Replies to This Discussion

Permalink Reply by Reggie on November 29, 2009 at 10:48pm

I would suggest consulting a biologist, but it appears you consult one already on a great number of topics.

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Permalink Reply by Doug Reardon on November 29, 2009 at 11:22pm

Yes she has taught me the joys of biology!

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Permalink Reply by Reggie on November 29, 2009 at 11:42pm

Hey now! This is a family oriented site!

Ah, who am I kidding. Slap "NSFW" on it and dish with the details, Romeo.

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Permalink Reply by Doug Reardon on November 30, 2009 at 9:45am

Prevert!

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Permalink Reply by Reggie on November 30, 2009 at 1:18pm

If the shoe fits...

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Permalink Reply by Doug Reardon on November 30, 2009 at 4:15pm

Prevert: before the green!

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Permalink Reply by Lyonel Nichols on November 30, 2009 at 3:15pm

I hope everyone enjoyed their holidays. I apologize for not responding sooner, but my holidays were packed with the usual family gatherings and glorious food.

I'm a skeptic. I've always been a skeptic. Even when I was a child and a devout Christian, I was skeptical, mostly doing it because I was being an obedient child. Regardless of my atheism story, though; to the subject at hand: Global Warming. I've always had issues with it. When I was growing up in central Florida, I experienced some of my hottest summers as a child, temps soaring into the 100's (late 1980's, early 1990's). However, in my adult life, the temperatures seem to have been consistently around high-to-low 90's (mid-to-late 1990's, all of 2000's). Albeit, I scoured the web for proof of this and came up short, but this is how I remember it. Such is the fallacy of childhood memories; based on what I've read about the temperatures of Florida lately, I may have been mistaken. Either way, I found no website which would relay to me an accurate day-to-day temperature record anywhere, so I'm forced to work with the averages provided. Then again, it seems like it is the averages which concern us, anyway. After all of that, it would just appear that I had inaccurate recollections of my childhood.

Moving on: I now live in Alaska and have been working and living up here for five years' time. I work for a construction company which does work on the North Slope of Alaska. As most of you may know, the Arctic is where an estimated 43% of the oil left in the world is located. We do most of our work during the cold season as ice roads grant us easier access to places like ConocoPhillips at Alpine, AK; Pioneer Natural Resources's Oooguruk Island near Oliktok Point, and BP's Liberty Island. When we build ice roads or want to transport goods across the frozen ocean, the ice has to be 12" thick in order to actually construct the ice roads, which then are built up to be between 16" - 32". In the five years that I've worked on the North Slope, the ice roads have been built earlier and earlier each year. My first year up, we were unable to construct them until late December. This year, we had a majority of them completed by mid November. Simple things like these have always made me assume that Global Warming is a farce, at least on the scale which the media displays it.

Now, as a skeptic, an atheist, and a scientist (at least in theory, pun intended), I am forced to admit when I'm wrong, even if I don't want to. I concede that, based off of a lot of information which has been disclosed in the comments on this forum and research on my part as a result of this forum, the evidence which has been displayed by the IPCC and independent sources like The Alaska Climate Research Center, perhaps my skepticism was uncalled for.


When I see videos like these, it often enforces my skepticism. However, as I've learned through our discussions via this forum, it has become clear to me that all you really need is a small push to "get the ball rolling."

In retrospect, I find it odd that "Arctic sea ice has declined faster than projected by IPCC." simply since I have witnessed ocean depths freezing more quickly. However, perhaps this is a localized event, as I have not yet completed the reading of the entire report (available here).

Despite my apparent hem-hawing which I appear to do in almost all of my writing, I know how important it is to admit to being wrong. There is overwhelming evidence to advocate anthropogenic warming over a long time period of time with periods of cooling intermittent.

As a side note, my argument was never about our need to cease pollution. I've always been an advocate of being "green." I recycle and conserve energy whenever I can and I donate my time and money to a local "green" charity run by a close personal friend. I don't think the question of whether we should stop polluting has ever really been a question with two answers; logic has always shown us that pollution hurts us all, short-term and long-term. My question was (and has been answered so-far-in as the evidence currently suggests), how can we be so sure that the warming and cooling of the planet has been an anthropogenic effect? Clearly the current data covers how this is possible. Even if the data is mistaken about anthropogenic warming, which I am no longer suggesting that it is (though I do remain open to new evidence, as I'm sure we all do on this web site), we can clearly see the poor effects which pollution and deforestation have on life in a great many aspects which have no definitive baring on temperature and the dangers of global climate change; such as the extinction of species of animals and plants, just to name one.

Anyway, enough is enough... back to work for me. Thank you to everyone who shared their thoughts.

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Permalink Reply by Lyonel Nichols on November 30, 2009 at 4:43pm

Actually, I saw that on wikipedia.org, too. I was talking about the Oil & Gas of Alaska, Russia, and Canada; all areas covered in the arctic circle. This was an estimation I read in the Anchorage Daily News (adn.com). While I cannot locate the specific article, it was actually an ESTIMATION of UNDISCOVERED oil held within the arctic circle. If I can locate the article, I'll scan it in and send it your way. Regardless, this chart is talking about the discovered oil "reserves" and doesn't include discovered oil deemed "unrecoverable" due to cost, nor does it include undiscovered oil. Either way, though, the percentage of oil estimated was 43% at the time of the article, which came out nearly four months ago and, due to the nature of Alaskan business and the ongoing research done throughout the entire arctic circle based on my experience of five years in the oil and gas industry, these numbers vary, often growing and dropping. In 2005, my geologist friend predicted that there would be 95% of the world's remaining oil and gas underneath the ice sheets. Obviously, the 95% he predicted has fallen considerably in his field, at least based on the ADN article which I previously mentioned. I do thank you for checking my facts, though. I should, in the future, go into further detail when I supply percentages which have no baring on the subject at hand just to avoid further misrepresentation of uncertain data based on an estimation of predictions. Also, here is an article which doesn't give percentages but talks about how the estimation was done, which I bookmarked when the ADN article was written: http://www.energyandcapital.com/articles/arctic-oil-gas/890

In closing, I'll be sure to leave out useless percentages in future posts; I could have written 2% and my post would have read the exact same way. In further note: I admit I did no more research than read an article by a journalist who may have had his sources wrong, though I doubt it. Either way, though... vis-a-vis...

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Permalink Reply by Lyonel Nichols on November 30, 2009 at 5:50pm

Further note: This article displays only 22% of the world's undiscovered oil estimate, though that 22% is merely the conventional oil, and is a far different number than the 43% the ADN reported at an earlier date (by at least 3 or 4 months).

Sorry to keep beating a dead horse... I'm just trying to make the point that one chart which displays reported reserves doesn't defunct my years of study on the subject with hands on experience. I concede the 43% may have changed, as it was an estimate; but this chart doesn't tell me anything except that the Saudi's claim to have a whole lot more oil than the rest of the world... based off of our good ol' friends, OPEC. (Please note sarcasm towards OPEC)

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