Reports concerning the heat wave in France are more and more dreadful. The attitude of many, more and more disgusting.

It appears that the families of hundreds of victims still haven't shown up. But who is Grandma or Grandpa compared to the sacrosanct summer vacation to the French? Not much:

Bernard Mazeyrie, managing director of France's largest undertakers, [said] that several of the bereaved were in no hurry to bury their aged loved ones: "Some, he said, informed of the death of relatives, postponed funerals, not to interrupt the August 15 holiday weekend, and left the bodies in the refrigerated hall."

The Telegraph article hits the bull's eye.

A NYT article confirms this disgusting yet accurate observation:

Don't get sick in Paris in August.

Not only do hospitals cut back capacity, as nurses and doctors depart for the sacrosanct August vacation. Stores close, restaurants close, even the city's ice cream parlors drop their shutters during the hottest month of the year so that employees won't miss their month-long summer holiday.

Apparently, nothing gets in the way of the holiday, not even grandma and grandpa.

And the health system the world is supposed to envy us isn't doing much better:

One woman with severe respiratory problems, living in Paris's 13th Arrondissement, was sent home by an overcrowded and understaffed hospital, and died in her apartment.

Two months ago, PM Jean-Pierre Raffarin made a now disturbing comment:

France is not yet on the road to heaven, only in purgatory, since we still have Socialists.

Purgatory. With fires devastating the south of the country and thousands of people dying because of the heat, the comment is indeed disturbing. Oh well, after all, purgatory can wait, as long as we have our 3-to-4-week summer vacation at the beach.

Maybe next time he'll try to choose the words of his speeches a little better. How is purgatory Mr. Raffarin? Remember, it's not over. José Bove, the terrorist/activist you just freed, has promised a month of September "not hot, but burning".

This story just keeps getting sadder.

I live in Chicago and remember the summer that there were hundreds of deaths. It was a tragedy and should have been a warning to all cities in the world. Chicago is not some hole in the wall and I know that the deaths were international news. The difference is that here in Chicago when it became clear that there was a crisis the city leaped to action (something that Frace seems to have not done).

I know that I volunteered that summer at a couple of cooling centers - there were a lot of volunteers. I know that my friends who worked for the city were ordeed to drop everything and start going door to door to check on the heealth and welfare of the cities older citizens.

Maybe similair actions are being taken in France but I don't see it in the media I am reading. Here in Chicago there are now strict protocals for weather emergencies that have kept the death count down in subsequent heat waves.

Hopefully, a lesson about public health and safety is being learned. If not then this tragedy will be even more pointless.

The last victims of the great war sit alone and forgotten in a warehouse of the dead. The coroners report says heat stroke but are they not dead in truth because they remembered who landed on the beaches? Were these not the same ones who waved and cheered Americans as they liberated Paris? French heros who survived the bullets and extermination camps only to succome to indifference. Is this not murder? My flag is at half mast today. It's the only thing I can do. Its the least I could do.

My heart breaks for the caring families who took their loved ones to hospitals hoping to ease their suffering only to realize they had taken them to charnel houses!

Then to see that others could skip off to the beach as if to say "Grandpere mort? Tant pis!" What can those decent, people be thinking of their countrymen? Hopefully what I am thinking. That if things do not change, if you do not seize back your country you are all doomed.

One day the vacance obessed who had no time for poor frail Tatie Marie will one day be old. And their children, who saw what THEY did, will do the same to them. If you depend upon the hand of The State to care for you, beware, that hand will be around your throat.

I still am in shock and dismay that this ever happened. Purgatory? Hell, pure hell.

Hey Valerie or Carnie (even Papa French), please tell me that there's a huge popular outcry of disgust there in France about such a deploriable event. That their are calls for resiginations and change. Please help me feel better

Mr. Blue,

When you hear such things as Bodies unclaimed in France's heat, you wonder what people are doing or thinking...

Jean-Paul Proust, chief of police for Paris, said the city would bury all corpses left unclaimed for 10 days according to the normal procedures for paupers.

"These corpses will not be buried in a common grave," Reuters quoted him as saying, as he denied a local press report that unclaimed bodies would be dumped into secret mass graves.

It doesn't seem much like a popular outcry of disgust to me. But that's just my point of view.

