that the world’s temperature has increased over the course of the twentieth century and that mankind’s GHG emissions may have contributed to that increase), why is he a “denier” whereas they are not? I think you may have some difficulty with the concept of scepticism being a normal component of your “mainstream science”. Maybe it’s the scientists, bureaucrats, politicians and “communications experts” who contributed to the IPCC’s “Summary for Policymakers” who are out of line.

    PS: do your Google search more carefully. You’ll find both Knuts.

  6. Robin,

    I think that we should let Max speak for himself regarding his position vis a vis the IPCC. I don’t remember him having a good word to say about them, but maybe you’ve got a better memory.

    Max and Brute,

    I don’t think its possible to design a poll to get a 100% result when you both are included in the sample. I wouldn’t want that anyway, it would look too contrived. But I did notice that the peamble questions had a slight effect on Brute. The answer went from an emphatic “hell no” to just an ordinary “no”.

    You might want to try it out on some of the women in your lives. Just to make sure they know what polar bears are like, you accompany the question with a picture of Mother and Cub. Max’s Stefan Boltzmann equations won’t have quite the same level of persuasive power with the ‘fairer sex’ who do have 50% voting rights on the issue, so to speak.

    It doesn’t matter if the population of polar bears is rising. Surely that just means we need to ensure that there is a greater area of Arctic sea ice to keep them all happy :-)

  7. OK, Peter, let’s do as you suggest and ask Max.

    Max: perhaps you might have a look at my post 862 about some findings set out on page 8 of the IPCC’s 2007 report, Working Group 1. I think you’re already familiar with them. You’ll see I summarised them as follows:

    I’ll take one of the listed phenomena: “Warm spells/heat waves. Frequency increases over most land areas.” Here a human contribution is judged (but without a formal attribution study) to be “more likely than not”. In other words, there’s a better than evens chance that there may be some human contribution to the observed phenomenon. (That, incidentally, is a conclusion with which I’m reasonably sure both Spencer and Lindzen, whose inclusion within “mainstream science” is you say “debateable”, would agree.)

    Do you agree that the IPCC scientists responsible for this work seem to have reached a reasonable conclusion – i.e. that there’s a better than evens chance that there may be some human contribution to the observed phenomenon (and to the various other phenomena examined in this interesting part of the IPCC’s report)?

  8. You might want to try it out on some of the women in your lives. Just to make sure they know what polar bears are like, you accompany the question with a picture of Mother and Cub. Max’s Stefan Boltzmann equations won’t have quite the same level of persuasive power with the ‘fairer sex’ who do have 50% voting rights on the issue, so to speak.

    Pete,

    Sort of a chauvinistic attitude, don’t you think? May we add sexism to your growing list of character defects? Next thing you know, you’ll be writing that men are better scientists than women…….that women are “just too emotional” to be objective scientists.

    (My last comment was laced with sarcasm).

  9. Groan – this report about the apparent views of the American Psychological Association is just about as bad as they get. A quotation:

    News stories that provided a balanced view of climate change reduced people’s beliefs that humans are at fault and also reduced the number of people who thought climate change would be bad, according to research by Stanford social psychologist Jon Krosnick.

    Well, yes, that seems likely to be true – hence the desirability of “a balanced view”. But, no, the APA’s conclusion is that this must be changed and there is therefore a need

    to launch a national initiative specifically targeting behavior changes, including developing media messages that will help people reduce their carbon footprint and pay more attention to ways they can conserve.

    Can this really be true?

  10. Hi Peter,

    To your 1106 and Robin’s 1107

    There have been enough studies to show that polar bears are surviving just fine (if humans don’t sport hunt them en masse out of light aircraft or helicopters). They survived two recent periods of prolonged temperature warmer than today: the Medieval Warm Period and the Roman Optimum, not to mention even warmer periods in prehistoric times (ex: Holocene Maximum).

