lploscar

Am I missing something here? Shouldn't the people that took the course be the ones that have an objective opinion about this? I took Tom's course, and it did not bother me the least that he did not jump with us... En contraire, it helped me a lot! The footage of launch/opening/body position and the rides back after the hike were not the only benefits... I am a (very) slow packer, and Tom remaining at top helped me put more jumps in. One more thing (that's been pointed out already): Tom had a rig on and was ready to jump (if needed) every time we walked on the bridge. Hi 5's in the landing area?! Common... "Only those who will risk going too far can possibly find out how far one can go." -T.S. Eliot

http://dsc.discovery.com/beyond/index.html?playerId=203711706&categoryId=210014204&lineupId=452340373 (scroll down on the right and find it) "Only those who will risk going too far can possibly find out how far one can go." -T.S. Eliot

If that's what you get out of my posts... then, in did, I just wasted my time today... Time for Friday Happy Hour, drink, party, etc. Later! "Only those who will risk going too far can possibly find out how far one can go." -T.S. Eliot

Ha Ha... Good News...we all know what happens when "the politicians" get movin'... Nuclear power plants convert mass into electrical energy. This converted "nuclear energy" is, by far, the safest, cleanest and least expensive energy source available with current technology. Its use improves the standard of living, increases the quality and length of human life, and maximizes technological progress. The United States was once the world leader in the production of useful energy. Had that American leadership continued, our country and our world would be very different. During the past several decades, mankind should have been making a transition from hydrocarbon power to breeder-reactor-fueled nuclear power. Hydrocarbon power would still be extensively utilized in many applications, but nuclear power would be developing into our primary energy source. Hydroelectric power would continue but would reach a maximum as suitable hydroelectric sites were completely utilized. This transition, however, has been blocked. Progress stalled because of another force at work in our body politic. Through the major media and the environmental lobby, the latter heavily funded by huge tax-exempt foundations, they have beguiled millions into believing that too many people and too much technology will cause environmental devastation. Thirty years ago, they demonized nuclear power with false claims about its safety. As a result, nuclear power development in the United States stopped. At that time, America was the world technological leader and therefore the largest user of energy. At present, American leadership is being challenged by Asian nations, which are building nuclear power plants at a rapidly increasing rate. Although technological progress continued to some extent without progress in energy production, the crippling of nuclear power meant continued heavy dependence on hydrocarbon fuels — including a dangerous dependence on foreign oil, exacerbated by "environmental" regulations impeding drilling in our own country. This ongoing tragedy is also reflected in the decline of American technological superiority and the decline of American living standards. The enemies of technological advance are, however, not content. They want to move technology another step downward and energy production another step backward by diminishing even the use of hydrocarbon energy. To accomplish this, they have contrived three lies. These are the lies of hydrocarbon shortages, human-caused global cooling, and human-caused global warming. Their allies in the press, government, foundations and business have heavily promoted these lies over the past several decades. The first argument was that the supply of hydrocarbons would soon be exhausted. The vast deposits of coal, natural gas, and oil and oil-bearing minerals on the Earth soon overcame this lie. Expanding regulation of the hydrocarbon industry, however, can still bring about politically contrived shortages and market distortions. These regulations contribute to the artificially high cost of fuel, as do federal and state excise taxes, and (in general) the erosion of the purchasing power of the dollar through inflation. The second claim, popular during the 70s, was that a new ice age would be caused by human use of coal, oil and natural gas. This argument was "proved" by the then-decreasing global temperatures that began in about 1940. As temperatures stabilized, however, and resumed their 300-year warming cycle, the lie of "global cooling" faded from the scene. The latest scare asserts that the Earth is warming as a result of human use of coal, oil, and natural gas. This myth of "human-caused global warming" is promoted by billions of dollars worth of propaganda in the American media today. Its creators are the very same people who demonized nuclear power and once warned about global cooling. "Only those who will risk going too far can possibly find out how far one can go." -T.S. Eliot