The Government is strongly criticized by the opposition, of course. Though the socialist party wouldn't admit their 35 hour week of work law is a BIG part of the problem.

But so far, there is no plan for any resignation other than the one Valerie posted about.

The big problem now seems to be the exact number of deaths caused by heat. Of course, the government claims it is not as much as some say (13,000 people) because many deaths would be the consequence of old age or illnesses. Sure. 10,000 deaths more than last year at the same period is normal, isn't it?

Chirac, who apparently took the time to issue a statement immediately after the bombing of the UN in Baghdad, went on TV only last Thursday regarding the heat wave, when back from vacation in Canada. I bet his statement will make you feel better:

Back from holiday, Chirac went on television to say the government would handle the crisis "competently, and of course - and this is what's essential - with heart."

Chicago is not some hole in the wall and I know that the deaths were international news. The difference is that here in Chicago when it became clear that there was a crisis the city leaped to action

Of course they talked about it here. The French media wouldn't miss an opportunity to underline any kind of "failure" coming from the US.

But there is something you should understand: the French generally think they have no lesson to receive not only from Americans, but from anyone.

The failure of their health care system is a good evidence that they should have. But for them, their health care system is among the best in the world, if not the best.

Again yesterday, on TV, journalists weren't at all ashamed to talk about the "American quagmire in Iraq" immediately after the report of the alledged 13,000 deaths due to the heat wave in France.

I am agast. When I remember Grandpa and Grandma I think of the year when the only toy under the Christmas tree was from them. Our summer vacations we would travel to a camp ground in the coastal range. And there as if by magic would be Grandpas trailer parked next to our spot that he had saved. We would sit around the camp fire and Grandpa would tell me and my little brother stories and jokes. He told us the Grand Canyon was created when a Scotchman dropped a nickle down a rabbit hole. Grandma was Scotch (she told us this as explanation for her using paper plates) and she would give Grandpa a disapproving look and say "Earl you quit telling those boys big fibs".
He was there when I caught my first fish. He picked the hole. "Look at the fish jumping!"he said, "Right here" This is how you bait the hook" "Be careful thats sharp." he caught a stringer while I was chasing butterflies. "When can we go back?" I asked fidgiting and bored. " Lets give it a while longer." he says as he hands me my pole back with a freshly baited hook. "I got one " "Don't let him get under the log" said Grandpa. I reeled in my catch and felt pretty full of my self. "Now we can go" said grandpa.
When he died I didn't just loose a family member I lost a dear friend.
I can't comprehend someone who says "Lets wait til our trip is over" to collect Grandpa and Grandma. How could you?

Everyone,

I sadly must agree with Carine's assessment: there is no massive public reaction to this tragedy here that I've seen or heard of. No strikes in the street.

The government has made itself look incredibly foolish. Not a lot of sincerity oozing from the cracks in the facade...

Hospital workers were quieted, meaning 'paid off'
(warned to be quiet??), by the PM who has offered them a hardship bonus in their pay packets as a 'reward' for their hard work. Since he is docking teachers for the days they spent striking, he'll just transfer the money over to the hospital workers.

But 'vacation-time' lack of manpower is not uncommon here. I recently spoke to someone who works in an office with 13 other employees, and he was ALONE for 2 weeks and taking work home to finish everyday because his colleagues were all on vacation... I was stunned.

I saw a news report about nursing homes in Belgium. According to the report, Belgium did not suffer one single retirement home heat-related death during the heatwave. If that's true or even near the truth...it's a terrible indictment of what happened here this summer.

During the Chicago Heatwave of 1995, 739 people died.
What was difference between the Chicago tragedy and the French catastrophe?

When the Medical community recognized there was a problem, albeit belatedly, --Major Daley returned from his vacation.
-Hospital and medical personnel worked double shifts...Police , Fire and City workers put in double and triple shifts.
-The city and surrounding communities opened up emergency cooling centers...
-The media repeatedly broadcast heat warnings and implored people of the region to check on their elderly relatives and neighbors...
-Police and city workers went door to door checking on the well-being of the elderly and infirm...
Still, 739 people died. The city had to rent refrigerated trucks to house the dead.

How do I know about this? I was working in a community Emergency Dept. in the midst of this tragedy. I personally saw 22 heat related fatalities in one day. We had to take rectal temps of each newly arrived, rapidly decomposing corpse, for the Medical Examiner's Office.

