New Haven Independent

Posted by: The Professor | December 14, 2009 8:09 AM

I don't mean to be too nitpicky here, but did they really light candles in order to raise awareness of excessive carbon levels in the air? I'm all for emissions controls, but you'd think that climate change activists might choose a more, uh, carbon-neutral way to raise awareness. I hope they didn't drive to the corner in SUVs...

Posted by: Bill | December 14, 2009 8:10 AM

Climate change has become a new age religion. It's based on faith and not science which requires the publication of data and methods so it can be peer reviewed, which has not been done by so called climate change scientists!? They somehow lost the raw data LOL.

Posted by: Ned | December 14, 2009 9:56 AM

They lost me after the candles... Also would the "350" people stop littering the neighborhood tying their guilt trip notes to trees? Trees look best when they're not mucked up with ugly ribbons and litter or treated as sticks for advertisement placements. Thank you.

Posted by: fedupwithliberals | December 14, 2009 10:01 AM

Can someone tell me how the earth warmed up from the ice age without SUVs?

Posted by: Climate Change - World Gets It | December 14, 2009 11:33 AM

If there were any doubt about climate change, Bill, there would not be a WORLD CONFERENCE with heads of state attending!

Just like with the metric system, the USA is the LAST industrialized nation to grasp the importance of change. Wake up people! Renewable energy is cheapest in the long term (free energy) and doesn't pollute. 10 candles pollute less than your electric stove. Get off your high horse, read the scientific CONSENSUS that the 10 warmest years ON RECORD (going back thousands of years) has occurred within the past 13 years!

If science is what you want, science is what you'll find... that is, if you're actually interested in finding it. The skeptics in our governing body are making the US look stupid.

That one lawmaker in Oklahoma can derail the efforts of countries around the world to combat climate change (do a search on "oceanic thermal expansion" for some irrefutable evidence) is ridiculous. Our time was the 20th century. Now's the time for another country to become the next superpower. Unfortunately for us, uneducated lawmakers who are suspicious of science are harming every species on earth, just so they can pay for their re-elections.

I'd be out there on the street too, but I find there're better ways to educate than accosting people on the street. Children are great vehicles for change, especially since they often influence their parents!

Ever wonder why there are so many new majors centering on Environmental & Climate Science at universities? It's because there's a problem out there, humans caused it, and if there's anything we're good at, it's solving problems!

Posted by: Really? | December 14, 2009 12:31 PM

Fedupwithliberals:

Seriously? There is no doubt that the earth goes through warming and cooling cycles; it has for the 4 billion or so years its been around... but the argument the 350 people are making, and any other environmental "climate change" activist wants to make, is that the past 100 or so years of carbon output have INCREASED the speed at which the earth has warmed dramatically. Ask any legit paleontologist, or "scientist" for that matter, and they will tell you that soil samples and ice core data shows us that there has been no period in the history of the earth, save climate disasters (supervolcano eruptions, meteroid collisions, etc...) that has shown warming at the rate we have seen in the last 100 years.

No one doubts that carbon dioxide contributes to "global warming", more specifically, its ppm count contributes to the earth's climate. The issue is whether human use of carbon is causing an excessive warming trend. Even if you believe that this is a debate, that it MAY NOT be contributing to "global warming", I would rather take my chances and try to reduce our carbon footprint... if I am wrong, so be it; it wouldnt hurt to have more renewable energy sources anyway since coal, natural gas, oil (all our carbon emitters) are non-renewable - if I am right, and we dont reduce our footprint though, we might not have too much longer on this planet.

Dont be pulled into the politics of it; there are scientists on both sides who will fudge the data to meet their needs (see recent British emails released vs. published Bush administration policy to downplay the threat of global warming in NASA studies) - but anyone who doubts it is a GOOD IDEA to make a change, I dont want my children to inheret your planet; if thats the chance you wanna take with your kids, I wish it was just for your kids....

Posted by: Really? | December 14, 2009 1:11 PM

Oh and Bill.... not sure where you got your info on "lost data", but.....

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20091213/ap_on_sc/climate_e_mails

Notice the line: "vast body of evidence showing the world is warming because of man-made greenhouse gas emissions."

