How Bad Is Global Warming?

[Iamwhomiam]

wintler, Tilbury's been shuttered. Two weeks ago yesterday. It's all about the governmental subsidies. Withdraw the free money and these projects disappear more quickly than the smoke clears after one of their presentations promising salvation.

Tilbury power plant closes after biomass grant refused
~~~~~
RWE npower closes Tilbury biomass power station

The blow to the UK's renewables industry was welcome news to some green campaigners who argue biomass is unsustainable

~~~~~
Tilbury biomass power station is turned off

[DrEvil]

Recent slowdown in atmospheric warming thanks to La Niña

Models match global temps by letting Pacific run the show.

Although nine of the 10 warmest years on record have come after the year 2000, global average surface temperature hasn’t increased as rapidly during that time as it did in the 1990s. This hasn’t sent climate scientists scrambling to see if CO2 might not be a greenhouse gas after all, but identifying the cause of this behavior is a valid and interesting challenge.

Several possibilities have been proposed, including an uptick in reflective aerosols and an increase in heat moving into the deep ocean. One study found that when major sources of year-to-year temperature variability are accounted for—solar cycles, volcanic activity, and El Niño/La Niña—the underlying trend is a steady increase in global temperature.

The El Niño Southern Oscillation—a pattern of warm (El Niño) or cool (La Niña) surface water in the equatorial Pacific—has a sizeable impact on average global temperature. To test the impact of the frequent La Niñas of the 2000s, Yu Kosaka and Shang-Ping Xie of the Scripps Institution of Oceanography in San Diego tried a new approach.

They simulated the last 60 years using two different configurations of a climate model developed by NASA’s Geophysical Fluid Dynamics Laboratory. One version was simply run using the observed changes in greenhouse gas concentrations, aerosols (both anthropogenic and natural), and the solar cycles. The result (purple line below) matched measured global temperature (black line) pretty well, but it rose higher than the Earth's temperature did in recent years. The other version used these same inputs but also forced the model to use the actual sea surface temperatures in the equatorial Pacific rather than letting the model itself generate them.

That simulation (red line below) generated an almost exact fit with global temperature, including the recent behavior. A little bit of that improved match would be expected—after all, they have replaced some simulated sea surface temperatures with measured ones—but they only manipulated 8.2 percent of the Earth’s surface. The cooler equatorial Pacific sea surface during the recent rash of La Niñas has had a large impact on global climate.


Observed temperatures (black line) compared with a normal model simulation (purple line) and one that was forced to use measured equatorial Pacific sea surface temperatures (red line). Major volcanic eruptions are labeled.

Because they used a climate model, they were able to look closely at regional patterns of climate over the last decade. They found La Niña’s fingerprints in many places. Their model reproduced the cooler winters seen in the American northwest and up into Canada, as well as the warm and dry conditions in the southern US. Globally, it also matched the seasonal disparity of the last decade, with warming in the Northern Hemisphere summer months but cooling in winter.

Also in accordance with reality, energy trapped by greenhouse gases continued to increase in the model, with ocean heat content rising apace. The modeled climate system didn’t cease warming; it just didn’t show up strongly in the atmosphere.

It adds up to a pretty coherent picture pointing to a cluster of La Niñas as the cause of the slowdown in atmospheric warming. But why all the La Niñas? The researchers chalk it up to natural variability—a lot of coin flips have simply come up La Niña lately. If that’s the case, the researchers write, “the hiatus [in atmospheric warming] is temporary, and global warming will return when the tropical Pacific swings back to a warm state.”

http://arstechnica.com/science/2013/08/ ... o-la-nina/

[Iamwhomiam]

Thank you, Dr. Evil. I hadn't read that.

Regarding the manufacturer of the pellets being sold to the UK power producers, Take a look at their photograph of their "Log Yard" and you wiil see they are utilizing whole trees to create fuel pellets and not just deadfall and trimmings.

http://woodfuels.com/what-we-do/manufacturing-process/
(Thumbnail, see Gallery for full sized photo of their Log Yard.)

Edited to correct bb link code error.

[Iamwhomiam]

Biomass Industry Plays With Fire, Gets Burned
[The Biomass Monitor]

Toxic smokestack emissions aren’t the only public health threat from industrial scale biomass energy facilities. Fires and explosions have been responsible for multiple injuries and three deaths at biomass incinerators over the past three decades.

