A lot of research in universities for example and other institutions is funded by the government. And the Bayh-Dole Act requires those who make a discovery with government funds to register it as a patent. Many US universities make alot of money with patents that way. I don't know all the technicalities of the Bayh-Dole act by heart (and am too lazy to look it up now), so if you want to know more you have to read up on it. Bottom line, even if the government isn't inventing anything directly, they certainly pay the bills for a lot of research into inventing new cool stuff.

There is also controversy surrounding that practise (patenting discoveries) because essentially, Tax money funds research. For example, imagine a university develops a new pharmaceutical compound and patents it and a huge pharmaceutical company pays the fee and turns the whole thing into a new amazing drug - it is sort of unfair? criminal that the huge drug companies make so much profit from it because the taxpayers have to potentially pay alot of money to buy medicine that they paid to develop in the first place. Of course the pharma industry argues that it is very expensive to turn a patented pharmaceutical compound into a marketable drug because it requires alot of research and trials and bla bla bla and so the high price is justified. I think I remember reading about FDA corruption in this context as well.. This doesn't have to do anything with global warming,  but it's interesting nontheless.

Your snowmageddon on the eastcoast is supposedly caused by El Nino  - or so US climatologists theorize (I read that on a german newspage). When climate conditions change it can have pretty severe effects like a colder and longer winter - in Germany as well.

No, the drug company had to pay for the patent.  Now, if the university is stupid (very unlikely) and sold it for a song, then yes, that is the University's error.  But the obverse of that is a company pays a lot for a patent and makes nothing.  That happens as well.  Would that be criminal?  Clearly if one is, the other has to be as well.

El nino brings moisture.  It still has to be cold enough to snow.  And that goes to the issue of the alarmism of AGW.  Clearly the climate is changing.  But then it has for the last 4.7 billion years, and for all but a tiny (.005%) fraction of that time, man was not around.  And even a tinier fraction (.000005%) has man been using fossil fuels.

The premise of AGW has a severe flaw as well.  The basic premise is that Co2 pumped into the atmosphere will cause a runaway heating effect.  But first, observed history shows that not to be the case.  And second, it ignores the negative feedback of other factors that far outweigh the CO2 factor (such as cloud cover).  While man can have a minimal effect on climate (that has to be quantified based on good science which we have not seen yet), that effect is not necessarily bad.  A slightly warmer climate (which is possible) would mean longer growing season which would mean more food especially for the areas that are starving.

When you weed out the hysteria of Al Gore and the IPCC, what you find is a good hypothesis that has not been tested, nor the ramifications fully explored.  instead you find some greedy people trying to crreate mass hysteria only to enrich themselves.

Universities are rarely run by stupid people, and they make millions of profit from licensing their patents. I think that was one intention of the act - to make the research results available quickly and to allow people who do the research to profit from it as well. It has been legistlature since 1980 after all. And your argument is what I read back then as well, especially regarding the pharmaceutical companies. Sometimes they pump millions into research and nothing comes off it, but the profit of a successful new drug are astronomically high. All in all, I think the Bayh-Dole act is a great thing.

Yep - imagine when all the ice melts in the arctic it would makes the ocean floor accessible. Didn't russia claim a mountain range under water as belonging to their continental shelf and raised a russian flag underwater there? And the northwest passage would become navigable. I always have to think of Franklin's expedition when I think about that - what a tragedy. And the fishermen in greenland are happy too because less ice means more fish for them. I also heard that the ocean would probably not rise that much because the displacement of the ice would not be considerably more when it melts - the volume stays roughly the same. I am not a physicist though but it kind of makes sense.

You are correct...if you believe governments have their own money. In the US that would be the taxpayers money. For every government funded university cold fusion project there are 10 mating cycles of the earthworm type projects. In many cases they don't even fund a specific project just hand the university (whose outrageous tuitions are apparently not enough) cash.  Private industry is much more efficient and focused IMO. I'll say it again, government invents nothing. Of course your free to tell me how government improved your life as I sit under the glow of my privately developed light bulb.