    As far as human influence on climate is concerned, I think I have stated my position fairly clearly. I think the jury is still out on whether human influence has had any impact whatsoever on climate. The greenhouse theory (or hypothesis, however you want to call it) makes sense. It tells us that a doubling of atmospheric CO2 from the level IPCC assumes it was in 1750 (i.e. 280 ppm) to the level IPCC assumes it will be in 2100 (i.e. 560 ppm) would cause an increase of temperature of around 0.7°C. We’ve seen 45% of this theoretical warming up until today (0.3°C) so the next 0.4°C should come from now until 2100.

    That’s it, folks.

    Now I see from the somewhat suspect surface temperature records (Hadley, GISS) that temperature increased from 1850 (when the record started) until around today by 0.7°C. Let’s leave aside the question of how much of this was caused by asphalt parking lots or AC exhausts next to the thermometers, by general urbanization or by “adjustments” or “corrections” made to the raw data, and assume the record is correct. At least since 1979, tropospheric warming has been confirmed by satellite measurements, albeit at a slower rate of warming than measured at the surface, which is, in itself, curious because greenhouse theory tells us warming should occur more rapidly in the troposphere than at the surface. But let’s ignore all of that for now and accept the 0.7°C figure.

    Since CO2 should theoretically have caused 0.3°C warming there must be something else out there, beside CO2 that has also contributed to the observed warming of 0.7°C. I look up into the sky to try to guess what it might have been and (voila!), I see the sun. I recall that days (with sun) are normally warmer than nights (without), and that summers (with a higher angle of the sun) are normally warmer than winters (with a more oblique angle), so I check the literature on solar impact on climate. There are many reports that tell me that the sun reached a record level of solar activity for the past 11,000 years in the second half of the 20th century, and that this could have caused (based on the mechanisms known to science today) an increase of 0.3°C to 0.4°C.

    So I see that it is reasonable that CO2 could have caused around 50% of the warming and the sun the other 50%. Of course, we (“science”, that is) do not know everything there is to know about what causes climate to change, and the “background noise” of our knowledge may be greater than the knowledge itself, so I would not say that it is 100% certain that CO2 has caused any part of the 20th century warming, but I agree that it MAY HAVE.

    One problem with CO2 as a principal driver of climate is that over multi-decadal periods of essentially no (late 19th century) or very little CO2 increase (early 20th century), temperature went up, over a period of rapidly increasing CO2 (mid 20th century) temperature cooled off and most recently (21st century), with all-time record human CO2 emissions, the temperature trend is flat to slightly cooling. This does not give me great confidence in CO2 as a principal driver, but I still agree that it MAY BE a driver.

    Now when I read that a series of computer models have predicted that a doubling of CO2 will cause a warming of 3.2°C (latest IPCC AR4 report), my first reaction is to question, how is this possible?

    I see that it is only possible by cranking in various assumed (or contrived?) “feedbacks”, from water vapor, surface albedo and clouds, all of which cause a fairly innocuous 1°C (itself an exaggeration of the calculated greenhouse warming of 0.7°C for 2xCO2) to over three times this amount!

    Then I read that IPCC tells me the 2xCO2 warming with all feedbacks except clouds is equal to 1.9°C, and with all feedbacks including clouds it is 3.2°C. In other words the positive feedback from clouds is so strong that it can cause an increase in the 2xCO2 temperature increase of 1.3°C. This is major! I am surprised at this, because again, as I recall the temperature seems to cool off when a cloud passes overhead, so additional warming from clouds is counterintuitive. But I read on.

    All models cited by IPCC included a positive (warming) feedback for clouds, although they disagree on its magnitude (a ± 0.7°C “disagreement”, according to IPCC). But I read in a report cited by IPCC that this “disagreement” is even more basic, in that it is uncertain whether net cloud feedback is, indeed, positive or negative. Then I read in the IPCC fine print, “clouds remain the greatest source of uncertainty”.

    So I search the literature to see if there is anything more recent than IPCC AR4 on this subject. I find a recent study by Roy Spencer on cloud feedback, which was published after IPCC. It shows me, based on physically observed data gathered over a five-year study period, that clouds are shown to have a strong negative (cooling) feedback, thereby validating a hypothesis proposed earlier by Richard Lindzen and, in effect, canceling out the assumed net positive feedback from other sources. This puts the 2xCO2 temperature increase back at around 0.7°C to 0.8°C. So Spencer’s study has cleared up IPCC’s “greatest source of uncertainty” (and the IPCC AR4 report is out-of-date before the ink has even dried).