As of May 2013, fires and/or explosions have occurred at 22 industrial biomass incinerators, based on research from UK-based Port Talbot Residents Against Power Stations and The Biomass Monitor. Additionally, over 45 wood pellet plants and 20 wood products mills have experienced fires of varying levels of intensity and destructiveness.

“Besides the emissions that come out of these facilities’ smokestacks when they are operating,” said Rachel Smolker, co-director of Biofuelwatch,” people living in proximity are at risk from fires and explosions which are really very common.”

Fires at biomass facilities typically start from boiler fires, spontaneous combustion of fermenting woodchip or sawdust piles, or wood dust explosions, according to the Institution of Fire Engineers.

The most recent biomass incinerator accident occured on June 2, 2013 where a wood-burning biomass incinerator caught on fire at Hexham's Egger UK Chipboard Plant in Hexham, UK.

A boiler at the Buena Vista Biomass Power Plant in Amador County, California ruptured on May 30, 2013. Two people were injured, one seriously (airlifted to Sacramento Hospital with burns and cuts) from the "catastrophic mechanical failure."

The Koda Energy combined-heat-and-power biomass facility in Shakopee, Minnesota exploded on April 25, 2013, igniting a fire in two of its fuel storage silos that burned for over a week. The 23.4 megawatt facility burns wood chips, oat hulls and other organic materials to generate electricity for Xcel Energy Inc. The cause of the fire has not been determined and it’s uncertain when the facility will start up again.

The International Biomass Conference and Expo, self-described as “the largest gathering of biomass industry professionals in North America,” held an industry tour of the Shakopee incinerator on April 8, two weeks before the fire shut it down.

A 600 megawatt coal/biomass facility in Nijmegen, Netherlands exploded on November 8, 2012 due to “steam pipe overpressure,” according to owners GDF Suez. Police told residents to stay inside as steam clouds billowed into the air and ceramic wool littered the streets.

A sawdust pile at the 30-megawatt Biomass One incinerator in White Pine, Oregon burst into flames on September 15, 2012 and again on September 18. A woodchip pile had previously caught fire at the facility on July 4, 2009, likely due to spontaneous combustion, which occurs as woody material decays and heats up.

“Fermenting wood piles…are a fire risk and there are generally huge piles of woodchips and pellets on site” at biomass facilities, said Smolker. “Most processed, dried biomass/wood particles put into storage with a moisture content of 15% or more can start to heat,” according to Mike Ewall, director of Energy Justice Network. “The surrounding drier biomass insulates the heating area, supporting a rise in its temperature up to auto-ignition and combustion with oxygen levels in the biomass/wood.”

Dong Energy’s 810 megawatt biomass power incinerator in Avedore, Denmark experienced a fire on August 12, 2012 that began in its electrical conveyor system and spread to its wood pellet silos. The cause of the fire is unknown.

Three people were injured, including one person suffering severe burns, after a May 11, 2012 wood dust explosion in a wood pellet silo at the Amager Power Station in Copenhagen, Denmark, which burns biomass and coal. The fire was traced to a cleaning method called “bang and clean” which uses small explosions of oxygen and methane to clean boilers, but was used in this case to unblock a plug of wood pellets. Fire returned to the facility again on December 19, 2012.

Dust explosions throughout industry—not just the biomass industry—are so common, there’s an entire website devoted specifically to keeping track of them.

Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) calls dust fires a “major industrial hazard.”An October 2009 OSHA report notes 280 dust fires and explosions at industrial sites—the largest percentage being wood, but also including “food products, metal products, chemicals, pharmaceuticals, rubber and plastic products, paper products, furniture, electric and sanitary services, transportation equipment, durable goods, and textile mills”—over the past 25 years, which have killed 119 people and injured 700. OSHA conducted 1,000 inspections, with 25% of inspections of wood related facilities and found 3,786 federal (74% serious) violations and 1,140 state (34% serious).

“Dust is not only a fire risk,” said Smolker, “but also it is very harmful to breathe wood dust.”

A pipe explosion blew a hole in the boiler and a six foot hole in a concrete wall at the Blue Lake Power biomass incinerator in Blue Lake, California in March 2012. The facility’s wood-loading conveyor belt caught fire the year before.

