Here’s an article from The Atlantic which I’m sure many here will at the least find interesting and probably enraging:
Uh-huh.
OK, let me say this. There’s so much climate change hysteria going on I can’t help but think someone, somewhere, is making money on it.
Yes, I’m that much of a cynic. I’ve been around too long and seen too much to think otherwise.
Ain’t I a stinker? [;)]
You notice that the images are of steam locomotives. An article like this won’t bother mentioning the billions the railroads have spent on reducing emissions from their locomotives.
I’m not going to deny that the climate is changing. It’s been doing that since this planet was still a ball of lava. My usual reply to those hyping climate change is “one Krakatoa…”
As Flintlock points out - follow the money. Carbon credits, anyone?
Remember - the planet will survive whatever kinds of stresses that humans apply to it.
Humans on the other hand ???
I find “climate denial” to be an offsensive pejorative.
FWIW, I am very aware of the resonance absorption peaks of various gas molecules as a function of frequency/wavelength for electromagnetic radiation - which includes CO2 around 10um. The baseline warming from radiative heat transfer for a doubling of CO2 is about 1.1C. Note that the atmosphere of Mars has about 25 times the amount of CO2 per given area than the earth, but is a very cold place (albeit further from the sun).
A couple of related items: One problem from my engineering heat transfer course was to calculate the warmest air temperature under which radiative freezing could occur, answer was around 41F. Another was that there was quite a bit of research in the early 1960’s to develop a spectrally selective coating for the B-70, with low emissivity in the atmospheric IR windows and high emissivity in the IR absorption windows to allow radiative cooling and not look like a target for long range IR sensors.
Also note that the temperature of the earth has gone through some major swings over the last couple of million years, with the switch between glacial and interglacial periods not completely understood. Yes the primary driver appears to be the tilt of the eath’s rotational axis coupled with variations of orbital eccentricity, but the glacial/interglacial transitions don’t always happen when the simple theory says they should. The other aspect of the million year temperature record is that there seems to be a much harder limit on maximum temperatures than minimum temperatures.
Railroads have never impressed me as being particularly responsible shepards of our ecology. Walk along their right-of-ways and you see piles of rotting used ties, buckets of used railroad spikes, discarded circuit boards from locomotive field repairs.
In a very real way I read many laments from T&E crews complaining about how PSR is costing the company it’s future in exchange for short term growth, and I realize that the railroads have always been that way, the difference now being that they have simply turned their singlemindedness inward
+1…our extinction could be the cure which the planet benefits from most.
Erik Mag +1
In addition, I think it’s detestable the way these people are exploiting Greta for their purposes. Now they’re using her as a “human shield” to fend off opposing views.
If you think CO2 is a problem, plant a trillion trees.
What’s so enraging about that article? The major point it tries to make is that railroads (while themselves touting their ‘climate friendliness’ or ‘carbon saving over trucks’ or whatever) have been corporate supporters of anti-AGW lobbying for over 30 years, and that this is unsurprising “because” railroads do quite a bit of business hauling fossil fuels.
Aside from the amusing implication that the UN Intergovernmental Panel is a ‘scientific’ organization, this isn’t particularly radical news. The interesting thing to consider is whether, now that coal is representing a shrinking part of rail traffic and, apparently, the Bakken boom (no pun intended, but it is amusing) seems to have died back, and as the whole hedge-fund revenue-maximization thing has accelerated (with, let’s face it, not much place in the budget for expensive lobbying for someone else’s interest), have the railroads in question cut back on their ‘pro-denier bias’?
I agree with Erik that disparaging someone merely as a ‘climate change denier’ is a bit like the whole ‘birther’ scam: give it a semantically disfavorable name and most of the battle is already won, regardless of the actual evidence or discussions. (Which is not to say there aren’t actual knee-jerk deniers out there, or that their influence hasn’t been significant.)
My problem is, in part, that as a student of the history and philosophy of science, the “science” being used by a great many of these soi-disant climate scientists is much more the kind of statistical shell-game people at NIH used to love to play, or an exercise in academic politics in the way linguistic philosophy became, rather than objective exploration. It is perhaps understandable that, in the face of so much organized and institutional resistance to the idea first of AGW and then to climatic effects that may come, quickly or slowly, from anthropogenically-influenced causes, Eu
Rotting ties? Well, they are bio-degradable, they will return to the earth from which they came, although there’s no arguing with the eyesore aspect.
Used spikes? Eventually they’ll return to iron oxide, if they don’t become railfan souvenirs.
The circuit boards? No argument there, they should be disposed of properly.
And the creosote, and perhaps copper salts or pentachlorophenol whatever with which they pressure treated the wood? The dribbled lube oil and grease?
On the bright side there’s supposed to be less bad stuff in those scam ties that were colored with Rit, old tea, shoe polish or whatever and supposed involved in the original topic…
Really Flintlock, I’m surprised you didn’t just respond “well the right of ways belong to them, what business is it of yours how they litter them?”
But then I guess in a way, you did.
Who, me? [;)]
Seriously though, a good friend of mine belongs to the Hackensack River Keepers Association, and on occasion they do clean-ups on sections of not just the Hackensack, but other rivers in the area like the Passaic, and the stuff they pull out of the riverbanks would make your hair stand on end and would make the railroads look like the most responsible custodians of the environment that ever existed! They’d be relieved if old wood and steel was all they found!
No bodies yet though. Although there have been times…[:O]
Norfolk Southern buisness was not just moving coal but mining it and selling it as they also owned half the mines in Appalachia and Virgina Highlands in its Pochantis Sub http://www.nscorp.com/content/nscorp/en/about-ns/subsidiaries/pocahontas-land-corporation.html
So you are saying that the big asteroid that’s coming makes climate change a non-issue?
[soapbox]
deleted
Technically, it seems like one could argue that all those things would return to the earth from which they came. Of course, it might take a million years and make a mess of things in the meantime. [xx(]
[quote user=“Overmod”]
What’s so enraging about that article? The major point it tries to make is that railroads (while themselves touting their ‘climate friendliness’ or ‘carbon saving over trucks’ or whatever) have been corporate supporters of anti-AGW lobbying for over 30 years, and that this is unsurprising “because” railroads do quite a bit of business hauling fossil fuels.
Aside from the amusing implication that the UN Intergovernmental Panel is a ‘scientific’ organization, this isn’t particularly radical news. The interesting thing to consider is whether, now that coal is representing a shrinking part of rail traffic and, apparently, the Bakken boom (no pun intended, but it is amusing) seems to have died back, and as the whole hedge-fund revenue-maximization thing has accelerated (with, let’s face it, not much place in the budget for expensive lobbying for someone else’s interest), have the railroads in question cut back on their ‘pro-denier bias’?
I agree with Erik that disparaging someone merely as a ‘climate change denier’ is a bit like the whole ‘birther’ scam: give it a semantically disfavorable name and most of the battle is already won, regardless of the actual evidence or discussions. (Which is not to say there aren’t actual knee-jerk deniers out there, or that their influence hasn’t been significant.)
My problem is, in part, that as a student of the history and philosophy of science, the “science” being used by a great many of these soi-disant climate scientists is much more the kind of statistical shell-game people at NIH used to love to play, or an exercise in academic politics in the way linguistic philosophy became, rather than objective exploration. It is perhaps understandable that, in the face of so much organized and institutional resistance to the idea first of AGW and then to climatic effects that may come, quickly or slowly, fro
That’s actually a pretty good idea!
What you don’t see is the mercury (from coal ash) and hexavalent chromium (diesel engine coolant corrosion inhibitors).
For those reasons we should be very cautious when redeveloping old engine terminals.