Larsen Ice Shelf Collapses

Cally writes in: "The BBC reports that the Larsen B Ice Shelf in Antarctica, a 200m thick ice floe covering 3,250 sq km, has disintegrated. This is terrible news. The widely respected British Antarctic Survey are quoted as saying "We knew what was left would collapse eventually, but the speed of it is staggering[...] [It is hard] to believe that 500 billion tonnes of ice sheet has disintegrated in less than a month." As a Greenpeace member who's been following the debate for over a decade, it's hard not to feel aggrieved at those with their own agenda who have pushed the theory that global climate change isn't happening. Risk = probability x consequence..." The big iceberg is a separate event.

Comments

Mirror

[Alan_Thicke]

Here is a mirror.

The earth changes..

[Sc00ter]

Get over it. The earth will change if we do anything or not. In fact what most enviromentalists want is for it to stay exactly the same and never change, or so it seems. They don't want species to die, yet they do on their own even when we leave them totally alone, the want the climate to stay the same, yet that changes to if we were using our cars and factories or not.

Would it happen as fast? Probably not, but the fact is that the earth will change if we do anything or not.

Re:The earth changes..

[sql*kitten]

The earth will change if we do anything or not. In fact what most enviromentalists want is for it to stay exactly the same and never change, or so it seems. They don't want species to die, yet they do on their own even when we leave them totally alone, the want the climate to stay the same, yet that changes to if we were using our cars and factories or not.

You are correct. Geological changes take place on timescales in which a thousand years is insignificant. Don't forget that maybe 30 or 40 years ago, the thing that had environmentalists worried was global cooling - the risk of a new Ice Age. I remember reading somewhere that 2001 was the warmest year since 1653 (or thereabouts) which begs the question, exactly who or what was emitting CO2 at present day levels back then?

For more of this sort of common sense, see this book in which the author systematically demolishes most of the non-scientific arguments of the "green" lobby.

These days, Greenpeace aren't a charity or a lobby in any meaningful sense of the word. They are in the entertainment business for Western teenagers, and they have to keep their name in the news to keep the donations rolling in. Cynical? Perhaps. But their dodgy science has done a lot of harm to the idea that anyone with something to say on the environment doesn't have a radical left-wing axe to grind.

Re:The earth changes..

[gowen]

For more of this sort of common sense, see this book [amazon.co.uk] in which the author systematically demolishes most of the non-scientific arguments of the "green" lobby.

And while you're at it, why not read this book, which "comprehensively debunks" evolution. Even you admit Lomborg can't debunk the scientific arguments of climatologists and climate modellers, any more than creationists can do anything about radio-carbon-dating than close their ears and say "Don't believe you."

As has been gone over in almost tedious detail, practically everyone with any experience, gathered in, amongst other places, a dedicated issue of Scientific American disagree with Lomborg. Contrary to Lomborg's assertions, very few of these attacks are ad hominem, and take issue only with his application of the scientific method, and selective, self-serving use of statistics.

Re:The earth changes..

[zmooc]

In februari or march American Scientist (the magazine) had a huge article om Lomborg (the author of the book you mention). In the article a few important scientists on some of the fields he discusses say what they think about his research. He is critisized heaviliy because he's not done his homework well; he leaves out a lot of important facts, draws conclusions which aren't based on any facts and leaves out a lot of references. American Scientist basicly sais he's a crook. He's wrong. Buy the magazine. It's a better read than the book itself.

Re:The earth changes..

[alistair]

" I remember reading somewhere that 2001 was the warmest year since 1653 (or thereabouts) which begs the question, exactly who or what was emitting CO2 at present day levels back then? "

I think you will find that 1653 corresponds to the earliest date reasonably accurate temperature measurements were taken and recorded, so the quote should probably have read "2001 was the warmest year in the last 350 years". Ironically, it is this misunderstanding of statistics that Bjorn Lomborg goes to some length to discuss in the book you reference.

To study before that we have to look at tests such as lake bed pollen sediment analysis, to see now plant species have migrated in response to changing local climates. Climatic change is definitely occurring at present at a much faster rate than the past 1000 years. However, the link between this and CO2 is far more complex and difficult to prove.

Re:The earth changes..

[MtViewGuy]

BINGO!!

I think too many environmentalists ignore the fact that human activity is nothing compared to what Nature can do. Do you know that a single hurricane can cause destruction on a scale that makes even our biggest nuclear bombs look puny? Look at what hurricane Camille did in 1969--destruction on an unimaginable scale. Or the fact that a single major volcanic eruption can cause climate changes, as witnessed by the eruption of Mt. Pinatubo in the Philippines in 1991, which actually cooled the atmosphere for over a year? We know that the eruption of Mt. Tambora in what is now Indonesia in 1815 (which sent 15 cubic miles of volcanic ash into the atmosphere) caused much of the Northern Hemisphere to cool quite rapidly--indeed, there are records of blizzards in the upper Hudson River Valley in early July 1816!

Re:The earth changes..

[Alomex]

Contrary to Lomborg's assertions, very few of these attacks are ad hominem, and take issue only with his application of the scientific method, and selective, self-serving use of statistics.

Actually I read a random sample of them and most of them were, to a certain extent, ad hominem. Also the rebutals were not at all definitive. They left a lot of room for further debate, as Lomborg's reply in his website show. Quite strikingly, the magazine denied the right of reply to Lomborg.

All in all the scientific community has done a very shoddy job at debunking Lomborg (which is not to say he's right).

Re:The earth changes..

[Zoop]

As a subscriber to SciAm, I was very disappointed in that article (or rather, series of articles). Many of them contained about a third or more ad hominem or "you aren't in the club, therefore you don't have anything to say" whines. Several of them spent time downplaying environmentalists' reliance on Paul Erlich--and then went on to quote him extensively. This despite science is supposed to be about testable predictions, and Paul Erlich has made several predictions (such as running out of most industrial metals by the mid-80s) that were demonstrably false and lost a famous bet with an economist (which to his credit he paid). Several of them spent a lot of masturbatory time self-aggrandizing, which is not unheard of in SciAm, but was worse by several orders of magnitude. Those articles needed a very good editor, and they didn't get one.

Ultimately, the articles convinced me that Lomborg had some severe problems in his methodology, but the way they did it left such a bad taste in my mouth that it will lend credence to people who are far more of a crackpot than Lomborg (Duesberg's HIV-doesn't-cause-AIDS theories, for example).

In particular, environmentalists need to shut up and let the climatologists speak, even if they don't put things as strongly as GreenPea$e would like. Using Paul Erlich is becoming a criteria for baloney detection, and not admitting that the reason more scientists agree about climate change in general, and, to a slightly lesser extent, anthropogenic causation in particular is because science has come a long, way baby since a bunch of former commies became Green for propoganda's sake and argued we should emulate the eco-hostile economies of the dying communist world in 1990. The hasty action they proposed in many early "but we've got to DO SOMETHING" proposals would have worsened the problem, and they were rightly rejected.