    So, yes, CO2 may have caused a portion of the warming we have experienced to date and, if so, may cause some more warming in the future, both measured in a fraction of 1°C, and, therefore, nothing to get very excited about.

    That is what I reason to be true and why.

    As for Robin’s very specific question: “Warm spells/heat waves. Frequency increases over most land areas.” Here a human contribution is judged (but without a formal attribution study) to be “more likely than not”. In other words, there’s a better than even chance that there may be some human contribution to the observed phenomenon.
    Do you agree that the IPCC scientists responsible for this work seem to have reached a reasonable conclusion – i.e. that there’s a better than even chance that there may be some human contribution to the observed phenomenon (and to the various other phenomena examined in this interesting part of the IPCC’s report)?

    Yes, Robin, I would agree, but I would insist that the caveat be added (as IPCC did) “of non-assessed magnitude”, so the statement would read:

    “Based upon expert judgment rather than formal attribution studies, there is a >50% chance that there may have been an increase in frequency of warm spells/heat waves over most land areas in the late 20th century with some human contribution of non-assessed magnitude to this possible trend.”

    I would, however, have a hard time seeing how this “wishy-washy” statement could be extrapolated to this statement for the future (as IPCC has done):

    “Our model studies using SRES scenarios show us that there is a >90% likelihood of a future trend of increased frequency of warm spells/heat waves over most land areas due to human influence.”

    Observed data (>50% probable) extrapolated to a future prediction (>90% probable). Sounds like “bad science” to me (or maybe just “good PR”).

    Sorry for being so long-winded, but wanted to make sure you (Peter) had my complete reasoning on this, rather than just falling back to calling me a “denier” (or whatever).

    Regards,

    Max

  11. Max,

    A very reasoned, lucid and cogent post……perfectly logical and sound. I liked it….. and it makes perfect sense to me.

    I’m afraid that people such as Peter will never, ever, change their opinion. The global warming hoax is paramount in their defense of the “initiatives” and policies that they would like to implement, which are redistribution of wealth and excessive, (or complete) regulation of industry. Their agenda is cultural, which must be fulfilled through legislation and government fiat.

    The latest tactic of Socialist minded politicians has been to have like minded people (Socialists) appointed to the judiciary after failing to completly capture the Executive and the Legislative branches of government. Judicial nominations are lifetime appointments and are not subject to the will of the people, (who have not fallen for their goofy collectivists policies).

    When a judge makes a ruling it sets precedent. Precedent is extremely hard to overcome…………Robin would be better suited to speak of this, but the bottom line is that these politicians have failed to convince the voting public to adhere to their ideology…they are now using the tactic of bypassing or subverting the will of the people through the judiciary, (here in the US).

  12. Hi Brute,

    Your analysis on what motivates Peter’s mindset may be spot on.

    In Europe there is the expression “watermelon politicians” (green on the outside but red on the inside).

    Maybe Peter fits into this category.

    (I know this expression might not make much sense for Americans, where “red” is the color of the more conservative Republican party, but for Europeans, who remember the “red” communist threat from the USSR for many decades – before it finally imploded, it makes good sense.)

    Regards,

    Max

  13. Max,

    I understand the analogy completely.

    Someone said somewhere that “Green” is the new “Red”. The term “Red” may be somewhat antiquated but the philosophy is the same as it always has been. After the fall of the Soviet Union they had nowhere to go and have picked up the “Green” banner to subjugate free people.

    You’ll notice that nowhere is the “going green” philosophy voluntary. Forcing people to do things against their will can only be accomplished through intimidation, indoctrination, deception and heavy handed government intervention.

    I just pray that I’ll be dead before, and if, any of this nonsense becomes the law of the land as Peter has prophesized.

