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Major Climate Change 5,200 Years Ago Could Repeat

An anonymous reader writes "The climate was altered suddenly some 5,200 years ago with severe impacts. Famouse glaciologist professor Lonnie Thompson have found clues that show history repeating itself. Thompson has spent his career trekking to the far corners of the world to find remote ice fields and then bring back cores drilled from their centers. Within those cores are the records of ancient climate from across the globe. He outlined his fears today at the annual meeting of the American Geophysical Union in San Francisco. 'The evidence clearly points back to this point in history and to some event that occurred. It also points to similar changes occurring in today's climate as well,' he said."

90 of 845 comments (clear)

  1. Oh no! by modifried · · Score: 5, Funny

    New York City will be flooded by seawater, the temperature will plunge at a rate of 10 degrees per second, and people will be transformed into ice statues where they stand. Tokyo will be bombarded with killer hailstones! The polar ice caps will MELT. This sounds like the perfect storyline for a really shitty mov-- oh, right..

    1. Re:Oh no! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Funny

      Quick, let's get a band of merry oil drillers, train em to fly the shuttle and send them on a desperate Hail Mary mission. For shits and giggles, let's throw Steven Tylers daughter in the mix as the hot love interest.

      This will look bleak till the very last second when.........err, wrong movie, wrong Slashdot article.

      Sorry

    2. Re:Oh no! by mm0mm · · Score: 5, Funny

      There are things to learn from Hollywood movies.
      If this professor's prediction is right, the US government should get prepared to send Dick Cheney to Mexico to save our country.
      I'll get myself ready to hide in library to burn books and steal condoms from a Russian ship.

    3. Re:Oh no! by wa5ter · · Score: 5, Funny

      I think it will stay plenty warm enough where Dick Cheney's going.

    4. Re:Oh no! by sahonen · · Score: 2, Interesting

      Wasn't that a FOX picture???

      It was awfully hard to tell, what with the billion product placements for Fox all over the movie. Every single news station they tune to is a Fox station.

      --
      Make me a friend and I'll mod you up
    5. Re:Oh no! by SpaceLifeForm · · Score: 2, Funny

      When you are 'fair and balanced', there is no need for any competition.

      --
      You are being MICROattacked, from various angles, in a SOFT manner.
    6. Re:Oh no! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Funny

      Until Bush admits a mistake... Then Cheney's home will freeze over.

    7. Re:Oh no! by SengirV · · Score: 4, Funny

      I hear heaven is a nice comfortable temp. Now Michael Moore, he better bring a person AC unit.

      --

      Prof. Farnsworth - "Oh a lesson in not changing history from Mr I'm-My-Own-Grandpa!"

    8. Re:Oh no! by Quarters · · Score: 2, Funny

      The storms didn't want to have to pierce their ears as they crossed over the Equator.

    9. Re:Oh no! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Insightful

      I hear heaven is a nice comfortable temp. Now Michael Moore, he better bring a person AC unit.

      Dick Cheney - corporate crook, chickenhawk who sends our troops to kill and die in an unnessecary war while at the same time rewriting our energy policy soley for the benefit of industrial polluters (and to the detriment of the planet).

      Michael Moore - two bit populist documentary filmaker who unnsuccesfully tried to swing an election with a movie that uses emotional appeals to turn viewers against the incumbent.

      I wonder which one of these guys is going to hell. To even compare the scale of McMoore's actions to Cheney's is insane.

    10. Re:Oh no! by Dashing+Leech · · Score: 5, Funny
      To even compare the scale of McMoore's actions to Cheney's is insane.

      That's right. Cheney is a dick, and Micheal Moore is a pussy. And the climate is an asshole. Sometimes dicks need to ... oh hell, wrong movie again.

  2. I'm sorry to say this by eclectro · · Score: 5, Insightful

    from the article
    "The evidence is clear that a major climate change is underway."


    President George W. Bush disagrees with this. Therefore more study is needed.

    --
    Take the cheese to sickbay, the doctor should see it as soon as possible - B'Elanna Torres, "Learning Curve"
    1. Re:I'm sorry to say this by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Insightful

      I read the article, too bad it didn't provide any of the evidence about a current change; it just provided evidence about the one that occurred 5,200 years ago. I am geniunely concerned about the current situation, but articles without hard data will not convice anyone that something is happening now.

    2. Re:I'm sorry to say this by gtkuhn · · Score: 3, Insightful

      If the climate shifts, we will most certainly both freeze and fry in different places. Such a shift refers to changes in the patterns of energy on Earth, not changes to the total energy in the planetary system. Some places get hot, others cold. People will move.

      The part about varying solar ouput in TFA was vague, but I believe it was talking about a small and short lived fluctuation (compared to total output) that merely triggered pattern shifts in delicate energy systems here on Earth.

    3. Re:I'm sorry to say this by Cally · · Score: 2, Informative
      Actually, even the Bush government now accepts the worldwide scientific consensus that human CO2 emissions are causing global climate change - google for 'Bush accept climate change' and pick your preferred source. He just doesn't think the US should join Kyoto or tajke any significant action to reduce greenhouse gas emissions.

      Please take note, all the nay-sayers posting ill-informed reasons why they think the theory is bunk.

      --
      "None are more hopelessly enslaved than those who falsely believe they are free." -- Goethe
    4. Re:I'm sorry to say this by Xilman · · Score: 3, Interesting
      If the climate shifts, we will most certainly both freeze and fry in different places. Such a shift refers to changes in the patterns of energy on Earth, not changes to the total energy in the planetary system. Some places get hot, others cold. People will move.

      Yes and no. The energy input to the planet as a whole may remain roughly constant but that doesn't mean that the heat stored in the planet will remain the same.

      Consider a perfectly ordinary greenhouse with no heating other than sunlight. The temperature inside is markedly hotter than that of a similarly sized and shaped volume outside, even though the energy input is essentially the same.

      For a more extreme example, compare Venus and the Earth. Despite Venus being closer to to sun, less energy is deposited in its atmosphere and surface than we get in our atmosphere and surface layers. The reflectivity of the Venusian clouds is so much higher than the reflectivity of the Earth's. Nonetheless, despite getting more energy it is much colder near the Earth's surface than it is near the Venusian surface.