A massive fire raged inside wood pellet silos for RWE’s Tilbury Power Station in Essex, UK, on February 27, 2012. The biomass incinerator—the largest in the world at 750 megawatts—had just been converted from coal to woody biomass a month earlier. RWE claims no single cause can be attributed to the fire, but suspects that smoldering wood pellets triggered the dust fire.

Two workers were critically burned at an explosion at Nacogdoches Generating Facility in Sacul, Texas on January 31, 2012. The fire was blamed on an electrical explosion, though the exact cause has not been determined. At 100 megawatts, Nacogdoches is the biggest biomass power incinerator in the US and is now owned by Southern Power, a subsidiary of Southern Company. Due to low demand for its power, the facility has been sitting idle the majority of the time since 2012.

A “huge” fire ripped through a storage facility for wood pellets at Port of Tyne, UK on October 31, 2011, the pellets destined for the Drax biomass power incinerator in Yorkshire. The fire, which took firefighters twelve hours to extinguish, is thought to have been caused by spontaneous combustion following a “chemical reaction” inside the storage unit.

Georgia Biomass' wood pellet processing plant in Waycross, Georgia exploded on June 21, 2011. A "good portion" of the 750,000 annual tons of wood pellets from the facility fuel RWE's Tilbury Power Station [see above] in the UK.

The baghouse filter system for Middlebury College’s combined heat and power facility in Middlebury, Vermont caught fire on May 16, 2011.

“Friction” in a wood pellet crushing machine started a three alarm fire on March 1, 2011 that set several floors on fire at Schiller Station, a 50 megawatt biomass power incinerator in Portsmouth, New Hampshire. In February 2007, an “obstructed pipe filled with burning ash” also caused a fire and in 2006 four firefighters suffered first or second degree steam burns from fighting a fire in an ash containment facility on the premises.

Fire closed Covanta Energy’s Onondaga County Resource Recovery Facility, a 39.5 megawatt trash incinerator, on April 2, 2010. The fire started during “routine maintenance of a fabric filter used to filter dust particulates.”

Three workers aged 29, 59, and 62, were tragically killed when a biomass energy facility exploded at Brilon Chipboard Plant in North Rhine-Westfalia, Germany on February 5, 2010. The cause of the deadly explosion at one of Europe’s largest chipboard manufacturing facilities is unknown.

A stack of discarded dock piers caught fire while being chipped for the Piney Power Plant in Clarion, Pennsylvania on July 15, 2009. Two firefighters suffered heat exhaustion while battling the blaze.

A feed hopper at the University of South Carolina’s biomass power incinerator exploded on June 28, 2009 in a “potentially lethal accident” which propelled a metal panel 60 feet towards a control office, reportedly from a fuel augur rupturing. The $20 million facility, which was built in 2007, was shuttered in 2011 after having been shut down over three dozen times and experiencing three accidents.

A biomass incinerator in Sittard, Netherlands was “virtually completely destroyed” by a fire that followed an explosion on May 10, 2007. The cause of the explosion is unknown.

Fires in a smoldering fuel pile at the Boralex construction and demolition debris incinerator in Athens, Maine in 2002 caused the Maine Department of Environmental Protection to fine the corporation $600,000. The smoke sent several people to the hospital.

Beaver Wood Energy’s biomass incinerator in Livermore Falls, Maine had a fuel pile catch fire lasting over a month in October 2006. The facility has a “ long history of air emissions violations” including High Priority Violation of the Clean Air Act since April 2005.

A wood chip pile caught fire from “extreme fermentation” at the McNeil Generating Station in September 1985, a 50 megawatt biomass power incinerator in Burlington, Vermont. The facility is the state’s largest polluter and is within a few hundred feet of the most ethnically-diverse neighborhood in Vermont.

Tighter safety regulations have been discussed to help prevent future tragedies at biomass incinerators and other facilities, yet industry has pushed back due to the added expenses.

“The biomass industry likes to say how clean their facilities are because they’re not doing ‘uncontrolled’ burning,” said Ewall. “But the reality is, on top of inadequately controlled smokestack emissions, communities actually run the risk of being exposed to multiple incidents of uncontrolled burning” from routine incidents of fire.

[Sounder]

Wow, thank you so much for that post iamwhomiam.

Damn

[fruhmenschen]

http://thinkprogress.org/climate/2013/0 ... lease-co2/

[Iamwhomiam]

You are most welcome, Sounder. Here's a list of some of the biomass incineration proposals that have been successfully defeated since 2010, though some were not focused solely upon energy production:
(See page 2 of this 2 page 200KB pdf) Both links lead to the same report.

