What Ever Happened To: The Ozone Hole

This is the second look back at yesteryear's looming environmental disasters. I'll call it disaster science. You know, the disasters that were going to kill us before global warmi, er climate change. Last time it was What Ever Happened to Acid Rain?

Gen-Xers should well-remember the dire predictions about the rapidly disappearing Ozone layer in the 1970's and 1980's. We were warned of skin cancers, crop failures. Starvation. Diseases. Soylent Green snack bars.

Why did we care about ozone in the first place?

Ozone (O3) is the unstable, naturally occurring little oxygen allotrope that filters UV from the sun. Without ozone we would be dead or look something like George Hamilton (expect a lot of 1970's references here).

It concentrates in the ozone layer, up in the stratosphere, about 10 miles up. By 1978, we had a protocol, THE Montreal Protocol, an international agreement to phase out the man-made production of ozone depleting chemicals - the chlorofluorocarbons (AKA CFCs).

The iconic image I have from that era is my mom (all moms) spraying the hell out of their hair with AquaNet hairspray. That stuff had CFC as a propellant. It would burn. And would make a hair helmet that could stop a .32 special.



Disaster science was in a fever pitch in those days. The UVA and UVB rays that were cruising through the thinning ozone layer were giving Patagonian sheep back sores and would eventually destroy all food crops. The ozone hole was big. Really big. And getting bigger.

There were even some really cool cartoon graphics (these were the pre-CG days you know) depicting the size of the ozone hole by 2000. That's right, the hole covered all of the US (except San Francisco) and another hole engulfed western Europe.

Science Fiction Meets Science Fact

I have a little theory about modern science discoveries, its in three parts. I call it the Irwin Allen Blind Spot Trap.

When we scientists observe and report something for the first time, like the ozone hole, there is a natural tendency to believe it must not have existed for long before we observed it. This is the Blind Spot part.

The other problem is that we are developing the ability to observe things at an amazing rate. Therefore we end up with some really good data over a very short periods of time. I'll call this the Double Blind Spot part. In other words, we tend to love technology, and new data from new technology inspires scientists to make long term projections using data that represents a tiny fraction of earth's history. In other words, statistically significant wild ass guesses (or SWAGs).

The last part. Any good scientific SWAGs has a disaster at the end. Just as Irwin Allen brought us Earthquake, the Towering Inferno - scientists seem compelled to run models that predict disaster. Otherwise, who would read that drudge.




Back to the ozone hole. It "appeared" over Antarctica just about the time we could measure it. And the observation caused all manner of panic. The problem with the science in the 1970's was that the annual ozone hole was first measured in 1956, long before the ozone-destroying CFCs were in common use. The hole appears at the end of the dark, cold Antarctic winter, lasts about three to five weeks, and then disappears.

In a rush to write their scripts, scientists forgot to notice this natural phenomena.

The science was quickly settled and the science text books were produced. We, the evil developed nations were killing the planet.

After we settled the science...well, we did some more science. Turns out, that the actual "ozone layer" is not some delicate, static and fragile wrapping about the outer atmosphere. Rather it is a volatile component of the atmosphere that is both created and destroyed by solar radiation.

[Side snark: Science is like that. Things we think we know (i.e. settled) turn out to be quite unsettled after a second or third look.]

That's right. Ozone creation (and destruction) is a self-limiting process, so we can not "run out" of stratospheric ozone. The more ozone (O3) is destroyed, the more free oxygen radicals (O1) are available to bind with free oxygen (O2) to create ozone (O3), the same applies with free oxygen (O2). And on and on it goes.

The Science is Re-Settled

Like OJ Simpson pulling George C Scott from a burning building during an earthquake after a plane crash with an impending dam break - the earth was saved. Was it the Montreal Protocol or previously unknown natural compensating factors? Decades down the road, it looks like it was both. But mostly natural factors.