  14. Thought this was appropriate.

    Via Ice Cap:

    Aug 15, 2008
    RAHN: Oil and oily politicians

    By Richard W. Rahn in the Washington Times

    Oil reserves are largely a function of price. Global proven reserves of conventional oil obtainable at prices of less than $40 per barrel are estimated at more than 1.3 trillion barrels, with much of it concentrated in the Middle East. Additionally, reserves of so called “heavy oil,” the largest reserves of which are in Venezuela’s Orinoco area, are estimated at 1.2 trillion barrels, and most of this could probably be recovered for less than $50 per barrel.

    The reserves of oil sands, which are actively being mined in Canada’s Alberta Province, are estimated to be 1.8 trillion barrels. Experts estimate that much of this can be produced for $45 per barrel or less. Global reserves of oil shale are estimated at more than 3.3 trillion barrels, with 70 percent in the United States (primarily in Colorado, Utah and Wyoming).

    Shell Oil Co. last year announced it has developed a process for extracting the oil from the shale, without mining, at a price of roughly $35 per barrel. The United States also has the world’s largest reserves of coal – enough for hundreds of years of production at present levels. Coal also can be turned into liquid petroleum (as the Germans and South Africans proved decades ago). Current estimates of the conversion cost are as low as $35 per barrel.

    Does it seem a bit odd that the current price of oil is more than twice the cost of producing all the oil the world presently needs and will need long into the future? The reason the price is so high is that the supply has been artificially constrained by governments. Most (88 percent) of the conventional oil reserves are owned by governments, and these governments have underinvested in new production. As is well-known, the U.S. government has restricted offshore and onshore drilling, shale development, and coal conversion.

    Some politicians argue, even if the U.S. government started to allow increased production, that it would be seven to 10 years or more before there would be additional output. This is nonsense. Oil wells can be drilled at an average rate of 1,000 feet or so per day, which means that the average U.S. well can be drilled in a week. It does take a few weeks to set up the pump and install the separation tanks, etc., but new land wells can be producing within months, even if the product has to be trucked rather than piped away.

    The very same politicians who claim we cannot increase oil production quickly are often the same ones who tell us we need to move to alternative forms – windmills and solar, etc. – without seeming to understand these desirable technologies will take far more time to meet the goals of “energy independence” than ramping up oil production. Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi said she would not allow a vote on more drilling because she wanted “to save the planet,” without seeming to understand, if increased oil production does not take place in the United States with all its environmental safeguards, it will take place where U.S. environmental law cannot be enforced – and that is not healthy for the planet.

    Richard W. Rahn is a senior fellow at the Cato Institute and chairman of the Institute for Global Economic Growth.

  15. Hi Peter,

    In my response #1110 to you I referred to questions regarding the validity of the surface temperature record, which is being used by IPCC to claim recent anthropogenic greenhouse warming and to predict more of the same for the future.

    A very recent report by meteorologist and climatologist, Joseph D’Aleo, cites serious data integrity problems with the historical surface temperature record. This might be worth reading.
    http://climatesci.org/2008/08/11/guest-weblog-a-comment-on-the-report-unified-synthesis-product-global-climate-change-in-the-united-states-by-joseph-d-aleo/

    Let me know what you think of it.

    Regards,

    Max

  16. Hi Brute,

    The Rahn article is interesting.

    Yeah. I believe that Peter’s “peak oil crisis” is not a real “crisis” at all.

    I think US politicians have blocked exploration and development (the Brits and Norwegians have been a lot more practical on this, despite claiming to “think green”), with the net result that there appears to be a “peak oil crisis” (and a resulting real major trade imbalance) in the USA today.

    For your sake, I hope you can get the offshore ban rescinded and development work started on the giant oil shale reserves at the same time, since it appears that that is what a majority of the US citizens support, based on the poll info you cited.

    Looks like you’ll need some more courageous politicians than you’ve had so far to push this through.

    The syn-fuel (coal to motor fuel) avenue would also make a lot of sense for the USA (as it did for South Africa), with all the coal reserves you have. But as long as you have the likes of Lester Brown running around pushing for a total ban of coal use and Al Gore asking for a coal phase-out plan, you’re going to remain in the hands of the Saudis and other friendly oil exporters.

