Oregon Governor Signs Environmental Bills Into Law

Governor Ted Kulongoski signed a series of environmental bills Wednesday. The seven new laws are meant to level off greenhouse gas emissions and help fight global warming. KLCC's Rachael McDonald reports.


The governor signed the bills at the University of Oregon's Lundquist College of Business, which is considered the greenest business school in the country. He says the climate change legislation will help build Oregon's green economy.

Ted Kulongoski: “But this issue about climate change, and I just want everybody to understand as much as we sometimes like to think about this as just an environmental issue about the quality of air, water or quality of life, it is a tremendous economic issue for us.”

The new laws reduce emissions from cars and trucks through a low-carbon fuel standard, promote solar energy in homes, and control emissions from power plants and industry.

Comments

July 22, 2009
1:54 p.m.
There has been atmospheric cooling the last 8 years, and no new high global annual temperatures in the last 11 years. None of the computer models replicate this fact. Anthropogenic (or man caused) global warming is not proved. The global warming adherents base their argument of proof on more than 20 different computer models called general circulation models (also known as global climate models or GCMs). Each computer model is composed of dozens of mathematical equations representing known scientific laws, theories, and hypotheses. Each equation has one or more constants. The constants associated with known laws are very well defined. The constants associated with known theories are generally accepted but probably some of them may be off by a factor of 2 or more, maybe even an order of magnitude. The equations representing hypotheses, well, sometimes the hypotheses are just plain wrong. Then each of these equations has to be weighted against each other for use in the computer models, so that adds an additional variable (basically an educated guess) for each law, theory, and hypothesis. This is where the models are tweaked to mimic past climate measurements. The SCIENTIFIC METHOD is: (1) Following years of academic study of the known physical laws and accepted theories, and after reviewing some data, come up with a hypothesis to explain the data. (2) Develop a plan to obtain and analyze new data. (3) Collect and analyze the data, this may even require new technology not previously available. (4) Determine if the hypothesis is correct, needs refinement, or is wrong. Either way, new data is available for other researchers. (5) Submit results, including data, for peer review and publication. The output of the computer models run out nearly 90 years forward is considered to be data, but it is not a measurement of a physical phenomenon. Also, there is no way to analyze this so called data to determine if any or which of the hypotheses in the models are correct, need refinement, or are wrong. Also, this method cannot indicate if other new hypotheses need to be generated and incorporated into the models. IT JUST IS NOT THE SCIENTIFIC METHOD. The worst flaw in the AGW argument is the treatment of GCM computer generated outputs as data. They then use it in follow on hypotheses. For example, if temperature rises by X degrees in 50 years, then Y will be effected in such-and-such a way resulting in Z. Then the next person comes along and says, well, if Z happens, the effect on W will be a catastrophe. “I need (and deserve) more money to study the effects on W.” Hypotheses, stacked on hypotheses, stacked on more hypotheses, all based on computer outputs that are not data, using a process that does not lend to proof using the SCIENTIFIC METHOD.

— Posted by NucEngineer

July 23, 2009
1:11 p.m.
To NucEngineer: How about the "hypothesis" ( observable fact ), the Arctic Ocean was relatively free of ice last summer and no computer model was needed to determine this.

— Posted by cavedweller

July 23, 2009
10:23 p.m.
Cavedweller: I regularly check out http://arctic.atmos.uiuc.edu/cryosphere/ and other web sites. The southern hemisphere seasonal sea ice is doing just the opposite, not very global, eh? I also regularly check out http://cr0.izmiran.rssi.ru/mosc/main.htm which is probably more applicable to climate change than CO2. And then there is real qualitative science going on at the CERN using one of the particle accelerators there: http://cdsweb.cern.ch/record/1180849

— Posted by NucEngineer


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