      Conclusion: it's entirely possible for everywhere to get hotter. It's also entirely possible for everywhere to get colder. You can't conclude, purely on energy input grounds, that either will be the case, or that a redistribution of temperature variations will take place. If you take into account other factors it does indeed seem likely that some places will become cooler and others warmer, but those other factors must be evaluated properly.

      Paul

      --
      Lasciate ogne speranza, voi ch'intrate
    5. Re:I'm sorry to say this by Cally · · Score: 3, Interesting
      from the article "The evidence is clear that a major climate change is underway." President George W. Bush disagrees with this. Therefore more study is needed.

      Actually- and I know this will annoy the rabid nay-sayers who always post their ill-informed strawmen, non-sequiturs and logical fallacies to these Slashdot stories - a quick Google search will demonstrate that nowadays, even the Dubya regieme accepts that human CO2 emissions are causing climate change, just like the world's climatologists have been saying. They just aren't going to do anything about it.

      In other news, a Greenland glacier has dramatically speeded up and is now running more than twice as fast as the current models assume (hint: this is VERY BAD NEWS)

      --
      "None are more hopelessly enslaved than those who falsely believe they are free." -- Goethe
    6. Re:I'm sorry to say this by Flaming+Foobar · · Score: 5, Funny
      I think its rather presumptuous to assume man can have any impact on the weather.

      Exactly. Thousands and thousands of scientists (professors and otherwise) who have time and again proven global warming to be real and happening have repeatedly, collectively, and deliberately made mistakes in their experiments and calulatinons. In fact, as reported on a recent documentary on TV (forget the channel), there is an evil worldwide (at least Mexican-American-Canadian-British-Swedish-German-F rench-Finnish-Indian-Chinese-liberal) conspiracy against oil and energy companies trying to convince the world that CO2 emissions are bad.

      --
      while true;do echo -e -n "\033[s\n\033[u\134_\033[B";done
    7. Re:I'm sorry to say this by Oligonicella · · Score: 4, Insightful

      Did he say the climate was not changing? No, he did not. Vague reference to unknown documentaries about fictitious conspiracies really supports your side, you know. Maybe this is one of the reasons people are finally starting to ignore the hand wringers and the newer studies are finally able to investigate culprits more likely responsible, like solar.

    8. Re:I'm sorry to say this by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Funny
      ...even the Dubya regieme accepts that human CO2 emissions are causing climate change...

      Oh, wow. Suddenly I have a shred of respect for our country's leaders.

      They just aren't going to do anything about it.

      Okay, never mind, it's gone now.

    9. Re:I'm sorry to say this by Grimxn · · Score: 2, Insightful

      A guy falls dying on a glacier up a mountain. He gets covered in snow & frozen. So what? The article tries to use this as proof of climate change, when in fact it simply proves that it's bloody cold at the top of the Alps.

    10. Re:I'm sorry to say this by Begossi · · Score: 5, Insightful

      "America will always do the right thing, once it has exhausted all the alternatives."
      - Winston Churchill

      --
      Friend of the Wise, Brother of the Brave.
    11. Re:I'm sorry to say this by jav1231 · · Score: 2, Funny

      Let's say you're correct. A leap, but let's say it. IT doesn't matter. If global warming is due to a cyclical change, then it's not our fault. That is what this article is saying, no? When faced with facts like this article, you don't even see it. It HAS to be man's fault so Bush can be wrong and your Euro-hip ideals can be right. You are biased and blinded. Oh yeah, and the volcano thing happens true, but hey that gets conservatives off the hook so you couldn't possibly accept it. Try reading something other than propaganda, idiot.

    12. Re:I'm sorry to say this by innerweb · · Score: 3, Insightful
      Scientists disagree, genius.
      Hmm.. True the quote might be a little lame, but the spirit of the quote is right on. Last time I went through the published articles, I only read disagreement as to what extent the effect was. The only people who were disagreeing were not real scientists (pseudo-scientists) that work for corporate concerns (think smoking is not addictive or bad for you, lots of tobaco scientists made these claims, or pharma scientists, etc.) Do you really think that these corps care anything about reality, especially when it impacts their bottom line?

      Really, an overwhelming majority of scientists agree on the seriousess of global warming (and more importantly, an even greater percentage of those who do this type of science agree). There will always be puppets of business that can create experiments to find evidence for anything by ignoring most everything else.

      The spirit of what was written goes right along with the man GW, though. He who has said "I speak with God", "God has told me to..." as though he were a modern day prophet. He is arrogant and ill-informed. He cares little or nothing for the long term consequences of what he does, he only cares for the short term consequences. Kind of like the average American on credit.

      This fits with the GW policies of adding more lead back into the atmosphere, allowing more toxins from plants in the environment, weakening standards on emmissions, mandating policy to schools without funding (thereby crippling the schools in question), using government funds to support religions, calling a holy war (crusade) on Muslims in the Middle East, and many more. Lets face it, the average American voted along only a few thoughts, and screwed themselves in the process. The debts we are running up are harmful and the damage we are doing to our selves and our children (your future taxpayers) will take generations to fix. Lead is proven (many times over) to cause a rise in violent crime(18 to 20 year following introduction into the environment, the length of time for a newborn to become a legal adult) as well as learning disabilities. Greenhouse gases are called such because they cause greehouse effects. Oil spills destroy ecologies, most have never recovered, let alone fully recovered. Iraq was the most ill-conceived idea from our leadership since viet-nam.

      He may do some things right, but the damage he is doing is far greater. You do not have to agree with me now. What he is doing has already been done in the past (yes, study history), and it has never worked in the past being done by far more capable people than GW.

      InnerWeb

      --
      Freud might say that Intelligent Design is religion's ID.
    13. Re:I'm sorry to say this by Control+Group · · Score: 2, Funny
      Wait...so you're saying that if global warming continues, the Yankees will start to suck?

      I gotta start burning me some coal...

      --

      Reality has a conservative bias: it conserves mass, energy, momentum...
    14. Re:I'm sorry to say this by delong · · Score: 2, Informative

      The Administration disagrees that any warming is conclusively caused by human activity, and that any policy actions by governments would have any effect whatsoever.