Environmentalists and environmental scientists should stop poo-pooing everyone who has had doubts, and start engaging them in civilized debate. I'm now on the side of doing something about climate change, but doing so purely on the basis of a few (no-longer-used) computer models was a silly idea. I wanted science to come up with something more. Now they have, and we can begin to reasonably discuss how to do something without condemning billions of humans to eternal poverty or destroying freedom.

In short, let's emulate the 1/3 of those articles that didn't indulge in snide comments and self-aggrandizement and further communicate exactly how the problem is occurring, what effects it is having, and how things can be done in the short and long term--while still realizing that you're not going to get the soccer moms who send checks to GreenPea$e to give up their SUVs overnight (much as I would like to).

Re:The earth changes..

[NeoSkandranon]

A pipe bomb in a crowded subway can kill more people, but it does not level houses, flatten trees, cause flooding, mudslides and all sorts of lovely stuff that a tropical storm does. nor does it release,
according to this page up to 6.0 x 10^14 Watts/day of energy. any idea how that stacks up to the hiroshima nuke?

Re:The earth changes..

[SubtleNuance]

These days, Greenpeace aren't a charity or a lobby in any meaningful sense of the word.

Bullshit. You are assuming no one has a view of the world other than yours. Some people are capable of altruism. That has nothing to do with whether or not you think they are.


They are in the entertainment business for Western teenagers, and they have to keep their name in the news to keep the donations rolling in

I have absolutely no comment for this - it's a result of your biased opinion, not an issue of substance.

Cynical? Perhaps.
I think it is a significantly more complex problem than 'cynicism'.

But their dodgy science has done a lot of harm

Take a car, close yourself in a garage and see let us know what effect this has on you. While your at it, whip up a nice pre-cocktail of the water down the river from %insert_big_chemical_company_factory_near_you%. Let us know the result of your experiment... how about a little "common sense" eh?

to the idea that anyone with something to say on the environment doesn't have a radical left-wing axe to grind.

What does the "Left" have to do with expressing concern for having a healthy environment? It sounds like your trying to rally the "useful idiots of the Right" by suggesting the Green Movement is employing the forces of the "left leaning usefull idiots"...really, lets give the rhetoric a break... (oh, btw, please see site saying "Left" and "Right" means nothing - except in places with unhealthy political duopolies - Republican and Democrat do not political philosophies make...)

Re:The earth changes..

[revscat]

You're argument is well spoken and you are obviously an intelligent person. I would like to point out a few things, however:

Environmentalists are no more or less elitist than any other political group. They have just as many zealots as the NRA, the ACLU, or most others. Just because some members of the organization are more energetic than others does not invalidate the underlying philosophy. (I can assure you -- as an active former member -- that most Young Republican organizations are shockingly and frustratingly elitist.)

Saying "we [humans] are failing" is, again, no different from any other political group. All politics is based upon the belief that certain things need changing through the force of law.

Freedom is an ideal to be striven towards, not an absolute. There are no absolutes. A democratically elected government has every right (and in fact it has the duty) to step in and say "You cannot put lead into the ground water", whether the target is a business or an individual. To be sure, this can be viewed as a curtailment of freedoms. But these curtailments are in the interest of the common good, and are preventing actions that are clearly damaging to the community as a whole.

You said:

...therefore, we should be very careful about threatening the destruction of individual humans' property, freedom, and lives in the name of any global mission

With which I wholeheartedly concur. Strong property rights must be the basis for a republic such as ours to remain vibrant. But: "Your freedom to swing your arm ends where my nose begins." The evidence that emissions from the burning of fossil fuels pollute the environment and cause harm to the community is fairly cut and dry; the primary focus of debate revolves around whether CO2 emissions are harmful in the long term.

I find much of the language of the environmentalists itself to be inherently anti-freedom, anti-individual, and quite elitist.

That's may be true. But that doesn't make them wrong.

- Rev.

Re:The earth changes..

[Kintanon]

Bad me for replying to myself, but here is a link to check out if you don't believe me.
Climate Study

Kintanon

Re:Oh my goodness no!

[Diamon]

Umm... so where is your linkage?

Not saying I'm on any side. It's just if you're gonna play URL poker you gotta ante up.

The Earth's temperature has ALWAYS fluctuated.

[pcx]

The Earth's temperature has ALWAYS fluctuated -- massively. Only in the past thousand years or so has the temperature leveled out at a rather warm plateau. But if you look at a statistical chart of the earth's history over the past few million years you'll see wide temperature swings that have absolutely nothing at all to do with humanities actions or inaction.

I know it's nice to think we've become so powerful we can disintigrate millions of billions of tons of ice just by driving to the quick-e-mart, but in reality it's probably nothing more than the sun outputting a little more energy than normal.

Re:The Earth's temperature has ALWAYS fluctuated.

[Zocalo]

The Earth's temperature has ALWAYS fluctuated -- massively.

Quite. Even if we assume (because unless someone knows better there is still no proof either way) that humanity is responsible for the CO2 emissions, that led to the destruction of the ozone layer, that led to increased sunlight melting the Antarctic icecap, so what?

The earth has experienced periods that saw much of the northern hemisphere covered in ice, and unless I'm mistaken that isn't the case at present. Also, it has had periods where the Antarctic land mass (the rock currently under the icecap) has supported a temperate climate, which again, there doesn't seem to be a present. So, humanities collective ego aside, we don't seem to have pushed "Gaea" outside her normal tolerances just yet.

It might just be a really good idea not to try and do so though...

Re:The Earth's temperature has ALWAYS fluctuated.

[mwillis]

Actually, another ice age has been theorized. Europe could enter another ice age because of global warming.

Worldwide ecology is a complicated system, and Europe owes much of its warmth to actions of salty atlantic ocean currents. We don't know if the North Atlantic thermohaline circulation locations will move farther from europe... but if it did, let's just note that in Canada, there are polar bears at Edinburgh's latitude. Of course, it might also move closer, and europe could get even warmer.

Some more information: Natural Science Article, The Atlantic Online

ps - I'm not sure if I really buy all this, but the lack of certainty does inspire some concern.

Re:The Earth's temperature has ALWAYS fluctuated.

[Cally]

but in reality it's probably nothing more than the sun outputting a little more energy than normal.

And your evidence for disagreeing with almost every reputable scientist who's worked in the field?

You know it's amazing how, with our hacker hats on, we laugh our asses off when a PHB tries to tell us how to program, or what software to run. But when it comes to telling climate modellers what their work REALLY means, why! we can sort thsat stuff out over lunch!

Re:The Earth's temperature has ALWAYS fluctuated.

[Martin Blank]

Unfortunately, the fluctuation we're seeing now is more massive and happening more quickly than ever before.

Forgive me if I am wrong, but I think we've only been really studying the environment to a significant degree for a few hundred years, if that, and have detailed ice cores going back, with some exceptions, only a few thousand years. That seems to me, in comparison to the 4.5 billion or so times the Earth has circled the sun to be a bit of a stretch in terms of extrapolation.

