Argentine glacier advances despite global warming By JEANNETTE NEUMANN, Associated Press Writer Monday, June 15, 2009 (06-15) 00:54 PDT BUENOS AIRES, Argentina (AP) --
Argentina's Perito Moreno glacier is one of only a few ice fields worldwide that have withstood rising global temperatures.
Nourished by Andean snowmelt, the glacier constantly grows even as it spawns icebergs the size of apartment buildings into a frigid lake, maintaining a nearly perfect equilibrium since measurements began more than a century ago.
"We're not sure why this happens," said Andres Rivera, a glacialist with the Center for Scientific Studies in Valdivia, Chile. "But not all glaciers respond equally to climate change."
Viewed at a safe distance on cruise boats or the wooden observation deck just beyond the glacier's leading edge, Perito Moreno's jagged surface radiates a brilliant white in the strong Patagonian sun. Submerged sections glow deep blue.
And when the wind blows in a cloud cover, the 3-mile-wide (5 kilometer) glacier seems to glow from within as the surrounding mountains and water turn a meditative gray.
Every few years, Perito Moreno expands enough to touch a point of land across Lake Argentina, cutting the nation's largest freshwater lake in half and forming an ice dam as it presses against the shore.
The water on one side of the dam surges against the glacier, up to 200 feet (60 meters) above lake level, until it breaks the ice wall with a thunderous crash, drowning the applause of hundreds of tourists.
"It's like a massive building falling all of the sudden," said park ranger Javier D'Angelo, who experienced the rupture in 2008 and 1998.
The rupture is a reminder that while Perito Moreno appears to be a vast, 19-mile-long (30 kilometer) frozen river, it's a dynamic icescape that moves and cracks unexpectedly.
"The glacier has a lot of life," said Luli Gavina, who leads mini-treks across the glacier's snow fields.
When the INSANE are running the ASYLUM In individuals, insanity is rare; but in groups, parties, nations and epochs, it is the rule. -- Friedrich Nietzsche
“How fortunate for those in power that people never think.” Adolph Hitler
Thursday, June 25, 2009 EXCLUSIVE: Bill gives billions to save trees in other nations Amanda DeBard
EXCLUSIVE:
If a tree falls in Brazil, it will, in fact, be heard in the U.S. - at least if a little-noticed provision in the pending climate-change bill in Congress becomes law.
As part of the far-reaching climate bill, the House is set to vote Friday on a plan to pay companies billions of dollars not to chop down trees around the world, as a way to reduce global warming.
The provision, called "offsets," has been attacked by both environmentalists and business groups as ineffective and poorly designed. Critics contend it would send scarce federal dollars overseas to plant trees when subsidies are needed at home, while the purported ecological benefits would be difficult to quantify.
The offsets "would be a transfer of wealth overseas," said William Kovacs, vice president for environmental affairs at the U.S. Chamber of Commerce.
The Congressional Budget Office (CBO), the official fiscal scorekeeper on Capitol Hill, has not offered an estimate on how much the offset plan would cost, but the liberal Center for American Progress says it will be pricey.
"The international offsets market is not a huge or cheap market," said Joseph Romm, a climate expert at the center. "By 2020, the U.S. could be spending $4 billion on international offsets."
Supporters of the legislation counter that the plan recognizes the need to reduce greenhouse-gas emissions to curb global warming - in the United States and beyond. Supporting ways to keep trees alive or plant new trees, wherever those trees are located, helps the effort, they say.
Under the program, the government would reward domestic and international companies that perform approved "green" actions with certificates, called permits.
Those companies could, in turn, sell the permits to other companies that emit greenhouse gases. The permits would be, in effect, licenses to pollute - and potentially very valuable.
The heart of the climate plan would require major polluters to purchase the permits if they want to pollute above a certain level, controlling overall emissions through a market that is called "cap-and-trade."
Under the provision to be voted on in the House, the "green" companies could sell their offset permits to companies that need them because they are unable to reduce their own emissions as fast as the government would like.
But critics from both the political left and right see problems.
"You have to ask yourself, what is the purpose of this provision? Because it won't actually reduce emissions," said David Bookbinder, chief climate counsel to the Sierra Club, the environmental advocacy group.
Mr. Bookbinder said emissions could actually stay the same or increase domestically because companies could choose to buy permits instead of invest in technology to make their operations cleaner.
Kenneth P. Green, a climate specialist at the conservative American Enterprise Institute for Public Policy Research, said keeping track of which projects would be eligible for inclusion is another flaw in the plan.
"Who is responsible if there's a fire that burns down a [green] project? Will those just be wasted offsets?" he asked.