      Honest people can agree that some marginal climate change is occurring. On this point, no climatologist seems to disagree. However, it is not either clear or obvious that human activity is responsible, and on that honest people can disagree. Climate is not static, which should be plenty obvious to the non-zealot.

      This finding, by the way, supports that view. The few million human beings that lived 5000 years ago were not burning fossil fuels.

    15. Re:I'm sorry to say this by DunbarTheInept · · Score: 2, Insightful

      This sarcasm is NOT failing because the listeners are stupid. It's failing because the group being ridiculed is stupid and therefore you can't exxagerate their position enough to make it clear you are trying to make a joke. Trying to satirize global-warming deniers is like trying to satirize a Jack Chick tract.

      --

      Don't label something "offtopic" unless you know the topic well enough to tell what's on topic.

  3. More information from osu by djplurvert · · Score: 3, Informative
  4. Old News by commodoresloat · · Score: 5, Funny

    This story is a dupe from 3196 B.C.

    1. Re:Old News by cperciva · · Score: 2, Insightful

      Isn't this when the biblical flood occured.

      The "biblical" flood is actually just a retelling of a story from the epic of Gilgamesh; as such, it likely refers to the flooding of the Persian gulf.

    2. Re:Old News by samael · · Score: 2, Insightful

      Snow would explain it.

    3. Re:Old News by killbill! · · Score: 2, Interesting
      The "biblical" flood is actually just a retelling of a story from the epic of Gilgamesh; as such, it likely refers to the flooding of the Persian gulf.

      The most recent theories actually ascribe the widespread Great Flood stories in the Middle East to creation of the Black Sea.

      The Black Sea was originally a lake that was fully separate from the Mediterranean Sea. At the end of the Ice Age 12,000 years ago, the sea level rose in a dramatic way, and sea water started pouring over a pass now known as the Bosporus at a tremendous speed.

      The National Geographic has an informative article on this theory.

      From the article:
      the water hit the Black Sea with 200 times the force of Niagara Falls. Each day the Black Sea rose about six inches (15 centimeters)

      Imagine such a catastrophe. No wonder descriptions of the event remained in human memories for millennia to come.
    4. Re:Old News by sonamchauhan · · Score: 2, Insightful

      Their date is 200 years after the Biblical flood. Take a look at this post for some information on how it corroborates the Bible.

    5. Re:Old News by sonamchauhan · · Score: 2, Interesting

      > The "biblical" flood is actually just a retelling of a story from the epic of Gilgamesh;

      No. Its the other way around..

      > as such, it likely refers to the flooding of the Persian gulf.

      Both the book of Genesis in the Bible and the epic of Gilgamesh, as well as other cultures like these Indian ones and Native American -- all these claim a global flood for which there is evidence.

      I guess the reason why some people are eager to pass off the Biblical account as a bad copy of the recently discovered Gilgamesh epic (despite clear evidence to the opposite) is the influence of Christianity in their own lives. People generally don't like being told uncomfortable things by the Bible.

      See my posting history for posts with more evidence.

  5. FINE! by pchan- · · Score: 4, Funny

    i see how it is. i finally get a girlfriend and now the planet's going to freeze over.

    thanks a fucking bunch, environment.

    1. Re:FINE! by SenseiLeNoir · · Score: 2, Funny

      Actually the fault is mine and my wife's...

      Before we met each other... we used to proclaim how hell would freeze over before either of us get married... That was until we met each other...and last month we ended up marrying each other...

      sorry folks!

      --
      Have a nice day!
  6. Possibly a good thing by trash+eighty · · Score: 2, Interesting

    i've read that this climate change could have been the spur for the start of civilisation. the drying environment in the ancient middle east caused people to migrate from drying marsh areas to near rivers and irrigation (and hence cities, civilisation, writing et cetera) may have developed to counter the drier weather.

    1. Re:Possibly a good thing by Cally · · Score: 3, Insightful
      The problem is that the changes that human activities have increased atmospheric levels of CO2 at an unprecedented rate. It is therefore very likely (even on conservative estimates) that climate changes will be dramatic, non-linear, and thus rather bad for human civilisation. (Think sea-level rises of tens of meters. Think the US turning into a dustbowl. )

      Some references to further information. Google can supply nonsensical 'sceptic' links if you really want to see what the oil lobby and AM radio types want you to think. Personally I'll take the likes of Science and Nature journals, thirty years of research by peer-reviewed scientists over Rush Limbaugh any day.

      What really frightens me is that since I started following the science of this stuff in the mid 80s, evidence has consistently emerged that shows the IPCC-type predictions are actually rather conservative. Real climatologists are now very, very worried.

      Oh and by the way: the world's fastest moving glacier, in Greenland, doubled it's speed according to NASA research. If the Greenland ice-shelf slides into the sea you'd better be living in the Rockies with a large stash of tinned goods.

      --
      "None are more hopelessly enslaved than those who falsely believe they are free." -- Goethe
    2. Re:Possibly a good thing by MoebiusStreet · · Score: 3, Interesting
      First, this is a hideously complex phenomena that no one really understands. From TFA:
      "Any prudent person would agree that we don't yet understand the complexities with the climate system and, since we don't, we should be extremely cautious in how much we 'tweak' the system," [Thompson] said.

      What I get from this is that we'd better stand very still, because we don't know what changes will do what. For now, the safest course of action is to change NOTHING, i.e., maintain current levels without significant decrease until the science is better understood.

      It's entirely conceivable that, as nature has tried to correct for the changes (via algal blooms in the ocean, for example), significant *decreases* could have a recoil effect. It's entirely possible that blindly trying to undo things can get us into more trouble. There are plenty of phenomena (most?) that can't run backwards the same way they ran forwards (you can't pull a nail out of a board and have the board return to where it had been pre-nail; a girl in a skirt jumping man-show style on a trampoline exhibits completely different behavior on the way up than coming down).

      Second, why are we so self-centered that we believe that the status quo at the time of our grandfathers is the CORRECT natural balance? Earth doesn't care. She's equally happy with ocean levels a foot higher. Why do we feel that one set of temperatures/precipitations/set of species is inherently better than another?