I wish I could find the link, but I read an article a few months ago that suggested that evidence has been found showing the Earth does periodically go through warming stages where the global temperature rose significantly (10C comes to mind) in the course of a mere thousand years.

I'm not on either side of the fence on this one. I don't think that we should be doing anything to push the issue, to be on the safe side, but I also don't think that we should rush into snap judgements on something that ten years from now may be chuckled at as just another silly fad. I'm in favor of increased mileage for all vehicles, decreased emissions for diesel engines, more reliance on wind, solar, tidal, and nuclear energy and decreased reliance on hydroelectrics (I don't care for the damage done by dams); at the same time, I also think that we need to be careful to balance the economic considerations. Further unbalancing the already unstable economies of a number of small countries could lead to wars, disease epidemics, and massive unrest. Lead them into the light by helping them with their prosperity, and show them the benefits of working with the environment instead of abusing it. Don't coddle them as the Kyoto Treaty did, and don't try to bully the larger nations. Piss people off, and you'll never get their cooperation. Work with them, help them along, allow them to be successful on their own, and they'll be far more likely to follow your lead.

Re:The Earth's temperature has ALWAYS fluctuated.

[ajs]

In this case, reputable scientist is defined how? Media coverage? There is massive debate in all of the sciences that this touches. A good friend of mine, a solar astrophysicist, has been pointing out for nearly a decade that we have HARD EVIDENCE in the ice records that a massive up-swing in temperature happened in the roughly 500-800AD period, and damaged much of the world's species (there are many human communities that were hurt badly by this).

This change in temperature could have had several causes, but the simplest explanation is that the power output of the sun fluctuates over time. We are most likely seeing the same sort of effect now. Will it get so hot that human civilization suffers? Possibly. Is there anything we can do about it? Probably not.

As the original poster said, it would be nice to think that we're so powerful that we can affect the climate more than the sun, but it's just not a very practical point of view.

Re:The Earth's temperature has ALWAYS fluctuated.

[ajs]

Actually, we have NO CLUE how to measure such things.

We do not know the exact ammount of energy being released by the sun at any given time (our estimates get better and better, but we simply don't know for sure). We also do not know how that energy interacts with the earth's atmosphere. We also don't know how the climate will behave in response to that interaction. We also don't know the exact details surrounding the temperature change in pre-meteorological times (we know that the temperature fluctuated, and roughly by how much, and roughly when, that's it).

"there's always the possibility that his wild-assed guess is wrong"

"wild-assed guess" is a subjective term. You can brand all hypothesis as wild-ass guess if you wish, but the bottom line is that there is hard evidence that the earth heats up periodically. We have no evidence for the wild-assed guess that the current period of heating is human-related, and not part of the natural cylcle that is already in motion.

Look at it this way, if the earth were currently cooling, we would almost certainly have come up with a theory for how human beings could be responsible for that too. It's good that we come up with many competing hypothesies (this is how the scientific method operates), but to adhere to one such hypothesis with near-religious fervor cannot help the cause of understanding these phenomenon. Let us use all of the evidence and look at it with as critical and objective point of view as possible.

Who knows, maybe we're both very wrong. Perhaps there are forces at work here that we do not yet understand. That is certainly a scenario that climetologists should be used to by now ;-)

Re:The Earth's temperature has ALWAYS fluctuated.

[Dixie_Flatline]

And your evidence for disagreeing with almost every reputable scientist who's worked in the field?

Actually, any reputable scientist in the field of meteorology or climatology will tell you that it's hard to pin down where climate changes come from. In fact, it's a working hypothesis RIGHT NOW that the increase in temperature right now is a return to a more natural state of the planet. You have to remember that the dinosaurs lived for hundreds of millions of years in a climate that was thought to be tropical or sub-tropical at least as far north as mid-Alberta, Canada. Nothing has quite been the same since the K-T impact, and there's no hard evidence that our current climate is anything but entirely anomalous. It's very possible that we're RETURNING to a stable climate as opposed to living in one.

Re:The Earth's temperature has ALWAYS fluctuated.

[Reziac]

As you say, global climate shifts have always happened, and our piddly couple hundred years of records are nothing against the overall patterns, which probably have more to do with orbital wobbles and variations in the sun's output than anything that happens on the microcosm of the Earth's surface. Even relatively massive surface events like Krakatoa (which IIRC put out more dust and "greenhouse gasses" in one swell foop than all of humanities' efforts combined) don't have a lasting effect against the overall patterns of climate.

Not only that, but per studies that didn't have an axe to grind, it turns out natural sources of "greenhouse gasses" -- swamps and such -- outstrip humanity's production by several orders of magnitude.

Furthermore, that the biggest human-caused waste-gasses and general-atmospheric-pollutants production spike took place about 1890 (during the major spasms of the Industrial Revolution) and has dropped ever since.

Methinks coincidence is being taken for causation again.

Re:The Earth's temperature has ALWAYS fluctuated.

[Art_XIV]

In this case, reputable scientist is defined how? Media coverage? There is massive debate in all of the sciences that this touches. A good friend of mine, a solar astrophysicist, has been pointing out for nearly a decade that we have HARD EVIDENCE in the ice records that a massive up-swing in temperature happened in the roughly 500-800AD period, and damaged much of the world's species (there are many human communities that were hurt badly by this).

This change in temperature could have had several causes, but the simplest explanation is that the power output of the sun fluctuates over time...

It was obviously due to human activity... the evilly prosperous Byzantine Empire generated metric tonness of horse dung (and incedental gasses) daily. My computer model (Age of Empires II) demonstrates that it was clearly so.

Re:The Earth's temperature has ALWAYS fluctuated.

[zudark]

"Even relatively massive surface events like Krakatoa (which IIRC put out more dust and "greenhouse gasses" in one swell foop than all of humanities' efforts combined)".

This "volcanos are worse greenhouse emitters than humanity" bit keeps popping back up ever since Rush was spouting about it for a while in the early/mid 90's. In fact, total global volcanic C02 output is estimated to be about 1/150th that of athropogenic C02 output [Gerlach, T.M., 1991, Present-day CO2 emissions from volcanoes: Transactions of the American Geophysical Union (EOS), v. 72, p. 249, and 254-255.]

Sulfer is a slightly different story -- volcanos actually make up around 50% of natural sulfer emmisions! This is still only about 1/10 as much as human activity produces, however.

About the only area of concern in which volcanos outstrip human emissions are stratospheric injection of various aerosols and dusts during explosive erruptions (rare!) and emmissions of certain heavy metals like selenium. Not lead though -- we still win there :)

Going beyond that to your several orders of magnitude swamps... anthropogenic C02 emmissions total somewhere around 5 to 10Gigatons of carbon per year... gross terrestrial biosphere carbon release is somwhere around 60GT/year, which is in fact less than one order of magnitude. Couple that with the fact that gross terrestrial biosphere _uptake_ of carbon is quite close the emissions, and the net effect on the atmosphere from anthropogenic sources is greater.