Our relatively moderately sized community hospital awas over run. We treated "hundreds" of victims of heat stroke, dehydration and heat exaustion.
We ran out of beds, we ran out of ice and we ran out of rooms to put the corpses.
The hospital morgue was full and the city/county morgues were beyond capicity. We actually stacked bodies in the X-ray department, until the city was able to lease refrigerated trucks to temporarily house the dead.

I still have nightmares about this! NO ONE could pay me enough to keep quiet about a tragedy of that magnitude!

We didn't even try to keep quiet about it...Our Doctors and Nurses wrote about it extensively in medical and nursing journals. It extent of the tragedy was widely reported by the media. Sociologists and psychologist studied the events surrounding this disaster, Significant changes were made in civic and governmental policies, to prevent any heat related disasters, in the future.

We wanted everyone to know what happened, so it would never happen again!

Now we know what would have happened if none of the aforementioned measures had taken place....
We would have thousands dead!
We only need to look to France to see what might have been, had we not cared enough to intervene.

Sadly, it has become quite evident that the French government and a significant portion of it's population do not care.....

I truly wish this didn't happen...because it really didn't have to...

Fiery celt :

Sadly, it has become quite evident that the French government and a significant portion of it's population do not care.....

Sadly, no way to deny this.

However, getting a longer life is still interesting.
Here is the way to enjoy your life and make it longer at the same time :

DRINK RED WINE !! (not kiding check there)
http://news.yahoo.com/fc?tmpl=fc&cid=34&in=health&cat=aging

So, buy it wherever you like, particularly those made in cooler climates but DRINK it rather to waste it in a drain.

Hey Pierre,
We have red wine here to and funny..its way better than the vinegar that I tasted (before I began boycotting all frog products) from Frogland.
I would rather have a short happy life with quality than a longer one with pain, discomfort, and disease. Yes Pierre ( I still think that is a GAY name) we have long lives here in the US. Mom is 82 and travels all over the country...all 3,000 miles of it by train with no problems.
And yes we have better health care than you do by far. I had pancreatitis this last May and golly I wasn't sent home to die, I was kept for almost a week and had my Gall Bladder removed. And it was all state of the art surgery. Not a hack saw and whiskey with a bullet to bite down on.
We have Navy Corpsmen who are better doctors than any I have ever met from Europe and remember I have been to Europe never been to a bigger more ridiculous cess pool of malcontents in my life.
I ask can you BABIES do anything for yourselves? I know that you cannot think for yourselves!

Hi Cozmogirl,
It is always great to answer to your comments.

I would rather have a short happy life with quality than a longer one with pain, discomfort, and disease.

Why not ? It's a philosophy... Well, my preference goes to long happy life with quality rather than short with pain, discomfort, and disease.

So I keep on drinking wine.

( I still think that is a GAY name).
Moi , Pédé ? !! Tiens, plutôt me faire enculer. (Gay ? me ? NEVER ! Rather get fucked !)

Buy some books, Pierre has nothing to do with Castor & Pollux. Pierre, Képha, Pétros, Petrus, Peter Pieters, Pedro... In Catholic church it is the apostle supposed to keep the heaven's keys. So, the day you will die, on your way to heaven, just at the front door, you will meet a guy looking something like José Bové but with a beard and glasses and off course a bright circle above the head will ask you for the cosmopolitan mMartini recipe... Don't worry, if I enjoy the drink (I bet I will) you can come in !
About my own sexual preference, I never tried with a man so far. I am not enyhousiast about this, I would even prefere try with you before !! ;D

Mom is 82 and travels all over the country...all 3,000 miles of it by train with no problems.

Enjoy having your Mom with you, I have the luck to have my parents at 76 and 78 alive, healthy and strong like rocks, working, travelling driving their car, enjoying their hobbies... Great to have them!
Get a long life too, (I am not that much in a hurry about the cosmopolitan martini, can wait...)

We have Navy Corpsmen who are better doctors than any I have ever met from Europe and remember I have been to Europe never been to a bigger more ridiculous cess pool of malcontents in my life.

