Suggested Discussion Outline

[johnkarls]

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“Q&A” references are to the Short Quiz which was entitled “What We Already Know About Global Warming From Past Focus Books and Meetings” and is available at viewtopic.php?f=669&t=2135&sid=fddb5142 ... cebcb6c4fc.

“Chapter” references are to our current focus book – “Unsettled.”


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Part A – Our Traditional Question Whenever Dealing With Global Warming (aka Climate Change) Which Has NEVER Elicited An Affirmative Response From Anyone

Would you be in favor of invading militarily such countries as China to force them to use UNECONOMIC carbon-free energy sources?


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Part B – Possible Reasons For Combatting Global Warming (aka Climate Change)

1. Sea-Level Rises (Q&A C-1 thru Q&A C-4 and Chapter 8 ).

2. The “Sixth Extinction” (Q&A 4 thru Q&A C-10) – including more pandemics as pandemic-causing species are unleashed by the extinction of species that had been holding them in check (Q&A C-7) BUT NOT fewer pandemic cures because Big Pharma does NOT, in searching for cures, investigate what it was about the checking species that had kept the pandemic-causing species under control (Q&A 7 thru Q&A-10).

3. Heat (Chapter 5).

4. Storms (Chapter 6).

5. Floods and fires (Chapter 7).

6. “Climate Refugees” Whose Homelands Become Too Arid To Support Life (AND THE FAMILIAR QUESTION for the world’s major religion, all of which are based on The Golden Rule – whether Christian/Muslim/Hindu/Buddhist countries should open their borders to “climate refugees” (Q&A 11 thru Q&A-15). NB: THIS ISSUE SHOULD NOT BE CONFLATED WITH THE ISSUE OF WHETHER THERE IS ANY SIGNIFICANT NUMBER OF “CLIMATE REFUGEES” IN THE WORLD AT THIS TIME!!!


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Part C – Criticisms of the So-Called “Science” by President Obama’s Dept. of Energy Under-Secretary For Science (Our Current Focus-Book Author)

1. What We Know About Warming (Chapter 1)

2. Humble Human Influences (Chapter 2)

3. Emissions Explained and Extrapolated (Chapter 3)

4. Many Muddled Models (Chapter 4)

5. “Apocalypses That Ain’t” (Chapter 9)

6. Who Broke “The Science” and Why (Chapter 10)

7. Fixing the Broken Science (Chapter 11)


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Part D – Rational Responses

1. Wind and solar (NB: only rational if your response to the Q in Part A was affirmative AND you think a PARTIAL solution or “TOKEN” gesture is rational) – Chapters 12 and 13 and the information from our past meetings that is too voluminous to marshall.

[“Partial” or “token” because even if you are willing to invade China et al. to force them to adopt uneconomic energy sources, doing so does NOT solve Global Warming by a long shot!!!]

2. Solar-Radiation Management (Chapter 14 pp. 240-242 and, re Harvard SEAS, Q&A F-4 thru Q&A F-6).

3. Carbon-Dioxide Removal (Chapter 14 pp. 242-244).

4. Thorium Fission (Q&A D-1 thru D-7 and Q&A E-1 thru E-7).

5. Proton Technologies’ patents for obtaining vast amounts of hydrogen economically which involves injecting oxygen into reservoirs of heavy oil and tar sands, and into coal seams, in order to separate the hydrogen from the oil/tar/coal thereby enabling the hydrogen to float to the surface through hydrogen filters that will trap behind all remaining material including carbon for sequestration in situ (Q&A F-7 thru F-9).

6. Other rational responses?


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Part E – Food For Thought

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1. Adaptation (Chapter 14 pp. 244-248).

The reason why this was NOT listed under “Part D – Rational Responses” is our author’s apparent callous disregard for “climate refugees” who, impliedly, he would leave to die.

While rewarding Russia which has always favored Global Warming because it increases the growing season in Siberia.

[NB: Russia, for example, refused to ratify the 1997 Kyoto Protocol for several years because of the BENEFICIAL EFFECT of Global Warming in Siberia and Russia’s ratification (which was necessary to achieve the minimum number of ratifying nations to become effective per the Kyoto Protocol’s own terms) was only achieved courtesy of a massive payment by the European Union to compensate Russia for its loss.]

[NB: Most recently, Russian President Putin refused to attend the UN’s Climate Conference in Glasgow last month.]

NB: Whether our author is indeed callous in this regard warps around on Part B Item 6 above regarding “climate refugees.”