-Ethan O'Connor

I wouldn't tak eGreenpeace's word for it.

[91degrees]

A PR comapny if ever there was onr. Greenpeace's only motivation is the continuation of itself.

A few years ago they created a huge amountof havoc over plans to decommision an oil platform. They cited the huge environmental damage caused by the radioactivity, without actually considering that this was natural radioactivity. The net result of the media misinformation was that the platform had to be dismantled at great cost, and actually caused considerably more pollution, and took up a great deal of landfill spcae when otherwise it would have served as a habitat for lots of rare marine life.

And I get a bit fed up of them giving me the hard sell for donations. I would have much more of an urge to do this if their salepeople weren't on commision.

Re:I wouldn't tak eGreenpeace's word for it.

[pmc]

they created a huge amountof havoc over plans to decommision an oil platform

Ah. A wonderful story of the triumph of show business environmentalism over rational thought. A search for Brent Spar on google will give the details.

Brent Spar was an oil storage platform in the North Sea used, in the early days of the development of the North Sea fields, for storage of oil before loading into tankers and shipping. It had been phased out by pipelines and was due to be decommisioned. After 3 years of consultation with interested parties (including environmental groups) it was decided to dump it in a deep ocean trench. The reasons were: occupational risk in dismantling it on land; technical difficulty; expense; and risk of contamination.

Enter Greenpeace. They climbed aboard and, according to thier scientific tests, the rig was riddled with heavy metals, oils (5,500 tonnes was the figure mentioned), PCBs, radioactive materials, and would be an act of extreme irresponsibility to dump it at sea.

The stage was set, and the drama unfolded. Greenpeace occupied the rig. Shell tried to get them off, petrol stations in Europe were firebombed and shot at, boycotts were started. In all, there was a huge media frenzy: David and Golith; a huge faceless bureacracy (and oil company at that) versus people who are trying to save the earth.

Shell decided to abort the sinking, and the rig was towed to a deep water fjord in Norway to await an alternative. Round 1 to Greenpeace.

Round 2 was conducted by a Norwegian Consultancy, who actually did a very detailed inventory of the rig. They published figures that agreed with the Shell figures, and were completely at odds with the Greenpeace figues (the actual ammount of oil, for example, was 50 tonnes). The only conclusions were that Greenpeace were either lying, or hopelessly incompetent. This was not so much a defeat for Greenpeace as a catastrophy. Their role was as a scientifically based environmental pressure group. Their main asset was a good relationship with the media, which they harmed greatly during the Brent Spar campaign.

Now, Greenpeace is certainly seen as a more fringe, hardcore organisation, and I think that it all traced directly from that campaign. They may have won a victory with Brent Spar, but it has turned out to be a Pyrric victory.

Re:I wouldn't tak eGreenpeace's word for it.

[Cally]

...and by the way the quotes are from the British Antarctic Survey who, as I said in the story, are respected around the world - what with having been there since 1912, and all. THEY are not sandal-wearing hippie museli munchers: they'r PhDs, grad students, professors etc who spend 6 months a year living on the ice.

Re:I wouldn't tak eGreenpeace's word for it.

[Tony-A]

There's an old tale that someone from the EPA wasn't satisfied with a pH of 7. He wouldn't be satisfied until they go the pH down all the way to zero.
(7 is neutral. 14 is extreme alkalie, attainable. 0 is extreme acid, not attainable IIRC)

Weather patterns

[reachinmark]

It bothers me that people think they can make assumptions about the Earth's weather patterns based on roughly 100 years (NASA: Surface Temperature Analysis) of temperature data.

Given that we are constantly learning about various cycles in global climate, some of which seem to span over thousands of years ( E.g. NASA: The Sun-Weather connection), you can't possibly claim for certain that any temperature fluctuations over the past 10, 20 or 50 years are due exlusively to our behaviour.

I'm not against cleaning up the earth, I just think that global warming isn't a good argument.

Re:Weather patterns

[Cally]

It bothers me that people think they can make assumptions about the Earth's weather patterns based on roughly 100 years (NASA: Surface Temperature Analysis [nasa.gov]) of temperature data.

We don't. We use proxy measurements such as bubbles of air trapped in ice core samples, sediments from lake beds, tree rings, etc etc etc. using many different measurements, which often overlap (and hence correlate each other) we have a fairly good idea of the paleoclimate back to several billion years ago.

Re:Oh my goodness no!

[Bartmoss]

Blasting massive amounts of pollution into the atmosphere seems like a very bad idea nevertheless. Remember acid rain? Smog? I do, even though I haven't been in a smog filled city for decades. It's not only about saving the environment for the sake of saving the environment. It's a quality of life question.

Re:Oh my goodness no!

[Denito]

Your post is typical of the 'skepticism by convience' found so often in this debate..

Here are some resources:

BBC Report

EPA website on global warming

Union of concerned scientists.

btw, you forgot to post your evidence.. (typical skeptic evidence: We don't know for 10000000000% sure, so this must be environmentalist propoganda"

-D

p.s. Ok, I'll say It. You, are a mo-ron.

Greenhouse Gasses

[Aglassis]

It always ticks me off that the Greenpeace people oppose anything that creates greenhouse gasses while at the same time protesting nuclear power which is the only real way to get free of greenhouse gas emmisions. That is unless we decide to go back into the stone age as many of them suggest. If they weren't such jackasses about the nuclear power situation public opinion might be much different and greenhouse emmission might be significantly less.

The alternative power that they keep on trying to push is a myth. When you look at actual output, it is trivial to any real source. You aren't going to run a 60 MWe silicon refining plant in the northwest with solar panels and windmills. It isn't going to happen. Not unless the price is increased 10-fold. Sure you can power your house as they always point out. But your house is 2 KW load. Industry takes up far more power than housing.

The only way to reduce emissions of greenhouse gasses is to stop burning coal and gas. Thats it. And it has to be done now instead of 30 years from now when the alternative power myth becomes useful (probably more like 50).

Re:Greenhouse Gasses

[KristoferP]

Well, the problem is, as far as I have understood it, that nuclear energy is not a sustainable source of energy since it uses a fuel, uranium, that is limited and we have a very short supply of. If we were to exchange all the coal and oil powered powerplants to nuclear power plants, we only have about ten years supply of uranium left in the world that could be extracted in a reasonably economical way (and lets not forget that mining uranium is not easy and NOT environmentaly friendly). If you count the total resources of uranium we have maybe 15-20 years of supply. What do you propose we do then?

Even if we just count the amount of uranium that it takes to run the curren about 500 reactors in the world, we only have enough uranium to run them for 40-60 years. And lets not forget that no one in the world has a really good plan on what to do with the radioctive restproducts from nuclear powerplants.

We most likely have to switch to renewable energy sources. And the sun provides us with a lot of energy everyday. We only need to figure out a good enough way to extrac it and store it.