You see, the holes never engulfed those nasty industrialized nations. And the old science said it could take a decade to get those big ole CFC molecules fully circulated. Not to mention the CFCs that were still produced in third world countries. According to the settled science, the ozone layer could not be saved until 2050. Bad science. Bad

Either way. The hysteria cooled to a concern, eventually fading to a footnote. The new science books sheepishly navigate the topic and respectable scientists don't talk about the ozone anymore.

In the end, what did this crisis bring us? I could make an argument that the ozone hole killed Elvis and brought us frustrating pump bottle hair spray. I could also argue that the ozone hole is like an ex girlfriend. Remembered but left unspoken.

Want to know more? Here are my sources.
CFC Production Yes we still use a lot of that stuff

Steven Milloy at Junk Science

THE EPA

Spike TV for some palate cleansing videos after all of this sciency stuff

Hot Chicks Noodling Catfish and Aerial Bowfishing...Oh Hells Yeah!

With the recent news about Chinese Silver Carp making their way ever closer to the Great Lakes, I was looking for some video. Then I came across this...it's called Aerial Bowfishing. Someone is going to get hurt.



The glowing arrow shots are the best.

It's Saturday night, so how about some hot chicks noodling catfish!!!

Vaginaplasty?

This was on Drudge (via the BBC), but I couldn't let it pass without comment.

Women are undergoing surgery to create perfect genitalia amid a "shocking" lack of information on the potential risks of the procedure, a report says.

And by perfect they mean...

...which generally involves reducing the amount of tissue that protrudes from the lips which cover the vagina.

OK, so its called labioplasty, but what kind of man would want LESS of that. Am I alone on this? When I saw the headline I assumed the doctors would be going the other way with that.

I have to wonder if this is some sort of pedophillic desire to make women look like little girls.

Whatever. I'm against it.

Thomasville AL: The Police Blotter Edition

Nothing. I mean nothing going on.

So let's check into the bad girls of the Clarke County Sheriff's report.

Bad girls, bad girls...whatcha ganna do when they come for you!

Arrests booked through the Clarke County Jail during the week of Oct. 20-27 include:

Betty Ann Morgan, 27, assault third degree, $1,000 bond, arrested by Clarke County Sheriff's Dept. (Assault? That's kinda hot for a girl.)

Valerie Southall, 22, theft by deception second degree, $10,000 bond, arrested by Clarke County Sheriff's Dept. (mmmmm she's got sticky fingers...)

Aleah Janez Green, 29, five counts possession forged instrument second degree, theft of property second degree, $30,000 bond, arrested by Clarke County Sheriff's Dept.
(One bad check meh, lots of bad checks...bad bad girl.)

Sherida Lanette Foreman, 31, possession of marijuana second degree, drug paraphernalia second offense, $1,600 bond, arrested by Jackson Police Dept. (Kronic)

Gina Louise Collins, 44, possession of controlled substance, drug paraphernalia/ first offense, $9,000 bond, arrested by Clarke County Sheriff's Dept. (Party Girl!)

Green Scare: Its About The Money, Not The Earth

Now that the Obama administration is serious about cap and trade, and all of the side benefits for campaign contributors who will broker the carbon credits, who really stands to gain from Earth saving green coal technology? No one. And that's why just about all the major green enviro groups are out there protesting a modern, capture and sequester plat in New Jersey.

Just think of all the poor brokers on Wall Street without a carbon credit to trade in the future. If green coal has a future, then these guys stand to lose billions of dollars in fees. No politician ever made a living with a solved problem.

To whit:

Clean Coal? Not Here, Thanks [William Tucker]

There’s another article in yesterday’s New York Times worth noting. On the Metropolitan page, Peter Applebome recounts a bitter public debate going on now in Linden, N.J.

It seems a farsighted power company named PurGen wants to build a 750-megawatt coal plant with complete carbon capture and storage, commonly cited as one of the major breakthroughs needed to fend off global warming. The plant, on an old DuPont site, would capture 90 percent of its carbon-dioxide exhaust, liquefy it, and pump it through 70 miles of pipeline to an offshore rock formation near Atlantic City, where it would be permanently sequestered. Almost any environmental group you can name lists “carbon capture and storage” as one of its highest priorities in reducing carbon emissions.