Mr. Green and others say the bill's offset provisions are too vague and leave unanswered too many questions about which projects will qualify for the offsets and how many offsets would be offered for a given project.
"The key with offsets is ensuring that they generate 'credible' emission reductions," said Evan Juska, North America senior policy manager for the Climate Group, which advises governments and business how to move to a low-carbon economy.
Mr. Juska said the bill, as written, "leaves much of it to be determined by the administrator after the program is enacted."
While tree stands are a large absorber of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases, they may not be the only projects that qualify for offsets. Companies that erect wind farms, install solar panels, invest in devices that trap the methane gas in landfills, use less fertilizer, or upgrade equipment at their refineries and power plants might also be eligible for offsets.
The bill would only allow 2 billion tons, or about 30 percent, of carbon-dioxide emissions to be offset a year through the so-called "green" actions.
Half of the qualifying projects must be domestic and half must be overseas, but the bill includes the option to award more offsets to international projects if not enough domestic projects are available.
The CBO projects that the thousands of firms subject to the cap-and-trade program would utilize 230 million tons of domestic offsets and 190 million tons of international offsets in 2012, the year the legislation is proposed to take effect, instead of reducing their emissions levels.
That explains why the Dems don't want anyone to read the bills that they are passing without reading them. The bills that are being passed are like a dead fish the longer they're exposed the more they stink.
DUE TO THE UNUSUALLY COOL AND WET CONDITIONS IN JUNE...HERE ARE SOME INTERESTING FACTS TO NOTE:
THIS JUNE IS TIED FOR THE 8TH COOLEST ON RECORD. THE AVERAGE TEMPERATURE WAS 67.5...3.7 DEGREES BELOW NORMAL...WHICH ALSO OCCURRED IN 1897.
THIS WAS THE COOLEST JUNE SINCE 1958...WHEN THE AVERAGE TEMPERATURE WAS 67.2 DEGREES.
BELOW AVERAGE TEMPERATURES OCCURRED ON 23 OUT OF 30 DAYS THIS JUNE...OR 75 PERCENT OF THE MONTH.
CENTRAL PARK HAS NOT HIT 90 DEGREES IN THE MONTH OF JUNE THIS YEAR. THE LAST TIME THIS OCCURRED WAS BACK IN 1996.
CENTRAL PARK HAS NOT HIT 85 DEGREES IN THE MONTH OF JUNE THIS YEAR. THE LAST TIME THIS OCCURRED WAS BACK IN 1916. THIS HAS ONLY OCCURRED 2 OTHER TIMES...1903 AND 1886.
THE LAST TIME THAT CENTRAL PARK HIT 90 OR GREATER THIS YEAR WAS IN APRIL. THE LAST TIME THAT CENTRAL PARK HIT 90 IN APRIL...BUT NOT IN JUNE WAS BACK IN 1990.
THE LAST TIME THAT CENTRAL PARK HIT 85 OR GREATER THIS YEAR WAS IN MAY. THE LAST TIME THAT CENTRAL PARK HIT 85 IN MAY...BUT NOT IN JUNE WAS BACK IN 1903. THE LAST TIME THAT CENTRAL PARK HIT 85 IN APRIL...BUT NOT IN JUNE WAS ALSO BACK IN 1903.
THE LOWEST TEMPERATURE REACHED IN CENTRAL PARK IN THE MONTH OF JUNE WAS 50 DEGREES. THE LAST TIME THIS OCCURRED WAS BACK IN 2003.
THE LOW TEMPERATURE DIPPED BELOW 60 DEGREES 11 TIMES IN THE MONTH OF JUNE. THE LAST TIME THIS OCCURRED WAS IN 2003 WHEN IT OCCURRED 17 TIMES.
IT WAS THE SECOND WETTEST JUNE ON RECORD WITH 10.06 INCHES OF RAIN. THE WETTEST JUNE ON RECORD IS 2003 WITH 10.27 INCHES.
THERE WERE 19 DAYS THIS JUNE WHERE THERE WAS AT LEAST 0.01 INCHES OF RAINFALL. THIS HAS NEVER OCCURRED IN CENTRAL PARK.
AT LEAST A TRACE OF RAINFALL WAS REPORTED ON 23 OUT OF 30 DAYS THIS JUNE.
Well, uh, no...uhhh...it is CLIMATE CHANGE! YES! THAT'S IT! CLIMATE CHANGE!!! It "CHANGED" so it must be we need new taxes!!!
And HOW long ago did the dinosaurs roam the earth and just how much do we know about the "climate change" the earth has experienced SINCE THEN??????????????????? We have a few hundred years of records out of the millions, and we have decided new taxes and government control will stop "climate change." What a brilliant race of idiots we are, here thinking we have so much "control."