Re:Greenhouse Gasses

[suitti]

For any heat base power generation system, like nuclear, gas, coal, oil, the best efficiency that thermodynamics allows is 50%. So, a 1 Gigawatt power plant must produce at least 1 gigawatt of heat. We used to dump this into our rivers. But a 10 megawatt plant on the Connecticut river would raise the temperature of the river by 10 degrees F, forever. This is an ecological disaster, not because it's 10 degrees, but because it's instant. Ecosystems require more time than instant to adapt.

Dumping the heat into the air gets rid of the heat pretty well. That's what the hyperbolic towers are for. Most of the heat radiates into space.

A Nuke plant's pollution is thus mainly a little waste heat. Of course, the gigawatt of electrical power eventually is turned into heat, too.

Nuke plants are pretty expensive to operate. You have to be extremely careful, which costs money. The cost of fuel is quite low - nearly insignificant, like $10/megawatt hour.

There is a hidden cost, and I'm not sure that it has been paid yet. Once the fuel is consumed, it must be disposed of. At the moment, we're storing the spent fuel at the Nuke plant. This is a short term stopgap proceedure. We need a longer term solution. The current proposed solution in the US is very late, and way over budget. Since you must store the spent fuel for a million years, you must store it in a geologically benign place. Since a million years is a long time, I'd argue that no such place exists. So, you have to design it so that it is possible to move the fuel from time to time. This will provide us with an additional cost stream forever.

The other cost is that, statistically, there will be other 3 Mile Island, Chernobyl, etc., incidents. The more plants you run, the higher the chances.

The UK is talking about ramping up to 10% of their power derived from wind energy. It is expected to be competitive with other power types.

Solar power isn't currently considered viable, but should become so pretty soon.

At the moment, we heat our houses by burning more fossile fuels. We could heat them by using waste heat from electrical power plants. Purdue University runs it's own electrical power plant, and heats the campus as a side effect. It's not a new idea.

Conservation provided the US most of the way out of the 70's energy crisis. Reducing the highway speed limit saved about 15% in fuel. And, it happens instantly - despite what President Bush said.

We don't really have to drive gas guzzling SUVs. My primary car averages about 33 MPG. It's a 4 door sedan, about 14 years old. I'd like to replace it with something more efficient. Several products are available and affordable.

I've started replacing incandescant lights in the house with screw-in flouresant bulbs. These last longer, produce the same light but use much less power and produce less heat. I'm finding that I can't use them everywhere, but they work in most places. My electric bill is lower.

Re:Greenhouse Gasses

[tramm]

Fweeky said:

They could be concidered a terrorist target too; you have to wonder how well a power station would stand up to someone flying a plane or two into it.

Why wonder when a government contractor has already tested it? Scroll down to the "Footage of 1988 rocket-sled test". My previous employer did this and other fun things.

Re:Greenhouse Gasses

[crawling_chaos]

This argument is specious. I would suggest that you Google the term "breeder reactor" before worrying too much about limited Uranium supplies. If we were building fast breeders and a reclamation infrastructure we could go a very long time on the Uranium we've already extracted from the ground.

The problem is that we'd be switching to reactors that use bomb-grade Plutonium. Security around the plants (both power and reprocessing) would need to be draconian. You can also forget trying to transfer the technology to less stable parts of the world for this reason.

We're going to need a combination of conservation and judicious use of all energy technologies if we intend to get out of this mess.

Re:Oh my goodness no!

[general_re]

I'm in, then.

John Daly's massive clearinghouse, Still Waiting for Greenhouse
An article by MIT meteorology professor Richard Lindzen.

There's lots more, but others might want to play.

Two graphs to consider.

[e_lehman]

If you're unsure where you stand on the issue of global warming, you might want to look at the following two graphs. The first shows that carbon dioxide levels are rapidly rising. There is no real question that this is much human induced. At the same time, global temperatures are also dramatically rising. Here the extent of human influence is more debatable. It is possible that an apparent cause (rising CO2) and an apparent effect (rising temperatures) are both happening independently but, coincidentally, at the same time. And, also at the same time, there is some other, unknown force causing the entire planet to heat. It truly is possible. But I wouldn't personally bet the world on that.

Re:Two graphs to consider.

[ch-chuck]

Cut to the chase: human population is rapidly rising. Everything else is just a byproduct. Seriously, just look at population statistics for the root cause. Now who'se going to stand up and advocate killing off a couple billion in order to improve the lives of those left? What's really ironic (if that's the proper word) is that it's modern greenhouse gas emitting industry that is extending life support to the growing population! We can't all revert to a pastoral, agrarian, earth friendly communal lifestyle w/o losing a bunch of folks. What's the limiting factor in population, particularly in latin america and asia anyway? Self control, or war, famine, pestilence, disease?

Anyway, I always view these chicken little reports as a communist "Lets screw the US!" ploy - reguardless of the facts about Mexico pollution (including continued production of ozone depleting freon there, while it's controlled in the US), Brazilian slash and burn, Iraqui oil well fires, Indonesian fires, etc etc etc. US industry is much cleaner than any developing 3rd world or former Soviet industry, yet it's always the US they want to screw over! Lets see Russia or Japan sign the Kyoto accords, don't hand us the hari kiri knife.

Re:Two graphs to consider.

[ZeroHero0H]

One should also consider the fact that obsesity in the United States is climbing along with the rate of consumption of diet cola. Conclusion: Diet cola causes obesity.

Sadly, correlating any two lines may be amusing for agitprop, but hardly forms the basis of any predictive ability. A second example is the stock market boom of 1996-2000 -- people just followed the trend blindly because it looked like a trend. Whoops!

I also take issue with "betting the world." Firstly, it isn't yours to bet with. Its mine too, so please don't make my choices for me. Secondly, even if the global climate changed, it is hard to believe life on earth would be wiped out. Good grief, we can't even get rid of cockroaches, and the doomsayers get all in a tizzy about their favorite collections of spores, molds, and fungus (thanks, Egon).

Re:Two graphs to consider.

[Cally]

greetings, I'm the submitter.

At the end of the day, the only people qualified to describe what's happening and where it's going over the next few decades have spent many, many years in the field. (I'm an interested lay observer, with a reasonable science educational background, & been following the debate, new findeings etc., for the last 10 - 15 years.) I'm sure the majority of the posts here (apart from the trolls and the jokes) are going to be arguing the case one way or the other. Well frankly I think none of us (those of us who aren't in the field) are qualified to say "this study's right, that model's wrong"; thus we can only make a judgement about the credibility of the people advanccing the various cases. And the the IPCC have the most credible findings - if anything, they err on the conservative side so as not to freak out certain wobbly 'Western' nations with shakey commitment to doing anything. (The IPCC was set up to establish the global consensus amongst eveyone working in the field.)

Who are you going to believe - fat cats with strong financial interest in doing nothing to halt CO2 production, or imkpartial scientists whose career and reputation rests on the validity of their findings, models, and predictions?

Re:Two graphs to consider.

[Artagel]

Those are short-term graphs when thinking in geological time. I think the National Academy of Sciences report to President Bush pretty much admitted that 1) people think something is going on, and 2) nobody knows if it is dangerous.

