Monday, December 28, 2009

Acid Rain vs. Global Warming

Since it has inconveniently been revealed that the data supporting Al Gore's apocalyptic vision is so much bath-water I wanted to make a push to bring back the bugaboo I remember from the nineties.... ACID RAIN. I remember seeing some goofball in Canada spraying bicarbonate of soda into a lake with some huge hose-like device on some PBS show back in the day. I miss it, and the alternative of BASIC RAIN would make most people feel comfortable, not terrified.

How about it? Let's bring ACID RAIN back to it's position of prominence because after that there's only the seventies ghost called GLOBAL COOLING which won't sell very well just yet. I say ACID RAIN kicks GLOBAL WARMING'S ass, let's sell it people!

(MDOD has formulated a proprietary skin cream to combat the ravages of ACID RAIN and it is available for an introductory price of $19.99 and comes with a 'slap chop' and a leopard 'snuggie'... act now, supplies are limited). **We do not accept carbon credits**

39 comments:

  1. Interestingly (or uninterestingly, as the case may be), ALL rain is acidic - about a pH of 5.3-5.5. This is caused (naturally) by the carbon dioxide - carbonic acid equilibria. Sorry I won't be a buyer of your new skin care line, 911.

    H the IH (and a chemist)

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  2. dear H th IH,
    it's not about chemistry, doc, it's about FEAR. all rain is acidic? holy shit we are in for it now! can we possibly survive? should we speed up climate change, kill polar bears, or perhaps baby harp seals?

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  3. We can eat the bears and harp seals - roasted with ketchup or Jack Daniels BBQ sauce? ;)

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  4. H the IH,

    will the smoke from the barbecue do anything to combat ACID RAIN? being a chemist i'm sure you can tie it together for us. barbecue the bears and seals, save the world. i do love the idea, especially for the purpose of bumper stickers which we will also offer as part of the deal mentioned above.

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  5. Wait! Wait! You forgot the OZONE HOLE! (the reason they banned CFC inhalers) What did that cost us? Wasn't the Goreacle instrumental in that as well?

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  6. Hey asswipe, you sound like one of your patients who googles shit and thinks they no more than a doc.

    If every major medical organization says that vaccinations do not cause autism, I'm going to go with that. If every national academy of science of every major industrialized nation says global warming's happening, stop bitching that Jenny McArthy says it aint.

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  7. Lol, remember the "In Search Of" show on the threat of a new ice age?

    (singing) Terrain in Maine is stained by acid raaiiinn...

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  8. dear anonymous,

    scientific consensus does not exist on global warming... i kind of alluded to this in the post... try reading it again... slowly. it is not hard to figure this out either unless you get all your 'news' from al gore. science and scientific knowledge is not advanced by consensus... you may remember the heliocentric 'consensus' of the galaxy for instance. consensus is a political tool, rarely a scientific one, but i'm using big words and going on too long.

    your way of thinking would, fifty years ago, have had you executing jews based on 'scientific consensus' had you been unlucky enough to live in Germany, but lucky enough not to be Jewish.

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  9. When finally it is shown to be the greatest hoax played on humanity, all the previous followers of the church of the environment will be forced to wear t-shirts with F.A.G. on them (followed Al Gore) so as to be shuned by the rest of us. Al this climate change crap just gives losers who live in their mom's basement something to do to and a cause to feel good about, between protesting at G8 summits and chaining themselves to old growth forests.

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  10. Dear anon. How's that koolaid? If you bothered to read any scientific journals you could find plenty to contradict global warming. It's just not as exciting as shouting "the sky is falling, give me your money," or "the earth is going to burst into an apocalyptic ball of fire, give me your money and I'll stop it."

    Discovery put out a teensy tinsy bit last year about how branch of calculating global temperatures was disproved by some chick who slipped electrodes in between the cell layers of plant leaves. Found that all trees from the boreal belt to the tropics are a cool 71F inside. This essentially disproves a whole branch of global warming climate modeling based on tree rings. Does anybody care? No.

    I like it particularly because the science finally caught up to the climate modeling aka hand-waving.

    There I provided you with a real life example of science. Now go find your own!

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  11. Acid rain is not talked about because measurable levels have dropped 65% in the past 30 years after a federal Acid Rain Program of cap and trade and the CAIR bill dropped SO2 emissions 40%.