(Sorry, I tried to paste it but couldn't maintain its proper format)

[Iamwhomiam]

Thank you for posting the ThinkProgress article fruhmenschen. I agree completely with the last few sentences: "Is anyone listening? The time to act to slash manmade carbon emissions is NOW — before we devastate the biosphere’s ability to store carbon."

Earlier in the article, "Climatologist Michael Mann wrote in an email, “This study is another sober reminder that uncertainties in the science of climate change are a reason for concern rather than complacency. In this case, this new finding implies that the terrestrial biosphere is likely to become a less efficient ‘sink’ of carbon than previously acknowledged. That, in term, means that the airborne fraction of CO2, and, hence, the human-caused greenhouse warming, may well be greater than most previous assessments have suggested.”

That is what is frightening to me, we have no certainty as to how much carbon is too much carbon. If our models can be flawed as we know they inadvertently can be, we may have passed the point the point of no return.

We must eliminate all industrial discharges into our air, our waters and our lands or we will destroy all life on earth, whether or not our industrial air emissions are warming or cooling our planet.

To go off topic for a moment... Every baby born today is born with their tiny body already burdened with some 200 chemical compounds that did not exist 150 years ago. Only a few hundred of the tens of thousands of man made chemicals are now regulated. Many of these chemical compounds are persistent bioaccumulative toxins known to be carcinogenic, mutagenic and biomimics; mutagens disrupt the proper functioning of our genes and biomimics are so close in their chemical makeup to our hormones they defeat our body's defense system which cannot recognize them as unnatural foreign substances. The longer we live the more of these PBT chemicals build up in our tissues, ever increasing our risk of illness or death. We cannot easily rid ourselves of PBTs or heavy metals and the chelation therapy used to rid our body of heavy metals is dangerously risky.

My point is, regardless of one's position on climate change, we should do everything within our power to reduce industrial pollutants poisoning us, our children, our waters and lands and every plant and lifeform on earth. Our survival also depends upon doing this and we need to act quickly.

If I was an alien overlord I would not have a difficult time determining whether we have been worthy custodians of this rather unique world we've been appointed guardians over. But I needn't be anything but human to see we've failed miserably to maintain the garden of eden we were gifted. As well we have failed our children, who we continue to poison daily. Everything they eat, organically grown or not is contaminated. Every breath they take contains perhaps millions of fine chemical particulates. Our pollutants are to be found everywhere and it is impossible to avoid being exposed to many, repeatedly daily.

Read Hendrick Hudson's journal to see how different from today the new world was then.
It will make you cry.

edited to correct typo: 'l' removed from "biomimicsl'

[Sounder]

To go off topic for a moment... Every baby born today is born with their tiny body already burdened with some 200 chemical compounds that did not exist 150 years ago. Only a few hundred of the tens of thousands of man made chemicals are now regulated. Many of these chemical compounds are persistent bioaccumulative toxins known to be carcinogenic, mutagenic and biomimicsl; mutagens disrupt the proper functioning of our genes and biomimics are so close in their chemical makeup to our hormones they defeat our body's defense system which cannot recognize them as unnatural foreign substances. The longer we live the more of these PBT chemicals build up in our tissues, ever increasing our risk of illness or death. We cannot easily rid ourselves of PBTs or heavy metals and the chelation therapy used to rid our body of heavy metals is dangerously risky.

My point is, regardless of one's position on climate change, we should do everything within our power to reduce industrial pollutants poisoning us, our children, our waters and lands and every plant and lifeform on earth. Our survival also depends upon doing this and we need to act quickly.

So true, so true.

There is a legitimate concern that we may be choosing an incorrect imperative when we put all our marbles on climate change.

From my perspective it seems that the activities of drug company's, Monsanto, GE, and the war machine contribute much more to toxins in the environment than does CO2.

These activities are all heavily supported by government and yet so many sleepy eyed liberals believe that the govt. is on the 'right' side in the particular case of climate change.

To me, it seems like an imperative that can be used as an argument to cut down trees has some pretty sloppy thinking behind it.

So how has the war on cancer going? Or the drug war, or the war on terrorism?

These 'programs' are a rich source for and justification for funding, but does anyone here think that the objective is to succeed rather than to ensure more funding?

Sorry, not when success means no more funding.