So who is opposing the plant? The Sierra Club of New Jersey, the New Jersey Environmental Federation, the Edison Wetlands Association, the Arthur Kill Watershed Alliance, and every other environmental organization within driving distance. They’re not being nice about it, either. The Sierra Club calls the project “A $5 billion Ponzi scheme that not only won’t work but will lead to environmental disaster.” Edison Wetlands says it’s “A recipe for another Exxon Valdez toxic catastrophe.” The Environmental Federation is telling local residents, “The worst polluters continue to put Linden in their crosshairs, but this time the stakes are even higher.”

“Support globally, oppose locally.” That should be the motto of the environmental movement.

Look, the political establishment already has plans for the hundreds of billions of dollars in carbon tax credits. From the campaign contributions to the earmarks back home, there are a lot of people invested in the non-solution solution.

This kind of problem solving will not be appreciated by anyone in Washington and will be punished summarily. Of course, this is not a shock to anyone paying attention...if this was about carbon and saving the earth, Obama would have started a "Manhattan Project" for nuclear power plants. But he didn't and I don't know of any of the environmental groups pushing for Nuclear Now.

This whole carbon thing is starting to feel like one of those Soprano episodes at the construction site in New Jersey, complete with fat guys in lawn chairs.

!Sarah! Let's Get It On In NY 23

Rogue agent Palin takes on McCain, endorses Conservative Party candidate Hoffman after McCain supports the GOP-backed Dede Scozzafava in NY 23.

From Palin's Facebook page.

Doug Hoffman stands for the principles that all Republicans should share: smaller government, lower taxes, strong national defense, and a commitment to individual liberty.

Political parties must stand for something. When Republicans were in the wilderness in the late 1970s, Ronald Reagan knew that the doctrine of "blurring the lines" between parties was not an appropriate way to win elections. Unfortunately, the Republican Party today has decided to choose a candidate who more than blurs the lines, and there is no real difference between the Democrat and the Republican in this race. This is why Doug Hoffman is running on the Conservative Party's ticket.

The GOP is thinking that the caucus is getting so small, that they need to run someone from the other team to keep the seat. Bunk. Run good candidates who can balance a checkbook and can string a few sentences together and you have a winner right now. Budget busting spend and taxers are not looking good now or in 2010.

The Bush Recovery of 2009

How about another installment of Democrat Logic.

As I understand the current state of Democrat thinking, here are the basic assumptions regarding our current economic state.

1. The recession of 2008/2009 was entirely Bush's fault.

2. The recession is either over, or nearly so.

See: Bernanke, AP Economic Revival, Obama: Worst Behind Us

3. TARP Money has been spent, but the so-called Stimulus (American Recovery and Reinvestment Act) has had very little of its funds obligated...actually spent. The numbers range from 10.2 to 18 percent. The higher numbers may reflect a different accounting method: one that puts the money on the "spent" side of the ledger as soon as it is given to the states.

4. Bush was primarily responsible for TARP.

5. Obama was responsible for ARRA (he signed it after all).

If the above 5 items are true, as Democrats tell us there are, then #2 is attributable to #4 since #5 has not had enough time or expendature to have made a difference. In other words, this is President Bush's recovery.

Furthermore, it is entirely logical to attribute part of the stock market resiliency to the Bush tax cuts set to expire next year.

So, thank you Mr President (Bush), according to your political enemies, this is your recovery.

The Twilight Zone (formerly known as the USA)

What kind of parent

#1 Builds a flying saucer?

#2 Pretends his six year old son is in it when it 'accidentally takes off

#3 Call the Federal Aviation Administration for help in the search, wasting God only knows how much money??????

http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,568420,00.html

Well I guess this bogus story took our minds off the bogus crap coming out of the White House these days.