Go recheck your facts before you post next time.

Posted by: Jonathan Hopkins | December 14, 2009 2:21 PM

Yawn.

Global warming, global smarming.

Regardless of the impact on the environment, the US should invest the majority of our wealth, influence, resources and time in the coming decades in reorganizing our entire living arrangement around walking and abandon our post World War 2 model of designing everything about private automobile usage.
This would entail rejuvenating our old towns and cities by reworking, abandoning, reusing and/or reorganizing suburban developments to work with towns and cities instead of against them.
In order to maintain, as best we can, the American ideal of space, privacy and individualism, it would make sense to organize wealthier neighborhoods around mass transit lines and main streets. This way people can strive to live in places that are different from the norm, while maintaining a sensible, efficient and pleasant living organization. Rediscovering parks, plazas and courtyards in urban areas will provide families who cannot afford spacious living to still have access to ample, close and convenient open space. Cars may still serve a valuable purpose, but when walking, biking and using mass transit are better alternatives and make more sense, then automobile usage will become increasingly unnecessary.
When people can enjoy their porches and enjoy using public spaces that are absent of noisy cars constantly moving, then I think our lives will improve, we will become more sociable, and our culture would begin to recover for the materialistic, consumerism based and violently degraded society we've become in the last 50 or so years.
Coincidentally, doing these things will drastically lower our carbon footprint in the world-an amount far greater than expensive gizmos and gadgets and limitations will do. Trying to make our sprawling, disorganized, disoriented, disgusting, expensive, wasteful and decadent built environment that is the American landscape a place of modesty, cleanliness, usefulness, beauty, logic, and convenience without addressing the underlying infrastructure that our places of dwelling are organized upon is embarrassingly stupid.
The global warming approach to convincing people we have to change how we live is unconvincing to me. Perhaps it isn't wrong, but I just care so little about it. A much more convincing argument would be to say how our lives can improve enormously if we fundamentally change (which is true), and coincidentally doing so will also be much less bad for the environment. If we simply try to make our current lifestyles 'green' by limiting our lives, preventing us from doing things we normally do and other measures proposed then our lives will worsen and our impact on the earth will only slightly change.
Humans living in advanced civilizations will never be 'good for the planet', every little thing we do somehow degrades the earth; the best we can hope for is extending our time on this planet by living modestly and within reason. We currently do not do this, and setting up our human habitat in a way that allows us to easily live modest lives is something that makes sense to me, and probably makes sense to a lot of people.

Posted by: Ned | December 15, 2009 9:11 AM

Birth control, the number one pollution solution.

Posted by: Kevin | December 15, 2009 9:28 AM

@ Bill

Earlier this year the U.S. National Academy of Science and the national scientific bodies of 12 other countries pubished a joint statement that said
"...large reductions in the emissions of greenhouse gases, principally CO2, are
needed soon to slow the increase of atmospheric
concentrations, and avoid reaching unacceptable levels. However, climate change is happening even faster than previously estimated; global CO2 emissions since 2000 have been higher than even the highest predictions, Arctic sea ice has been melting at rates much faster than predicted, and the rise in the sea level has become more rapid. Feedbacks in the climate system might lead to much more rapid climate changes."

The document is available at http://www.lincei.it/files/dichiarazioni/
G8+5_Academies_%joint_statement_energy_climate.pdf

In addition, global climate data (including surface and ocean temperatures) is available at

http://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/oa/climate/climatedata.html

This database is produced by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, the parent body for the U.S. Weather Service, and opperates seperately from the British Climate Research Unit that has been in the news.

Posted by: fedupwithliberals | December 15, 2009 7:50 PM

You want to reduce the levels of CO2 right away? I can do it in one week and not destroy anyone's economy in the process. Since all humans breathe out that toxic CO2 greenhouse gas, and that that there are billions of people in the world contributing to this impending catastrophe, why don't we start a movement to have everyone on the planet hold their breath for 10 seconds at the same time! We can make that 350 go to 200 in one hour!

That Nobel prize will look sweet on my mantle!