somethin's keeping him skinny

LOL, too funnie. :D

and yet the Artic is "balmy"

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/01/25/sc...d.html?_r=1&hp

makes sense I guess:

Paleoclimate Implications for Human-Made Climate Change
James E. Hansen and Makiko Sato
NASA Goddard Institute for Space Studies and Columbia University Earth Institute, New York

page 11
" For example, Earth is now closest to the sun in January, which favors warm winters and cool summers in the Northern Hemisphere....."


or maybe all of the hot global warming air is rising to the top of the world...pushing the arctic air blast that we are experiencing southward

I hope the polar bears don't drown.....:happy:

doubters:
 

I have included an excerpt below from a survey of scientists on global warming. 2 points I would like to highlight: 1. 97% of climatologists believe global warming is occurring and humans play a role. 2. The majority of scientists who dispute it are in the petroleum industry or meteorologists.

82% of all scientists questioned believe not only in global warming, but that humans are contributing to it.

Looking at the wealth of data, how could I as an informed person so adamantly disagree with the 97% of climate experts? There is no logic to it, unless I have political reasons to oppose it.

The constant use of weather as an example that global warming isn't occurring are completely in-valid. The noreaster is especially strange since more frequent, stronger storms is something that is indicated by global warming.

Think what you want, but please don't make it as if your side of the argument has the data on its' side unless you want to show all of the data.

****The study released today was conducted by academics from the University of Illinois, who used an online questionnaire of nine questions. The scientists approached were listed in the 2007 edition of the American Geological Institute's Directory of Geoscience Departments.

Two questions were key: Have mean global temperatures risen compared to pre-1800s levels, and has human activity been a significant factor in changing mean global temperatures?

About 90 percent of the scientists agreed with the first question and 82 percent the second.

The strongest consensus on the causes of global warming came from climatologists who are active in climate research, with 97 percent agreeing humans play a role.

Those scientists were obviously idiots and not utilizing the in-depth scientific research and methods that the climatologists who participate in this forum use.

Their method? Looking out the window. :smash::smash:

It's like the nitwits who catch a lot of fish one day and then say, "see, I caught as many fish as I wanted to. That proves we have an abundance of fish around."

Isn't the weather outside my window considered the climate?:rotf2:

http://tigger.uic.edu/~pdoran/012009_Doran_final.pdf
In our survey,
the most specialized and knowledgeable
respondents (with regard to climate
change) are those who listed climate science
as their area of expertise and who
also have published more than 50% of
their recent peer-reviewed
papers on the
subject of climate change (79 individuals
in total).

The 97% "Consensus" is only 79 Self-Selected Climatologists

While 97% of "climate scientists think that global warming is 'significantly' due to human activity," a shocking 72% of news coverage does not reflect this "consensus" and similarly 74% of the public are not convinced.

Close examination of the source of the claimed 97% consensus reveals that it comes from a non-peer reviewed article describing an online poll in which a total of only 79 climate scientists chose to participate. Of the 79 self-selected climate scientists, 75 agreed with the notion of AGW. Thus, we find climate scientists once again using dubious statistical techniques to deceive the public that there is a 97% scientific consensus on man-made global warming.

Let's not lose sight of what the Doran poll asked:

1. When compared with pre-1800s levels do you think that mean global temperatures have generally risen, fallen, or remained relatively constant?

2. Do you think human activity is a significant contributing factor in changing mean global temperatures?

Of course, the answer to #1 is "risen", if you consider "pre-1800" to be around 1800 or a couple of hundred years of so before, because we were in the little age age, and there's little doubt we have warmed form that time.

The answer to number #2 depends largely on the definition of significant, but I'd guess that even Richard Lindzen would consider the co2 contribution significant, based on his forcing calculation.

And of course, warmers seem to treat a risen/yes reply to this poll as affirmation of catastrophic AGW projections, which may not be intended.[/QUOTE]

you'd think it would be much easier to convince everyone of something that is so obvious...and settled :uhuh: :rotf2:...it appears that the biggest climate challenge for the climate changers is defending the settled science of global warming...maybe we need another movie :rotf2:

Answer to number 1...Your talking over 200 years. The climate changes..No?

Answer to number 2... Brilliant. The number of humans has gone up. Um...could be a factor.

Do you think the the earth might have warmed a fraction without humans?Pretty sure it has in the past.


Edit: Sorry Scott, Didn't read your post until after. Guess a couple window watchers like ourselfs think alike.