    I have not seen the Al Gore movie because that is not an appropriate source for information. I am not a climitologist and I have no way of evaluation and specific datum of what is admittedly a politized issue. I must go with national scientific organizations, with experts. Although universal consensus is not necessary, the onus is on detractors to come up with a HELL of a lot of data to shift the consensus.

    I (and most of the world) would have believed the universe heliocentric from 1530 until 1616 if I had no education in the matter. I would not have helped execute six million Jews during World War II because that is a batshit insane example.

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  12. American Astronomical Society, American Meteorological Society, National Research Council, World Meteorological Organization.

    When I am not a professional, I listen to professionals.

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  13. Why is nobody ever interested in actual data? You give them the information and they say, no thanks, I'd rather have this bureaucratic government entity with an agenda spoon feed me what I should know.

    http://dsc.discovery.com/news/2008/06/11/tree-leaf-temperature.html

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  14. Because I work in the medical field, where I may read articles in my own specialty in my almost non-existant free time, I mostly just follow guidelines published by organizations I trust.

    Individual studies need to be analyzed and placed in context, especially in something as nebulous and confusing as climate change. And I am simply not equipped to do so without guidance, so I delegate.

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  15. Not Just One Rotten Climate Apple

    A complication in the story of Climate Change. Unmodified temperature records from ice cores DO show a recent warming. But, that warming over 80 years (0.7 F, 2/3 degree) is not unusually rapid, or large, and is only a blip when compared to past and distant past temperatures. See the story at the above link, or the graphs directly at WattsUpWithThat

    This recent increase in temperature is only alarming when you cut off the graph to ignore past temperature changes, or change the data to do the same thing, and expand the scale to make .7 degree look like a ski slope.

    The email phrase "hide the decline" (from the ClimateGate emails) did not refer to global temperature, as that has indeed increased slightly, probably from solar variation. It referred to the tree ring data itself, which has indicated lower recent temperatures, despite slighly higher MEASURED temperatures. This invalidates the tree ring data, since it is measurably out of sync with actual temperature records.

    By the way, even the tree ring data is alarming only when you include just the right trees, or even just one "special" tree, to fraudulently push the Warming story.

    So, the confusion. Global temperature has increased slightly, but this is only part of a natural, unpredictable fluctuation. Tree ring data is invalidated by comparison to real temperature measurements, but is pushed as the major data for "showing" that the Earth was calmly cooler in the last 2000 years.

    More simply put, we don't get upset by winter and summer because we recognize the natural fluctuation and we adapt. Trees are highly variable plants that react to lots of factors, of which temperature is just one. Do you want to pay more for gasoline because the trees are growing well?

    -- --
    To Anonymous,

    Is it so hard to have doubts about the government line? Governments have a strong interest in scaring the public to raise taxes and favor new industries, those that politicians have conveniently invested in ahead of the new policies.

    Al Gore is worth about $1 billion, if his investements succeed. He won't debate, but did say that the Earth's mantle (say 30 miles down) had a temperature of millions of degrees. The real temperature is a few thousand.

    The Climategate scientists refused to release their data and methods, and conspired to stop publication of skeptical papers on climate and to suppress the publication of criticism of their own papers. Why the secrecy and collusion, to support something that they believe is compelling?

    Anonymous, you may be ignorant of science, and ready to accept the coordinated reports of politically connected societies, but the behavior of those so-called scientists must raise some doubt.

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  16. Hey Annonymous, did your mother have any children that lived? Seriously, congrats on how you've done with that Anencephaly. And at least come up with a clever Alias instead of being "Annonymous" which is no better than that guy who drills a peephole in the men's room.
    If there's really Global Warming howcome the President had to leave the Global Warming Conference early in order to beat the Blizzard approaching DC??? An Effin FALL Blizzard by the way. NFL games were delayed, and Oh, never mind, if The Marxist Stream Media told you Barney Frank liked Pussy you'd buy it...
    I could use some Global Warming to tell you the truth, it was colder than Nancy Pelosi's surgically altered Nipple in Atlanta yesterday, while the President (Peace be upon Him) was sitting on his Ass in Hawaii, heck at least Bush chopped Wood,

    Blow Me,

    Frank

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  17. I will be offering Polar Bear/Baby Seal BBQ Starter Sticks, made from tightly wrapped beautiful wallpapers!