      (and, to completely stray from the topic, why do we feel so rooted to the current environment but not the same way to the Constitution?)

    3. Re:Possibly a good thing by AbbyNormal · · Score: 2, Insightful

      In case people want to read about the Greenland Glacier: Article

      I found it interesting that it had actually slowed and built up between 1991 and 1997.

      --
      Sig it.
    4. Re:Possibly a good thing by Shadowlore · · Score: 2, Informative

      thirty years of research by peer-reviewed scientists

      What really frightens me is that since I started following the science of this stuff in the mid 80s,

      Ah, so you missed the 70's when the same groups of people were telling us about the cooling we were supposedly causing.

      Here is a Newsweek article from 1975:
      Global Cooling Newsweek Article

      And that's not all. "Peer reviewed" journals also had calls to herald the global drops in temperatures. Presidents and leaders were warned to start stockpiling food for the comming shortages. Check Wikipedia
      for a starting point. Science, Nature, National Academy of Science, are all examples. And even then, we were told to stockpile food and that aerosols and pollution were to blame.

      But that didn't pan out. So they got a new gig. Now it is warming (that in 99 they said would cause an ice age). Has science gotten better in the last 30 years in this field? Hardly. Now they just make up computer models, say the models predict it and call it science fact. It's like a "psychic" making mass predictions. Of course something will eventually stick. Make a thousand "models" and you can pick them over for "confirmation" as you need. Then again, a stopped clock is right twice a day.

      Yet they still can't tell us next year's weather any better then the Farmer's Almanac does.

      Further, doing research into Global Cooling tells you some interesting data. Such as the drop of global temperature from the 30's through the 70's amounted to a drop that is strikingly similar to the amount we are told the Earth will supposedly warm (or has depending in which peer rviwed article) as a result of "man"; or according to the link you gave, is exactly the same.

      Yet, somehow we are supposed to beleive that if the Earth returned to the temperatures we had in the thirties civilization will end. That is clearly demonstrated to be bunk when looking at somewhat recent history.

      Indeed, in the 1999 "study"'s conclusions the 'Greenland ice shelf falling into the sea' would introduce mass cold water into the ocean, particularly the gulf stream. This would then reduce global temperatures to the tune of (IIRC) 7-15 degrees F as it disrupted the flow of warm water.

      Yet, we are supposed to believe that we can honestly conclude global average temperatures from the 1800's to today. But only when they support dire predictions. When they show a cooling, well that's just "old data". When people point this out the disasterbators say they simulated the difference in global coverage and found no difference. So, they are basing their claims of historical temperatures based on simulations, and we are to believe they can produce models to simulate temperatures to accuracy within .05 degrees C a hundred+ years ago, but can't even get within a few degrees C for next week.

      Ask yourself this:
      If over the course of 70 years (1930s to 1970s) we saw a .6o C drop w/o disastrous effect, why should a .6o C increase cause it?

      If an increase of .6o C puts us in dangerously high temps, then where were all these dangers in the 1920's and before?

      Even the FAQ you link to should give you cause for concern regading the claims' veracity. They say that urban islands "only" account for .05o C less of a warming. As if we are to say "oh well .05 isn't much" while not connecting they are talking about close to 10% of their noted differences. Accounting for urban heat islands using their own data puts their rise in temperature to be less than the drop we had in the early to mid-late 1900's.

      Other data shows as much as a .3oC difference when urban centers are accounted for in thermal variations (NASA GISS) resulting in a

      --
      My Suburban burns less gasoline than your Prius.
  7. Climate change predictions by Siener · · Score: 3, Insightful

    We know that in the past the earth has gone through many (often cataclysmic) climate changes. We also know that this will happen again.

    Since the 70's every now and again someone predicts that such a climate change is just around the corner. The truth is that these predictions are very inaccurate. I'm talking thousands of years uncertainty. I see nothing in this article that makes this prediction any different.

    So relax, the chances of anything like this happening in your lifetime is vanishingly small.

    1. Re:Climate change predictions by deltagreen · · Score: 2, Interesting

      What's interesting, is that global warming might trigger an ice age, at least for the northern hemisphere. As I'm sure many /.-ers are aware of, much of the reason for the mild climate in northern and western Europe, is the Gulf Stream.

      What happens in detail, is that warm surface water flows from the equator towards the northern parts of the Atlantic. As the Gulf Stream moves north, some of the warm water evaporates, which increases the salinity level of the remaining water. At the same time, the water temperature becomes lower as the current dissipates its heat to the atmosphere and colder ocean waters in the northern parts of the Atlantic. When the current finally approaches the same temperature as its surroundings, it sinks (because the water is saltier than usual, and therefore heavier) and flows south again as a deep sea stream. So the North Atlantic is basically one huge conveyor belt that transports heat.

      Now, what has this got to do with global warming? Well, if the ice on Greenland and the North Pole melts at an increased rate, the fresh water might lower the salinity level of the Gulf Stream so much that the water won't sink and the heat transport system gets seriously messed up. If the northern hemisphere stops getting this added heat, winters will be longer and increased snow and ice coverage will reflect more sun light, accelerating the cooling of land areas.

      What's even worse, is that findings in ice cores from the glaciers on Greenland, seem to indicate that this change from status quo to (small) ice age has happened very quickly earlier in history, single digit number of years. I'm not saying this is guaranteed to happen, but it's worth considering that global warming might actually make the northeastern America and western Europe colder, not warmer. And yes, it might happen in our lifetimes.

    2. Re:Climate change predictions by Cally · · Score: 2, Insightful
      I remember how they kept telling us kids in the 70s how there would be a new ice age before the turn of the century. Boy we were gullible back then

      This is actually a good point. Strangely enough, a vast amount ofnew research has been done in the last thirty years, and the computer power running the (much much more accurate) computer models, plus vastly improved knowledge of paleoclimatology from proxy temperature records such as ice cores, sediments from the sea bed etc, has now put that findnig into context.

      This is an excellent review of the history of climate change theory showing how the 'new ice age' idea fits into current understanding of where we're at, and what this handbasket is doing here.

