Odd. There are a tiny handful of cases of churches pulling the plug on sponsorship of Scouting units -- but "fleeing like rats?" No.

More Christian churches have stepped up to ask to sponsor units, by my count (which is not thorough).

I'll wager this guy has never had Youth Protection training with Scouts, possibly with no other organization. He's not up to Scout standards.

Is Michael Tanner a rational man?

Why doesn't he quit his job and start taking these "free" payments?

Either he's pulling our leg, or he's too stupid to know the difference. Either way, I don't trust him.

How does it possibly serve America to have hungry kids?

When you read Dickens, "A Christmas Carol" is not supposed to be regarded as the tragedy of Scrooge's repentance. Read it again.

I only lose when others reject science.

Too much CO2 is deadly -- acutely, in very high concentrations. Indoor air standards allow up to 1,000 ppm, but there is noticeable performance decline and potential illness at 600 ppm -- we used to regard that as insanely high, but achievable in a crowded, poorly ventilated room. With ambient outdoor CO2 at 400 ppm, we exceed the threshholds indoors much more often. No big worry -- it doesn't start to be acutely fatal until over 10,000 ppm.

CO2 is a particularly effective greenhouse gas. It captures heat energy and stores it, sometimes reradiating it. This is what makes it useful at levels below 200 ppm, to keep the planet warmer than it would be otherwise. The GHG effects of CO2 were first explained about 150 years ago, and unless you know some new twist of physics, it still stands as it has for 150 years that more CO2 means more warming in the air, wherever CO2 exists. My "last point" is not only completely established to the point that it's in the textbooks and the journals it was originally published in are ancient documents, but there is absolutely no counter research.

Cooling effects of SOME weather is stronger than greenhouse gases. Until 1972, climate and atmosphere scientists recognized that some air pollution cools the planet, while other air pollution warms it. The cooling stuff, particulates and aerosols, were controlled and greatly reduced in the U.S. by the Clean Air Act, after 1972. Most of the world adopted similar standards simply because of the great benefits to health.

But that created a bit of a monster. Until 1972, cooling pollutants offset the effects of warming, greenhouse gases. Since then, the GHG have been left unfettered by human pollution (a couple of volcanic eruptions helped cool things for about 36 months total since 1972.

Spence does not deny that CO2 warms. It is true that water vapor is a great GHG by quantity, but it is also true that a vapor feedback loop limits it -- if it's cool enough, water vapor forms clouds, which reflect heat back into space before it can strike the ground. This feedback loop is interfered with by CO2.

The planet may have been almost this warm in the past, for a year or two at a time. We've had 15 years well above that Middle Age warm period. That period was NOT driven by CO2, but by more natural cycles, the Milankovitch Cycles, and others. Among other indicators of the dangers of CO2 now is that those cycles have been smoothed out -- we should be in a significant cooling cycle since about 1900, but temperatures keep rising.

Humans don't always "do better" when it gets warmer. The drought in the Midwest in the 1930s demonstrated that we can indeed alter climate, and that forced tens of thousands of Americans to flee, ruining many thousands of lives, and killing many hundreds with new diseases. Crop production shrank to zero.

No human has ever survived any period of time when outdoor CO2 was more than 350 ppm. No human has ever before survived a year with CO2 above 400 ppm. Today CO2 is above 450 ppm. Historically, you don't have a leg to stand on to claim we aren't all doomed.

Higher CO2 levels increase plant production, especially among weeds which crowd out wheat and other cereal grain crops. They produce conditions favorable to pests that destroy beneficial trees (4 million acres in Colorado conifers have been lost to warming-advantaged pine bark beetles -- that's one state alone). Enriched CO2 has not proven beneficial to any commercial crop in the field. In the lab, without competition from weeds, without drought, more CO2 may be beneficial. In the field, it doesn't work out that way.

We're all losing, due to the misinformation someone gave you that caused you and others to sit on your hands.

Air pollution is a bad idea, period. Don't try to put polish on that turd. We need to control CO2, and the sooner the better. We hope it's not already too late.

Yes, the planet has gotten warmer over the last decade. Instead of the wide fluctuations we have seen over the past 50,000 years, the past decade has continued at above-20th-century-averages. Overall, that has boosted average temperatures over time considerably, but to pretend that an oven at 400 degrees is "cooling" because it doesn't climb to 450 degrees, is fiction.

Get some facts:

Growing seasons: http://timpanogos.wordpress.com/2013/03/11/annals...

Warmest decade in history: http://timpanogos.wordpress.com/2013/01/16/annals...

Crop losses due to warming: http://ncadac.globalchange.gov/download/NCAJan11-...

An assessment of all dangers, across the board -- and of benefits, too: http://timpanogos.wordpress.com/2013/01/12/annals...

333rd consecutive month above 20th century average (five months ago): http://timpanogos.wordpress.com/2012/12/17/annals...

