Grazie per il riferimento a Fig.2. Siamo sicuri che ritragga proprio “il passaggio di Nord Ovest libero dai ghiacci nell’agosto del 2007″?

Sul web ho trovato la foto ingrandita riguardo l’orso
http://ct5.pbase.com/t6/06/642906/4/69731346.rS3YVgSv.jpg

La pagina completa parla di “Artico e Passaggio a Nord Ovest”
http://www.pbase.com/spencer1959/arctic__northwest_passage&page=2

Ecco una foto del Passaggio, come da didascalia
http://www.pbase.com/spencer1959/image/69819192

Comunque dubito che il signor Wynn sarebbe contento dell’uso delle sue foto senza attribuzione, specie di quelle usate per la copertina di un libro che costa 77 dollaroni e dove il copyright e’ bello in grande a pagina 1

Su quella copertina c’e’ poi anche un titolo accanto all’orso…per favore non ditemi che avete “ritoccato” la fotografia

ps a quanto pare il viaggio di Wynn nell’Artico e’ del luglio 2006. Ecco la sua foto in un articolo del gennaio 2007
http://www.thestar.com/News/article/175673

To those claiming that benefits may as well outweigh costs, as per the original DEFRA estimates: can you please remind me of any initiative by any UK Government that has turned out to be cheaper than expected, and providing more benefits than originally claimed?

And the “£10,000 in 42 years” argument is disingenuous. Of course, we will have to pay the £10,000 asap. And of course, we will see any benefit only at the very end of the period.

After all, they will want to get as much as possible now (as long as they can), and then spend 42 years to devise ways to fudge with the results and proclaim victory

Perhaps Tommaso could explain that in Italian politics it is customary to declare oneself “anthropologically stranger” to one’s opponent, as if there were two or more, mutually-incompatible human subspecies inhabiting Italy.

In that political climate, “passing a suggestion to the other side” is akin to a shepherd deliberately helping the nearby wolves stay fit and numerous.

You can see it from the language used: “belligerent”, “dirty maneuvers”, “misconduct”…

In any case, the Latorre episode is just one of many in the ongoing war among different strains of Leftists, after heavy losses at the April 2008 Parliamentary Elections. Plenty of theatrics are in store for the future, for sure.

ps some readers may wonder why freemasonry would deserves a place between “septs” (I think Tommaso means “sects”) and “mafia”…another very Italian peculiarity!!!

I see that my point (#10) is more or less repeated by other commentators (eg #53 and #58).

Gavin: you reply to #53: “Why should anyone continue to discuss with you?”

If you really want to communicate, then you better find a way of communicating. If on the other hand you don’t want to communicate, there is little point in replying to comments, really.

In fact you remind me of those English-speaking tourists arriving back home in frustration, convinced that the locals they visited are brainless idiots, after having shouted, yelled, huffed and puffed to make themselves understood…by people that simply do not speak English.

If you or Mr Weart want to speak to engineers, or anybody else, then you both better speak in a way that engineers can understand. And if they don’t appear to have understood, you cannot simply jump to saying “why are you people so slow to understand?”…the only sensible option is to see where the miscommunication is (yes, it can be with you too), and to work to fix that.

I have provided a few suggestions already.

People do have various degrees of skepticism in the nature and dangers of anthropogenic global warming. How difficult is it to recognize that? If you instead poo-poo their thoughts whenever expressed, you will win nobody’s mind. Fine by me, but then what’s a blog for?

For paulm: the “Jason” story should be considered carefully.

The idea of a shadowy organization capable of keeping tens of brilliant, famous minds in San Diego for 6 weeks every year, without arising suspicion, doesn’t seem likely.

I also find the suggestion that climate change skeptics have been able to “successfully delay significant political action to deal with greenhouse gas emissions” laughable in the extreme. Just look at the IPCC, and at the Kyoto Protocol (whose child called the “emission trading scheme” has meant billions of dollars in profit for energy companies in the EU, by the way).

Also note that the authors are Oreskes (the one unable to properly count pro-warming scientific papers) and Renouf (going to broadcast a programme on BBC2 the same day of that article’s publication, and thus in need of pumping the whole thing up to say the least).

Dear Editors of the IHT

It is commendable for William Falk to take upon himself the task of updating the wide world of what has been happening whilst Democrats and Republicans cavorted at their respective national political conventions (“The two weeks you missed”, IHT, Sep 8). However, it would have been even more commendable had Mr Falk checked all his “facts”: otherwise, rather than a news update, his effort will be just another act of disinformation.

