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Sorry to see no link to the thread but/
http://www.spacedaily.com/2005/05020116 … Spacedaily Article
And its not as if this has been known for years. The trouble is For the USA is it cannot afford the Kyoto agreement especially facing cheaper competition from the likes of the Chinese etc.
Not to mention it is political suicide for an American president to tax the Fuel that fills its countries tanks. There is even rumbles when the price goes up.
Chan eil mi aig a bheil ùidh ann an gleidheadh an status quo; Tha mi airson cur às e.
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Errorist posted it so it must be true, right? :;):
It has never been conclusively established that man-made carbon emissions are a primary or even a significant factor in climate change. Further, the climate has shifted since the planet was formed with no human intervention and present trends are very mild in comparison with the normal variations.
Let's look into it and find out what is really happening and why, but the sky isn't falling.
Build a man a fire and he's warm for a day. Set a man on fire and he's warm for the rest of his life.
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Errorist posted it so it must be true, right? :;):
Ah, but Errorist didn't write it, so we have no clue as to its accuracy. :;):
As for there being no conclusive proof about human responsibility for global warming, I should point out that sufficient proof does exist. (Not the same thing as conclusive proof, I admit, but often the best you're going to get.)
The proof of human responsibility for global warming is about as rigorous as the proof that Martian meteorites really are from Mars. Characteristic isotope ratios are considered adequate proof of origin in both cases.
I've got to agree with you about one thing, though, Cobra Commander: There's no evidence - sufficient, conclusive, or otherwise - of what's going to happen now that global warming is occurring.
Perhaps the US Midwest will become a desert again? Perhaps the wild grapes will grow in Canada again? Perhaps New Orleans will vanish like a sand castle during our first hurricane season with forty-two named Atlantic storms? The Patriots might even win the Superbowl. Who knows?
Bush has taken a risk withholding our participation in the Kyoto treaty, but it was an acceptable risk under the circumstances. It buys the US time we wouldn't have had if we'd ratified in 2001.
"We go big, or we don't go." - GCNRevenger
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The proof of human responsibility for global warming is about as rigorous as the proof that Martian meteorites really are from Mars. Characteristic isotope ratios are considered adequate proof of origin in both cases.
No it isn't.
I'm just disagreeing with everything you say today, aren't I?
We have a theory that greenhouse gas emissions from human industrial activity are the direct cause of the mild temperature increase recorded over the last century or so, which happens to roughly correspond with previously recorded variations going back well before the burnign of fossil fuels. Maybe we're causing it, maybe we're just contributing, maybe it's an interaction of natural processes on Earth and/or variations in the sun itself. We have no proof, conclusive or otherwise.
I'm all for investigating it to find out what exactly is happening and why, but we aren't there yet.
Bush has taken a risk withholding our participation in the Kyoto treaty, but it was an acceptable risk under the circumstances. It buys the US time we wouldn't have had if we'd ratified in 2001.
On this I can agree, there's no sense taking rash and economically destructive action based on an unsubstantiated whim.
Weapons of Mass Destruction notwithstanding.
Edited By Cobra Commander on 1107381315
Build a man a fire and he's warm for a day. Set a man on fire and he's warm for the rest of his life.
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The predictions are way off since they don't even take into account India and China using as much electricity or driving cars in the same ratio as we do here in the USA.Figure that into the formula and it will be much worse than they think and it doesn't even mention how big the Ozone hole will become if India and China get industrialized like we are.
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The proof of human responsibility for global warming is about as rigorous as the proof that Martian meteorites really are from Mars. Characteristic isotope ratios are considered adequate proof of origin in both cases.
No it isn't.
I'm just disagreeing with everything you say today, aren't I?
About time I joined in
There is a certain increase in Carbon Dioxide in the atmosphere and this we have from sampling of air and of Ice core samples so we know what the atmosphere has been like with a very high degree of certainty for at least the last 160,000 years we can tell when volcanoes erupted and when there where years of great forest fires. Add this to sea floor core samplings has given us a detailed picture of how the atmosphere has changed.