If there is a categegory of French people that nobody can lecture or chide in anyway. It IS the doctors, nurses, rescue men !
They gave all what they had to supply to the situation ! No vacations or 35 hours for them. Sometimes, and about some peoples, Cozmogirl, it is better to forget the nationality and just think about the persons, what they have in their heart and WHAT THEY DO ! If anyday you where in a situation where you had to give it all although you knew it would not be enough but just less bad, you understand this.

@12c4

Pierre,

Vous ne pouvez pas vous empêcher d'être grossier et vulgaire. Régulièrement. C'est très français, remarquez.

Il faut peut-être éviter de trop forcer sur le vin. Visiblement, vous ne tenez l'alcool ni comme un Américain, ni comme un Slave. Il faudrait peut-être mieux s'arrêter après le 2ème verre (grand maximum) quand il y a des enfants autour de vous. A moins que cela, dans votre esprit, ne serve leur éducation.

Quant à ramener les "quelque" 13.000 morts à un simplissime 'vive la vinasse !'...

Oui, vraiment, il est temps d'arrêter.

Pierre
Your reduced to croaking out wine commercials. How sad. I'm cheered to hear you still have your parents.
But I hear that Doctors in France have been hushed up, paid to keep quiet. Patients have been turned away to die in their homes. And at least one first hand account of a person who was unfortunate enough to be admitted to the French medical system.

Bonjour Carine,

Vous ne pouvez pas vous empêcher d'être grossier et vulgaire. Régulièrement. C'est très français, remarquez.

Je pense pouvoir éviter la grossièreté et la vulgarité à condition... d'essayer. C'est une question de choix et d'adaptation à la personne avec qui je parle: Quand une brave Américaine et fière de l'être s'adresse à moi sur un ton "cow boy", est-il étonnant que je lui réponde sur un ton "Gaulois" ?

Par ailleurs, un bon vieux gros mot peut remplacer à lui tout seul un paragraphe complet. "Très Français" ? Pour moi ce n'est pas un problème, j'aime mon pays et sa culture comme les Américains qui s'expriment ici aiment les leurs. Ni eux, ni moi n'éprouvons le besoin de vitupérer en permanence contre son propre pays comme vous le faite. Et personnellement, je peux aimer mon pays sans cracher sur celui des autres.

Il faudrait peut-être mieux s'arrêter après le 2ème verre (grand maximum) quand il y a des enfants autour de vous. A moins que cela, dans votre esprit, ne serve leur éducation.

Si vous pensez à l'age mental que laissent supposer bon nombre des "articles" qu'on trouve ici et des commentaires qui en découlent, peut être avez vous raison ? Ceci dit, dans la grosse majorité, les enfants ont l'avantage sur vous, Carine de l'ouverture d'esprit, de la curiosité, de chercher à comprendre avant de dénigrer en bloc.

Quant à ramener les "quelque" 13.000 morts à un simplissime 'vive la vinasse !'...

Je pense avoir dit dans plusieurs messages tout ce que j'avais à dire sur le désolant épisode que nous venons de vivre. Si nos pouvoirs publics ont montré des faiblesses (Le silence radio de notre président vacancier en est une caricature), j'ai surtout été frappé par notre insuffisance au niveau citoyen. J'aime mieux m'occuper de savoir ce que personnellement j'aurais pu faire de mieux plutôt que de montrer "les autres" ou pour vous, Carine, "les Français" du doigt. Je n'ai pas besoin pour ça des discours aussi ronflants que tardifs que nous entendons aujourd'hui, juste me rappeler un certain nombre de petits riens que j'ai vu faire autour de moi et aux quels j'ai pu participer. Des petits trucs comme des gens habitant les rez de chaussée et premiers étages offrant à ceux habitants les derniers étages de dormir chez eux, aller faire ou emmener les gens faire leurs courses, bricoler des volets et stores de fortunes, échanger des "trucs" pour se rafraîchir etc. Je ne sais pas si ça a sauvé quelqu'un, mais en tout cas ça aura rendu les choses plus vivables et crée des liens d'amitié.

Ce sont ses liens, plus que des mesures gouvernementales ou votre "franco dénigrement" que vous repassez en boucle qui peuvent créer le sens de proximité et d'entraide qui nous manque. Ces liens se cultivent aussi par les plaisirs simples de la vie qu'on peut partager. C'était le sens que je voulais donner à ce que vous résumez par 'vive la vinasse !'.