      --
      "None are more hopelessly enslaved than those who falsely believe they are free." -- Goethe
    3. Re:Climate change predictions by Cally · · Score: 2, Informative
      Too late. The climate change is already under way. Increased heat waves in Europe, increased hurricane frequency, thinning of ice caps, retreating glaciers. Whether or not this is due to human activity, its happening. Now.
      Just to back this up... Glacier in Greenland duiobles spped unexpectedly Hey, it's those hippy tree-huggers at the NASA Goddard Space Flight Centre again, what do they know? Pffftt!!
      Arctic climate is changing much more rapidly than models predicted.

      And some slightly older random stories from my bookmarks file.

      http://science.nasa.gov/headlines/y2001/ast07sep_1 .htm?list98953 http://news.bbc.co.uk/low/english/sci/tech/newsid_ 1643000/1643156.stm http://news.bbc.co.uk/low/english/uk/england/newsi d_1661000/1661560.stm http://news.bbc.co.uk/low/english/sci/tech/newsid_ 1706000/1706823.stm http://news.bbc.co.uk/low/english/sci/tech/newsid_ 1664000/1664887.stm http://news.bbc.co.uk/low/english/world/americas/n ewsid_1375000/1375089.stm http://www.spacedaily.com/news/early-earth-01k.htm l http://news.bbc.co.uk/low/english/sci/tech/newsid_ 1718000/1718183.stm http://news.bbc.co.uk/low/english/sci/tech/newsid_ 1779000/1779619.stm http://news.bbc.co.uk/low/english/sci/tech/newsid_ 1782000/1782691.stm http://science.nasa.gov/headlines/y2002/15jan_gree nhouse.htm?list98953 http://news.bbc.co.uk/low/english/sci/tech/newsid_ 1804000/1804467.stm http://news.bbc.co.uk/low/english/world/americas/n ewsid_1820000/1820584.stm http://news.bbc.co.uk/low/english/in_depth/sci_tec h/2002/boston_2002/newsid_1825000/1825283.stm http://news.bbc.co.uk/low/english/sci/tech/newsid_ 1528000/1528348.stm http://news.bbc.co.uk/low/english/sci/tech/newsid_ 1833000/1833902.stm http://news.bbc.co.uk/low/english/sci/tech/newsid_ 1899000/1899150.stm http://www.nationalpost.com/search/story.html?f=/s tories/20020327/463946.html http://news.bbc.co.uk/low/english/sci/tech/newsid_ 1940000/1940117.stm http://news.bbc.co.uk/low/english/sci/tech/newsid_ 1951000/1951084.stm http://news.bbc.co.uk/low/english/sci/tech/newsid_ 1993000/1993832.stm http://news.bbc.co.uk/low/english/world/europe/new sid_2019000/2019349.stm http://news.bbc.co.uk/low/english/world/americas/n ewsid_2137000/2137205.stm http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/low/health/2168145.stm http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/low/world/europe/2188407.s tm http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/low/world/asia-pacific/220 2919.stm http://www.whoi.edu/home/about/whatsnew_abruptclim ate.html http://science.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=40977& cid=4354856 http://earth.agu.org/revgeophys/schmit01/node8.htm l http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/low/sci/tech/2333133.stm http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/low/sci/tech/2369333.stm http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/low/sci/tech/2385591.stm http://www.observer.co.uk/international/story/0,69 03,837058,00.html http://slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=02/11/10/202123 6&mode=nested&tid=134 http://science.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=02/11/1 1/1436214&mode=nested&tid=134 http://www.guardian.co.uk/uslatest/story/0,1282,-2 161625,00.html http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/low/sci/tech/2525041.stm http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/low/sci/tech/2558319.stm http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/low/sci/tech/2559633.stm

      --
      "None are more hopelessly enslaved than those who falsely believe they are free." -- Goethe
  8. Global Warming ... by Gopal.V · · Score: 4, Funny

    Uhmm.. G.W Bush claims that "Global Warming" (henceforth referred to as "G.W") will melt the poles and ....
    God shall call forth another great flood to cleanse the world.

    Whitehouse later retracted the claims when they realized NYC will be under 20 feet of sea water. The Gaia theory has been proposed along with Alaskan ice to fix the issue in concern.

    Of course he blames the entire problem on Iraq and the fact that they set fire to oil wells in Kuwait in 1991 leading to a rise in temperature of the Free World. Also Canadians contribute to this problem in no small amount as a comparitive study of houses with central heating in Miami and Tornoto showed.

    Mmm... twisted news :)
  9. Re:fp? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Insightful

    I'll believe in global warming the minute "scientists" find something to agree on. At the moment we have scientists saying we're in the middle of global warming, that we're in a cold period, that ice ages are the norm and we're in between one, and others saying that ice ages come in between warm periods. We have scientists saying that we're overdue for an ice age, others saying we've just come out of one. There are scientists saying we have no effect on global warming compared to just one volcanic eruption, others say humans have had more influence than any other event on the planet.

    So what should we believe today?

  10. We're slobs! by MikeFM · · Score: 5, Insightful

    I think it's a bit much to claim that we're headed for an ice age or that our own emissions are the cause for it. However I do think we should take better care of our enviroment. Regardless of ice ages and such we're fucking up our enviroment and it is disgusting. Driving towards LA is revolting and it's not much better in other major cities. We need to replace our road systems with effecient electric train systems and more people need to go back to walking and biking. It'd certainly not hurt if people would stop throwing their garbage on the ground wherever they go. People, and especially us Americans, are slobs. We need to change our lifestyle before we live in total filth.

    I live in Las Vegas right now and most days you can't see across the valley even. Driving through town is a horrible experience. The Strip is especially bad. That area at least should be blocked to non-commercial and non-emergency traffic (ie firetrucks, FedEx, and taxis should be able to go through). I'd not get rid of roads entirely but I'd cut them down to one or two lanes and I'd encourage non-commercial traffic to come by train or taxi rather than driving.

    Most places I've lived it's been all but taboo to walk or bicycle. Tell a job that you're going to walk or bicycle or even take the bus to work and they're a lot less likely to hire you. Often there aren't bike lanes or sidewalks. Bicyclists and even walkers get hid by careless drivers all the time. Small effecient vehicles like the recently popular scooters are often against the law to use on either street or sidewalk. Not exactly encouraging to those that'd like a cheaper and more enviromentally friendly way of getting around.

