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| The evidence against anthropogenic global warming (Page 30/600) |
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fierobear
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DEC 06, 03:05 AM
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Cross posting this udder bullshit (pun intended) from another thread...
Tax cows, hogs for passing gas, burping?
Farmers fear EPA might do so due to methane's impact as greenhouse gas
MONTGOMERY, Ala. - For farmers, this stinks: Belching and gaseous cows and hogs could start costing them money if the federal government decides to charge fees for air-polluting animals.
Farmers so far are turning their noses up at the notion, which they contend is a possible consequence of an Environmental Protection Agency report after the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in 2007 that greenhouse gases amount to air pollution. Livestock emit methane, a key greenhouse gas tied to global warming.
"This is one of the most ridiculous things the federal government has tried to do," said Alabama Agriculture Commissioner Ron Sparks, an outspoken opponent of the fees.
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EPA officials insisted Friday that the lengthy, highly technical report, which mostly focuses on other sources of air pollution, does not include a proposal to tax livestock.
But the American Farm Bureau Federation said, based on federal agriculture department figures, it would require farms or ranches with more than 25 dairy cows, 50 beef cattle or 200 hogs to pay an annual fee of about $175 for each dairy cow, $87.50 per head of beef cattle and $20 for each hog.
The executive vice president of the Wyoming Farm Bureau Federation, Ken Hamilton, estimated the fee would cost owners of a modest-sized cattle ranch $30,000 to $40,000 a year. He said he has talked to a number of livestock owners about the proposals, and "all have said if the fees were carried out, it would bankrupt them."
Sparks said Wednesday he's worried the fee could be extended to chickens and other farm animals and cause more meat to be imported.
"We'll let other countries put food on our tables like they are putting gas in our cars. Other countries don't have the health standards we have," Sparks said.
The farm groups say the fee would apply to farms with livestock operations that emit more than 100 tons of carbon emissions in a year and fall under federal Clean Air Act provisions.
EPA officials said the agency has not taken a position on any of the matters discussed in its response to the Supreme Court ruling. And John Millett, a spokesman for EPA's air and radiation division, said there has been an oversimplification of the EPA's document "to the point of distortion."
"EPA is not proposing any type of tax on livestock," he said.
The EPA briefly mentions “raising livestock” in its report on ways to regulate greehnouse gases under the provisions of the Clean Air Act. Paul Schlegel, director of public policy for the American Farm Bureau Federation, said it determined the possible fees that could be imposed by using Agriculture Department statistics on the amount of greenhouse gases that come from livestock and applied it to the EPA’s permitting rules.
Farmers from across the country have expressed outrage over the EPA report, both on Internet sites and in opinions sent to EPA during a public comment period that ended last week. Many call it a "cow tax" and say the EPA proposed it.
"It's something that really has a very big potential adverse impact for the livestock industry," said Rick Krause, the senior director of congressional relations for the American Farm Bureau Federation.
The fee would cover the cost of a permit for the livestock operations. While farmers say it would drive them out of business, an organization supporting the proposal hopes it forces the farms and ranches to switch to healthier crops.
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"It makes perfect sense if you are looking for ways to cut down on meat consumption and recoup environmental losses," said Bruce Friedrich, a spokesman in Washington for People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals.
"We certainly support making factory farms pay their fair share," he said.
U.S. Rep. Robert Aderholt, a Republican from Haleyville in northwest Alabama, said he has spoken with EPA officials and doesn't believe the cow tax is a serious proposal that will ever be adopted by the agency.
"Who comes up with this kind of stuff?" said Perry Mobley, director of the Alabama Farmers Federation's beef division. "It seems there is an ulterior motive, to destroy livestock farms. This would certainly put them out of business."
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Arns85GT
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DEC 06, 09:19 AM
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Fierobear, I'm on your side, however, what will really count is not the freezeup but the spring thaw. I'm waiting to see if the spring thaw produces more net ice area.
Arn
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fierobear
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DEC 06, 11:42 AM
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| quote | Originally posted by Arns85GT:
Fierobear, I'm on your side, however, what will really count is not the freezeup but the spring thaw. I'm waiting to see if the spring thaw produces more net ice area.
Arn |
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I'll get back to this in a moment
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fierobear
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DEC 06, 11:44 AM
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Here comes the bullshit and excuses. "Oh, NO, cooling doesn't mean anything. The REAL warming will start in 2015!!!"
Do they actually think people will BELIEVE this crap?
2008 will be coolest year of the decade
Global average for 2008 should come in close to 14.3C, but cooler temperature is not evidence that global warming is slowing, say climate scientists
Oh, of course not!
This year is set to be the coolest since 2000, according to a preliminary estimate of global average temperature that is due to be released next week by the Met Office. The global average for 2008 should come in close to 14.3C, which is 0.14C below the average temperature for 2001-07.
The relatively chilly temperatures compared with recent years are not evidence that global warming is slowing however, say climate scientists at the Met Office. "Absolutely not," said Dr Peter Stott, the manager of understanding and attributing climate change at the Met Office's Hadley Centre. "If we are going to understand climate change we need to look at long-term trends."
