If people in NZ and AUS are anything like Americans they certainly aren't spending more time outside, they are spending more time glued to their TV or PC. Besides we've had sunscreen widely available since the at least the mid-70's (as long as I can remember).

Either way it doesn't change the fact that people are dying from skin cancer at higher rates in places where UV radiation is higher at the surface due to the ozone hole. Therefore, the ozone hole is something to be concerned about, whether it has always been there or not, and whether CFC's have an affect or not.

If you do an IM in NZ or AUS you need to be more cautious of the sun.

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Justin in Austin, get it? :)

Cool races:
- Redman
- Desoto American Triple T

I"m always very skeptical of newspaper articles about science which use phraces like "Scientists believe" and "Experts say".

There is very little correlation between CO2 concentration and global temperature. The CO2 concentration has gone up fairly rapidly over the past few decades, yet the rate of global temperature increase has not shown a corresponding increased rate of change.

By far, the largest volume of greenhouse gas in the world is water vapor.

You just explained the reason for a minimal increase in temperature. Most of greenhouse gas is water vapor, therefore the total greenhouse gas concentration change due to a significant increase in CO2 is minimal, but significant. Might want to rethink whether there is correlation between greenhouse gas concentration and temperature again.

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Justin in Austin, get it? :)

Cool races:
- Redman
- Desoto American Triple T

http://www.oism.org/pproject/

Justin, I am not making this up. Feel free to educate yourself by looking at the research on the link at the bottom of the letter.

Then, sign the petition if you feel like it.

Or, here is a pretty interesting read:

http://www.crichton-official.com/speeches/speeches_quote05.html

Just a quick read so far, but the premiss of the petition seems terribly flawed. It seems to assume that the only drawback to burning fossil fuels is global warming. I don't feel that is true at all. So, I'll have to read the report more thoroughly, but there is no way I would sign the petition regardless of the conclusion.

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Justin in Austin, get it? :)

Cool races:
- Redman
- Desoto American Triple T

News flash "The Sky is not falling". So the cooling of the southern hemisphere and the cooling of the east coast is localized global warming or just global warming? So far they have measered a .5c increase in average world temp, that's from Nader. This is the first year Oklahoma didn't get a May tornado, and cat 5 hurricanes are not a new thing. The studies also show that if we could just warm 2 more degrees the economic impact on farming would be enough to feed twice of what we can now. Think globally, feed the starving people of Africa and cure their aids. This is so much more important than anything coincidentaly connected to local weather statistical anomalies.

In case you weren't aware, Michael Crichton is a popular fiction writer, not a scientist.

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"Go yell at an M&M"

I read Crichton's book about global warming (the title escapes me). Heavily cites scientific research. Interesting book.

That doesn't mean he got the science right. Do a Google search on rebuttals (for example, http://www.brookings.edu/...sandalow20050128.pdf), and you'll find lists of errors and mischaracterizations Crichton makes.

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"Go yell at an M&M"

Yeah, I read some of that after I read the book...

Crichton also wrote a book on Mormonism. He's no expert on that either.

Really? I read Krakauer's Mormon book, hadn't seen Crichton's....

My bad...You're right.

Been a long day...

"In case you weren't aware, Michael Crichton is a popular fiction writer, not a scientist. "


What makes someone a scientist in your opinion? Did you even read the text of his speech or did you immediately discount it as a crock based on it being opposed to your beliefs, thus making his point for him.

Feel free to cite specific examples that you disagree with rather than relying on google, which if you check will prove to you that hitler was a great leader.

To save some time for you, here is Crichton's conclusion:

"This trend began with the DDT campaign, and it persists to this day. At this moment, the EPA is hopelessly politicized. In the wake of Carol Browner, it is probably better to shut it down and start over. What we need is a new organization much closer to the FDA. We need an organization that will be ruthless about acquiring verifiable results, that will fund identical research projects to more than one group, and that will make everybody in this field get honest fast.

Because in the end, science offers us the only way out of politics. And if we allow science to become politicized, then we are lost. We will enter the Internet version of the dark ages, an era of shifting fears and wild prejudices, transmitted to people who don't know any better. That's not a good future for the human race. That's our past. So it's time to abandon the religion of environmentalism, and return to the science of environmentalism, and base our public policy decisions firmly on that. "