[seemslikeadream]

[Iamwhomiam]

slad, I'll view the video once I have access to a faster computer connection later today.

Sounder, we do see some things similarly but we do have some differences in our mindset. For example, you mention Monsanto and I would add Dow and every chemical manufacturer, they are certainly the greatest polluting industry and were the creators of plastics. The first plastics business made billiard balls and later celluloid shirt collars. That material was developed here in Albany, NY from parkersine after having purchased Parker's UK patent. The new material, celluloid, gave Troy, NY its nickname, the Collar City.

Try today to put a ten cent fee on single-use plastic bags, or god forbid you suggest a complete ban and you will meet with strong opposition from the industry. To defeat the ten cent proposal the industry will send three lobbyists to 'sway' a 'nay' vote and will spend $2 million or more to achieve victory, as they did in Seattle, but there I believe they lost. Propose a bag ban and you will see more than three industry lobbyists arrive and their spending will be unlimited to maintain their market share, as we saw in Albany.

Wherever GE operated a plant building electrical transformers they polluted their site, any disposal area they used and all nearby waters with PCBs, one of the most dangerous chemical compounds known. PCBs were derived from coal tar and everywhere coal oil was produced from coal tar, and it was produced all around the world for municipal lighting, is also highly toxic with pollutants.

Yes, the chemical industry, with their spin-off plastics industry is our worst polluter, with heavy industry coming in second. And war itself may be third, but I don't think it would rate that highly. The war machine could not function without the existence of our chemical companies and heavy industry, so I see it as a component and outlet of these, though I have no idea what secret, toxin-producing technologies they may be engaged in. And we cannot forget to throw into the mix GE's nuclear research, their reactors and the many toxic issues they present.

"There is a legitimate concern that we may be choosing an incorrect imperative when we put all our marbles on climate change."

I certainly agree, however I haven't seen any marbles being collected, though I have noticed a few pearls among the swine. Let me be clear- there is little being done to limit carbon emissions, regardless of how over-reaching you may feel regulators have become. This becomes apparent once we consider all the new sources of carbon coming online.

"These activities are all heavily supported by government and yet so many sleepy eyed liberals believe that the govt. is on the 'right' side in the particular case of climate change."

Sounder, you diminish the efficacy of any argument you're engaged in once you start labeling those with whom you disagree. For example, when you mention "...so many sleepy eyed liberals believe that the govt. is on the 'right' side...," I have no idea to whom you're referring.

First, I do not know any sleepy-eyed liberals nor do I know any liberal who feels our government is on the right side of climate change. Nor do I know any liberal so supportive of our government. I do know conservationists who believe we should conserve our natural resources who are conservative in their political view whom support regulations limiting industrial pollutants, their thinking akin to left-leaning environmentalists. The liberals I know are well informed on the issues they advocate, though I'm sure there are many liberals and conservatives who cannot stand to miss a single episode of the Housewives of New Jersey.

I have found ignorance to be apolitical.

It's all about understanding the issues, seeking knowledge; education, not blindly pushing an agenda from either left or right bulleted talking points. There are those who spend their entire lives in complete ignorance of current events. Billions are illiterate. Yet we all are being poisoned by industrial pollutants as our environment becomes evermore contaminated.

To me, it seems like an imperative that can be used as an argument to cut down trees has some pretty sloppy thinking behind it.

Sloppy thinking? The polluters who push biomass incineration are looking for a free ride, creating a commodity, wood waste in this case, that they can greatly profit from at your expense. Biomass incineration is a false solution for energy production, it strips our forests of the nutrition necessary to their existence and runoff further damages our watersheds and the creatures dependent upon their health and adds mega tonnes of pollutants to our precariously unbalanced ecosystem. I have shown how risky these facilities can be. Because of this great risk developers cannot find private investors, so they lobby for government subsidies. Some in business might call this "slick" or "savvy" thinking, perhaps even "outside the box" or a brilliant business model.

The remainder of your comment is off-topic, but I'll respond. Although I was confidentially informed of this some four years ago, it only became news this year... a local company has developed a proof-positive test for Fibromyalgia. Now you may not think this a big deal, but to those suffering from this disease it provides proof to medical professionals and to them that they are not crazy, which many health professionals claimed because they had no proof of illness. Thankfully, now they do. I doubt you are an expert on terrorism, the drug war or cancer research, but I do appreciate you sharing your bias, as I have shared mine.