Prof Myles Allen at Oxford University who runs the climateprediction.net website, said he feared climate sceptics would overinterpret the figure. "You can bet your life there will be a lot of fuss about what a cold year it is. Actually no, its not been that cold a year, but the human memory is not very long, we are used to warm years," he said, "Even in the 80s [this year] would have felt like a warm year."
And 2008 would have been a scorcher in Charles Dickens's time - without human-induced warming there would have been a one in a hundred chance of getting a year this hot. "For Dickens this would have been an extremely warm year," he said. On the flip side, in the current climate there is a roughly one in 10chance of having a year this cool.
The Met Office predicted at the beginning of the year that 2008 would be cooler than recent years because of a La Niña event - characterised by unusually cold ocean temperatures in the equatorial Pacific Ocean. It is the mirror image of the El Niño climate cycle. The Met Office had forecast an annual global average of 14.37C.
Allen was presenting the data on this year's global average temperature at the Appleton Space Conference at Rutherford Appleton Laboratory, near Didcot yesterday. The 14.3C figure is based on data from January to October. When the Met Office makes its formal announcement next week they will incorporate data from November. "[The figure] will differ from it, but it won't differ massively," said Stott, "We would expect the number to go up rather than down because the early parts of the year were still under the La Niña conditions."
Assuming the final figure is close to 14.3C then 2008 will be the tenth hottest year on record. The hottest was 1998 - which included a very strong El Niño event - followed by 2005, 2003 and 2002. The data are a combination of measurements from satellites, ground weather stations and buoys which are compiled jointly by the Hadley Centre and the Climate Research Unit at the University of East Anglia.
In March, a team of climate scientists at Kiel University predicted that natural variation would mask the 0.3C warming predicted by the Intergovernment Panel on Climate Change over the next decade. They said that global temperatures would remain constant until 2015 but would then begin to accelerate.
Yeah, yeah, it will REALLY start happening in 2015!!!
BULLSHIT
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fierobear
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DEC 06, 11:58 AM
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| quote | Originally posted by Arns85GT:
Fierobear, I'm on your side, however, what will really count is not the freezeup but the spring thaw. I'm waiting to see if the spring thaw produces more net ice area.
Arn |
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OK, here's one source for info:
Are There Long-Term Trends in The Start Of Freeze-Up And Melt Of Arctic Sea Ice?
"The finding in this data is that there is no clear evidence of a delay in the start of the later summer/early fall freeze up or [an earlier] start of the late winter/early spring melt despite the well below average areal sea ice coverage. "
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There are charts and data at that link.[This message has been edited by fierobear (edited 12-06-2008).]
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Phranc
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DEC 06, 12:43 PM
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| quote | | Assuming the final figure is close to 14.3C then 2008 will be the tenth hottest year on record. The hottest was 1998 - which included a very strong El Niño event - followed by 2005, 2003 and 2002. The data are a combination of measurements from satellites, ground weather stations and buoys which are compiled jointly by the Hadley Centre and the Climate Research Unit at the University of East Anglia. |
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Didn't they already admit that the hottest years were not in the 90s but in the 20s after NASA said ooooops?
Do these people ever bother with real data and facts?
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Arns85GT
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DEC 06, 01:33 PM
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Sorry Fierobear, the link didnt' take me to what you wanted me to see. My point however, is that the measurement used by the global warming advocates is the summer figure. You get that in August. So you have to be sure the pic you are getting is the summer figure. The one you showed above looked like it is the fall pic.
Arn
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fierobear
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DEC 06, 01:42 PM
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| quote | Originally posted by Arns85GT:
Sorry Fierobear, the link didnt' take me to what you wanted me to see. My point however, is that the measurement used by the global warming advocates is the summer figure. You get that in August. So you have to be sure the pic you are getting is the summer figure. The one you showed above looked like it is the fall pic.
Arn |
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Try this:
http://climatesci.org/2008/...t-of-arctic-sea-ice/
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fierobear
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DEC 06, 01:45 PM
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| quote | Originally posted by Phranc:
Didn't they already admit that the hottest years were not in the 90s but in the 20s after NASA said ooooops?
Do these people ever bother with real data and facts? |
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Yes, they did. This news source is still quoting the old bullshit! These f***ers are so dishonest in their pushing of the warming religion, they conveniently forget to post the updated NASA data that shows most of the hottest years were nowhere near the last decade.
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fierobear
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DEC 06, 01:51 PM
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Oh, and here's another gaffe from the above article. In their zeal to tell us how warm it is (really isn't), the talk about how warm 2008 would be compared to "Charles Dickens' time". Too bad he lived during the "little ice age". Yeah, just about anything would be warmer, wouldn't it?
From the above article:
"And 2008 would have been a scorcher in Charles Dickens's time - without human-induced warming there would have been a one in a hundred chance of getting a year this hot. "For Dickens this would have been an extremely warm year," he said. On the flip side, in the current climate there is a roughly one in 10chance of having a year this cool."
Oops: Slight of hand - Charles Dickens lived during a mini ice age.
The Little Ice Age in Europe
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