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2. Re: “What We Know About Warming” (Chapter 1) –

Why is it any surprise that different areas of the world’s surface have different temperature gains??? After all, if the earth is a huge thorium-fission reactor with a 7,000-degree Fahrenheit temperature at its core (which is hotter than the surface of the sun) – which is why molten lava billows out of any temporary fissure in the earth’s thin skin – why wouldn’t we expect areas with thin skins to experience greater temperature gains and mountain ranges which provide greater insulation from the earth’s molten core to “regress toward the mean”???

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3. Re: “Humble Human Influences” (Chapter 2) –

Our author seems unduly fixated on whether, and to what extent, Global Warming is caused by human activity!!! But if humankind and/or the earth is headed for disaster, what difference does it make what is the cause if we have the means to avert it??? For example, if a comet were headed toward earth and it were sufficiently large to destroy all life on earth (and please don’t pick “nits” whether that is because of devastation from the collision, or whether the earth’s orbit would be fatally altered, etc., etc.) AND IF WE HAD THE ABILITY TO LAUNCH A NUCLEAR MISSILE THAT COULD DESTROY OR DEFLECT THE COMET, should we refrain from taking action because the comet had not been created by humans???

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4. Part D Item 3 “Carbon-Dioxide Removal” and our author’s apparent callous comment that the CO2 could be sequestered below the earth’s surface OR (p. 243) IN ITS OCEANS!!!

OMG, we already have a 9/11/2013 Six Degrees of Separation E-mail Campaign that said --

President Barack Obama

Dear Mr. President:

I am connected with an 8-year-old politically-oriented monthly reading group which was shocked and appalled to read “Oceana: Our Endangered Oceans And What We Can Do To Save Them” (Rodale Books © 2011) by one of the founders of “Oceana” which is the largest organization in the world focused solely on ocean conservation.

Shocking and appalling were the failure of the nations of the world to enforce the ocean conservation provisions of the U.N. Convention on the Law of the Sea and the Convention on Fishing Resources of the High Seas.

Both conventions require all “nations” (not just convention signatories) to “conserve the living resources of the high seas” which is defined in both conventions as maintaining (or restoring, where necessary) the population of each marine-life specie that is “harvested” for food.

However, according to “Oceana,” 70% of global fish stocks are over-fished and 30% have collapsed completely.

And 150 times as much area of the ocean bottom is destroyed each year by the drag nets of trawlers as the area of the earth’s rain forests that are laid waste. The ocean-bottom destruction will require many decades if not centuries to heal.

Instead of practicing the conservation required by international law, the pervasive policy of the fishing industry is “catch and move on” which is depleting fish stocks to the point of collapse and then moving on to deplete other kinds of fish stocks to the point of collapse.

And destroying the life on “seamounts” (or sea mountains in the middle of the oceans that are not high enough to break the surface to comprise islands) was pioneered by the Soviets in 1969 but comprises a special application of “catch and move on” since it occurs primarily in the “ocean deeps” of international waters.

Therefore, we implore you to take a principled stand against these willful treaty violations by virtually all of the world’s fishing nations.

[Although at first blush this may seem awkward because the U.S. has not agreed to the U.N. Convention on the Law of the Sea while earlier agreeing to the Convention on Fishing Resources of the High Seas, both conventions are virtually identical regarding conservation and both, by their terms, permit non-signatories to enforce their provisions if close attention is paid to the term “states” as distinguished from signatories which are designated as “States Parties.”]

Thank you for your consideration.

*********End of Six-Degrees-Of-Separation Email**********

The Suggested Discussion Outline for the 9/11/2013 meeting is available at viewtopic.php?f=333&t=1146&sid=166d1d72 ... 0873f52433.

It lists as a MAJOR THREAT to our oceans (Item A-2) –

“Acidification from carbon dioxide > carbonic acid (ocean acidification is the “flip side of the coin” of global warming from atmospheric carbon, 30%-50% of which is absorbed by our oceans which convert the carbon to carbonic acid).”

[Indeed, Japan’s seafood restaurants have been converting to “jelly fish” which, in only a few more years, will be the only sea life left because of the carbonic acid.]

The reason why this was NOT included in the Email Campaign to President Obama is that by 2013 he was already a Global-Warming activist.

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NB: To our author’s credit, he did recognize in “Closing Thoughts” (pp. 249-255) the desirability of including scientists from additional disciplines in climate-policy decisions, so his “blunder” regarding oceans would, presumably, be corrected by including oceanographers.