We have a theory that greenhouse gas emissions from human industrial activity are the direct cause of the mild tempature increase recorded over the last century or so, which happens to roughly correspond with previously recorded variations going back well before the burnign of fossil fuels
We have detected a massive increase in the tempature of the whole planet and it is not like any tempature changes we have ever reported except for some really nasty events in the past where it appears all the gas hydrates stored in the Tundras and ocean floors let themselves into the atmosphere. The increase in tempature is directly linkable to the increase in the so called greenhouse gases found in the atmosphere.
There certainly is a link to the CO2 emmissions by industry and the burning of fossil fuels but there also is the likelhood that the reduction of the rain forests will have reduced the worlds capacity to absorb so called standard natural emmissions of CO2.
Maybe we are causing it
Oh yes we are
I'm all for investigating it to find out what exactly is happening and why, but we aren't there yet.
There is the trouble we may have to do something about it now or it may be too late. The planet has nothing like what has happened occur to it before and we could be actually about to run over the cliff. But how do we find out we have our ice and ocean cores. We have the rising sea levels and we have the general trend to wilder and more severe weather. But how do we put it down in paper its a trend with people having to make a good estimate of what will happen.
On this I can agree, there's no sense taking rash and economically destructive action based on an unsabstantiated whim.
Its a case of risk management and if we do hit a bad trigger point then it may be economical suicide. Most surveys of water level rises produced by NASA and other well respected organisations show that our major cities become more and more at risk of flooding. Imagine floods puting New York under two to three feet of water and then think of the impact that would have on the economy. But saying that we are doing something about it but far too slow.
Chan eil mi aig a bheil ùidh ann an gleidheadh an status quo; Tha mi airson cur às e.
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There is a certain increase in Carbon Dioxide in the atmosphere and this we have from sampling of air and of Ice core samples so we know what the atmosphere has been like with a very high degree of certainty for at least the last 160,000 years we can tell when volcanoes erupted and when there where years of great forest fires. Add this to sea floor core samplings has given us a detailed picture of how the atmosphere has changed.
So we can be reasonably certain that the atmospehric composition is different now than in the recent (geologically speaking) past, but this isn't what I'm arguing. It has not been established that the change is the direct and sole result of human activity or that it has a causal relationship to recorded climate change, which incidentally brings us closer to the Earth's baseline rather than an unprecedented warming.
It's all a question of the timeframe you sample. It was colder 200 years ago. Most evidence indicates it was warmer 500 years ago, the so-called "Medeival warm period". Go back 10,000 and we're significantly warmer, go back 70 million and we've cooled dramatically. Climate cycles regardless of what we do and we're at the tail end of a cool period. If every human being died tonight the climate would still go about its shifts, sometimes dramatic. I want to know how much and in what manner we affect it but to assert that we are the cause of it is fantasy.
I know it's tempting to think that the Earth is stable and that natural systems are easily quantified in simple, labeled columns but it just isn't the case. There is far more at work here than western nations burning coal and driving.
Edited By Cobra Commander on 1107451891
Build a man a fire and he's warm for a day. Set a man on fire and he's warm for the rest of his life.
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This is so stupid.
So we can be reasonably certain that the atmospehric composition is different now than in the recent (geologically speaking) past, but this isn't what I'm arguing. It has not been established that the change is the direct and sole result of human activity or that it has a causal relationship to recorded climate change, which incidentally brings us closer to the Earth's baseline rather than an unprecedented warming.
The basis of your argument is formulated from the premise that you need conclusive proof to demonstrate that humans are the sole cause of a warming trend, and not the result of some strange natural climactic shift. The evidence you need is impossible to attain considering we have no other data points than the exsisting one, ourselves.
So, you are defering to, "nothing's happening, and if it is, it's natural, so it must be good."
Look, either way you cut it, the atmosphereic composition of our planet is changing. It is getting warmer, and the after effects of such global shifts in temperatures have wiped out previous civilizations. We haven't moved so far ahead of our ancestors, and the inter-globalization will only compound the resulting problems as basic transportation brakes down- with it, our ability to sustain the population densities and way of life most industrilized nations have grown accoustomed too.