I wonder what Oog and Grog thought of the Ice Age?
I bet they blamed it on all the methane gas the dinosaurs created after eating all the vegitation.

Now we study cow burps....where does it all end?????

International consensus falls along the same lines. It is a very small percent of scientists who study climate who are doubters. There are many anti-environmental movement, anti-government, pro-oil people who disagree.

The arguments that I just read said, well yeah it increased since the 1800's because of the mini ice age, well yeah there are more people now sow the temp probably increased. The next posts will be it hasn't increased and if it did it isn't because of people, it's sun spots. So what is it? Ask the real experts, they say the climate is changing, the records show it is changing, ice cores show it is changing, we burn tons of fossil fuels as of the last 200 years. Where is the consensus from real climate scientists that it isn't happening? You can't find one, so I should just take what Glen Beck or Hannity says to be the truth as the truth. Faggettit... I'll go with the science on this one.

2012

you forgot LAWYERS...they are on board too ...probably like 97% of them

Trial lawyers and their academic abettors are salivating over the potential lfor "hundreds of billions of dollars" in legal claims for compensatory losses due to climate change -- according to a report by Richard Inham of the AFP.

'"There's a large number of entrepreneurial lawyers and NGOs who are hunting around for a way to gain leverage on the climate problem," said David Victor, director of the Laboratory on International Law and Regulation at the University of California at San Diego.'

Thus as the industial world struggles to recover from the worst recession in generations, private enterprise will have to fend off thousands of spurious claims lodged by activist liberal lawyers in frivilous lawsuits over droughts, floods, and other weather-events normally classified legally as "Acts of God".

"In this area, the floodgates have opened," said Michael Gerrard, director of the recently-opened Center for Climate Change Law at Columbia Law School in New York... .

"There are billions of potential plaintiffs and millions of potential defendants," said Gerrard. "The biggest problem, though, is causation."

huh....that's and interesting thing to say when the science is settled...

Got nothing, huh?

Let’s see just how the magnitude and rates of change of modern global warming/cooling compare to warming/cooling events over the past 25,000 years. We can compare the warming and cooling in the past century to approximate 100 year periods in the past 25,000 years. The scale of the curve doesn’t allow enough accuracy to pick out exactly 100 year episodes directly from the curve, but that can be done from the annual dust layers in ice core data. Thus, not all of the periods noted here are exactly 100 years. Some are slightly more, some are slightly less, but they are close enough to allow comparison of magnitude and rates with the past century.

Temperature changes recorded in the GISP2 ice core from the Greenland Ice Sheet (Figure 1) (Cuffy and Clow, 1997) show that the global warming experienced during the past century pales into insignificance when compared to the magnitude of profound climate reversals over the past 25,000 years. In addition, small temperature changes of up to a degree or so, similar to those observed in the 20th century record, occur persistently throughout the ancient climate record.

Figure 1. Greenland temperatures over the past 25,000 years recorded in the GISP 2 ice core. Strong, abrupt warming is shown by nearly vertical rise of temperatures, strong cooling by nearly vertical drop of temperatures (Modified from Cuffy and Clow, 1997).

Figure 2 shows comparisons of the largest magnitudes of warming/cooling events per century over the past 25,000 years. At least three warming events were 20 to 24 times the magnitude of warming over the past century and four were 6 to 9 times the magnitude of warming over the past century. The magnitude of the only modern warming which might possibly have been caused by CO2. (1978-1998) is insignificant compared to the earlier periods of warming.

Figure 2. Magnitudes of the largest warming/cooling events over the past 25,000 years. Temperatures on the vertical axis are rise or fall of temperatures in about a century. Each column represents the rise or fall of temperature shown on Figure 1. Event number 1 is about 24,000years ago and event number 15 is about 11,000 years old. The sudden warming about 15,000 years ago caused massive melting of these ice sheets at an unprecedented rate. The abrupt cooling that occurred from 12,700 to 11,500 years ago is known as the Younger Dryas cold period, which was responsible for readvance of the ice sheets and alpine glaciers. The end of the Younger Dryas cold period warmed by 9°F ( 5°C) over 30-40 years and as much as 14°F (8°C) over 40 years.

arctic temps Daily Mean Temperatures in the Arctic 1958 - 2011


Daily mean temperatures for the Arctic area north of the 80th northern parallel
COI | Centre for Ocean and Ice | Danmarks Meteorologiske Institut


January 6, 2010

It’s cold here and in northern Eurasia, but it’s been positively toasty around the Arctic circle — thanks to an extreme negative phase of the Arctic Oscillation, as the National Snow and Ice Data Center (NSIDC) explained in their online report yesterday.