"While Foreign Terrorists were plotting to murder and maim using homemade bombs in Boston, Democrap officials in Washington DC, Albany and here were busy watching ME and other law abiding American Citizens who are gun owners and taxpayers, in an effort to blame the nation's lack of security on US so that they could have a political scapegoat."
It's those damn tree huggers! They need to get a life! Go plant a tree, get rid of your car and ride your bike, heat with solar or wind, don't buy plastic, bring paper or canvas bags to the market....and the list goes on.
I would just LOVE to know how many tree huggers have REALLY gone back to basics and live a TRULY green life. Ya know...like Gore! There are certainly enough tree huggers out there that if they ALL lived green, they themselves could change their so called global warming and climate change. Give me a break!
And what I hate most about environmentalists? They follow an unproven ideology about global warming, and they lobby the government which in turn makes us unbelievers pay higher taxes and fees for the stupid notion! Ridiculous!
When the INSANE are running the ASYLUM In individuals, insanity is rare; but in groups, parties, nations and epochs, it is the rule. -- Friedrich Nietzsche
“How fortunate for those in power that people never think.” Adolph Hitler
Why dont you just post some facts instead of PROPAGANDA- Your post presents information primarily to influence the dozen members of this board and present " facts" selectively (thus lying by omission) to encourage your particular reasoning - Why do you waste your time searching for this kind of partial ally true information - it says nothing ? Maybe posting some useful information like the temperature records ( high and low) of every weather station- that would be actual information- Actually see what kind of changes are taking place globally -
When you eco-nuts start using scientific data which can be proven to calculate the rise in temperature and stop suppressing every story that proves your theories wrong maybe people would lend some credibility to your theories. There are a number of scientists that have stated that the earth has been cooling every year for the last 10 years and the c02 rate was high during those years. The climate has changed ever since the earth was created and long b4 man ever invented a machine and nobody ever answers, why because it won't make Al Gore, GE, and the rest of the Obama supporters the billions of dollars they stand to make if Cap and Trade is passed. It's all about the money and who will make it.
When you eco-nuts start using scientific data which can be proven to calculate the rise in temperature and stop suppressing every story that proves your theories wrong maybe people would lend some credibility to your theories. There are a number of scientists that have stated that the earth has been cooling every year for the last 10 years and the c02 rate was high during those years. The climate has changed ever since the earth was created and long b4 man ever invented a machine and nobody ever answers, why because it won't make Al Gore, GE, and the rest of the Obama supporters the billions of dollars they stand to make if Cap and Trade is passed. It's all about the money and who will make it.
I am hardly an eco-nut- and I care very little about global warming-I Don't recall ever even posting on this topic so go complain to someone else- I don't have any theories-
Like I said the high and low records from EVERY weather station is the information you should be posting- it is out there and I have seen it NO BS
I am calling you out on your post ( propaganda ) Its 3rd grade school yard mentality- name calling -
What percent of the total number of years Earth has existed are used the data used to calculate the hypothesis of "man-made global climate change?" For instance, do the "scientists" use the temperature figures from 15,962 BC?
How about 1,372,766 BC? 256 AD? 287,439 BC? Are those years in there? Or is is just the last few hundred years which are about the same few hundred years we had both thermometers and have been out of the Stone Age?
It really becomes a silly conversation when you realize how old Earth is and how long man has roamed it, where we have no idea. See, the average person thinks a few hundred years is enough to establish scientific proof because public education has made it a point to make people less critical and just plain dumb, and more easily led by the socialists and the government led media. They just don't understand that you can't just "make up data and "extrapolate" it as it were. We DON'T KNOW what the weather REALLY was scientifically 1,000, 10,000, or 100,000 years ago to the extent that we can say "Earth's temperature has risen or will rise 1.3 degrees! GADZOOKS!" or some other BS.
Any guesswork or formula based on fossils, thickness of the ice cap, etc assumes constants which are not really constant. Gulfstreams, solar activity, ect.
Scientists have strived to replace God so hard that now want to be God. But when there is a chance to use a fake crisis to raise taxes to glom some more of the people's money to spread it around to the "scientific community"you know they will jump to create hypotheses which will work for their case, and their wallets! At least some of them will!
"While Foreign Terrorists were plotting to murder and maim using homemade bombs in Boston, Democrap officials in Washington DC, Albany and here were busy watching ME and other law abiding American Citizens who are gun owners and taxpayers, in an effort to blame the nation's lack of security on US so that they could have a political scapegoat."
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