Mr. Genlock, read the actual NASA report; it says CO2 in the high upper atmosphere works to hold temperatures steady; in no way does it deny the greenhouse gas quality of CO2, nor does it say that the massive buildup of CO2 lower in the atmosphere does not contribute to global warming:
http://science.nasa.gov/science-news/science-at-n...

[quote] Mlynczak is the associate principal investigator for the SABER instrument onboard NASA’s TIMED satellite. SABER monitors infrared emissions from Earth’s upper atmosphere, in particular from carbon dioxide (CO2) and nitric oxide (NO), two substances that play a key role in the energy balance of air hundreds of km above our planet’s surface.

“Carbon dioxide and nitric oxide are natural thermostats,” explains James Russell of Hampton University, SABER’s principal investigator. “When the upper atmosphere (or ‘thermosphere’) heats up, these molecules try as hard as they can to shed that heat back into space.”

That’s what happened on March 8th when a coronal mass ejection (CME) propelled in our direction by an X5-class solar flare hit Earth’s magnetic field. (On the “Richter Scale of Solar Flares,” X-class flares are the most powerful kind.) Energetic particles rained down on the upper atmosphere, depositing their energy where they hit. The action produced spectacular auroras around the poles and significant1 upper atmospheric heating all around the globe.

“The thermosphere lit up like a Christmas tree,” says Russell. “It began to glow intensely at infrared wavelengths as the thermostat effect kicked in.”

For the three day period, March 8th through 10th, the thermosphere absorbed 26 billion kWh of energy. Infrared radiation from CO2 and NO, the two most efficient coolants in the thermosphere, re-radiated 95% of that total back into space. [end quote]

Read the footnote, and you'll see that this pulse was a minor blip in the total heatload of the planet; but you should understand what happened here. The CO2 absorbed the heat in the high atmosphere, and held it from getting through to the ground; then it could reradiate the heat out to space.

If, instead, the heat gets to the ground (in the form of infrared, for example), then the CO2 holds the heat DOWN, and reradiates much of it TOWARD the Earth. This is the essence of what a greenhouse gas does.

We need some greenhouse effect to keep the planet warm enough for life. If CO2 did not act as a greenhouse gas, life as we know it could not exist. We would have a frozen planet. But too much of the CO2 can be deadly, too.

Think of it this way: If one blanket keeps you warm through the night, it does not obtain that you can add two or three more blankets, and remain comfortable. You may heat up.

That's what the earth is doing now, with the additional CO2, especially the 400 ppm in the lower atmosphere.

Thanks for the reference to that story. Some good stuff there.

The average everyday kind of Republican Party member has an average everyday type of intellect. He or she can be fed almost anything that appears to give the Republican Party a political advantage over any other political philosophy in the world and he or she will believe it no matter how outlandish and stupid it appears to be to the rest of the world's population, and no matter how contrary to science it may be. That's a fact. I don't need to prove it, because it proves itself everyday of the year. Sen. Mitch McConnell on this in order to bring about those changes to our government that he and his puppet masters believe will give them control of every citizen of this Constitutional Republic. If you like challenges, prove me wrong, that is, if you can.

Warmest decade in history, and you deny what's before your eyes, Mr. Hogue.
http://timpanogos.wordpress.com/2012/01/09/annals...

Bush was blamed for his lack of work to do anything AFTER Katrina. A lot of people died in Katrina; more died in the three weeks after, when almost nothing was done to save survivors.

The fool in his heart says Al Gore is a fool. There have been heating and cooling cycles throughout history.

Never before has there been a period of three consecutive years above the 20th century average temperature. Every year since 1996 has been above the 20th century average -- 17 years in a row.

Yes, CO2 has been higher than 250 ppm in the past. But never has any human survived a century above 300; and no human has ever survived a decade of 400 ppm CO2, ever, in history.

Last time we had these conditions, no humans survived. Of course, no humans existed, either -- but it's foolish to say that these conditions are not a problem. That's not what history shows.

P.S. Al Gore is a Baptist, studied to be a Baptist preacher. If you're claiming Gore says there is no God, you're wrong about that, too. Gore's made it clear his concern is for human survival in good condition. Wish you shared his worries about people. What would Jesus do?

The damage in the Moore tornado has already topped $2 billion. On that measure, it was worse than the Tri-State.

Heck, the tornado the week before in Granbury, Texas, is pushing $100 million.

Sure, there are occasional powerful tornados. Global Warming theory suggests that warmer air will produce more violent storms. We had one Force 4 tornado in the first 75 years of the 20th century. We've had two in the past week, in 2013. Don't forget Joplin, and don't forget Xenia.

Evidence suggests something is up.

Who is the "you" you're referring to, Seymour?

Don't confuse those who argue AGAINST global warming, in favor of action, with those who argue FOR global warming, against action. That latter group is making money off of doing nothing. Scientists ain't gettin' rich telling the truth, you know?