Does Long-Term Elevation of CO2 Concentration Increase Photosynthesis in Forest Floor Vegetation? (Indiana Strawberry in a Maryland Forest) C. P. Osborne, B. G. Drake, J. LaRoche and S. P. Long John Tabor Laboratories, Department of Biological Sciences, University of Essex, Colchester CO4 3SQ, United Kingdom (C.P.O., S.P.L.) As the partial pressure of CO2 (pCO2) in the atmosphere rises, photorespiratory loss of carbon in C3 photosynthesis will diminish and the net efficiency of light-limited photosynthetic carbon uptake should rise. We tested this expectation for Indiana strawberry (Duchesnea indica) growing on a Maryland forest floor. Open-top chambers were used to elevate the pCO2 of a forest floor habitat to 67 Pa and were paired with control chambers providing an ambient pCO2 of 38 Pa. After 3.5 years, D. indica leaves grown and measured in the elevated pCO2 showed a significantly greater maximum quantum efficiency of net photosynthesis (by 22%) and a lower light compensation point (by 42%) than leaves grown and measured in the control chambers. The quantum efficiency to minimize photorespiration, measured in 1% O2, was the same for controls and plants grown at elevated pCO2. This showed that the maximum efficiency of light-energy transduction into assimilated carbon was not altered by acclimation and that the increase in light-limited photosynthesis at elevated pCO2 was simply a function of the decrease in photorespiration. Acclimation did decrease the ribulose-1,5-bisphosphate carboxylase/oxygenase and light-harvesting chlorophyll protein content of the leaf by more than 30%. These changes were associated with a decreased capacity for light-saturated, but not light-limited, photosynthesis. Even so, leaves of D. indica grown and measured at elevated pCO2 showed greater light-saturated photosynthetic rates than leaves grown and measured at the current atmospheric pCO2. In situ measurements under natural forest floor lighting showed large increases in leaf photosynthesis at elevated pCO2, relative to controls, in both summer and fall. The increase in efficiency of light-limited photosynthesis with elevated pCO2 allowed positive net photosynthetic carbon uptake on days and at locations on the forest floor that light fluxes were insufficient for positive net photosynthesis in the current atmospheric pCO2. Wow! Imagine that! "Only those who will risk going too far can possibly find out how far one can go." -T.S. Eliot

Quote> "the planet's warming up and maybe we have something to do with it - but the changes will be good." Quote Twisty! R we? He does not state that the planet is warming up - en contraire! he's point is that it is actually cooler (if you go further back than the 1800's)... and changes in the level of CO2 would be good (not rise in temperature to a gazillion degrees Fahrenheit, or what ever the heck you believe). "Only those who will risk going too far can possibly find out how far one can go." -T.S. Eliot

Here's a study, from the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics (www.cfa.harvard.edu), that carries the vernacular title 20th-Century Climate Not So Hot. Co-authored by Smithsonian astrophysicists Sallie Baliunas and Willie Soon, Craig Idso and Sherwood Idso of the Center for the Study of Carbon Dioxide and Global Change, and David Legates of the Center for Climate Research at the University of Delaware, it notes: "20th Century temperatures were generally cooler than during the medieval warmth." The 20th century, contrary to the alarmism of environmentalists, was neither the warmest century in the past millennium, nor the one marked by the most severe weather. Belief that the globe is warming faster than ever before, and so fast that the rise threatens the environment, is the result of examining variations in temperature over too short a time span. The Medieval Warm Period, from approximately 800 to 1300 AD, was as much as 4 C warmer on average than today, worldwide, nearly as warm as the upper extreme of UN climate projections for the coming century. And the natural world did not implode, far from it. Greenland sustained agricultural colonies through much of this period. The seas teemed with fish. Wars were less common in Europe than during the later Middle Ages, in part because harvests were plentiful and less pressure existed for campaigns of conquest to acquire new lands and resources. Cathedral construction on a grand scale (a sign of relative affluence) boomed across Europe. Mesoamerica also flourished. Remarkable in the Harvard-Smithsonian study is the depth of analysis it contains of the historical temperature record and its finding that the Medieval Warm Period was global, not merely confined to the North Atlantic region as some have argued. The study, funded in part by NASA and the National (U.S.) Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration - two organizations known for the enthusiastic support of the manmade warming theory - examined the results from more than 240 scientific reports on temperature "proxies," biological, cultural and geological fingerprints that indirectly reveal temperatures centuries, millennia or even eons ago. "For example, tree-ring studies can yield yearly records of temperature and precipitation trends, while glacier ice cores record those variables over longer time scales ... Borehole data, cultural data, glacier advances or retreats, geomorphology, isotopic analysis from lake sediments, ice cores, peat moss, corals, stalagmites" and fossils, even dust and pollen, can provide clues to past climate, even sometimes very detailed indicators. No study to date has been as thorough or wide-ranging as the Harvard-Smithsonian study, and few have taken as much advantage of the "research advances in reconstructing ancient climates" that has occurred in recent years. Why then do other scientists and environmentalists claim temperature records of the past century-and-a-half show such potentially catastrophic warming? Because the Little Ice Age followed the end of the Medieval Warm Period. This nearly 600-year-period of abnormally cold climate was ending just as modern, reasonably scientific weather records were beginning. If 1850 is used as year zero - as the baseline against which current temperatures are compared - it is going to look dramatically warmer today than a century ago because the Little Ice Age was just ending in 1850. But if 1850 is seen for the anomaly it is, and the past 1,000 or more years are placed in context, then today's heat is hardly that striking, and certainly not cause for alarm. http://www.cfa.harvard.edu/press/pr0310.html "Only those who will risk going too far can possibly find out how far one can go." -T.S. Eliot