Based on the geological record, which dosen't have monkey-man mucking about in his cars and burning coal, we have a better sense of the natural cycle of temperatrue changes. Based on the geological records, we can see the marked difference's in long term temperature development since the industrial revolution. We are able to measure our mark on the earth.
The simple fact of the matter is polluting less is a good thing- regardless of whether we are having an effect on the environment or not.
But then, most of the world agree's that Global Warming is a fact, just like most of the world agreed that Saddam didn't have WMD's.
Guess America might get one of these right.
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I think that we can be fairly certain that the dramatic rise in atmospheric CO2 concentrations over the last 150 years is a direct result of human activities. What is less certain is how much that increase in CO2 has affected the global climate. Even less certain is how much it will affect the climate in the future. We think that it is responsible for the slight warming trend that has been observed in recent years, but it is hard to get an exact quantification of it's effect, or an accurate estimate of what the future effects will be.
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So we can be reasonably certain that the atmospehric composition is different now than in the recent (geologically speaking) past, but this isn't what I'm arguing. It has not been established that the change is the direct and sole result of human activity or that it has a causal relationship to recorded climate change, which incidentally brings us closer to the Earth's baseline rather than an unprecedented warming.
It's all a question of the timeframe you sample. It was colder 200 years ago. Most evidence indicates it was warmer 500 years ago, the so-called "Medeival warm period". Go back 10,000 and we're significantly warmer, go back 70 million and we've cooled dramatically. Climate cycles regardless of what we do and we're at the tail end of a cool period. If every human being died tonight the climate would still go about its shifts, sometimes dramatic. I want to know how much and in what manner we affect it but to assert that we are the cause of it is fantasy.
I know it's tempting to think that the Earth is stable and that natural systems are easily quantified in simple, labeled columns but it just isn't the case. There is far more at work here than western nations burning coal and driving.
But like everything we have to look at the where this CO2 and methane that is present in the atmosphere come from. What puts it there and what would account for its increasing. Unfortunatly only by looking at the Emissions of fossil fuel burning and deforestation can give the amount that is now present. We know that the gas hydrates on the ocean and locked in the permafrost are still there.
It was colder 200 years ago but then the general Industrial revolution occured and since that time we have recorded an increasing amount of industrial products in the atmosphere and ocean floor, Principally CO2. The Earth is in what is called an interglacial period and should by evidence from geological be in a period of cooling. But its not, its heating.
There is no such thing as an Earth base line but general trends and peak conditions like Ice ages etc. But what is certain is that it is a general trend between the extremes and not what is dramatic increase like is occuring now. The only change is Human influence and that we are very influential to the planet.
And it is not just the western nations which shoulder the blame. Certainly the rest of the world is being destructive to there natural balances as we are, in fact in the production of methane they are worse and in the destruction of forest and so called carbon sinks the worst. But it is the western world that burns the hydrocarbons.
Chan eil mi aig a bheil ùidh ann an gleidheadh an status quo; Tha mi airson cur às e.
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So, you are defering to, "nothing's happening, and if it is, it's natural, so it must be good."
I'm deferring to "the world's existence doesn't revolve around us." It can still be bad and natural, we can be contributing but not be the cause, for all we know it might even be good for more people than bad. Mine is a position that acknowledges the complexity and inherent instability of the world around us while acknowledging that we are part of that world and affect it in combination with many other factors.
The simple fact of the matter is polluting less is a good thing- regardless of whether we are having an effect on the environment or not.
Which I haven't argued against. If you want to cut pollution for the sake of cutting pollution I'm with you, but not if it's shrouded in this religion of catastrophic human-caused global warming.
But then, most of the world agree's that Global Warming is a fact, just like most of the world agreed that Saddam didn't have WMD's.
Guess America might get one of these right.
For the record, the world did believe Saddam had WMD's until very recently but more importantly the opinion of a handful of politicians granted the title "the World" has no bearing on whether those opinions are true or not.
But hey, let's accept the whole theory that we're destroying the planet with our infernal machines and if we don't act right now we're all doomed. I'll make a few bucks selling tinfoil hats.
Build a man a fire and he's warm for a day. Set a man on fire and he's warm for the rest of his life.