We have an idiot -in-chief who would rather travel to Oslo to be awarded a Nobel Peace Prize for what? you guessed it...nothing! He would prefer to dance at the Fiesta Latina or travel to Switzerland to persuade the Olympic committee to bring the Olympics to Chicago, rather than actually do his job.

Perhaps that is because the narcissistic man-child bit off more than he could chew. Running a nation isn't exactly the same as community organizing. The 143 days he spent as a senator is certainly not helping him do a bang up job as president. The budget Obama proposes for this year increases federal spending by a fiscally insane 34% over the budget adopted for last year, with a total of $4 trillion in federal spending, the highest EVER.Under the Obama budget, the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) projects that the national debt will more than double over the next 10 years from 40% of GDP today to a shocking 82%!

Obama's concept of being patriotic is redistribution of wealth; taking from people who have actually worked....and giving it to the less fortunate (i.e. druggies, pimps, prostitutes, non-taxpayers) aka those who have never held a real (or at least legal) job in their lives.

Obama's plan...is failed distributionism wrapped up in pretty new paper. This isn't change. It is a failure of imagination. And it is a betrayal of trust in the American people and of the ideals on which this great and free nation was founded.

"Guard with jealous attention the public liberty. Suspect every one who approaches that jewel. Unfortunately, nothing will preserve it but downright force. Whenever you give up that force, you are inevitably ruined. "
Patrick Henry, speech in the Virginia Ratifying Convention, June 5, 1778

Hey conservatives, WAKE UP! Our liberties are being lost or trampled on daily. It is time for us to stand up for our beliefs, stop being the "silent" majority and make our voices heard.

Just last week Rush Limbaugh was "not allowed" to invest in the St. Louis Rams due to quotes attributed to him, quotes he NEVER made. Ohhh...it was posted on Wikipedia...it must be true! Could this have anything to do with Mr. Limbaugh being very vocal with his low opinion of Obama? I think yes.

The Obama white house has led a public assault on Fox News, "A lot of their news programming, it's really not news. It's pushing a point of view," senior adviser David Axelrod said on ABC's "This Week."

"The way we -- the president looks at it and we look at it, is, it is not a news organization so much as it has a perspective," White House Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel added on CNN's "State of the Union."

More attempts to silent the opposition. The Obama administration and the left in general are reminiscent of the cultural revolution in China. They are always trying to create enemies of the people so they do not have to come up with real solutions to problems and they can hide the real harm they are doing to this great nation. As long as people remain uniformed or even angry with the "evil" insurance companies, they can hide their anti-capitilism agenda. FOX NEWS and Rush Limbaugh are two the biggest threats to the Obama agenda.

This is all sad but true, and all the while the Canadian (yes you read correctly) dollar climbs toward parity with the US dollar.

Be silent and the USA will truly become a Twilight Zone of sorts...Americans waiting for health care services we used to take for granted, our dollar virtually worthless, redistribution of wealth and US border agents will be handing out welcome letters to the illegals as they cross the border.

I don't know what kind of change the idiots in this country were voting for, but I am with good ol' Hank Williams JR. "Give me my God, my guns and you jackasses can keep your change!"

Time for me to put on my gold bracelets, break out my golden lasso and research more Democrat crime!

IG Nobel

To start with. This whole thing is a joke. Seinfeldian... It really was "about nothing" and thats fine, its their award.

My first response was to laugh. The DNC's first response was to accuse those who found this funny of siding with the terrorists. No shit. We are all terrorists now (to turn the Newsweek phrase).

“The Republican Party has thrown in its lot with the terrorists – the
Taliban and Hamas this morning – in criticizing the President for receiving the
Nobel Peace prize,” DNC communications director Brad Woodhouse told
POLITICO.

I laugh at your perpetual candidate and now I'm a fucking terrorist. Really? I bet you cocksuckers at the DNC would keep GITMO open if you could throw your political enemies in there. Check that, I guarantee it.

At least I didn't get called a raaaacist.

Here's a picture of the ceremony in Olso. Let's play a game of "Where's Waldo" or in this case, where's the black guy.

I know the image is kind of small, but those bald roundheads are easy to spot.