    --
    At what price learning? At what cost wisdom? The price is a man's peace of mind, and the cost is his life.
    1. Re:We're slobs! by samdu · · Score: 2, Insightful

      Driving through town is a horrible experience.

      You first. And by that, I mean you just went on a rant about too many people driving too much, then you said the above. What's keeping you from getting the ball rolling?

  11. Blame the Egyptians by Detritus · · Score: 2, Funny

    There wouldn't have been a problem if the Egyptians hadn't ruined the environment by building all those pyramids. Their per capita consumption of limestone far exceeded that of other human populations, leading to a significant increase in the albedo of the planet, and global cooling. The correlation of climate change with pyramid building is clear proof that it was their fault.

    --
    Mea navis aericumbens anguillis abundat
  12. Re:Climate Change by malsbert · · Score: 3, Informative

    i do not think climate change is junk science.
    that aside i would like to see a more balanced view in mainstream research. all to many simply view human society as the culprit and leave it at that. this paper says it happend 5200 years ago and now its happening again. well human outlet of green house gases were not responsible then, are they now? i reasonly watched a television program on the subject and the most interesting thing was that several of the researchers cliamed that when looking at temperature raise in atmosphere (as opposed to ground level) only a 1/3 of the projected raise was seen! they further claimed the reason for this discrepancy was the fact that many of the early temperature measuring stations was set up in or around citys dos measuring not global warming but local warming as a result of city expansion. now this is not to say the green house thing is wrong just that it may be more complex then "green house gases did it!!".
    just my 2 cent (euro cent!)

    --
    "Men will never be free until the last king is strangled with the entrails of the last priest." - Denis Diderot.
  13. Re:Global warming has happened many times by LarsWestergren · · Score: 3, Interesting

    I hate so-called scientists who can predict global warming but not predict the weather tomorrow

    That is because there is a difference between weather and climate. Can I predict that it will be warmer in summer? Yes. Can I predict which days will be sunny and which cloudy next summer? No. That a system is too chaotic to predict on a microlevel does not mean we can't understand or predict it on a macrolevel. Though we know the exact half life of a substance, we can't tell which atoms will be affected. Do you hate "so called physicists" too?

    In the same way, we can predict that the globe is getting hotter, and approximately how many degrees. The question is why, and if we can do anything about it.

    Some researchers notes that the earth were four degrees warmer around 1000 BC (my memory may be wrong with the year) and that the climate also were significantly warmer 800-1200 AD which let to prosperity up until the colder middle age. So let us look forward to a bit of warming!

    Doubtful. Most climate models predict an increasingly chaotic weather as temperature increases - floods, tornados, draughts, increasing desertification. Any economic benefits we get from higher crops or less energy going to heating is quickly going to be eaten up.

    --

    Being bitter is drinking poison and hoping someone else will die

  14. Re:fp? by mikael_j · · Score: 2, Insightful
    As far as I can tell, there are a few high-profile scientists, who know very little of climate research, that are coming up with "humans don't affect the climate"-theories while most others seem to agree that we should try to decrease our impact on the environment as it will have negative consequences...

    /Mikael

    --
    Greylisting is to SMTP as NAT is to IPv4
  15. Day after tomorrow by Ch3schir3 · · Score: 2, Insightful

    the only good point about this movie was the last 30 seconds when the astronaut points out he has never seen the atmosphere so clear before. anyways this sort of story is old news for anyone who has seen the movie Pi, and has tried to apply spirals to life. Life will constantly repeat itself, spiraling to a point that is finally rock bottom, at which point our survival instincts will take over, and we will shift to a new spiral, hit the pinnacle of society in that form, and spiral back down to self destruction. Its not humanity, but the nature of life itself. You grow, mature, peak, then spiral down to death.

  16. Maya's announcing this by SkunkAh · · Score: 4, Interesting

    The Maya's an Aztechs are announcing this with their calendar that includes 'new suns' every 5200 years and with the new sun comes an enormous climate change. Guess what according to the maya's the new sun is coming in the year 2012.
    More information about this can be found at a site about cropcircles, a certain crop which one the title 'cropcircle of the year' which is a doomsday calender which is warning for the new sun. The site explains the maya calender which fits exactly over the 5200 years of the old sun which according to the calendar will be replaced by the new sun and climate in 2012. http://www.cropcircleconnector.com/2004/silburyhil l2/silburyhill2004b.html

  17. Creationism by sonamchauhan · · Score: 2, Interesting

    So a catastrophic climate change took 5200 years ago?

    Bible believers have been talking about an ice age taking place a few hundred years after a world-wide deluge took place 5000 years ago...

    'After the Flood you would have both', says Mike. 'The water that the Bible indicates came from under the ground during the Flood would have been very warm or hot. This water mixing with the pre-Flood ocean would result in a significantly warmer ocean, right after the Flood, than today. Warmer water means more evaporation. So you have more moisture in the air available for storms, generating snow and ice at middle and upper latitudes, close to the developing ice sheets. And the ash and gases in the air is what gives the cooling of the summers.' All this, he points out, would have been like a 'loaded gun' at the end of the Flood. 'There would have been no way to delay it, an ice age just had to start.' ...
    Mike Oard's calculations show that a likely estimate for when the Ice Age reached its maximum would have been around 500 years after the Flood, with about another 200 years to melt. He warns that this is only a 'ballpark' figure, which could vary by hundreds of years--'but that's still a short time for evolutionists.'

    [Link ]

    Global ice age information

    Link to discussion of other evidence...

    1. Re:Creationism by sonamchauhan · · Score: 2, Interesting
      Regarding tree rings and human records evidence backs the Biblical record.

      I am still waiting for a tree with more than 5500 tree-rings in its trunk as I requested in that discussion.

      I have no comment on ice cores - I don't understand how they are estimated.

      See papers mentioned here for more evidence.