In particular:

1- “Hezbollah…has a new base of operations in the Americas: Venezuela” – really? This has been an ongoing accusation for years, with little evidence ever provided. Shouldn’t one be a little bit more skeptical about it then, when the only source of the information are unnamed “Western intelligence officials”? This is a Presidential Election year in the USA, after all, and we all know which candidate stands to benefit if any international crisis explodes (or is concocted)

2- “Some [polar bears] were headed toward the edge of the ice shelf, 400 miles away – far beyond their endurance” – really? All we know is that by chance, a helicopter surveying the Arctic for oil-exploration has spotted nine polar bears swimming. The “400 miles away” detail has been reported not by those on the helicopter, and not even by the WWF that published the original story, but by a journalist at London-based “Daily Mail”, a newspaper that has retracted the story (=deleted from their website) since.

All in all, it looks like Mr Falk himself has been too busy watching Barack Obama, John McCain and assorted “dorky delegates bopping to the Beach Boys and Stevie Wonder”…

naturalmente gli inglesi dicono “sat-nav” e non “nav-sat”.

la “principessina” perduta con il taxi e’ in realta’ Kitty Spencer, la nipote di Lady Diana, figlia del fratello cioe’ (al massimo “contessina”) e il Telegraph ha raccontato una storia un po’ diversa:

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/1583778/Satnav-takes-Earl’s-daughter-to-wrong-Stamford-Bridge.html

Al Daily Mail (dove Kitty e’ definita Top Totty perche’ ancora da maritare) spiegano la disavventura come un problema di comunicazione fra umani, e non qualcosa specifico che riguarda il Sat Nav. Quando il taxi e’ stato prenotato qualcuno ha scritto che la destinazione era Stamford Bridge come localita’

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-555474/Taxi-sat-nav-bungle-sends-Earl-Spencers-daughter-Stamford-Bridge-Yorkshire–instead-Chelseas-football-ground.html

Il problema di fondo e’ che “the computer is an ass”, e’ un asino che fa solo ed esattamente quanto gli viene comunicato. Quindi piu’ che un futuro in cui siamo un po’ piu’ stupidi, sara’ un futuro in cui dovremo essere un po’ piu’ precisi

The more I look at this, the more it reminds me of people waving Tibetan flags and speaking in favor of the Tibetan cause. They have done for decades now, and look what good they have done to Tibet (=zilch).

Whoever does the “raise awareness” bit, they surely feel much better afterwards. Still, Tibet remains in its troubles, just like the the North Pole will. Whatever those troubles truly are.

Raising awareness is not the same as raising money for a charity by swimming the Atlantic or climbing Everest in the buff: because that money can be easily turned into something tangible, whilst the awareness is literally just hot air.

ps I don’t think 81N can be classified as an “achievement”, given the starting point. The only way to do less would have been had the Svalbards been ice-locked in August-September.

(Comment to “The heartbreaking picture of the polar bears“, Daily Mail, Aug 31)

Much of this article by Mr Wigmore is likely to be not actually true, but “embellished reality”. The WWF site in the USA has not published any new news since Aug 21, the day the bears were spotted. I am sure we would have heard and seen a lot from those bears, if anybody were following them or had any news about their whereabouts and wellbeing.

Simply, nobody knows if they are lost at sea, if they plunged into the ocean, if they all lived on a single ice float that then melted, which direction they are going, how far is land or ice, etc etc.

Many people around the world have been needlessy made to worry about these nine bears. This cannot be right. I urge Mr Wigmore to check things as they are, with the WWF in the USA but also from other sources, and correct this article accordingly

Concordo con il fatto che appoggiare tutta una critica su un unico punto non e’ una scelta retoricamente saggia. Annoiare l’uditorio, poi, e’ un crimine.

D’altra parte tutto questo disprezzo nei confronti degli “scettici” una volta mi dava fastidio. Adesso lo trovo finanche utile, a dimostrare che dietro alle paure climatiche non c’e’ al momento molto di solido.

Riguardo il meccanismo dell’effetto serra, ricordo che e’ universalmente riconosciuto che la sensitivita’ alla concentrazione della sola CO2 in assenza di altri effetti, e’ di circa 1C per ogni raddoppio di concentrazione.

Se si trattasse solo di quello, non staremmo qui a parlarne.

Ma l’atmosfera e’ molto piu’ complicata che un laboratorio: lo stesso IPCC e’ riuscito solo ad arrivare a un ampio range di stime, fra 1.5C e 4.5C, senza granche’ miglioramento negli ultimi sei anni, e il dibattito su quale siano i valori piu’ vicini al vero e’ ancora aperto.