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I do not believe in AGW. The "scientists" have sent us warnings about one scare scenario after another. When I was a kid they said we'd get a man-made ice age and I believed it. Because I was a kid. It really scared me. Now they say the opposite. Then, they said California would suffer tropical conditions, a deluge of rain and snow, mud slides galore, heat waves, tropical storms, et cetera. Now the exact opposite happens.

Egads, why don't you just drive over knives and shards of glass?!

Great views, though. Looks very relaxing there. ...except for the dread to drive in or out, eh?

Just came back from that area but from a "road" that makes the one above look like a walk in the park. On the satellite view it looked like it was passable but it must have been an old picture, plus it had snowed and is half melted. Came around a bend through the bushes .. *SPLOSH* .. and then ran out of road. The bicycle is now caked in mud.

It's not just a function of insulation, though. It's also a function of the ventilation. Lots of heat lost with loads of ventilation can still keep the snow from melting. There *should* be a lot of ventilation.

There is another school of thought where the entire cavity is filled and there is no insulation but it doesn't seem like a good idea to me.

..and every one requires government (international, in most cases) do something to "fix" whatever the disaster is. Of course, this requires massive tax increases and less liberty (inextricably linked).

Like the new law here in CA and as far as I know the politicos wrote it into the civil code: Starting Jan-1, 2014 anyone pulling an ever so innocent remodel permit on a house must replace all non low-flow fixture by low-flow devices. In the whole house. Worst case that means four toilets, three showers and umpteen faucets. Afterwards one will see sewer line plugs galore on older homes. That will cause a substantial drop in legit remodel work contracts and foster a serious shadow economy. This sort of legislation really borders on "daft".

ote:

Is that a deodar cedar on the left in the first pic? All that scrub brush l ooks like it produces a hellacious amount of allergenic pollens. You can ge t tires to handle the terrain, but can you get new kidneys? I'd get a kidne y belt before I went bouncing over that stuff.

rote:

her than 2 cords per winter ten years ago.

Could do. Where Joerg is, AGW means more snow. If there's snow on the groun d for more of the winter, the local albedo is way down, so there's less sol ar heating through the winter, and while the snow dumped a whole lot of lat ent heat of fusion in the air above Joerg's place when it condensed out of the humid air blown in from over the Pacific, that heat went up, and the sn ow, when it melts, gets it all back from the ground under Joerg's place

heat distribution systems like the ocean thermal conveyor current.

Not a breakdown. Just changes. Heat still has to flow from the equator to t he poles, but it doesn't have to follow the routes that it used to.

The Gulf Stream got turned off for 1300+/-70 years at the end of the last i ce age. Melt enough ice in the Arctic and it could happen again.

ystems.

southern states would become hotter.

Whose model says that? The Atlantic ocean currents probably won't change in the same way that the Pacific ocean currents do.

s. Droughts. Storms. Crop failures. Species eradication. Pests. Weeds. Starvat ion.Wars. Disease. Political instability. Many other Bad Things. 100% bad.

The Murdoch press - where John Larkin gets most of his misinformation - is rather selective in what it reports about anthropogenic global warming and it's potential consequences. Good news doesn't sell newspapers, so they do concentrate on the bad news.

John's not exactly in to critical reading, so he doesn't notice that he's b eing manipulated.

ther than 2 cords per winter ten years ago.

ather than 2 cords per winter ten years ago.

something to "fix" whatever the disaster is. Of course, this requires massive tax increases and less liberty (inextricably linked).

Burning fossil carbon as fuel is what is raising global CO2 levels and glob al temperature. If you want to discourage people from burning fossil carbon as fuel you either have to tax it hard enough to make renewable energy sou rces cheaper, or forbid people from burning fossil carbon for fuel.

The former scenario can be combined with subsidies for the renewable energy sources, funded by the extra taxes on the fossil carbon. You don't have to keep it up for very long before the economies of scale make the renewable energy sources cheaper than fossil carbon - sunlight is free and fossil car bon has to be dug up, and we've already dug up all the stuff that's easily accessible so extraction costs can only rise.

The nice thing about the tax and subsidise route is that it leaves the exac t distribution of effort up to the market, which is good at putting resourc es where they do most good.

Taking away people's liberty to choose how they solve their local problems doesn't seem to work as well.

The oil companies don't like the prospect of having their product taxed out of use, and like to claim that this is an abuse of the free market and an infringement of their liberty to make a lot of money while trashing the pla net in the process. They do have the money to pay advertisers to package th is message more palatably, and they've been spending it liberally.

