the percentage rating shown when not logged in seems largely pointless, since practically every video has a rating of 100%, downvotes being rare on videosift.
if every video except a handfull is rated 100%, you might as well not show the rating, it's sort of useless information.

>> ^residue:

@bcglorf would you trust someone with a doctorate in geology?
Here are some data:
Air:
http://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/cmb-faq/anomalies.php
Ocean:
http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v465/n7296/fig_tab/nature09043
_F1.html
(From: Lyman, J.M., Good, S.A., Gouretski, V.V., Ishii, M., Johnson, G.C., Palmer, M.D.,
Smith, D.M., and Willis, J.K., Robust warming of the global upper ocean: Nature,
v. 465, p. 334-337.)
The only real thing debated (or that should be debated) is why it's warming up. we've got 2 basic reasons: it's because of human interaction or it's because of natural processes (hey the earth has been WAY warmer than it is now several times - http://www.scotese.com/climate.htm)
In reference to your statement about the relative contributions of water vapor and CO2, there are 2 things you need to realize. First of all, the residence time of water vapor in the atmosphere is 9 days, the residence time of CO2 among other greenhouse gases can be as much as 100 years with other greenhouse gases (aerosols for example) much longer. Most aerosols were outlawed in the late 70s but graphs of their concentration in the atmosphere show no relative decrease since the cessation of their use. The second point here is that water vapor's place in the atmosphere is natural, greenhouse gas emission is not. Water vapor contributes to the amount of greenhouse effect that we need to survive on the planet (if we didn't have the greenhouse effect at all, earth could not sustain life - too cold). Humans contribute to greenhouse effect by adding in greenhouse gases and warming the planet. To specify the relative contributions of each and say "well water vapor is the biggest culprit! We only release tiny amounts of CO2 relative to water vapor, so it's really not our fault!" is irresponsible.
You might, however, find this interesting:
http://onlin
e.wsj.com/article_email/SB10001424052970204257504577150812451167538-lMyQjAxMTAyMDIwNDEyNDQyWj.html?mod=wsj_share_email
Definitely a different take on the issue at large, but again, the argument here isn't whether or not global warming is happening (it is) but rather what it all means.


Well, you and I seem largely agreed. I commented multiple times that the warming is not in question, but rather why and more importantly what it means to us.

The challenge with accurately modelling the contribution of H2O has nothing to do with our own emissions of H2O. For all reasonable purposes we can, again as you seem to agree, ignore the meager contribution humans make to it. H2O is as you say largely short lived in the atmosphere, but it still makes up the overwhelming majority of the greenhouse effect, despite residing in the atmosphere for a fraction of the time of gases like CO2. Obviously that means that H2O replenishes itself into the atmosphere as rapidly as it dissipates. We know that this rate is driven by temperature. What we don't understand well is how that should play out in our models, or more importantly how it plays out in reality. Just how much confidence can we place on future projections of CO2 changes when we aren't even sure which sign to attribute the feedback effect of water vapor?

I don't know how other people are finding Google+, but I signed on within the first few days along with many others, but it seems largely dead/quiet. There's not much activity going on in the circles I've got, and most of the activity is from a tiny few people.

Flash in the pan??

although its nice to see advancments helping animals. it dose seem strange to me spending this amount of time on creatures when sumular medical techneeks could be used to help people. rather than spending time on this animal this vet could have done a simular amout of training and be helping people instead.

having said that cats are an entertainmunt industry and helping cats is just as redundent as manny peaces of art and film .

would have been far more productive to just eat the cat maby keep a pet that can maintain tiself and actualy has a function , origonaly cats were gr8 for keeping away mice but now they seem largely redundent to me other than companionship but u can obvously get that from other cretures that provide that + other uses.

That's the only plausible explanation, but the magnitude of the effect still seems large to me. A pleasant surprise I guess, and I agree that it's a very cool effect.

^Email could be vastly reduced in importance if, as it seems, large numbers of people communicate via Facebook, Twitter et al.
I like the idea of Twitter. People say it's about people's trivial updates but of course it can also be about anything you type into the box, but in a concise format. If this sort of messaging/networking platform isn't the future then I don't know what is.

I think the woman in the middle said the most striking thing of all and it seems largely overlooked, which I'm going to badly attempt to paraphrase..

If a person chooses to believe something in their heart, who am I to tell them they are wrong. I certainly cannot disprove the contention there is a god (of any particular denomination) just as religious folks cannot prove there is a god.

So you have two realms of belief, conflicting. If you cannot see something and never experience it, this does not mean it does not exist, it just means that if it does exist, you have not been made privy to it Does this mean anyone should force their belief on another?

My main problem with organised religion is that many try to force others to follow their belief without any proof that there is anything to follow in the first place. Similarly, I dislike evangelical atheists who will go out of their way to break the belief of the religious.

May be if we get the fuck over ourselves and just act with humanity (the point I believe Mr. Gore was trying to make), the world would be a much better place.