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I'm deferring to "the world's existence doesn't revolve around us." It can still be bad and natural, we can be contributing but not be the cause, for all we know it might even be good for more people than bad. Mine is a position that acknowledges the complexity and inherent instability of the world around us while acknowledging that we are part of that world and affect it in combination with many other factors.
But I have to ask the question what about all the hydrocarbons we are using. We use over 574 million barrels of oil each year, mostly for fuel. In the US the production and use of coal is over 400 billion tonnes a year most of this is pure carbon.
This is a lot of carbon going into the atmosphere and I have to ask where does it go?
Which I haven't arqued against. if you want to cut pollution for the sake of cutting pollution I'm with you, but not if it's shrouded in this religion of catastrophic human-caused global warming.
We have seen that we are able to have a great effect on this world. Do you remember mount Pinatubo Volcanic eruption 1991. It produced about 22 million tonnes of ash and sulfur Dioxide (SO2) it changed the weather for about a year. It cooled the atmosphere by about a 0.5 degree centigrade. This is a definite example of a real change in what occured. Sulfur Dioxide obscures the sun but Carbon dioxide retains heat so does this mean that we who pump about 5 times as much into the air are effecting the world as much?
If it is not us what is it then that is causing the world to heat up as much and the increased amounts of CO2 found in the atmosphere.
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This is a lot of carbon going into the atmosphere and I have to ask where does it go?
Yes, it goes into the atmospheric mix and has an effect on the entire climate system, I'm not disputing this. What I'm saying is that human emissions of CO2 and other greenhouse gasses are only a fraction of total greenhouse gas sources and greenhouse gasses are only one of many factors that affect climate, and a lesser factor at that. Saying humanity is emitting greenhouse gasses therefore we are directly responsible for climate shifts is a profound leap of logic.
We have seen that we are able to have a great effect on this world. Do you remember mount Pinatubo Volcanic eruption 1991. It produced about 22 million tonnes of ash and sulfur Dioxide (SO2) it changed the weather for about a year. It cooled the atmosphere by about a 0.5 degree centigrade.
Which is part of my point, natural events change the climate all the time. Volcanoes, swamps, termite colonies, flatulating cattle, all these pump vast amounts of greenhouse gasses (mainly CO2 and Methane) into the air. Human fuel burning is a fraction of the total. In addition CO2 isn't even the most significant greenhouse gas playing a role, water vapor is the biggest player.
Besides, the volcano cooled temperatures. Either the ash more than compensated for the greenhouse gas emissions or the emissions themselves aren't a primary factor.
But then looking at the data for the last few hundred-thousand years we're in one of many warm peaks in a generally cool stretch. We could be due for a natural cooling off in which case fighting warming is the last thing we want to do.
The real point is that we don't know what's going to happen and we have very little effect on it either way. We're better off preparing for whatever contingencies might arise than assuming we know exactly what's coming, exactly what's causing it and exactly how to stop it when we really don't have a clue.
If it is not us what is it then that is causing the world to heat up as much and the increased amounts of CO2 found in the atmosphere.
Solar activity affects climate. The Earth's orbit affects it, rotation axis affects it, atmospheric factors both natural and man-made play a role. Volcanic activity, tectonic activity, cloud cover, reflecting ice caps, wind patterns. All these things play a role through complex interactions. Even the CO2 level has fluctuated wildly throughout the history of this planet.
So again, I want to cut pollution as much as anyone and I acknowledge that the Earth's climate is not something we can count on, but can we at least be honest about the situation and admit that despite what we'd like to believe we aren't the center of the universe? Things happen with or without our involvement. In the grand scheme of things we're just not that important. By all means let's work to clean up or act, but let's not be so arrogant as to assume that adopting a different kind of engine is going to make our planet a more hospitable place.
Edited By Cobra Commander on 1107464986
Build a man a fire and he's warm for a day. Set a man on fire and he's warm for the rest of his life.