      My initial post also linked to this discussion which mentioned another interesting fact:
      When facts like this keep popping up...
      Family trees share roots in 1415BC

      Everyone alive today is descended from one person who lived about 3500 years ago, probably in Asia, a study has found.
      American researchers created elaborate mathematical models
      ...
      The results are published in the journal Nature.
      [Link to article [smh.com.au]. (free subscription required]
  18. Hello it's me again by Cally · · Score: 2, Informative
    I posted on the last Slashdot climate change story saying I was sick of reading the same tired old straw-man arguments trotted out by idiots who trust the scientific method to feed them, work their computers, fly their spaceprobes etc etc until the subject of climate change comes up at which point blind hysteria kicks in and they start trotting out ludicrous assertions that 'prove' that all the world's climatologists are wrong.

    Thanks to all those who responded. It now turns out that some much more authoritative and better-informed people than I are already doing this! Please, if you're posting some pet theory about why all this peer-reviewed science is baloney to this story, do yourself a favour and check one of these sites out before you make a fool of yourself in front of your peers.

    Thank you.

    --
    "None are more hopelessly enslaved than those who falsely believe they are free." -- Goethe
    1. Re:Hello it's me again by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Insightful

      Real science:
      "Repeatable experiments have generated data that..."
      "This model is fully consistent with..."
      "Anomalous observations require a new hypothesis regarding..."

      Fake science:
      "The general consensus is..."
      "74% of scientists polled believe that..."
      "Articles published in a popular journal state..."

      It doesn't take a scientist to recognize when the bullshit is flying.

  19. Re:There was no "total" ice age on earth ever ... by Evil+Pete · · Score: 4, Interesting

    Actually there was once a 'total' ice age. Well it's a hypothesis, but gaining in credibility. It was a doozy, but a long time ago. Check it out : Snowball Earth. The global ice age was ended by volcanism producing CO2, as normal, but this built up because the rocks that would remove the CO2 through weathering were under the ice, so a warming period began which brought the world back ... one almighty feedback. Long long time ago Precambrian, still it probably did happen once ... could happen again if the CO2 and methane was low enough I guess.

    --
    Bitter and proud of it.
  20. So why blame the industrialists? by tezza · · Score: 4, Interesting
    If this stuff happened in the past without modern intervention, scientists must be doubly certain that any climate change is down to industrial abuse.

    To raise a question, and put my Fatalistic hat on:
    If Act of G-d similar to Jacob and the famine in Egypt is definitely going to occur, why not make Hay while the sun shines, in preparation for the famine??

    So the scientists would have to show that any Kyoto-agreement like cut would be beneficial overall, not just putting your finger in a dyke. If we concentrate on trying to avoid it, and fail to make preparations, it could end up worse. This is not to deny that some companies and countries are evil and irresponsible muthafukkas. All this impending doom stuff is still unsubstantiated beyond this guy.

    The scientists need more funds to conduct studies.

    --
    [% slash_sig_val.text %]
  21. Bad wording by nwbvt · · Score: 3, Insightful
    "The climate was altered suddenly some 5,200 years ago with severe impacts."

    It "was altered"? By who? The cavemen? Or was it the vast civilization of the woolly mammoth whose massive industrialized society spewed greenhouse gasses into the atmosphere?

    I know the idea that our environment is a static entity that will only be changed should someone like the evil corporations or the Bush administration do something to it is a commonly accepted idea, but that is just scientifically inaccurate.

    --
    Mathematics is made of 50 percent formulas, 50 percent proofs, and 50 percent imagination.
    1. Re:Bad wording by Mordaximus · · Score: 4, Interesting
      It "was altered"? By who? The cavemen? Or was it the vast civilization of the woolly mammoth

      You point out what you think is bad wording in the submission, yet ask if cavemen or mammoths altered the environment, 5200 years ago?!

      5,200 years ago would be just slightly before 1st dynasty egypt, not pre-historic cave men in giant mammoth land. Actually it would be intersting if this climate change was the catalyst to lower and upper egypt uniting, after all, there would have been only roughly 100 years between the climate changes and the beginning of Menes' reign.

      I don't think the the wording is bad at all ; a volcano can alter the climate suddenly, a tidal wave can as well. If you associate alteration of the climate with human or mammoth intervention that's your interpretation and not the author's fault.

  22. How convenient for the scaremongers by ccmay · · Score: 2, Insightful
    What's interesting, is that global warming might trigger an ice age

    How convenient for the environmental alarmists. Now any weather event, hot or cold, can be used as "evidence" for further scaremongering.

    Guess what folks, there were floods and hurricanes and blizzards before humans ever existed. Before the first caveman learned to tame fire, Earth's temperature and climate varied in ways that dwarf today's minor fluctuations.

    Junk science-- mere blips of statistical noise tortured out of dubious computer simulations-- is being harnessed to the service of a coercive, collectivist political agenda.

    --
    Too much Law; not enough Order.
    1. Re:How convenient for the scaremongers by mOdQuArK! · · Score: 2, Insightful

      There's a big difference between predicting whether it will rain or not on a particular day, and forecasting climate trends.

  23. Mother Earth isn't sick, she's pregnant by FleaPlus · · Score: 2, Insightful

    Or so a space colonization advocate once said. The metaphor has its rough spots, but it's interesting nonetheless.

    Resistance is futile. In the end we and all our descendants will disappear. We will fry. Or freeze. We WILL die.

    If we get some viable off-world settlements, I'm sure we can make it to at least the heat-death of the universe.

  24. Re:fp? by Cally · · Score: 5, Informative
    > I'll believe in global warming the minute "scientists" find something to agree on.

    Hey, fella, guess what? You're in luck!The consensus on human CO2 emissions causing climate change is about as solid as you can get - despite what the oil-lobby, uninformed trolls and assorted net.kooks would have you believe.

    --
    "None are more hopelessly enslaved than those who falsely believe they are free." -- Goethe
  25. Re:Gaia by Decessus · · Score: 2, Informative

    Read this... The Dangers from Nuclear Weapons; Facts versus Myths It shows that even if the US and Russia had gotten into nuclear war, the probability of life ending on earth is pretty much zero. It would be incredibly devestating for sure, but it wouldn't be the end of life as we know it. It wouldn't even be the end of human life as we know it. I didn't know any of this until you mentioned it. I got curious and looked up some info on it.

