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June 03, 2007

Apparently, Word of the Body Count Dispute

They call this a consensus?

...Today, Al Gore is making the same claims of a scientific consensus, as do the United Nation's Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change and hundreds of government agencies and environmental groups around the world. But the claims of a scientific consensus remain unsubstantiated. They have only become louder and more frequent.

...What of the one claim that we hear over and over again, that 2,000 or 2,500 of the world's top scientists endorse the IPCC position? I asked the IPCC for their names, to gauge their views. "The 2,500 or so scientists you are referring to are reviewers from countries all over the world," the IPCC Secretariat responded. "The list with their names and contacts will be attached to future IPCC publications, which will hopefully be on-line in the second half of 2007."


...hasn't made it to ABC News. It seemed poetic that the article excerpted above made it's Drudge front page debut the morning after I heard the sly line quoted below. It was tucked into a World News Tonight report on the NASA ignorance/arrogance contretemps.
"...There are still a tiny number of scientists who agree with Griffin that humanity doesn't necessarily have to do anything about a warming climate. Most scientists, however, strongly disagree." ~ Bill Blakemore/ABCNews

I love the tone. "'TINY' numbers of arrogant ignorants out there in the wilderness, skulking in cool caves, still questioning, still pooh-poohing. They're crazy people who say the damndest things, but it makes us feel vastly superior. No wonder the cavemen are getting their own series ~ we love to indulge neanderthals." (major dad loves the chart Blakemore uses at the end of the piece to put paid to those tiny scientists' evil and ignorant pretensions.)(Oh, wait. Not tiny scientists ~ my bad. I meant 'TINY groups of scientists with tiny brains'.)

But then, along about Saturday afternoon, we were watching the Travel Channel and we suffered an environmental epiphany. The both of us. The answer to the CO2 emission/green house gas reduction is simple, but painful...painful.

Stop brewing beer and wine.

Fermentation: Conversion of sugars into ethyl alcohol and carbon dioxide, through the action of yeast.


Posted by tree hugging sister at June 3, 2007 12:35 AM

Comments

"Stop brewing beer and wine."

I'll see this planet changed into a radioactive ball of mush before I give up beer.

Posted by: Gunslinger at June 3, 2007 07:36 PM

I sense a disturbance in the force...

Posted by: tree hugging sister at June 3, 2007 08:14 PM

I say we keep the beer an wine and grow some more plants to chow on the extra CO2

Posted by: Cindermutha at June 3, 2007 09:29 PM

Better yet, ship the Global Warming zealots to Neptune. It'll reduce the levels of both CO2 and plain ol' hot air.

Posted by: Gunslinger at June 3, 2007 09:49 PM

PUT THE PINT DOWN and back slowly away from the bar...

Gaia thanks you for it.

Posted by: tree hugging sister at June 4, 2007 12:16 AM

Just call me Tiny.

Posted by: John ... the Scientist at June 4, 2007 07:27 AM

I say we keep the beer an wine and grow some more plants to chow on the extra CO2

Those extra plants we grow should be hops.

Posted by: Ken S, Fifth String on the Banjo of Life at June 4, 2007 08:34 AM

And barley, of course.

Posted by: Ken S, Fifth String on the Banjo of Life at June 4, 2007 08:35 AM

"John, the Tiny Scientist" or "Scientist, Tiny John"

Sounds good.

It would sound even better with a beer, but I've given that up. Living a carbon friendly, brewski freeski existence, along with using tiny toilet paper.

Yeah. I'm making a difference. Top that Cheryl Crow.

Posted by: tree hugging sister at June 4, 2007 09:56 AM

You call that living?

Posted by: Ken S, Fifth String on the Banjo of Life at June 4, 2007 10:08 AM

So you aren't willing to sacrifice a little to save Mother Earth?!

DAMN YOUR EYES, MISTER SUMMERS! We're all gonna fry because you need a cold one.

Posted by: tree hugging sister at June 4, 2007 10:21 AM

You can have my beer when you pry it from my cold, dead hands. Well, somebody had to say it. Speaking of beer, I saw a report this week that said the price of beer will be going up because acreage has been shifted from barley to corn due to the government induced ethanol hysteria.

Bastards.

Posted by: Dave E. at June 4, 2007 10:26 AM

Dave, that's at least partly because the gummints are subsidizing the corn prices.

Oh, and by the way, it's tequila too.

Posted by: Ken S, Fifth String on the Banjo of Life at June 4, 2007 10:44 AM

It's all about you, isn't it, Dave ~ "me, me, me", just like one of the von Trapp children.

Posted by: tree hugging sister at June 4, 2007 11:19 AM

I think I've read somewhere that "Beer is proof that God loves us and wants us to be happy." Scorn that love if you wish, I shall continue to embrace it.

Heathen.

Posted by: Dave E. at June 4, 2007 11:46 AM

Sasquatch size carbon footprint boy.

Posted by: tree hugging sister at June 4, 2007 11:50 AM

Someday, I shall drive one of these.

Posted by: Ken S, Fifth String on the Banjo of Life at June 4, 2007 12:15 PM

I prefer John the Nanoscientist. Anyone who knows what my thesis was would get the joke, but I think that's just Ken, Bingley and THS.

Posted by: John at June 4, 2007 12:29 PM

What a TINY, exclusive club we are ~ I'll drink to that!

No, wait...

Posted by: tree hugging sister at June 4, 2007 12:31 PM

"I saw a report this week that said the price of beer will be going up because acreage has been shifted from barley to corn due to the government induced ethanol hysteria."

Which is another good reason to switch to imports, Summers. Sierra Nevada's not bad (I had my first one just when I was in SF three weeks ago), but my current mass-market favorite is still Smithwick's.

Posted by: John at June 4, 2007 12:33 PM

Oh yes, and since Kyoto does not affect developing countries, you can probably get a brewski carbon credit thingy for drinking Tsingtao or Harbin.

Posted by: John at June 4, 2007 12:35 PM

Negro Modelo is a lipschmacking nummy. But for home grown we have a new favorite, and the packaging had nothing to do with it.

Posted by: tree hugging sister at June 4, 2007 12:54 PM

I'm not too worried about it. I think the report Dave mentioned is specific to Germany, where the gummint is subsidizing corn and rape. So much for imports, at least German imports.

Posted by: Ken S, Fifth String on the Banjo of Life at June 4, 2007 02:57 PM

Found it:

Fields of hops and barley, the spice and soul of beer, are getting replaced with rows and rows of corn.

"We have a shortage in terms of total acreage that is put in for barley production," Stutrud said.

With more breweries and less barley, that can only mean one thing.

"Obviously the price has really driven up due to demand and that all really goes back to that supply and demand curve we learned in high school," Stutrud points out.

In just a couple of years, Stutrud says the price of hops jumped 40 percent, the price of barley malt 30 percent and even the cost of the keg, made of stainless steel, has gone up 40 percent.

I'm skeptical of the steel claim, but the rest seems plausible. Hmmm, I wonder if it's too late to tear up my yard and plant barley?

Posted by: Dave E. at June 4, 2007 03:50 PM

FILTHY BASTARDS! Driving poor Mexican children to starvation and driving up beer prices. Archer Daniels Midland is the anti-christ.

Posted by: Ken S, Fifth String on the Banjo of Life at June 4, 2007 09:13 PM