    A thought that comes to mind: Are Al Gore, Lester Brown and all these other fuzz-heads like James E. Hansen really working for the Saudis? Or maybe for Hugo Chavez?

    Something to think about it.

    Regards,

    Max

  17. Hi Peter,

    Further to my previous post citing the recent D’Aleo study, I refer to one excerpt, which refers to one of the many points he makes about the data integrity problems with the GISS surface record, i.e. that of frequent ex post facto “adjustments” made to the record.

    “The GISS GHCN adjustments also were observed to occur frequently. John Goetz in February 2008 found on average 20% of the historical record was modified 16 times in the prior 2 1/2 years.
    http://www.climateaudit.org/?p=2964

    The largest single jump was 0.27 C. This occurred between the Oct 13, 2006 and Jan 15, 2007 records when Aug 2006 changed from an anomaly of +0.43C to +0.70C, a change of nearly 68% ”.

    By coincidence I found a similar adjustment to the Hadley record for the first four months of 2008, which I posted (text below) on the site with the John Goetz lead article, asking if anyone had an explanation.

    “Realize that this site has been posting comments relative to the post by John Goetz on history being re-written at GISS, but I have a related question concerning Hadley.

    I have been following the monthly temperature anomaly values published by UAH, Hadley, etc.

    Recently I noticed that the Hadley values I had downloaded as they were first published for the first four months of 2008 had subsequently been changed.

    I have noticed occasional minor adjustments after the fact in most of the records, but this adjustment covered four successive months and was not “minor”.

    Original record
    J -0.105
    F +0.039
    M +0.430
    A +0.250
    “Corrected” record
    J +0.054
    F +0.192
    M +0.445
    A +0.254

    The net difference is an average of +0.083C per month, so fairly significant in a record where annual changes are only a fraction of this amount.”

    I received several suggested “explanations”, including “variance adjustments”, “adjustment procedure to adjust for changing number of proxies”, “time delays in arrival of data”, “detrending anomalies in individual grid boxes using a six-year running average”, etc. but none of these were satisfactory, so I then compared the average anomaly of these four months in 2008 with the average for these same months over the seven prior years (2001-2007).

    I found that the original Hadley record was in close agreement with the GISS record, both showing that J-A 2008 was 0.16°C colder than J-A 2001-07. Interestingly the two satellite records (RSS and UAH) both agreed that J-A 2008 was 0.33°C colder than J-A 2001-07.

    After adjustment, Hadley shows only half the 2008 cooling that GISS shows and only one-fourth of the cooling shown in the two satellite records.

    To make this easier to see I have plotted it in a simple graph.
    http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3074/2720385677_7af5ccfd90_b.jpg

    So far, no one has been able to provide a real explanation of what happened here.

    Is the Hadley record also suspect (as D’Aleo and Goetz believe could be the case for the GISS record)?

    I’d appreciate comments from anyone who knows something about this.

    Regards,

    Max

  18. A thought that comes to mind: Are Al Gore, Lester Brown and all these other fuzz-heads like James E. Hansen really working for the Saudis? Or maybe for Hugo Chavez?

    Max,

    I don

  19. A thought that comes to mind: Are Al Gore, Lester Brown and all these other fuzz-heads like James E. Hansen really working for the Saudis? Or maybe for Hugo Chavez?

    Max,

    I don’t know that I would go so far to write that Al Gore is “working” for the likes of Hugo Chavez and/or the Saudis but he definitely is sympathetic to Chavez’s regime and practices and works to emulate Chavez’s dictatorial ideology. Gore is absolutely working against the best interests of the United States.

    Chavez likes to describe himself as a “Democratic Socialist”, (a contradiction of terms); however is nothing more than a third rate thug who happens to be the leader of a piece of Earth that contains oil reserves. Many Hollywood types have traveled to Venezuela to have themselves photographed with Chavez and support his regime. Hussein Obama seemed to be cut from the same piece of cloth ideologically and the hero worship/sycophant attitude of his disciples is much the same.