Si vous l'avez ressenti comme de la légèreté ou du manque de respect, J'ai sans doute été maladroit. Je prie tous ceux qui ont été blessé ou choqués par mes propos de m'en excuser.

Permettez-moi, Carine, de vous exprimer mes sentiments critiques mais néanmoins cordiaux

Hi J.M.

Your reduced to croaking out wine commercials. How sad.

I won't rewrite in English all what I just wrote in French...
I summary: whatever ar the misses and lacks from governments and authorities, The disaster we lived here is mainly to be solved on the citizen, the individual level with better sense of proximity and solidarity. This must be cultivated rather than scolded from the top. Sharing simple pleasures of life is a way to create the friendly links needed.
May be I was not that clever in my way to tell it ? If any of you had been hurted, accept my apologies.

I'm cheered to hear you still have your parents.

Thanks you.

But I hear that Doctors in France have been hushed up, paid to keep quiet.

You can tell it that way if you want to describe a corrupted dark evil world. And I cant tell you that in France, the personnal efforts and actions are always respected and rewarded if I want to describe you a pink holy world made of perfection.
Let's look middle way between these two extremes and we might see the truth.

Patients have been turned away to die in their homes.

True, sorry to tell it sharply but sometimes it has to be like this. When 2 persons need ressources and you can just provide for one, what can be the choice ? If one or both persons have chance to survive without your help, you will choose to help the weaker one. If both will die without help, you will choose to help the stronger... Unfortunately, every doctor has by times such decisions to take.

Imagine an elder person and a baby falling in froozing water. You will have to choose who you will save. If you choose the first one you can reach, you are simply wise.

A+

Thank you France, for confirming what I have long suspected. That when one surrenders up all care and responsibility for oneself and one's neighbors to the State one's humanity will be erroded away.

To the grieving families I extend my sympathy. To the ones making mealy-mouthed excuses such as "Well, they were old, after all." I have only disdain.

This should have every thinking French man and womn out in the streets! Demanding change in their government and in the medical system. And maybe even their fellow citoyens.

Here in Texas, no one, even when hauled in across the border illegally from Mexico, is turned away from a hospital. And believe me M. Pierre, resources are limited and in demand here too.

To any American watchiing this tragedy and travesty rnfold, I urge you to fight socialized medicine with the last breath in your body.

This hot hot summer may be the first of a long serie.

Scientists predict temperatures to rise 5C in the northern hemisphere by 2100. The new calculations show it could be 8C. Scientists believe this would be disastrous, and to prevent even higher rises developed countries must cut emissions by 80%.

It's time to act now or it will be too late !

Apart for the disaster in France :

Average temperatures across Europe have been 5C warmer for the past two months.

Drought is costing billions of euros in crop damage.

In India, temperatures have reached 49C, resulting in more than 1,500 deaths.

The death toll in England and Wales caused by record temperatures this month may have been as high as 900,

Heatwaves and flooding have killed 569 people so far in China.

A state of emergency has been declared in British Columbia after the worst fires in 50 years.

Pakistan's heatwave followed by rains has left hundreds of thousands homeless and damaged 45 per cent of crops in some states.

In Russia, hundreds of fires have devastated swaths of Siberia. Croatia has lost 12,300 acres of forests and olive groves.

A national disaster has been declared in Portugal after fires killed 11 and destroyed 100,000 acres of forest.

In Germany, record temperatures continue with the Rhine drying up in parts and farmers unable to feed their cattle.

In the Alps, Glaciologists estimate it will take 30-40 metres of snow, which would normally take several harsh winters to fall, to make good the deficit of snow and ice that has melted this summer.
Doug Scott, one of Britain's greatest mountaineers, said he was glad he had done his Alpine mountaineering in the 1960s and 70s. 'It's a tragedy,' he said. 'Here is the most dramatic and visible proof that the climate is changing, and still the Americans won't sign the Kyoto Agreement restricting greenhouse gas emissions.'

Buckley,

Hah! It took three days for someone to blame America for the 15,000-20,000 dead elderly and infirm in France...Just as I predicted.

You get China and India to comply with the Kyoto Accords then maybe we might consider signing the treaty, to do otherwise would be economic suicide.