People who lack the wit to manage critical thinking have been suckered by t his propaganda. krw is definitely one of them.

Why hasn't anybody developed a toilet with an air pressure assist to jet the material down? Or a big kinetic drop or water pressure jet? Or use non-potable "grey" water from laundry, dishes, bathtub, shower? Are there any cities where building codes would even allow storage and reuse of "grey" water?

Check out the aircraft industry. Airliners don't carry a lot of toilet-flushing water.

reuse of "grey" water?

They are probably a few in Europe. I've seen it talked about from time to time.

t the material down?

ushing water.

Those are vacuum systems that open a flap to negative pressure piping to su ck the contents out then through a macerator usually and into a storage tan k. The really big systems are used on cruise ships. The Carnival ship stran ded in the Gulf last year, completely blew out its 70MW power plant and cou ld no longer power its sewage disposal, turned into an incredible mess, mai nly due to non-compliance of the passengers with common sense. But that's a cesspool industry anyway.

There _are_ air-assisted-flush toilets available for home use, but seen most often in high "traffic" areas like restaurants and department stores. A bit noisy, but fairly difficult to stop up. ...Jim Thompson

Somewhere in my archives is the contact information to the inventor and copy of patent for a little device that attaches to the shower head section, or kitchen outlets. It is a generator/mechanism driven by water flow that measures the water flow and after a certain quantity of flow, starts shutting down the water flow. Thus, you get the best of both worlds, high pressure high flow to rinse the suds out of your hair AND conservation of water. Even though this device does the spirit of the conservation law, he could NEVER get any type of positive sanctions from legislators.

Of couse, California is the state that forced me to reduce my water consumption by 10%, and then 25%, during a 'drought' Not possible because we had already conserved our consumption down to almost nothing, no room for more, PLUS, exactly WHO is going to pay for the landscaping, newly installed, that will surely die from water starvation? It REALLY took the edge of the concept of conserving water when I found out that *IF* EVERY citien in California took their water consumption to ZERO, yes, ZERO, that doing so would only reduce water consumption in the state by 10%. Yep, really took the edge off the concept of 'personal' sacrifice for the greater good. It's like being told to put in energy efficient lightbulbs and late at night driving through Silicon Valley with building upon building lit to the hilt. ...and maybe one employee inside. Oh that's ok because as a company they get discounted power, so they're not wasting as much as us 'individual' consumers. Say what?

jet the material down?

-flushing water.

suck the contents out then through a macerator usually and into a storage tank. The really big systems are used on cruise ships. The Carnival ship st randed in the Gulf last year, completely blew out its 70MW power plant and could no longer power its sewage disposal, turned into an incredible mess, mainly due to non-compliance of the passengers with common sense. But that' s a cesspool industry anyway.

Like these, cost a little more, use the water pressure to keep the tank pre surized:

But just stand back if the toilet is slow to clear or clogged, they will pr oduce a geyser.

The low volume gravity fed toilets use the siphon jet technique, that's the small hole opposite the bowl drain at the bottom that concentrate the tank water through a small orifice to blast the bowl contents into the drain, i t works well most of the time. The other drain holes under the rim are for washing the bowl and do not directly contribute to the flush.

pretty much all toilets here are dual flush (high/low) afaict there isn't any problems with them, people trying to save water by putting a brick in the cistern of an old toilet have problems, but then no one have those big american swimmingpool sized toilets

how much is water there? here it's ~7.5$/m^3 you don't see many watering their lawn ;)

-Lasse

No idea but it sure is pretty. For me there are only green plants, brown plants, red plants ... :-)

This area is called the pollen capital of the United States. Most people who have no allergies will get them here.

I ride at modest speeds. It's not just that I could ruin parts of my body but it's also the chance that nobody finds you for a while if you wreck out in there. Yesterday I was on one stretch that was very muddy and no tracks could be seen. Since the snow fall that caused this was a week ago that means nobody has traveled that stretch in a whole week.

What I don't understand are the mountain bike riders that hit a trail at full bore. I've seen one at a more traveled location and there was no way he could have stopped if someone else came up the hill or a deer stood on the narrow trail. I've seen plenty of deer close up there. The only time I ever collided with one was in Yosemite and on foot, while running. Literally head on. The doe just turned around and looked at me. My head hurt a bit.

That's one of the frequent stupidities in CA legislation. We had the same here, if you conserve xx percent of water, power, whatever, you get financially rewarded. Else not. This punishes all people who've always done the right thing.