For example, suppose the warming averts another ice age. Do we WANT an ice age? At what point will the warming be dangerous? Hard to say given that the middle ages were warmer than we are now. (The recent trend prior to the middle of this century was a long-term gradual cooling trend.)

While we don't want to bet the world, it is far from clear that a 1 degree C increase in average temperature IS betting the world. It isn't even clear that the world is a worse place 1 degree C warmer than what we have now.

(Please note, re Antarctica -- polar ice is still melting from the last ice age. Unless we get much closer to ice age temperatures, it will keep melting, only the speed of melting is in question.)

Re:Two graphs to consider.

[An Onerous Coward]

"Secondly, even if the global climate changed, it is hard to believe life on earth would be wiped out. Good grief, we can't even get rid of cockroaches, and the doomsayers get all in a tizzy about their favorite collections of spores, molds, and fungus (thanks, Egon)."

This is a line of reasoning that has always baffled me. I'll quickly agree that we'll never be able to get rid of the cockroaches or the bacteria, no matter how many pesticides we spray or how many asteroids we smack into the planet. So what? Not every species is as tenacious as the cockroach.

Take mammals, for example. There is no species of mammal, humanity included, that could survive the sorts of climate changes that cockroaches could handle.

The trick isn't keeping some form of life around to repopulate the planet once we're through destroying it. The trick is to keep ourselves alive and do so in a way that leaves us all healthy and happy for generations to come. That doesn't mean squandering our natural resources in a two-century economic orgy. Nor does it mean everyone should slash the tires on their SUVs, switch to veganism, and start worshipping the Earth Mother. Just be interested in understanding the consequences of our current lifestyles, and willing to make adjustments when necessary.

Meanwhile, In other news ...

[gewalker]

According to most scientistics, the retreat in the West Antarctic ice sheet has been occuring for 10,000 years.

Also on BBC, Ice thickens in West Antarctica

Sun is hotter, but shrinking (mass energy conversion, you know).

Maybe we should realize that perhaps some of the global warming hype is just hype. Everytime there is a heat wave on the news coasts, there a new round of global warming stories. Normal climate variability is large, and modern winters are not the warmest ever (or even in modern history). Check out Minnesota 1877. The observed long-term warming trend since 1900 is not unusual in terms of climate history.

BTW, risk of Kyoto protocol is followed in 100% of the expected cost, because it is certain damage to world economy.

Re:Who caused the Ice Age?

[goober]

>Finally, who caused the last Ice Age?

One new theory, the Raymo-Chambelin Hypothesis, suggests that the last ice age was triggered by the collision of the Indian subcontinent and Asia, and the subsequent uplift of the Himalayan plateau. This caused a sharp increase in chemical weathering in Southeast Asia which removed CO2 from the atmosphere (reverse greenhouse effect) and dropped temperatures. Cool!

Not based on the last 100 years at all.

[Moderation abuser]

The trends have been measured over several thousand years using ice cores and sediment analysis.

Re:Who caused the Ice Age?

[Ryano]

"From what I understand, Man produces about 1% of all of the planets cloro-floro carbons (greenhouse gases). If we cut production completely, we would end up with a negligible effect."

Cloroflourocarbons (CFCs) are the stuff which used to be found in aerosol sprays and the like, which were found to be damaging the ozone layer. That is a separate issue to global warming.

"In addition to that, we produce carbon dioxide thru processes like, say, breathing. Carbon dioxide is what plants breathe with. More C02 means more plants! Oh no!!!"

I can only presume you're joking, and that you don't really believe in this facile logic. As humans breathe oxygen, would more oxygen in the atmosphere result in more humans?

"Yup, it sucks, but we're pretty much at the mercy of our planet. Not the other way around."

I have to agree with that - we're probably a long way off the time where our normal activities present any real threat to the continuance of life on earth. However, this does not mean that these activities will not trigger environmental catastrophes which might otherwise have been avoided. These won't bother the earth much, but they will have a significant effect on human civilisation as we know it.

The earth probably won't mind if the eastern seaboard of the United States slips into the sea (for example), but it's no exaggeration to describe the consequences for humanity as catastrophic.

Re:Not that much water

[iceT]

Talk about checking your math... You're proposing that the DRY surface area of the planet is 361,000,000 million meters square? There are million square-foot BUILDINGS in the world. Doesn't that seem a little LIGHT to you?

When I square 6,376,000, I get 4.06e+13. Now, times 3.142 = 1.277e+14. And, times 4, I get 5.10e+14.

That's 510,000,000,000,000 meters square. Times .25, you get 127,700,000,000,000 square meters of dry land.

Devil's Advocate

[moonless]

The majority of the posts I've seen seem to scoff at the idea the collapse of the Larsen Ice Shelf has any global signifigance, or that global warming is a problem. And they have some valid points - sure, the Earth's temperature has fluctuated wildly in the past; sure, not all of the recent increase in average global temperature is due to humans. But that doesn't make us innocent, or safe. The Earth and life as a whole may have weathered huge climactic shifts before - look at the end of the Ice Age. But such shifts tend to cause a lot of extinctions, and it is undeniable that the effects of human industry, territorial expansion, etc. have already caused many extinctions/endangered species/etc. So this climactic change is coming at a point when the global ecosystem is already stressed.

Global warming, whether caused by humans or not, is nothing to scoff at, either. Many people, particularly in third world nations, live on the coastline, in areas that would (and will) be innundated if and when a higher global temperature causes ocean levels to rise. This is a serious threat to the lives and livelihoods of many people. People in the third world can't simply move and buy another house, nor can they afford to maintain a system of dikes like those of the Netherlands. Whether or not humans caused global warming, it exists, as the collapse of the Larsen Ice Shelf indicates, and it is a threat.

In addition, it's true that a certain amount of melting, calving of icebergs, and such occurs with the change of seasons in Antartica. Thank you, whoever noted that sun causes ice to melt, for stating the obvious. But the Larsen Shelf was not noted for being susceptible to such seasonal oscillations - indeed, it was incredibly stable, and old. Ice sheets that are 200 meters thick and more than 3000 square miles big don't form or melt overnight. The instability which caused the collapse was a relatively recent development. That such a stable chunk of the Antarctican ice should disintegrate is of great concern.

Finally, while man may not have created global warming, our industrial revolution has certainly contributed. A previous poster listed these graphs. A temperature spike and carbon dioxide spike, coinciding with the industrial revolution, are clearly visible. We have contributed to global warming. Sure, we can't stop industry, and sure, we don't have effective alternative energy sources. But we can adopt less wasteful methods of doing things, and cleaner manufacturing processes. And if we never start seriously investigating alternative energy sources, we will certainly never make any progress in that realm. So don't dismiss global warming as a liberal joke, or a tool for Greenpeace. Perhaps humans didn't create it, but the Larsen Shelf's collapse joins a growing bank of data suggesting that warming does exist, and that humans have contributed to some extent. We should be concerned, because this does affect us, and our future.