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So water vapor is a more significant gas the carbon dioxide. That is interesting because as the earth heats up the atmosphere can absorb more water vapor. There should be a multiplication effect. Then again cloud cover should have the opposite effect so I am not sure of the overall effect of water vapor. I’m included to agree with cobra that the world won’t end tomorrow because of global warning. It is interesting that we talk about climate changes coming in cycles. What causes the up swings and the downswings. Where are the equilibrium points, what are the eign vectors and where is the seperatrix.
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Ultimately, I'm with Euler. Data on our rates of emission supports the assertion that we're making the CO2. Variation in isotope ratios over time confirms it. We're making the extra CO2.
As for the cause of global warming, I look at it this way.
We're experiencing a gradual climate shift - an increase in average temperature. There are two (2) perfectly reasonable theories about why that is so, with supporting evidence for each, not just one.
Theory number 1 says we're retaining more heat because of the extra CO2. Theory number 2 says we're getting more heat because of the sun. Both theories say "More Heat", and furthermore, their outcomes are the same for small increases over short times. We don't yet have enough information to tell the two apart. We can't really tell which one we're dealing with until the climate shifts out of its present regime.
You can create a return matrix using those states ("Theory 1", "Theory 2", and "A Little of Both") and our choices ("Decrease Emissions", "Increase Emissions", "Keep It the Same").
Try it, and see if you don't come up with something that strongly suggests "Keep It The Same". The Kyoto treaty choses "Decrease Emissions" instead. The Kyoto treaty is not the best choice. Unfortunately, "Do Nothing" is subsumed under the "Increase Emissions" choice, since doing nothing would continue our present unrestrained growth. Doing nothing is not the best choice, either.
We should stabilize emissions, and not be lazy about it. But we shouldn't panic, either.
"We go big, or we don't go." - GCNRevenger
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Despite my tendencies to the Right in politics, which I defend as pragmatism and realism, I am actually an environmentalist - though more along the lines of Bjorn Lomborg. I think we need to analyze the problems we face carefully before we jump to conclusions.
Having said that, and being still very cautious about the extent and seriousness of global warming and its relationship to human involvement, I want cleaner technology .. now!
I don't like burning fossil fuels, I don't feel comfortable raising atmospheric CO2 levels, I don't want the seas polluted, I think the human population should be 1 billion - not 6 billion.
But, at the same time, I don't like science being cheapened by sensationalism. I don't like it when scientific speculation about possible future global warming, based on a best-guess involving hundreds of factors of which we have only the most primitive understanding, is bandied about as though it's fact.
Temperatures are reported to have risen 0.7 deg.C in the last 100+ years and it looks likely the 30% rise in atmospheric CO2 since the Industrial Revolution has played a part in that.
But would the world have cooled by a similar amount, over that same period, all of its own accord, if the CO2 levels hadn't risen? Could the descent from a relatively warm interglacial period into a full-blown ice-age be under way, as we speak? Might we, by the sheerest coincidence, be forestalling that ice-age with our CO2 production? Might that CO2 production, even though it rises over the next 50 years, be insufficient to offset the factors pushing us into a deep-freeze, and might temperatures begin to plummet by 2020?
O.K.! This is all speculative fantasy of the highest order and I don't know anybody who believes any part of it.
But, in our present state of ignorance, nobody can rule it out, either. And this is my point.
I object to the sheerest speculation about future scenarios involving global warming, even those based on much-vaunted computer simulations, being elevated to the status of scientific fact by the media and the public.
I strongly suspect much of the hype is based on political bias and I'm sorry to say I suspect that taint has even coloured the objectivity of some of the scientists involved.
I've read reports by seemingly reliable people, which allege the sky will fall unless the Kyoto Protocol is adopted by the United States immediately. The refusal to do so by America, and my own country, Australia, is seen as typical right-wing folly, fuelled by ignorance and greed.
On the other hand, I've seen reports by equally respectable people, which indicate the Kyoto Protocol is an entirely inadequate document, whose implementation, or otherwise, will have a negligible effect on predicted climate change anyway.
As CC has reminded us lately, Earth's climate is not stable; it's a natural system of enormous complexity and can change radically for reasons we still don't understand.
Earth is unusually cold at present, with an ice cap at both Poles. An ice cap at just one Pole is unusual for our planet, never mind two! Antarctica, for example, has been largely ice-free for much of the last 150 million years.