January 23, 2010

According to the Danish Meteorological Institute, Arctic temperatures are currently below 238K (-35.15 degrees Celsius or -31.27 degrees Fahrenheit)

That is more than five degrees below normal (the green line) and the lowest reading since 2004. The slope of decline has also recently been quite sharp, dropping from 252K on January 1, a drop of 14 degrees in 22 days.

:wall::wall::wall::wall:Where is this cut and pasted from? Easterbrook's guest editorial on the Free Republic?

Let me make a comparision here. I can go find a PhD geologist (Say Dr. Marcus Ross, Liberty University) who is a fervent believer in young earth creationism. Doesn't refute evolution.

Same thing here, you find Easterbrook, with a LONG record of being a skeptic (and contributor to Glenn Beck' Show), with, in this case 15 year old data.

I was at his infamous presentation at the 2006 GSA Meeting. There is a good reason the stuff he posts in the Free Republic is not peer reviewed; it would not stand. The events he has mentioned have distinct causes independent of atmosphereic CO2. Things that, if they occured today would have the same result (Like large, sudden releases of freshwater to the ocean after draining a huge glacial lake).

but then again it's snowing in January. No climate change here :wall:

[QUOTE=RIROCKHOUND;830852:

Where is this cut and pasted from? Free Republic?

Glenn Beck' Show.

Free Republic

:[/QUOTE]

not familiar with free republic....so this apparently is how the global warming/climate change/climate disruption/climate challenges "scientists" and their lackey's attack anyone that disagrees with their perpetually changing and historically inaccurate dogma :uhuh:

you should have thrown in a couple Limbaughs...a FOXNEWS...maybe a Cheney Haliburton and a Big OIL or two

The data you gave ignored several data locations in Artic and has been concretely refuted. When the other data stations are included, the temperature has significantly increased over that time. Please supply more info for us whackjob lackeys to address please. Also, I am not making this up... it has readily been addressed.

I'd try but that post was unintelligible...maybe proving my point

you were better off with ...."International consensus, doubters, anti-environmental movement, anti-government, pro-oil people, the real experts, climate is changing, is changing, is changing, tons of fossil fuels, consensus, real climate scientist, Glen Beck or Hannity,... I'll go with the science on this one."

just keep repeating that...you'll fit right in

not a rocket ( I mean climate ) scientist eh Scott?

eh?...........I just re-read all of your posts in this thread and beyond claiming that 97% of 79 global warming scientist agree with you(seems like a low number)...or maybe it's the other way around....and 82% of the same 79 believe that man may be contributing factor in warming....you haven't provided a single bit of evidence to back up anything that you've asserted or charged....you did lable yourself an "informed person", which I guess is good enough for you....but you've done little more than vomit the typical, predictable and very tired montra, "the climate is changing" is not really a revelation, well, apparently it is for you....but I'm the "not a rocket scientist", right?

you did succeed in perfectly displaying the steps of liberal argument, culminating in your last post...nice job.....thanks

Zimmy, Scott will soon tell you to shut up.

can't imagine why I'd do that...I like the back and forth..especially now that many of us are participating in the "era of civility" and particularly if the quality is something more substantive than ...

"doubters, anti-environmental movement, anti-government, pro-oil people, the real experts, climate is changing, is changing, is changing, tons of fossil fuels, consensus, real climate scientist, Glen Beck or Hannity"

and

"it's snowing in January. No climate change here"

these condescending gems from self-described "informed" individuals
..............................

shut up?....no

put up?.....absolutely :uhuh:

if we could just get rid of Rush, Beck, Hannity, Fox and Palin...what a wonderful...green.... world it would be :)

I know the difference between the Arctic and Antarctic(and I'm not even a rocket scientist) but I can see where you might get them confused given the proximity.....

the Arctic data that I posted that you claim is "concretely refuted. Also, I am not making this up... it has readily been addressed" ...is current data as of yesterday, if you click the link I'm sure that it is now updated for today...it was in response to Paul's post calling the arctic balmy..I added 1970 and 1958 as a comparison...you can view the temp charts for every year 1958 through present...click 1974...scorching and we were told back then that another ice age was imminent

maybe you were actually talking about the antarctic?