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  18. dear anon.,
    wow, now i understand. you are too smart to keep up because of the depth required in your studies 'in the medical field'. then let me explain the nazi thing because it's quite unfair when improperly used but here goes.
    alfred rosenberg was the author of the nazi regime's 'science' of racial superiority. he acted on orders of hitler to create a 'science' that could be used to further the political purposes of the nazis and that's what drove thousands of 'nazi scientists' to do all kinds of measurements (nose to lip angle, forehead breadth, weird shit like that...) to determine if one was fit to live in the master race or not.
    so, to tie it all up, for a really smart kinda scientist like you who is so busy reading in your own area (can't wait to find out what it is by the way!) it would be an easy thing to fall for the official government scientific consensus that jews were inferior and dangerous and therefore you, yes you, would have believed it and would have either passively accepted the 'final solution' or happily participated in it.
    you win the douchebag of the month award at MDOD... are you CannedAm?

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  19. Anon said:" I am not a climitologist" which of course is not true. but with these folks we have to accept how they think. Up is down, Cold is warm,less ice is more ice and a lie is the truth. it Claim not to have watch Al Gores film but does not know that "American Meteorological Society" is ...American Meteorological Society primary spokesman is Anthony Socci who is neither an elected official of the AMS nor a contributor to climate science. Rather, he is a former staffer for Al Gore .AMS president Tom Karl who has no MD nor PHD but calls Himself Dr Tom Karl. Tom Karl is another one of Al Gore friends nominated to the AMS.

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  20. David St. Hubbins: I believe virtually everything I read, and I think that is what makes me more of a selective human than someone who doesn't believe anything.

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  21. I get it anon! You're "just following orders." Where have we heard that before??? Nuremberg anyone?

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  22. *Not the Anon that others are fighting*
    Anti-Warming Anon...if you will.

    2 Things - We have now reached, at 21 comments, the realization of Godwin's Law (en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Godwin's_law) with Amy's comment (sorry had to bust you, but I still laughed cause it's true) and Anon is proving that with most liberal, populist bullshit the first of Clarke's Three Laws (en.wikipedia.org/wiki/clarke's_three_laws). It seems that most of my conservative or libertarian peers are willing to accept the presence of dissenting opinions and even regard them as valid given that they are formed on rational, objective arguments and not emotions. None of us argue that heavy metals in the water are bad.

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  23. Love Godwin's Law... Perhaps a bit audacious to call it a "law" but I bet it's hard to disprove... Just like Hitler, you Nazi.

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  24. Anon
    Back in the stone age we were taught that the whole concept of science was to view a colleague's experiment results with uncertainty, and to view your own results with doubt. What I find in today's version of science seems to be an attitude of alarmism ... the louder the alarm the better the science.
    Since we are using populist wikipedia laws to illustrate, allow me to cite Michael Crichton (god rest his soul) who described an axis of scientist - media - government and the incestuous relationship. Scientists find some data that may or may not have dangerous implications, feed it to the media that amplify the alarmist components, that scare the people(government) that in turn, funds the scientists who got the ball rolling. Scientists now have publicists, and often government chooses science advisors for political reasons and media charm. My favorite speech from Crichton's website can be found at http://www.crichton-official.com/speech-complexity.html
    My favorite quote:

    "Increasingly it seems facts aren't necessary, because the tenets of environmentalism are all about belief. It's about whether you are going to be a sinner, or saved. Whether you are going to be one of the people on the side of salvation, or on the side of doom. Whether you are going to be one of us, or one of them."

    Yes, anon, all of those societies and organizations do agree with the concept of global warming. ( I guess now it is "climate change") In fact I also agree, in a similar fashion as @Andrew_M_Garland, and man is contributing, but to a lesser degree than the media is portraying.

    And let me leave you with this disjointed thought. If you believe our literature, and the consensus of medical academia, then more narcotics will lower the pain scale. And thus, we should treat pain scales aggressively with liberal amounts of narcotics. Am I a heretic if I do not believe the literature and consensus, because I believe the data and methodology are flawed? After all, there is consensus.

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  25. [img]http://images.paraorkut.com/img/pics/glitters/a/acid_rain_burns-4680.gif [/img]

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  26. re ACID RAIN
    Ask and yee shall receive/ you find what you are looking for.
    Acid oceans http://www.physorg.com/news180344477.html
    Acid oceans: the 'evil twin' of climate change
    December 18, 2009 By JOHN HEILPRIN

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  27. And thus goes the fear machine. I guess even global cooling isn't off the table. I give 'em four months before a "major change" in the climate change game to the "cooling" side of the argument. You read it here first.