b/c they base their findings on trend data (longer than 20-30 years... way longer), and not on computer climate modeling... read the paper... edited for sp "Only those who will risk going too far can possibly find out how far one can go." -T.S. Eliot

Irony?! There was supposed to be a hearing 02/14/07 on Global Warming at the Rayburn House Office Building in DC. The hearing is entitled “Climate Change: Are Greenhouse Gas Emissions from Human Activities Contributing to a Warming of the Planet?” The hearing was cancelled because a snow storm was followed by an ice storm and the entire region was covered with a wintry mix of nastiness. All area schools were closed, colleges were closed and government offices were closed or on a reduced work schedule. All of this on the day a Global Warming Hearing was set to begin. It is amazing how many people blindly follow this Global Warming idea even with contradictory evidence slapping them in the face like a cold northeastern wind. "Only those who will risk going too far can possibly find out how far one can go." -T.S. Eliot

I really don't have time for all this... did you bother to read the whole paragraph, or just take one excerpt out and hang onto it?... read the paper linked... it will make good sense (if you open your mind a bit). Everything you state in your post has no meaning without back-up data... "Only those who will risk going too far can possibly find out how far one can go." -T.S. Eliot

??? so, if it doesn't come out of Berkeley=not good/true.... "Only those who will risk going too far can possibly find out how far one can go." -T.S. Eliot

//////////////////////////////////////////////////////// Environmental Effects of Increased Atmospheric Carbon Dioxide Summary World leaders gathered in Kyoto, Japan, in December 1997 to consider a world treaty restricting emissions of ''greenhouse gases,'' chiefly carbon dioxide (CO2), that are thought to cause ''global warming'' severe increases in Earth's atmospheric and surface temperatures, with disastrous environmental consequences. Predictions of global warming are based on computer climate modeling, a branch of science still in its infancy. The empirical evidence actual measurements of Earth's temperature shows no man-made warming trend. Indeed, over the past two decades, when CO2 levels have been at their highest, global average temperatures have actually cooled slightly. To be sure, CO2 levels have increased substantially since the Industrial Revolution, and are expected to continue doing so. It is reasonable to believe that humans have been responsible for much of this increase. But the effect on the environment is likely to be benign. Greenhouse gases cause plant life, and the animal life that depends upon it, to thrive. What mankind is doing is liberating carbon from beneath the Earth's surface and putting it into the atmosphere, where it is available for conversion into living organisms. ///////////////////////////////////////////////////// Read the rest here: http://www.sitewave.net/pproject/s33p36.htm "Only those who will risk going too far can possibly find out how far one can go." -T.S. Eliot

Not if it's just a morning "quickie", without all the foreplay/kissing... "Only those who will risk going too far can possibly find out how far one can go." -T.S. Eliot