  20. All this “green on the inside red on the outside” stuff is just a load of paranoid McCarthyism.

    It’s really only the right wing of the US Republican party who seriously have a problem with the science of global warming, but even the GOP now have had the good sense to choose a candidate who doesn’t spout the sort of nonsense that we sometimes hear from the more Neanderthal of their party members.

    For more background: http://www.alternet.org/story/18283/

    Or are you saying that John McCains’s a Red too?

    Get used to it, things will change in the US, whoever wins in November .

  21. Or are you saying that John McCains’s a Red too?

    If the shoe fits…….I’m disappointed that McCain is (at least publicly) falling for the Global Warming charade. Politics makes strange bedfellows, although it is an election season, pandering and bowing at the altar of the Church of Gaia lunatic fringe is unappealing.

    The following statements are from his webpage. I’m not certain how he is going to increase domestic oil production and satisfy the delusional agenda of the eco-chondriacs.

    Expanding Domestic Oil And Natural Gas Exploration And Production

    John McCain Will Commit Our Country To Expanding Domestic Oil Exploration. The current federal moratorium on drilling in the Outer Continental Shelf stands in the way of energy exploration and production. John McCain believes it is time for the federal government to lift these restrictions and to put our own reserves to use. There is no easier or more direct way to prove to the world that we will no longer be subject to the whims of others than to expand our production capabilities. We have trillions of dollars worth of oil and gas reserves in the U.S. at a time we are exporting hundreds of billions of dollars a year overseas to buy energy. This is the largest transfer of wealth in the history of mankind. We should keep more of our dollars here in the U.S., lessen our foreign dependency, increase our domestic supplies, and reduce our trade deficit – 41% of which is due to oil imports. John McCain proposes to cooperate with the states and the Department of Defense in the decisions to develop these resources.

    John McCain Believes In Promoting And Expanding The Use Of Our Domestic Supplies Of Natural Gas. When people are hurting, and struggling to afford gasoline, food, and other necessities, common sense requires that we draw upon America’s own vast reserves of oil and natural gas. Within the United States we have tremendous reserves of natural gas. The Outer Continental Shelf alone contains 77 trillion cubic feet of recoverable natural gas. It is time that we capitalize on these significant resources and build the infrastructure needed to transport this important component of electricity generation and transportation fuel around the country.

  22. Brute,

    I find it curious that you have to stoop to calling Barack Obama by his middle name , presumably in the hope that your fellow citizens will think of Saddam Hussein, but that is like thinking of Stalin when you hear the name Joseph.

    There are, and have been, lots of Husseins, with the same or a similar spelling, including King Hussein of Jordan, one of America’s most steadfast allies in the 20th century. The author of the well known novel ‘The Kite Runner’ is Khaled Hossein. The England cricket captain in the late 90s was Nasser Hussain, a very decent bloke, and well respected here in Australia.

    I believe that Obama is named after his Kenyan grandfather and the name derives from the Semitic word hasan, meaning good or handsome. Denigrating that name is a form of racial and religious bigotry and shows a prejudice against names deriving from Semitic languages.

    To his credit, John McCain spoke out quickly against that sort of underhand tactic when one of his supporters, speaking on the same platform, employed it in January and as far as know it hasn’t re-occurred since.

  23. Everything alright down there Pete? Should I mail down some cold weather gear to offset the Global Warming?

    Southeast freezes again in our coldest winter in years
    http://www.news.com.au/couriermail/story/0,23739,24178942-952,00.html

  24. Denigrating that name is a form of racial and religious bigotry and shows a prejudice against names deriving from Semitic languages.

    Denigrating? Rather presumptuous of you……I simply wrote the man’s name.

    Do you feel that his name should not be written? Is it blasphemous to speak or write his name? Is this akin to publishing characterizations of the prophet Mohammed? Is this some deep dark secret that should not be mentioned/spoken? Is he ashamed of his name? Are you suspicious of men named Hussein?

    If you have a problem with his name, maybe you should reconsider your views regarding ethnicity. I’m curious that you extrapolated all of that information regarding my motives by selecting one word out of an entire paragraph.

    My very dear friend Marwan would be offended by your insinuation.

    Frankly, I was having a hard time spelling Barack.

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