Another cat 5 brewing...

[Dekonick]

Sucks for those in LA and Texas.

Talk about a double wammie.

[christian]

Oh, geez, Dekonick, and here I thought you were contemplating starting racing!

- Christian

[Dekonick]

Me RACE?!?

I wish I had enough in me to even think about it.

[Russ]

Yeah...

Better get them commuter bikes ready!

Because if this puppy hits where they are predicting, gas is surely going to hit $5.00 in most parts of the country...

:rolleyes: :rolleyes: Happy riding! :rolleyes: :rolleyes: :rolleyes:

[FlaRider]

Russ, will you be commuting on your 13 lb Ottrott? :rolleyes:

[Tom]

With any luck it won't be a cat 5 by the time it hits land. Any way you cut it, though, it isn't good.

[Tailwinds]

Rita is heading for EXACTLY the part of the world that I'm originally from. It's an odd feeling, kinda surreal, watching the weather reports, imagining what lies ahead. Please keep those folks in your prayers, or send good vibes, or whatever you believe in.

[sunninho]

Rita is heading for EXACTLY the part of the world that I'm originally from. It's an odd feeling, kinda surreal, watching the weather reports, imagining what lies ahead. Please keep those folks in your prayers, or send good vibes, or whatever you believe in.

I lived in Port Arthur as a kid and that's right in the path as well. Can't reach my relatives living in Houston by phone or cell. Yes, let's keep everyone along the Gulf in our thoughts.

[Bill Bove]

The pressure dropped below 900 millibars for a brief time last night, does that make it a Hors Catorgorie storm? My sisters in-laws who live in N.O. ended up doing O.K. with Katrina but their daughter and her husband own a restaraunt in Galveston. Good luck to all of them.

[sellsworth]

Rita is heading for EXACTLY the part of the world that I'm originally from. It's an odd feeling, kinda surreal, watching the weather reports, imagining what lies ahead. Please keep those folks in your prayers, or send good vibes, or whatever you believe in.

I believe in looking at the connection between climate change and the surface temperature of the Gulf. If we have half a brain as a society we'll act more quickly to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and stabilize our climate. Climate change has caused mass extinctions in the past - we haven't learned that lesson very well.

Drive less, ride more!!

[jdoiv]

I believe in looking at the connection between climate change and the surface temperature of the Gulf. If we have half a brain as a society we'll act more quickly to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and stabilize our climate. Climate change has caused mass extinctions in the past - we haven't learned that lesson very well.

Drive less, ride more!!

Ditto that. But we need to look at alternative fuel sources. Hydrogen fuel cells would probably be the best environmental answer. Only emission is H2O. Planet would be wetter and we could used hydroelectrics to split the H2O back to hydrogen for fuel. The Hoover damn could make Saudia Arabia a non-factor. Of course I could be just crazy..... :cool:

[67-59]

I'm not convinced that greenhouse gases are causing these hurricanes. Weather experts are now predicting a couple of decades of high hurricane activity "much like what happened in the '40's through the '60's." From the '60's through the mid-'90's, greenhouse gases continued to increase, yet numbers and intensity of hurricanes dropped dramatically.

I'm not saying that greenhouse gases are irrelevant. But my guess is that global atmospheric patters (which we're just scratching the surface toward understanding) are far, far more powerful. We humans (always impressed by how powerful we are) are convinced that our greenhouse emissions are raising global temperatures, melting polar icecaps, etc. Yet during the '70's (cars were really fuel efficient back then, weren't they?), those same scientists were predicting a slow plunge toward another ice age. The reality is that, while we can certainly measure greenhouse gases and the ozone layer, we really have no clue as to whether those are really big enough factors to significantly change global climate.

Again, I am fully in favor of breathing cleaner air and preserving our resources. But it's simply because I prefer breathing cleaner air, not because I think we have the power to cause (or reverse) global warming.

[Tom]

http://www.noaanews.noaa.gov/stories2005/s2506.htm

Check out the paragraph titled "Globe:"

[Keith A]

Isn't Wei San in the Houston area? I haven't heard from him in a couple of days. I wonder if he is preparing for the storm?