I thought I was cynical. Thanks for reminding me how a real cynic views things. If I didn't think I could successfully complete a campaign, environmental or other, I would never try. I would not now be a plaintiff in a lawsuit against the EPA for delaying arbitrarily the imposition of regulations limiting cement kiln pollutants if I thought my action would be fruitless.

The best any of us can do is to advocate for our passions. None of us have the power to change society alone. All of my work has been to benefit others without financial benefit to myself. I do what I do without any expectation of enriching myself, but with the hope that my great grandchildren will in some small way benefit from my work to make their world better. And yes, I have two great grandchildren, 1.5 and 3.5 yrs.

Lastly, to believe all the tens of thousands of scientists from all around the world are working solely to produce their future funding with bad science is an absurdity. And that's not limited to climate researchers. It is the quality of their work, their science that provides their rewards.

[Sounder]

iamwhomiam, try this maybe.

climate change concern creates a meme among the general population that says ‘our leaders’ have great concern for future generations.

This meme happens to counter and cover for several of the duplicitous needs of power.
First off, it provides a facile reason for calling another person ‘pro-polluter’.
It’s also an excellent antidote to deep politics in general, well because the club of Rome clearly has the best interests at heart for humanity in general.
Was there ever any MSM coverage of the total chemical decimation of Fallujah?
How bout Fukushima? Any news? Corexit? What about the state dept big wigs being sales agents for Monsanto?
Do people who ‘care’ about future generations salt a sizable portion of this world with depleted uranium?

So, this is put to the lie when we see the variety and extent to which power will resort to in order to maintain itself.

Part of that image maintenance involves throwing all kinds of money at various ‘good’ causes. And I’m not being facetious, as quite a lot of the money does seem to do good work.

Yet as Rockefeller, and many megalomaniacs before and after him have found, one can define the agenda if one has a good enough hook.

Rockefellers hook was ‘modern medicine’. Yes, the practice of medicine at the time deserved a fair bit of criticism and there was need for better standards, but what we have at this point is a VERY polluting system, to both individuals at all levels and to the larger environment. We have grown to rely on many long-chain molecules to provide ‘cures’ and to control and design our surroundings.

This was not a ‘necessary’ occurrence; we could live much of even modern life without, or with better formulations and control of the toxic materials.

We are not in control of our situation because as a general population we are passively unaware of the larger forces that shape our psyches.

Our psyches are built around coercion. One might control its effects in ones personal life, but in the big world, it’s fucking everywhere and is indeed quite sickening for both the individual and the entire system. Coercion is the death blood and soul of Thantos.

CO2 is not making the system sick, coercion backed by a vertical authority distribution system is the element that could crash the system.

Think about it, common sense says the system would ‘work’ better if more people had critical thinking abilities, yet a vertical authority distribution system demands that ones thoughts be inhibited so as to show preference the ‘authority’ or mental fashion of the moment.

Now you are welcome to argue with points I make but it is not at all ‘critical thinking’ to mock what is said or to deflect by avoidance, derision or other tricks, so that you do not address the basic assertion that climate change concern (among its sponsors) is a fig leaf that effectively covers some very sordid examples of anatomy.

The preceding sentence references a video posted by a member suggesting that I lacked the critical thinking skills of a two year old.
This sort of thing may discourage other weak willed people from considering the perspective I present, but it’s really quite silly and some folk around here are really quite old enough by now to have grown up more than what it sometimes appears.

[Iamwhomiam]

Just wanted to pop-in to let you know I've read your comment, appreciate your sharing it and look forward to sharing my response later, when time allows.

[Ben D]

What's the cost of trying to stop global warming?



Stop being afraid, perhaps that is the answer?

[wintler2]

Vid didn't work for me, packed with untruths, eg. how do you price even first 1000 years of climate change? the fall in Oz GHG pollution due deindustrialisation & non-C-tax related costs not Gillards C tax. Ozs C tax is not even slightly ambitious in relative or absolute terms. Projections by selected economists 'prove' nada except ability to use google.. & thats just in first 45 secs.


Not bad kickoff questions tho..

What's the cost of trying to stop global warming?

What is the cost of trying to stop any abuse of power? "For what shall it profit a man, if he shall gain the whole world, and lose his own soul? "

Stop being afraid, perhaps that is the answer?

Definately - let go or be dragged.