For everyone looking at that book

[mikosullivan]

in which the author systematically demolishes most of the non-scientific arguments of the "green" lobby

... only for certain values of "demolish" and "most". Be sure to look at these opposing views as well as the book itself:

• UCS examines The Skeptical Environmentalist
• Nine things journalists should know about The Skeptical Environmentalist

As a long time skeptic on many issues myself (just ask my friends who have asked me what sign I am) skepticism is a good thing. Just remember that it goes both ways.

-Miko

More Info

[Alien54]

RFN had this last night. But here is a page with some other photos.

RFN had links to other research sites, some of which have pics every week or two for the past two months.

um...

[BlueboyX]

How exactly would it NOT make a difference? Each tiny bit of increase in temp causes a decrease in the longitude that ice can remain frozen. Imagine a line drawn around antarctica, and the line moving downward towards the south pole with each change in average temp. Even a small change in the position of that line causes a pretty big change in the area in that circle.

One of the iceberg articles said the change was 2.5 degrees. :P

Re:The Consequences? All HELL breaking loose...

[somethingwicked]

Dude, this is fairly drastic actually. If you don't believe me try this experiment...

Get a towel. You do know where your towel is right?

CAREFULLY, fill one of those huge 64oz Texaco cups full of ice, and THEN oh-so delicately fill it up with water. Also, add a little salt (remember, we ARE talking about salt water: Ocean, DUH...)

Now, RUN LIKE HELL!!!

That thing is gonna go off like an ill-measured volcano at a 4th grade science fair!!! The water will overflow the glass and flood your kitchen, so be prepared! Thats what the towel is for!

Luckily, you are on a hill, so just open the door and all the water will flow down on your lowlying neighbors...(for fun, open a door facing someone you don't like!)

*shaking head/rolling eyes/laughing lightly*

Re:Oh my goodness no!

[Cally]

Some more sources.



http://www.pewclimate.org/
http://www.marshall. org/
http://www.tyndall.ac.uk/welcome.html
http: //www.scienceforum.net/
http://www.rivm.nl/env/in t/ipcc/tar.html
http://www.worldwatch.org/
http: //www.epa.gov/globalwarming/index.html
http://www .ipcc.ch/
http://www.unep.org/unep/eia/geo2000/
http://www.earthdot.org/
http://www-climate.mcs.a nl.gov
http://wwwghcc.msfc.nasa.gov/Model/model.h tml
http://www-unix.mcs.anl.gov/acpi/



And some (mostly BBC) stories related to climate change:


http://news.bbc.co.uk/low/english/sci/tech/newsi d_ 1880000/1880566.stm
http://news.bbc.co.uk/low/eng lish/sci/tech/newsid_ 1833000/1833902.stm
http://news.bbc.co.uk/low/eng lish/sci/tech/newsid_ 1528000/1528348.stm
http://news.bbc.co.uk/low/eng lish/in_depth/sci_tec h/2002/boston_2002/newsid_1825000/1825283.stm
htt p://news.bbc.co.uk/low/english/world/americas/n ewsid_1820000/1820584.stm
http://news.bbc.co.uk/l ow/english/sci/tech/newsid_ 1804000/1804467.stm
http://science.nasa.gov/headl ines/y2002/15jan_gree nhouse.htm?list98953
http://news.bbc.co.uk/low/en glish/sci/tech/newsid_ 1782000/1782691.stm
http://news.bbc.co.uk/low/eng lish/sci/tech/newsid_ 1779000/1779619.stm
http://news.bbc.co.uk/low/eng lish/sci/tech/newsid_ 1718000/1718183.stm
http://www.spacedaily.com/new s/early-earth-01k.htm l
http://news.bbc.co.uk/low/english/world/america s/n ewsid_1375000/1375089.stm
http://news.bbc.co.uk/l ow/english/sci/tech/newsid_ 1664000/1664887.stm
http://news.bbc.co.uk/low/eng lish/sci/tech/newsid_ 1706000/1706823.stm
http://news.bbc.co.uk/low/eng lish/uk/england/newsi d_1661000/1661560.stm
http://news.bbc.co.uk/low/e nglish/sci/tech/newsid_ 1643000/1643156.stm
http://science.nasa.gov/headl ines/y2001/ast07sep_1 .htm?list98953

Disaster????

[selectspec]

However, the picture generally in Antarctica is a complicated one with temperatures in the interior actually falling over the same period. There is also some evidence that the retreat of the West Antarctic Ice Sheet, on the other side of the peninsula to the Larsen B shelf, has halted.

Why is this a disaster? The shelf displaced the same amount of water when it was solid that it does now melted because it was floating in the first place. Considering that the interior recessions have appeared to stop, the dire predictions of a sealevel rise are totally unsubstantiated.

Re:Your source?

[Salsaman]

Newton's theory of gravitation is 'just a theory' as well. I haven't fallen off the Earth for a long time though...

Whining europeans

[pubjames]

I am really fed up with listening to all those whining european liberals. The USA leads the world in science and technology. Why don't they just listen to us and trust what we say? Global warming is just hippy crap.

I think we're absolutely right to tell those whining Europeans to stuff their Kyoto protocol. It is obviously just political and not based on scientific research, like the USA's policy.

And the Japanese! What are they doing agreeing with the Euros? And those South Americans. Of course they don't have many scientists there, so they probably don't understand what they've signed up to. Even the Chinese have implemented reforms of their energy sectors to cut Co2 emmissions and have cut them by over 6 percent over the last five years. What are they thinking? I guess they must be just sucking up to the Europeans.

I just don't get it. When will the Euros (and the Japanese, Chinese, South Americans and the rest of them) stop falling for that environmentalist rubbish and start listening to informed, scientific, and unbiased view of our great leader, G W Bush?

Yes, this is sarcasm.

Re:Oh my goodness no!

[letxa2000]

Temperatures recorded worldwide by satellites have shown no global warming in the 23 years they've been operating (since 1979).

The satellite record is much more accurate because it covers 90%+ of the earth whereas the surface record only covers a small fraction of the earth. I.e., where there are cities, mostly in the northern hemisphere, and almost no constant readings from the high seas.

Further, the surface record is heavily biased due to the fact that urban sprawl has created "heat islands" around cities. Recording stations that used to be out in the fields are now in the middle of parking lots.

While the greenies have tried to discredit the satellite record, they haven't succeeded, and the satellite record is the most reliable and accurate information we have about global temperatures. And they haven't increased in 23 years.

Those of us that don't believe in human-caused global warming are NOT living in denial nor is it that we could care less about the planet. Those of us who don't believe in global warming have taken the time to study the facts and come to a conclusion which is very unpopular in today's culture.

But, say this to yourself until you understand what you means: THERE HAS BEEN NO GLOBAL WARMING IN THE 23 YEARS WE'VE HAD SATELLITES MONITORING GLOBAL TEMPERATURES.