[cinelli]

The Waco Wild West Century was cancelled early this morning because of the impending hurricane. Although Waco is almost 200 miles north of Houston, the promoter decided to cancel for (1) rider safety......stong winds up to 60mph are predicted as far north as Dallas......and (2) because Texas officials need every available hotel bed for people leaving the Houston/Galveston area. Folks here in Texas are taking this storm VERY seriously!

[JeffreyG]

I think i'd pass on the Waco Wild West Century too.

[67-59]

http://www.noaanews.noaa.gov/stories2005/s2506.htm

Check out the paragraph titled "Globe:"

Yes, we've recently had some of the warmest weather SINCE RECORDS HAVE BEEN KEPT. Now let's see, we've been keeping weather records since about 1880. Remind me -- how long has there been weather?

The reality is that the entire period over which we've been keeping weather records still doesn't come anywhere near being a blip on the screen of global existence. Indeed, the entire period of human existence isn't yet a blip on the screen. There have been periods in which the current land masses were largely underwater -- because the temperature was so high that there wasn't any ice. And periods where my home was under hundreds of feet of ice because it was so cold. And all without the benefits or burdens of human existence. So to profess that we KNOW we are the cause of this increase in temperature, based solely on the brief 120 years of records, is incredibly presumptuous.

[JohnS]

A few points about global warming...
1. I remember when I was growing up and the local factories were spewing toxic smoke and cars got 12mph, things have to be MUCH better now.
2. We could clean our stuff up and it wouldn't make much difference. China and the other Asian economies (and Eastern European) are major sources of pollution without an EPA to enforce their nonexistent pollution laws.
3. How many of you drive vehicles that get less than 30mph? How many of you have bigger than necessary homes that have to be cooled and heated with fossil fuels? If so, YOU'RE part of the problem!!!

[aLexis]

Shhhhhh.

[Bill Bove]

China is moving into the 21st century, just wait till a couple a billion Chinise start driving! Oil will go through the roof as well as all the green house gasses! Time to get serial about alternative transportation as well alternative feuls!

[Dekonick]

Good thing we have the largest reserves of coal and oil shale here in the good ole USA - we really don't need to be oil dependant as we have enough alkanes in coal to last centuries. It just costs a little more to refine it (just heat coal and it emmits alkane gasses - condense em and you have gasoline! Guess Exxon, Mobilm etc don't want you to know that. Kerosine in the 1800's was often obtained from coal - and the gasoline byroduct was just burned off...)

Still - we should really be spending resources looking into fusion and similar tech's - there is more potential energy in one cubic mile of sea water (in the form of hydrogen being bashed to form helium) than in the entire quantity of fossil fuel's burned since human's have been burning them. The problem is - how do you do it and control the reaction needed? (there are some theories that you can make a magnetic field to contain the reaction but thats theory...)

In the mean time I just pedal my arse to work on some day's, and pump the gasoline on the other days.

:beer:

[pale scotsman]

Yes, we've recently had some of the warmest weather SINCE RECORDS HAVE BEEN KEPT. Now let's see, we've been keeping weather records since about 1880. Remind me -- how long has there been weather?


Right on target. Let's see the Spanish settled just South of here and got their *** handed to them multiple times by Ma Nature. It's natural and it is cyclical. Look at the ancient African astronomers that were ridiculed in the mid 1900's because they were so far off on their charts. Little did we know that not only does the earth rotate but it wobbles also. In my county I can go to a river 15 miles away and find huge fossilized shark teeth. How's that happen? Uhm, I know but it's mind boggling to think but we can't be so arrogant to think we know exactly what's going on. We're still learning and we'll learn, hopefully.

[Russ]

Russ, will you be commuting on your 13 lb Ottrott? :rolleyes:
FlaRider... I walk to work.... My Ottrott is strickly for serious working-out!

How 'bout yourself... Do they have showers downtown?

[William]

Oh, geez, Dekonick, and here I thought you were contemplating starting racing!

- Christian

Ditto. :D


William