Even if the U.S. signed the treaty, the French although paying lip service to the tenets of the accord, are notorious for breaking all their treaties and agreements on a whim, without any regard.

Inspite of the sudo-science of the ill effects of mans impact on the weather, no massive death toll in Germany, Switzerland, Italy, England or Spain. Only France. Don't whipe your filthy conscience on us. Go reclaim your dead and shut the fuck up.

Some people here like J.Mayeau are laughing at the French dead and can't hide their enthousiasm.
That's of course disgusting but whatever...

For the others, well, thank you for the support. Urgency plans have failed, lack of doctors and personal at a crucial time, and the loneliness of many elders in France (a social problem in France) which were often found too late.
I hope that this tragedy will make us understand the importance to create links in our close neighbourhood, in the big cities.

Hey Valerie or Carnie (even Papa French), please tell me that there's a huge popular outcry of disgust there in France about such a deploriable event.

The shock is huge and everybody just talk about that. Everybody feel guilty, because, especially in the big cities, we often live in the same building as lonely elders (the main victims) with no family or friends to take care of them.
I mean, all these people should not have landed in the hospital in the first place as it was 90% of deshydratation. No alert was given. Hospital did what they could. It was like a terrorist attack every day. Government took a long time to react (like everybody, media included).

Pappa Franch,
Thank you for that post. I hope that your family remained safe during this time.

No massive death toll in England ?
The death toll in England and Wales caused by record temperatures this month may have been as high as 900.

In France record temperatures (5 to 10 C° above average) lasted 3 months, thousands people would have died even with a proper health care system (see the heatwave of Chicago, 700 deads)

At no point in the last 1 million years have carbon dioxide concentrations risen above 300 parts per million. The climate change we are experiencing is being driven by human-induced changes in carbon dioxide concentration - now at 380 parts per million. Carbon dioxide warms the planet and the more of it there is, the warmer the Earth gets. Simple.

Respected scientists warn climate change could make the planet too hot for life itself. It may be true that the earth's atmosphere is being altered sluggishly and in an indeterminate manner - but neither of these is a reason for inaction.

Ah, Buckley, what kind of vehicle do you drive? What source of electrictity do you use for your house? Do you live in the city or country?

Carbon dioxide warms the planet and the more of it there is, the warmer the Earth gets. Simple.

Actually Buckley the sun warms the earth and nitrogen is a far better insulant than carbon dioxide. You know, that stuff that makes up something like 78% of the air. Also temperatures were much higher than today until about 700 years ago so we know that most of the doom and gloom promoted by political activists won't happen. The pacific ocean is not rising and covering islands in the pacific. London wasn't flooded in 1200 AD even though temperatures were much warmer then. Warm enough that there was a thriving wine industyr until around 1300 AD.

There is plenty of real science that disproves the junk-science you are spewing. Even the IPAA report, on which the CO2 global warming farce is based, admits that. Since the IPAA published its report those models have been seized by political activist as proof of human-induced global warming; only problem is that Mother Nature has already shown them to be false predictors. It turns out that the planet is not warming in the way the models predicted. Sure the world is warming, but the IPAA models are all wrong, invalidating the theories that each model was based on. Not to mention the fact that none of them bother to take into account the biggest factor in global temperature. The Sun.

Kal

Kal :

--nitrogen is a far better insulant than carbon dioxide--

false : The major gases in the atmosphere, nitrogen and oxygen, are transparent to both the radiation incoming from the sun and the radiation outgoing from the Earth, so they have little or no effect on the greenhouse warming. http://www.crystalinks.com/greenhouseffect.html

--There is plenty of real science that disproves the junk-science you are spewing--

False : “the real science” you are talking about is sponsored by the oil industry lobby, exactly the same way some scientists sponsored by the tobacco lobby pretended smoking was safe some years ago.

--temperatures were much higher than today until about 700 years ago.--

False : temperature where 1°C below the current level in the period 0/2000 AD except for a period between 1100/1500 AD where the temperature where almost the same as today’s
http://www.climatehotmap.org/

--Sure the world is warming, but the IPAA models are all wrong--

The models are becoming closer to the reality and a temperature rise of 1.8 to 8°C is predicted in the next century.