Included some data below that contradicts what you posted. Believe what you want or are told on the radio. I am not a climate expert, but I have significant time spent in dealing with climate and meteorology in academic settings and reading peer reviewed journal articles. I wouldn't claim to be an expert, but I do know what the literature says and what the overwhelming international science consensus is. There is not one national or international scientific organization that dismisses that the climate is presently warming. There are a very few percentage of scientists who disagree. That is a fact.

Here is the most recent info, provided by The WMO global temperature analysis is thus principally based on three complementary datasets. One is the combined dataset maintained by both the Hadley Centre of the UK Met Office and the Climatic Research Unit, University of East Anglia, United Kingdom. Another dataset is maintained by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) under the United States Department of Commerce, and the third one is from the Goddard Institute of Space Studies (GISS) operated by the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA).

“The 2010 data confirm the Earth’s significant long-term warming trend,” according to World Meteorological Organization chief Michel Jarraud. “The ten warmest years on record have all occurred since 1998.”

Warming was most extreme this past year in two regions. The first covers most of Canada and Greenland, with mean temperatures for the year increasing by upwards of 3°C (5.4°F). The second region extends from northern Africa to the western portion of China, which saw increases between 1 and 3°C (1.8 and 5.4°F).

“The 2010 data confirm the Earth’s significant long-term warming trend,” according to World Meteorological Organization chief Michel Jarraud. “The ten warmest years on record have all occurred since 1998.”


it also confirms that there has been no statistically significant warming occuring since 1995...Phil Jones of CRU admitted that in a BBC interview....seems like a plateau to me rather than constant warming reflected by ever increasing carbon emissions.....we should be trending ever warmer...shoud we not? 2010 was slightly cooler than previous record years....is that not a trend?

why do you assume I get my info from the radio?

........................................

The WMO, the $80 million U.N. front-line agency in the climate change struggle, and the source for much of the world’s information in the global atmosphere and water supply, has serious management problems of its own, despite its rapidly expanding global ambitions.

The international agency has been sharply criticized by a U.N. inspection unit in a confidential report for, among other things, haphazard budget practices, deeply flawed organizational procedures, and no effective oversight by the 188 nations that formally make up its membership and dole out its funds.

• Click here to see the Joint Inspection Unit report.

The inspection was carried out by a member of the United Nations Joint Inspection Unit (JIU), a small, independent branch of the U.N. that reports to the General Assembly and is mandated to improve the organization’s efficiency and coordination through its inspection process.

The investigations took place in late 2006 and extended through at least May 2007, and subsequently were presented to the WMO’s ruling bodies and its secretary general, Michel Jarraud, in December 2007. It was forwarded to the U.N. General Assembly only in November 2008.
The confidential document was a follow-up to an earlier examination in 2004, which also led to suggestions for greater internal controls of the WMO. (That inspection followed the discovery in 2003 of a multi-million-dollar embezzlement of WMO funds by an employee who subsequently disappeared.)

According to the more recent report, the WMO still has a lot of changing to do — starting with the agency’s far-flung regional offices, which the WMO touts as key units in the climate change struggle, especially in helping the world’s poorest people. But in the report, the regional offices are described as being of “questionable” value, and the organization’s plans to bolster its scientific programs in poor countries are said to be based on “ad hoc demands” rather than carefully examined needs.

Moreover, the report says, “there is no systematic, regular reporting by the offices in the regions to headquarters regarding their activities, achievements, performance or lessons learned.” The JIU inspector declared it “imperative” that the WMO get better reporting from its local offices.

Similar quality-control problems apparently infect the WMO’s Geneva head office, where, the report dryly notes, “a results-oriented culture is lacking among staff.” Among other things, the report notes that WMO “suffers from the lack of a set of internal procedures, guidelines and instructions regarding work processes, departmental responsibilities and workflow” — administrative lapses that were “particularly the case in the budget preparation process.”

• Click here to see the Joint Inspection Unit report.

In a survey done by the JIU inspector, more than 58 percent of the WMO’s staff found the level of coordination and cooperation in their organization “inadequate.” (And elsewhere, the report notes, “it is a cause for concern that 30% of staff had seen conduct in recent months that they thought violated the WMO Code of Ethics.”)

While the WMO has unveiled a 2008-2011 strategic plan that envisages new levels of international coordination in “monitoring, assessing and forecasting weather, air quality, climate, oceanic conditions, the global water cycle, and hydro-meteorological hazards,” the inspection report declares that the U.N.’s own forecast on how to get to that level of achievement is disturbingly hazy. (Among other things, the WMO has declared its intention to “modernize” the meteorological infrastructure in at least 40 countries its four-year plan, “with a particular focus on developing countries.”)