Here's one Scandi that isn't too bad. Princess something or anaother.

Counting Tree Rings: Global Warming Makes It Hard For Scientists To Count

I'm ripping this from Andrew Orlowski again. This is about as boring as a scientific scandal can be. Hockey stick graph excluded of course.

A scientific scandal is casting a shadow over a number of recent peer-reviewed climate papers.

At least eight papers purporting to reconstruct the historical temperature record times may need to be revisited, with significant implications for contemporary climate studies, the basis of the IPCC's assessments. A number of these involve senior climatologists at the British climate research centre CRU at the University East Anglia. In every case, peer review failed to pick up the errors.

At issue is the use of tree rings as a temperature proxy, or dendrochronology. Using statistical techniques, researchers take the ring data to create a "reconstruction" of historical temperature anomalies. But trees are a highly controversial indicator of temperature, since the rings principally record Co2, and also record humidity, rainfall, nutrient intake and other local factors.

Picking a temperature signal out of all this noise is problematic, and a dendrochronology can differ significantly from instrumented data. In dendro jargon, this disparity is called "divergence". The process of creating a raw data set also involves a selective use of samples - a choice open to a scientist's biases.

Yet none of this has stopped paleoclimataologists from making bold claims using tree ring data.

In particular, since 2000, a large number of peer-reviewed climate papers have incorporated data from trees at the Yamal Peninsula in Siberia. This dataset gained favour, curiously superseding a newer and larger data set from nearby. The older Yamal trees indicated pronounced and dramatic uptick in temperatures.

How could this be? Scientists have ensured much of the measurement data used in the reconstructions remains a secret - failing to fulfill procedures to archive the raw data. Without the raw data, other scientists could not reproduce the results. The most prestigious peer reviewed journals, including Nature and Science, were reluctant to demand the data from contributors. Until now, that is.

At the insistence of editors of the Royal Society's Philosophical Transactions B the data has leaked into the open - and Yamal's mystery is no more.

From this we know that the Yamal data set uses just 12 trees from a larger set to produce its dramatic recent trend. Yet many more were cored, and a larger data set (of 34) from the vicinity shows no dramatic recent warming, and warmer temperatures in the middle ages.

In all there are 252 cores in the CRU Yamal data set, of which ten were alive 1990. All 12 cores selected show strong growth since the mid-19th century. The implication is clear: the dozen were cherry-picked.

The scientists essentially flattened out the Midieval Warm Period and exaggerated the data in recent decades...making the now imfamous Hockey Stick Graph, used to great effect by ALGORE and the UN. The whole thing is an elaborate fake.

Go here for more to learn more on the fake graphs. And then maybe you too could get millions in grants.

Thomasville, AL: End Of Summer Purge

Its been a long summer. Football is here and now is a good time to clear out the notebook.

Notables:

My nephew got a ticket for driving without a seat belt. It cost him $25. No I'm not missing a zero. As you recall, the Thomasville Times warned you on June 4th about the click it or ticket program this summer. Tsk Tsk.

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A local Doctor from India brought back some seeds to plant in Alabama soil. Shhhhh...Don't tell the USDA, but I think we have a new invasive species.

And grow they did. "He told us they would run, but we didn't think they'd take over the whole world," Stephens joked. The two vines have grown so rapidly of late, they have become intermingled and it's hard to tell one vine from another at first glance.

The broad green leaves resemble Kudzu and the vines have flowers that bloom in the early evening. The leaves when rubbed, give off a faint smell of peanut butter.

When taunted, the flowers growl and have a faint smell of flesh.

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Ozelle Hubert sets a new record for the most meaningless election protest. He lost by 60%.

You should probably call Obama...oh you did. I'm sure he'll be putting you on his to do list...right after rewriting the national anthem.

He (Ozelle) said he also believed that the actions was a conspiracy of a special interest group in retaliation to Barack Obama being elected the nation's first African American president.

He sent a copy of the letter to Obama, state officials, the state Democratic Party, the U.S. Justice Department and the local media.