The sky is falling the sky is falling

[cluge]

From the article;

'However, the picture generally in Antarctica is a complicated one with temperatures in the interior actually falling over the same period. There is also some evidence that the retreat of the West Antarctic Ice Sheet, on the other side of the peninsula to the Larsen B shelf, has halted'

Add to that there is this gem 'Scientists hope the data gathered on site will help them determine when such an event last happened and which ice shelves are threatened in future.'

Oh, so we don't even know if this is a cyclical event and if so how often it happens..... From 1947 to the late 1960's or early 1970's (depending on who you believe) there was a global cooling. At that time some scientists were predicting another ice age.

This is a serious event that warrants study and careful scientific examiniation. It does not warrant people running about screaming at the top of your lungs "The sky is falling".

Doing so just makes people disbelieve you when/if you do have the hard evidence to back up your claims.

Re:Oh my goodness no!

[rm-r]

Actually science shows us how global temperatures DROP after major volcano blasts. By comparing thr rings on tree trunks (thiner in cold years, wider in warm years) to a record of big blasts (such as here.)

Your turn.

PS why should I blind believe you over 'the greenies'? No doubt you have an agenda to, yet you seem to think you are the only one who knows theirs

Re:Oh my goodness no!

[dhogaza]

So, yes, volcanos spew plenty of greenhouse gasses. I don't have the exact information on hand and I don't have time to search for it right now, but if you jump to google.com and do some honest research I'm sure you can find it for yourself with little trouble.

This seems pretty emblematic of the average Slashdot debunking of the work of a large number of scientists around the world who work on climate issues.

Peer-reviewed science is wrong, we just know it in our hearts, we don't know quite why, don't have hte exact information on hand, but I'm sure we can find it on the trustworthy internet if we just use google. Because, after all, if we can find a debunking on the internet, it must be true!

My favorite George Carlin line...

[dcigary]

"...the earth will shake us off like a bad case of fleas..."

And it's true! The earth has been and WILL around for much longer than us, and it's completely arrogant of the human race to think that we can do anything about it. Our pollution isn't ruining the earth, it's ruining human life. Once we poison ourselves to death, Mother Earth will take over and heal whatever superficial wounds we've inflicted and create life again...this time maybe lifeforms with a little more intelligence...

Save the earth, hell. We have to be concerned about saving OURSELVES!

Re:Blah, blah, blah... Get a new schtick guys.

[uncadonna]

Temperature averages over 40 years do not a geological event make

No, but an excursion of CO2 concentrations outside the range of the past million years over the space of a single century is indeed a geological event.

nor can you make the assertion that burning fossil fuels is causing global warming without having to prove it.

Waiting for "proof" is like waiting until after the fire to purchase property insurance.

Of course, you certainly need to amass a lot of coherent evidence before you make the increasing claims of plausibility, statistical significance, and generally accepted. Within the field of physical climatology, that's all happenned over the last twenty years. Of course, to read the libertarian press, which would find this piece of physics hard to reconcile with their politics, you wouldn't know it.

Unfortunately in the real world physics trumps philosophy every time.

Assumptions

[shokk]

You assume that our human actions are what is causing this. We are in a warming period between ice ages and this could very well be completely natural. Without data from the previous ages, we have nothing to base these opinions on other than direct data for the past few decades and some guesswork on geological surveys.

So lets feed the troll

[ramb]

The petition was something between fraudulent and a horrible joke. Robinson's co-authors included his home-schooled son, 22 at the time, and two astrophysicists. None of the authors had ever done any climate work.

The Oregon Petition, sponsored by the OISM, was circulated in April 1998 in a bulk mailing to tens of thousands of U.S. scientists. In addition to the petition, the mailing included what appeared to be a reprint of a scientific paper. Authored by OISM's Arthur B. Robinson and three other people, the paper was titled "Environmental Effects of Atmospheric Carbon Dioxide" and was printed in the same typeface and format as the official Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. A cover note from Frederick Seitz, who had served as president of the NAS in the 1960s, added to the impression that Robinson's paper was an official publication of the academy's peer-reviewed journal.

The NAS(USA) eventually sent out a public rebuke disavowing involvement and pointing out that it's own committee had reached the opposite conclusion.

"The NAS Council would like to make it clear that this petition has nothing to do with the National Academy of Sciences and that the manuscript was not published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences or in any other peer-reviewed journal," it stated in a news release. "The petition does not reflect the conclusions of expert reports of the Academy." In fact, it pointed out, its own prior published study had shown that "even given the considerable uncertainties in our knowledge of the relevant phenomena, greenhouse warming poses a potential threat sufficient to merit prompt responses. Investment in mitigation measures acts as insurance protection against the great uncertainties and the possibility of dramatic surprises."

Re:Not that significant

[An Onerous Coward]

"We can't hurt the environment because we're part of the environment! Everything we do is 100% natural!"

This is a blatant attempt at distracting the debate from the real issues. The question of whether humanity's actions should be described as "natural" or as something apart from nature is more of a semantic debate, and it sheds no light on the real issues. Whether our behaviors are "natural" because we are a product of natural evolution is irrelevant. The question is whether we are doing damage to the environment that will degrade both the health of the ecosystem as a whole and to our own prospects for long-term survival.

There are plenty of examples of species' performing actions that undermined their own future. Locusts can overbreed, then feed and feed until everything edible is gone. The Ebola virus kills its hosts off so quickly that it doesn't have enough time to spread to others, inhibiting its long-term survivability. These actions are natural, but stupid and self-destructive.

Again, the real question is whether our actions are beneficial, not whether they can be defined as "natural."

Oh, and it's a self-serving and disingenuous argument if only because it's primarily put forth by right-wing Republicans who almost invariably believe that mankind is a special creation of God, not just another part of nature. To put it bluntly, the people who put forth the argument almost never really believe it. That's pretty much the definition of sophistry.

Greenpeace's founder

[Watts Martin]

Greenpeace's other founder left to start Sea Shepherd, because he thought Greenpeace was too willing to compromise. All things are relative.

I confess, I don't understand why people use "follow the money" as an attack against Greenpeace yet don't admit that the same logic makes most of the "global warming is good for you" counterhype just as suspect. Greenpeace has donations to win by scaring you, but those donations are chump change compared to profits from oil companies and related industries.

Can you honestly tell me that you think Exxon-Mobil and Ford don't have a tremendous vested interest in convincing us that scientists warning us about global warming are all wrong? In fact, when you look back at the bulk of corporate history, there's a long tradition of being against anything that might cause a loss in profitability, from safety regulations to fuel economy requirements. They've done a really good job at convincing libertarians that CAFE is an an assault on personal freedom. Bullpucky.

And, again using the "follow the money" logic, your poster boy Patrick Moore works for an "astroturf" group called the British Columbia Forest Alliance. It's funded by logging industries and was set up by the PR firm Burston-Marstellar, a group notorious for this kind of work. It sounds to me like the real issue for Moore is that those "environmental extremists" can't scare up enough donations to pay nearly as well as the people they're campaigning against can.

Which kind of says something about which side has more of a vested interest to protect, really. Hint: it's not Greenpeace.