I agree with you that the model are not yet perfect, but that’s not a reason to do nothing and continue to pollute the atmosphere as we do now. We can pollute as we want and make no attempt to drop the CO2 level only when we are SURE there will be no effect on us and our grandchildrens.

--nitrogen is a far better insulant than carbon dioxide--

false :

Really? Odd, that conflicts with what I learned at the USAF's astronautical lab back in the late 90's. Hmmmmm. Either the engineers were wrong or the properties of both gasses have changed during the intervening years. Despite your claim to the contrary nitrogen IS a better insulator than CO2. As to your assertation that Nitrogen is transparent to radiation, I'll take your word on that (with the obvious exception of thermal radiation since it is an insulator). Now consider that radiation outgoing from the Earth would be thermal, so even if nitrogen is transparent to other forms of radiation, its insulative properties would apply in this particular case.

--There is plenty of real science that disproves the junk-science you are spewing--

False : “the real science” you are talking about is sponsored by the oil industry lobby, exactly the same way some scientists sponsored by the tobacco lobby pretended smoking was safe some years ago.

It doesn't matter who pays for it, so long as the conclusions are valid. By your reasoning no environmental science can be trusted since it is either done for large corporations who profit from a certain view, or it is done by environmental activists whose funding depends on a certain point of view. Consider the carcinogenic value of cigarettes in comparison to the next most dangerous carcinogen on the EPA's list. A value of one for cigarettes (arrived at only after re-doing their research in violation of their own policies since their initial research indicated a zero), and a value of fourty for radon. The EPA needed to validate their smoking policies since they had been written before their research was complete.

I know Bjorn Lomburg was not financed by oil companies and yet his findings disagree with the environmental activist doomsaying. This despite his bias going into his research that things were as bad as the activists claimed.

--temperatures were much higher than today until about 700 years ago.--

False : temperature where 1°C below the current level in the period 0/2000 AD except for a period between 1100/1500 AD where the temperature where almost the same as today’s
http://www.climatehotmap.org/

You do realize that your previous point invalidates your source, since they make their money promoting man-made global warming and any evidence to the contrary jeopardizes their livelihood.

Either way your data is wrong. According to Accu-Weather the difference is .45C +/- 1C, with this variability the temperature change could be as high as 1.45C or as low as -.55C.

Now, if you're one of those who claim there was no medieval warm period, I suggest you do what researchers who take that point fail to do. Correlate your data with historical record and explain the various anomolies that point fails to account for. I'll give you a couple of starting points. Grapes in Europe, oranges in northern China and areas in Scandanavia that were fertile meadowland that are only now warm enough to begin archaeological excavations (it's interesting stuff that one, but unrelated to this discussion).

Also, I think you had a typo when you wrote "temperature where 1°C below the current level in the period 0/2000 AD..." since that implies the temperature today remains unchanged.

The models are becoming closer to the reality and a temperature rise of 1.8 to 8°C is predicted in the next century.

The models predicted higher temperatures, that much is true, but the manner in which those temperatures are to have risen has turned out to be false, which invalidates the model and the hypothesis those models are based on. In real science you admit it was wrong and go back to the drawing board. In global-warming science you cling to the hypothesis and models despite their inaccuracy.

You also failed to address the primary failing of global warming theories and models -- the Sun. Has solar activity remained utterly constant in the last thousand years? That would be required for any CO2 model to remain valid without taking solar activity into account. Does solar activity correspond with modern climate changes? So far the research is indicating that solar activity may be the real reason for the changes taking place.

I agree with you that the model are not yet perfect, but that’s not a reason to do nothing and continue to pollute the atmosphere as we do now.

I must not have been clear. I don't maintain that the models are simply imperfect. It turns out that they were simply wrong, and again, without taking into account solar activity they can never be accurate since they would only be accurate if solar activity remained at an impossible constant.

We can pollute as we want and make no attempt to drop the CO2 level only when we are SURE there will be no effect on us and our grandchildrens.

The infamous precautionary principle. It's a very dangerous principle to cling to since it justifies all kinds of horrors, inequities and injustices. It is also a double edged sword. Oddly enough most of the people who push it for the environment are against it in other cases. Look at the UN and France. They push it when "solutions" such as the Kyoto protocol would damage the US, but they ignore it in the case of Iraq, Iran, and North Korea. Damnably convenient that.

Kal