We'll be checking in on Ozelle to see how things progress.

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And as I understand things, the mayor is still tired of conspiracies.

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And for the reallly big show the Canebrake Players of Demopolis to put on the musical "Big River.

North East Passage...Open For First Time?

The sea lane or passage, from northern Europe to Asia, was sailed earlier this month. According to the Reuters and UK Telegraph, this was the first time:

They travelled from Ulsan, South Korea, in late July to Siberia by way of the North East Passage, a sea lane that, in years past, was avoided because of its heavy ice floes.

Scientists report that the Arctic Ocean ice cap has been shrinking to unprecedented levels in recent summers, because of global warming, opening up many passages that were ice-choked in earlier times.

The passage.



Turns out, believe it or not, they were wrong. Way wrong.

Andrew Orlowski at the UK Register, tracked down the original reporting and found more sloppy reporting (at best) or eco-terror mongering (standard operating procedures) from the MSM.

The route offers significant gains over the alternatives via Suez or the Cape, it's shorter, quicker and cheaper. But until technological advances in the early 20th Century it was considered too hazardous for commercial operation.

Since the 1930s the route has seen major ports spring up, carrying over 200,000 tons of freight passing through each year, although this declined with the fall of the Soviet Union.

The UK Independent still has this headline on their website:

A Triumph for Man, a Disaster for Mankind
Two ships are finishing the first commercial navigation of the fabled North-east Passage. It is an epic moment – but also a vivid sign of climate change in the Arctic

Media hype. Check. But where is the hysterical quote from Greenpeace? Oh hells yeah, we got that too.

"This is further proof that climate change is happening now," said Melanie Duchin, Arctic Expedition leader on board the Greenpeace ship Arctic Sunrise, who added that the development put greater pressure on world leaders to agree a major emissions cut at their Copenhagen meeting in December. "This is not a cause for celebration but cause for immediate action," she said.

I believe this is getting Salem Witch Trial crazy...in that these people really believe what they "feel" is true, therefore science must back it up. When you believe, facts back you up naturally. And when someone does research, they are apostates that are going straight to HELL!

Latest ACORN Video: San Diego

Summary.
Whaaaat? Twelve underage girls? No problem. I got people that do that. And how much for the girl (Hanna).

So what do these 5 videos say about the main stream media. This story has been there for years. What about the big bad right wing conspiracy? Not to scary.

Here is the unlikely pair. I'm guessing it was Hanna that sold the image and not the guy. Maybe its just me.



Here is Jon Stewart's take as only he can do.

9-12 Protest: Revenge Of The Gray Panthers

To be honest, I was really surprised by the number of young people that showed up today at the 9-12 rally. That was very encouraging.

To be really honest it was the Gray Panthers at the daytime/weekday townhalls who have done all the heavy lifting. Bravo to them. The members of congress thought that by holding town hall meetings at 10:00 AM on Wednesday, they would eliminate most of the opposition who have jobs and pay taxes.

What was forgotten is that the Gray Panthers wake up at 5 AM and are just getting loose by about 10 AM with a couple of pots of full-on cafinated coffee. It's their energy that carried the protest movement through the summer. It's their voting block that made the Democrats and their media wing at ABC/CBS/NBC reluctant to go after them harder than they did.

One of my favorite Gray Panthers.



A really old guy breaks down with emotion.



9-12. Ordinary Americans doing what they have always done best. Where do we go from here?

Watch the crowd build. Amazing video.

You Lie!

If Rep. Joe Wilson was looking to sell some T-shirts, he certainly is off to a good start. Its a pithy little slogan that has gotten everyone's attention.



How about this little video, Bush getting booed by the democrats while he discusses the need for social security reform.


Wilson was not only right to do it, but it should have been more coordinated. They should have chanted "let us in" or "talk to US" and made the issue about Obama refusing to discuss any republican ideas. The ideal time was right after Obama said, "I'll take ideas from everyone..." Its a shame that opportunity was missed.