As the document puts it, there is not “a sufficiently clear or measurable link” between the goals of the WMO plan and the way that the organization’s top bureaucrats propose to achieve them.

Ok Scott, I am pretty much done with this thread for now. I don't really think it is worth my time to discuss this further with someone who is going to post graphs from Don Easterbrooks papers, when he has been conclusively shown to have altered the data. He was completely wrong with his predictions for the last decade, as well. You also bring Phil Jones quotes in... I followed that mess when it happened and he has clearly stated warming has occurred, but it is statistically difficult to establich significance over a short period of time. If you have ever taken statistics Scott, you will know that that is a mathematical issue because of the limited data set. 15 data points does not allow for significance. You are certainly free to think what you like.

you are wonderful at making vague unsubstantiated claims.....the only claim that you have attempted to back up with evidence to date is the 97% of 79 poll(which was kind of a joke).....tough to have a meaningful conversation with someone that simple states things as true with no evidence and then insults....very nice......for an informed person
Don Easterbrook - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
I don't need to defend Dr. Easterbrook but the most that I could find regarding your claim was a couple of bloggers suggesting that he was creative with graphs and data, I posted his a graphs as a response to your "it's changing" montra simply to point out that it's always changing....Dr. Easterbrook refutes the claims and as far as I know he is still in his position and while I don't think it's been definitively determined that he did so there have been plenty of instances of definitive screwing with data on the Hysterical Global Warming side of the ledger and that doesn't seem to concern you in the least?
...................................

MPS SLAM ‘SECRETIVE’ CLIMATEGATE PROBES


Labour MP Graham Stringer said Lord Oxburgh appeared to have a “conflict of interest”
Tuesday January 25,2011
By John Ingham
TWO inquiries into claims that scientists manipulated data about global warming were yesterday condemned by MPs as ineffective and too secretive.

The row, which became known as Climategate, erupted in 2009 over allegations that researchers had deliberately strengthened evidence suggesting human activity was to blame for rising temperatures.

MPs on the Science and Technology Committee have now concluded that both probes into the scandal had failed to “fully investigate” claims that scientists had deleted embarrassing emails.



.................................................

Claims made in a 2007 report by the UN's Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change that the glaciers would be gone by 2035.


Although the head of the panel Dr Rajendra Pachauri later admitted the claim was an error gleaned from unchecked research, he maintained that global warming was melting the glaciers at "a rapid rate", threatening floods throughout north India.

The new study by scientists at the Universities of California and Potsdam has found that half of the glaciers in the Karakoram range, in the northwestern Himlaya, are in fact advancing and that global warming is not the deciding factor in whether a glacier survives or melts.

Himalayan glaciers spell trouble for climate scientists 27 Jan 2011

Dr Bodo Bookhagen, Dirk Scherler and Manfred Strecker studied 286 glaciers between the Hindu Kush on the Afghan-Pakistan border to Bhutan, taking in six areas.

Their report, published in the journal Nature Geoscience, found the key factor affecting their advance or retreat is the amount of debris – rocks and mud – strewn on their surface, not the general nature of climate change.

..............

you quote Jarraud WMO and ignore the report
the Met Office....what was their forcast for this winter????
NASA....I think Hansen is attacking Obama most recently and has actually been proven to fabricate/transpose numbers
CRU...East Anglia??????

just sayin', you ignore a whole lot of issues out of hand with these others but end the entire conversation due to Dr. Easterbrooks????...think about it????

Geophysical Research Letters, 33, L11707, 13 June 2006, doi:10.1029/2006GL026510.
Greenland warming of 1920–1930 and 1995–2005

Petr Chylek
Los Alamos National Laboratory, Space and Remote Sensing Sciences, Los Alamos, New Mexico, USA

M. K. Dubey
Los Alamos National Laboratory, Earth and Environmental Sciences, Los Alamos, New Mexico, USA

G. Lesins
Department of Physics and Atmospheric Science, Dalhousie University, Halifax, Nova Scotia, Canada

Received 10 April 2006; accepted 9 May 2006; published 13 June 2006.


extracts from this paper: (from CCNet, Benny Peiser)

Abstract:
We provide an analysis of Greenland temperature records to compare the current (1995-2005) warming period with the previous (1920-1930) Greenland warming. We find that the current Greenland warming is not unprecedented in recent Greenland history. Temperature increases in the two warming periods are of a similar magnitude, however, the rate of warming in 1920-1930 was about 50% higher than that in 1995 - 2005.