On a lesser time-scale, as has been pointed out in this thread, we've had warm spells and 'mini-ice-ages' (colloquially, that is) in just the last 2-3 thousand years. The northern Sahara desert was the granary of the Roman Empire 2 thousand years ago, it even supported Rome's greatest adversary, the mighty Carthaginian Empire; now it's barren and unproductive sand.
The truth is, we don't actually know how much of the 0.7 deg.C rise in global average surface temperatures is directly attributable to human CO2 production, and how much of it might have occurred naturally anyway.
I agree, though, that we ought to minimize our impact on the environment as quickly as we can, simply because of that same ignorance! It cuts both ways.
But I'd like to see that balance introduced into the T.V. shows and the newspaper articles, instead of the monotonous diet of unfounded doomsday mantras we're getting at present.
???
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Despite my tendencies to the Right in politics, which I defend as pragmatism and realism, I am actually an environmentalist - though more along the lines of Bjorn Lomborg. I think we need to analyze the problems we face carefully before we jump to conclusions.
I don't like burning fossil fuels, I don't feel comfortable raising atmospheric CO2 levels, I don't want the seas polluted, I think the human population should be 1 billion - not 6 billion.
Temperatures are reported to have risen 0.7 deg.C in the last 100+ years and it looks likely the 30% rise in atmospheric CO2 since the Industrial Revolution has played a part in that.
But what we do have is the hard evidence of Ice cores and in Ocean taps that CO2 remained for the most part stable for the last 10000 years at about 280ppm. There where variances but never more than 1 or 2ppm. This is not the case starting about 150 years ago that CO2 started to increase till it now is at a level of 350ppm. We have seen that lately weather patterns are being affected.
We are the dominant species on this planet and we really are masters of all that we survey. We though are producing the majority of the CO2 that is entering the atmosphere either by burning hydro carbons or by the slash and burning of forests for agriculture.
In Scotland we now have the climate of what was the south coast of england in regards to when spring comes and to the severity (or lack of) of the winters. Worrying for Scotland is that people from England might move up here (Laughs).
Fossil fuels are what has given us the very high standard of living we in the west now enjoy. It has fueled western culture to being the dominant one in the world and has allowed the worlds "carrying capacity" to have the 7 billion that now abide on this planet by its mass production agriculture. But to all of this there is a cost, an acre of grass for cattle does not absorb and convert as much CO2 as an acre of forest. And our dependence on fossil fuels means that we produce a lot of CO2 that has to go somewhere.
So what can be done well for oil we are seeing its price rise and rise as we have really peaked in our production and it is now falling but demand is still there. My concern is that we will still need to have to provide energy and we will have to turn to other power sources as oil prices rise. This could mean coal and there really is no dirtier a fuel.
Do we really want a world that has a lot of its flat areas covered in rising sea water. Where would the people of Bangladesh go? If we keep going with the global warming we do risk one thing more and more global insecurity and it wont bring what we all hope for a peaceful world
Chan eil mi aig a bheil ùidh ann an gleidheadh an status quo; Tha mi airson cur às e.
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http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/3814607.stm]UK head of Shell Oil believe this is a genuine crisis.
But no, he's merely a leftie moon bat, right? :;):
Ignore him, he obviously is a communist!
Give someone a sufficient [b][i]why[/i][/b] and they can endure just about any [b][i]how[/i][/b]
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http://www.spacedaily.com/2005/05021021 … Spacedaily Article
With the recent floods in Venezuela it seems they have someone to blame. Its bad USA time again.
Also Last years record numbers of Hurricanes hitting the USA may happen again in 2005. Meteoroligists in the UK believe that what caused so many to strike land was an unusual high pressure front first detected in february 2004 to guide the Hurricanes to hit the USA. This Year the High pressure front has been found again and is likely to do again what happened in 2004.
Sorry no web page, but worrying as we get the shuttle ready that we could have it again delayed by these tropical storms. Not to mention the loss of life and property that these do.
Chan eil mi aig a bheil ùidh ann an gleidheadh an status quo; Tha mi airson cur às e.
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