Yea, kind of the ironic thing about that is that Russia (and Canada and the Scandanavian countries) think thre is oil in them thar hills!  So russia staked an early claim.  I don't think much will come of it because of horizontal drilling (i.e. they can get to the oil regardless of the ice), but if someone finds oil under Antarctica - watch out!

Actually the melting of the North pole would not raise sea levels at all due to the fact that the ice already displaces an equal amount of water.  The concern is the glaciers and ice caps on Greenland and Antarctica.  Of course the melting of the Glaciers and Ice sheet of Greenland 1000 years ago did not appear to destroy the world.

Government is notoriously innefficient in almost all of its endeavors due to the simple fact that it is OPM and no accountablity.  It is rare when a government is actually "ousted" due to such activities (I am not talking dem for rep, but despot for despot).  But what many fail to realize is that just because they are inefficient, does not mean that they never create anything.  As Vic Palmero says, even a blind squirrel finds a nut once in awhile.

You never know what mating earthworms could do for you in the future, Nitro..

Because universities can make insane amounts of money with patents (and many do), there is enough incentive to do research in areas that could yield results that can be patented and sold for a lot of money. The universities and the private industry profit from each other in this. Private Industry gets government funding for research as well under the BD Act, you know, not just universities.

At least you still have normal lightbulbs. The EU, in its internal wisdeom, has banned regular lightbulbs. They are being phased out over the next 2 years and then only energysaving halogen or other bulbs are allowed. The development and reasonable production of said lightbulbs with equal light/lux quality isn't really up to speed though, and you can't even throw those energy saving lightbulbs away in normal trash because they fall into the category of hazardeous material. Thank you, EU.

i am sending a copy of this article to all my friends. Good job Dr Guy

Actually it depends upon where you live.  California has already followed the European path.  West Virginia is still use coal oil lamps.

Thank you.  I am honored by your comment.

LOL!!! Perhaps, but I'll take my chances. I would like my government to provide just a few things, defense, foreign affairs, heck even social security and Medicare (since I'm not unsympathetic or uncaring). A few other small things perhaps. I'm willing for individuals and private corporations to pick up the slack on what people need and the government can keep it's hands out of my pocket, since it rarely has a clue.

We're not far behind you!!!

Generally I am with you on those pinciples of what the government should do. It is just that I don't believe that a state would function like that
Huh. So .. I stereotyed you.. (only a little bit) and you're a fairly typical american in the sense that individualism and self reliance are really really important and you got the frontier mentality of making it on your own. Not very  surprising result really lol

WHAT! Normal light bulbs don't have mercury! CFL Lightbulbs DO have mercury!

Don't get me wrong, I use CFL lighbulbs because I save a bunch of MONEY on electricity. But in terms of pollution they should be banning CFLs for their mercury, not banning incandescents for their higher electricity consumption.

This kind of government idiocy makes me think of the great leap forward

I don't like CFL bulbs becauses it takes about 2 minutes for them to become bright and the light is awful at that. The mercury is also an issue especially when children are involved. And low quality CFL's don't save money at all but cost considerably more than a normal lightbulb did.

I wouldn't really mind the ban if there was a good, cheap nontoxic alternative around, but then you wouldn't need a government regulation at all. Instead they could have marketed the energy saving light bulbs.. that would have made more sense to me.

Government regulation: forcing you to use inferior, toxic, unhealthy and dangerous products since the dawn of time.

Remember, people are a "renewable resource", but we only have one earth [/sarcasm]

There are also some people reporting health problems with the CFL ones (when the normal ones were fine), but of course they've been ignored as well. It'd be so much better for a small unit tax to be imposed on the normal lightbulbs (and/or subsidy for the more energy efficient ones) to adjust for the perceived increased damage to the environment from greater electricity consumption (or better yet, a tax on the electricity) meaning people can still get them if they really want them, than to ban them completely.

I wish policy makers would have to have a crash course in basic economics so they'd hopefully learn that banning things should only be a last resort where nothing else will work effectively (as well as hopefully learning other valuable lessons such as favouring increased information for the customer to allow choice over excessive regulation that restricts choice).

I can see why politicians are buying into the man-made global warming theory though - it gives them a great chance to raise loads of taxes on us under the pretence of doing it for the good of the environment.