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  28. 911, they can watch this to brush up on the sensationalist lingo: Ep 47, "The Coming Ice Age," first aired in 1978.
    http://epguides.com/InSearchOf/ hee hee.

    Here's a YouTube with cites to Science magazine from the 1970's which speculate that warming from CO2 emissions is helping stave off a new ice age (oops did I just use the e word in a thread where Dr Frank is watching) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ttLBqB0qDko but turn off your sound first.

    Anyone else bored to Hell by global warming wank? Honestly, people are so fanatical about it in real life that I just try to avoid the topic, all squidlike.

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  29. My favorite environmentalism site.

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  30. At DocV's link, here is the quote I like.

    "The average acidity of oceans' surface water is estimated to increase measurably by the end of the century and will affect marine life, according to Peter Brewer, a senior scientist at the Monterey Bay Aquarium Research Institute.

    "The total quantity of carbon dioxide that we've put into the oceans today is around 530 billion tons," Brewer told journalists on a fall fellowship program with the Honolulu-based East-West Center. "Now, it's going up at about 1 million tons an hour. You can't keep doing that without it having some impact."

    So, this change that will kill the oceans is not now measurable, but probably will be in 100 years. This entire article is about a report that ran some computer models and now predicts disaster 100+ years out. I wonder if that computer model also considers how carbon is used in the ocean, such as for building marine shells. We may never know, until those models and data are given a good thrashing by open scientific review, not just flimsy peer review.

    After **all the carbon we have pumped into the atmosphere** they don't have a measurable change in the ocean, although it absorbs 25% of the output. Regardless, lets cut our fuel use by 90% and only eat the vegetables we can grow within 10 miles of where we live. (smile)

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  31. 911 ate Spam, solely to frustate my entrepreneural efforts. Spam is a fine sequesterer of carbon, sitting on the shelf forever. Its consumption and metabolism will undoubtedly impact the bicarbonate buffer that protects us from melting.

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  32. Whats so bad about Acid anyway???
    Acids help digest our food, keeps your car battery strong, shifts your Hb/Oxygen dissociation curve to the right, facilitating oxygen unloading in vital organs, and totally blows your mind in picogram doses...

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  33. Less alkaline does not mean more acidic . Above 7 it is alkaline and below acidic with 7 being neutral. The oceans are considered to have a pH of 8.2 with a variance of 0.3, so it is an alkaline solution. JOHN HEILPRIN knows this but using the word "ACID" is far more scarier then less alkaline.

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  34. Ever been do lake placid? The Adirondack lakes are dead, and are still dying. As a kid, I rowed a little boat in one of the lakes...there are no fish, no plants...nothing. It is still going on. Just the perfect storm of geography and weather patterns.

    I believe, based on scientific evidence, that global warming is happening. I also beleive that it is insignificant to the earth... Ice age, global warming... The earth will survive on.... some of our cities? They will not survive. NYC, New orleans....don't invest in real estate there!!!!

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  35. the great lakes will be gone in 12,000 years. And I think we are statistically speaking.... close to a magnetic shift of the earth in the next 50-200 years

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  36. I think the acid rain has been measured to be 3.3 to 4.1... That's pretty low guys

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  37. And while we are on the subject, what ever happened to the "ozone hole?" Remember, about twenty years ago, when we were all going be made blind and covered with melanomas by the unfiltered UV light bombarding us because we were destroying the ozone layer? Then, puff! The certain disaster of hopoozonic death just vanished to make room for the next ecological catastrophe. I wonder what it will be in another 20 years. Oh, wait. It doesn't mater because those cleaver Myans set the cosmic alarm clock for December 21, 2012. Well then, whats the fuss?

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  38. CountryRat, Al Gore solved the ozone problem when he banned my Albuterol inhaler. Now that all of us asthmatics are puffing away on Ventolin, the earth is safe until threatened by another environmental disaster. It just sucks to be a poor innercity kid where the asthma is bad...can't afford that extra $30 for that inhaler...so we get the added bonus of natural selection thinning the population.

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  39. Fact: Lake Placid is one of the best trout fisheries in northern New York. Get your facts straight.

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