[...]

5. Discussion and Conclusion

[14] We have analyzed temperature time series from available Greenland locations and we have found that:

[15] i) The years 1995 to 2005 have been characterized by generally increasing temperatures at the Greenland coastal stations. The year 2003 was extremely warm on the southeastern coast of Greenland. The average annual temperature and the average summer temperature for 2003 at Ammassalik was a record high since 1895. The years 2004 and 2005 were closer to normal being well below temperatures reached in 1930s and 1940s (Figure 2).

Although the annual average temperatures and the average summer temperatures at Godthab Nuuk, representing the southwestern coast, were also increasing during the 1995-2005 period, they stayed generally below the values typical for the 1920-1940 period.

[16] ii) The 1955 to 2005 averages of the summer temperatures and the temperatures of the warmest month at both Godthaab Nuuk and Ammassalik are significantly lower than the corresponding averages for the previous 50 years (1905-1955). The summers at both the southwestern and the southeastern coast of Greenland were significantly colder within the 1955-2005 period compared to the 1905-1955 years.

[17] iii) Although the last decade of 1995-2005 was relatively warm, almost all decades within 1915 to 1965 were even warmer at both the southwestern (Godthab Nuuk) and the southeastern (Ammassalik) coasts of Greenland.

[18] iv) The Greenland warming of the 1995-2005 period is similar to the warming of 1920-1930, although the rate of temperature increase was by about 50% higher during the 1920-1930 warming period.

does not sound unprecedented :confused:

[QUOTE=zimmy;831495]Ok Scott, I am pretty much done with this thread for now. I don't really think it is worth my time to discuss this further QUOTE]

I'm in the same boat. I vowed not to get back into this debate here, but I clicked on the page w/o being logged in, which meant I could see Scott's post. If I am logged in, they are hidden.


FYI; here is another recent article discussing, in this instance warming ocean temperatures in the Arctic over the last 2000 years. But it is only the, argulably, most significant scientific journal in the world. It is of course crap and a big conspiracy among scientists.
Enhanced Modern Heat Transfer to the Arctic by Warm Atlantic Water | Science/AAAS

[QUOTE=RIROCKHOUND;831751]
I read that yesterday.....has it been peer reviewed yet?



I know you can't resist Bryan...here's something funny for a Friday....


Heroic London carbon trading scheme fails

Greens snatch up homemade raffia crafts from table and flounce off

By Andrew Orlowski •
Posted in Environment, 27th January 2011 14:49 GMT

"I have measured out my life with coffee spoons" - TS Eliot

It is with dismay that we bring you sad news from one of Britain's most self-righteous boroughs. In Islington, the location for the Private Eye comic strip "It's Grim Up North London", the area's 'Carbon Rationing Action Group' has decided to call it a day. Group members will no longer measure everything they do and exchange the vital information.

"After four years, three complete accounting years, the Islington and Hackney CRAG [Carbon Rationing Action Group] is no longer settling (ie, buying and selling carbon every six months, anymore)," writes John Ackers, a "CRAG-er". That old enemy of sustainability – couldntgivea#^&#^&#^&#^&ability – has dealt the movement a setback.

"Four of us wanted to keep going, but two dropped out and two weren’t very good at doing the data-gathering," Ackers explains.

CRAGS are a "growing network of carbon conscious citizens", according to the movement's website. The Islington Craggers – all eight of them – had adopted a personal carbon trading. This combines two ideas: rationing, and a virtual currency that allows participants to exchange credits.


But there were musical differences, too...

"At least one person in our group, our lowest emitter, thinks that we shouldn’t trade between ourselves at all."

And there was also perhaps the faintest glimmer of a realisation that the exercise was, on balance, an epic waste of time.

"As a group, we achieved some reduction in carbon emissions but it was less than 10 per cent per year," notes Ackers, before noting that "the other big lesson for me is that 5p per kg of CO2 has virtually no impact on the lifestyle of a typical middle-class, middle-income Londoner."

Personal carbon rationing was again in the news this week in a report commissioned by a group of MPs.


best line...."our lowest emitter":rotf2:

Al Gore can come shovel my global warming anytime now

Al's Journal : An Answer for Bill