  26. The Religion of Environmentalism by TFGeditor · · Score: 4, Insightful

    "I'll believe in global warming the minute 'scientists' find something to agree on."

    You hit on the operative word--"believe."

    Environmentalism (as opposed to conservation) has deteriorated into a religion, which by definition mandates belief from followers. If you doubt this, witness two of the topics that generate the most comments and flaming "Flamebait" moderations on /.

    Post something questioning religion (mainstream), global warming, or man's impact on the environment, then sit back and watch the zealot fireworks show.

    --
    Ignorance is curable, stupid is forever.
  27. Biblical Truth by EskimoJoe · · Score: 2, Informative

    Cool, more scientific proof that the Biblical story of Noah is true.

    --
    Get your Kicks on Route 66
  28. It was clear 20 years ago we would be dead by now. by Shivetya · · Score: 3, Insightful

    it was clear that the oceans would die by the turn of the century, the ozone hole would be so large it would cover parts of Africa, people would be dieing of radiation poisoning from the sun... etc etc etc.

    Weren't the ice caps supposed to be all gone soon?

    Why should even the public take notice anymore? The boy who cried wolf syndrome has worn done the public's acceptance.

    Proof has been constantly cited since the 70s and yet all the dire predictions have come to naught. I am not saying they are all wrong, I am saying that their proof leaves a lot to be desired and the only cause they are hurting is their own. I still laugh at all the predictions of doom from Kuwati and Iraqi oil fields being set ablaze if America acted (back in GulfWar1 and now 2)

    Face it, a cosmic mishap (solar/meteor), will do more to us than we can do short of a nuclear war. A few good volcanoes provide visible effect that the public can see and in some cases experience. The same effects are blamed on Global Warming by one group and El Nino by the next.

    Global Scientist are sure of one thing, that the weather is constantly changing. What they haven't proven beyond reasonable doubt is that mankind is the primary mover behind it, nor that America is the primary mover either.

    You want to see real pollution, travel to former Soviet states. You will see stuff that will make you cry. You want to see new and greater abuses of the environment just jog over to China - but don't expect anyone to care.

    In 20 years some then current environmentalist when confronted by dire predictions 20 years ago will dismiss those people as not having had the full picture whereas they do now. The same this is being said when opponents to the current pc point of view point out the fallacies of 20 years ago.

    --
    * Winners compare their achievements to their goals, losers compare theirs to that of others.
  29. laugh while you can, monkey boy by jeif1k · · Score: 3, Informative
    Did you even bother to read the story? This study shows that abrupt climate change can and does occur. Maybe it was triggered by a volcanic eruption. Maybe it was triggered by unusually strong forest fires. Maybe it was those in combination with some other factors. Maybe it was a surge in solar output, as the story suggests. The point is: short-term climate change can happen and it can have devastating consequences. As the author of the study says:
    "The climate system is remarkably sensitive to natural variability," he said. "It's likely that it is equally sensitive to effects brought on by human activity, changes like increased greenhouse gases, altered land-use policies and fossil-fuel dependence.

    "Any prudent person would agree that we don't yet understand the complexities with the climate system and, since we don't, we should be extremely cautious in how much we 'tweak' the system," he said.

    "The evidence is clear that a major climate change is underway."
    You know, people like you are one reason why the possibility of climate change wiping out the human race is perhaps not such a bad thing: investing as many resources in maintaining a big brain as the human body does is only worth it if it leads to better survival. But a species that ignores such serious warning signs as we have had about global climate change perhaps just doesn't have an evolutionary advantage compared to, say, rats or cockroaches. And they will survive climate change because their needs are more modest; they don't need to maintain big brains and all the complications that entails.
  30. MOD PARENT DOWN by WindBourne · · Score: 3, Interesting

    This is the same line of crap that I heard back in the 60's. That is all the DDT that we were spraying could not impact nature. Companies everywhere were saying that they could not possibly impact nature and while there might be some minor local issues it would never travel.

    To put forward totally false assertions (volcanos dump more CO2 than all of mankind does) is the same tripe that is being spewed by the oil companies. Mankind dumps a lot more CO2 than all but the very large super-volcanos (think Yellowstone).

    --
    I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.
    1. Re:MOD PARENT DOWN by untaken_name · · Score: 2, Interesting

      To put forward totally false assertions (volcanos dump more CO2 than all of mankind does) is the same tripe that is being spewed by the oil companies. Mankind dumps a lot more CO2 than all but the very large super-volcanos (think Yellowstone).

      I'm not agreeing or disagreeing with you here. I'm just pointing out a critical flaw in your reasoning. You say the assertion that volcanoes put out more CO2 than mankind is false, then you say that mankind puts out more CO2 than all volcanoes except the super-large ones.

      Thus, if mankind puts out more CO2 than all but the largest volcanoes, mankind puts out less CO2 than volcanoes and the assertion is not false. I'm not claiming that your base premise is true or false, only that stating it the way you did is nonsensical.

    2. Re:MOD PARENT DOWN by The+Wannabe+King · · Score: 2, Informative
      I'm not agreeing or disagreeing with you here. I'm just pointing out a critical flaw in your reasoning. You say the assertion that volcanoes put out more CO2 than mankind is false, then you say that mankind puts out more CO2 than all volcanoes except the super-large ones.

      Do you see any erupting super volcanoes? Perhaps not?

      Fortunately for us, they erupt very rarely. Wikipedia is your friend.

  31. Like quantum physics by Interfacer · · Score: 2, Insightful

    "That a system is too chaotic to predict on a microlevel does not mean we can't understand or predict it on a macrolevel."

    in quatum physics, you also cannot predict the exact path or position of one single electron. we don't need to either. it is sufficient that the majority of the electrons in your CRT end up on the phosphorus layer of your screen.

    Inidividual elecrons can theoretically end up anywhere anytime (unpredicatable) this does not mean that you can't use them.

  32. Re:fp? by Long-EZ · · Score: 2, Interesting

    When you have hard data, you don't need consensus.

    In the case of global warming, the only data you'd probably accept would be a couple of centuries with melted polar ice caps, massive species extinctions, and catastrophic climatic change.

    Yeah, hard data is generally preferable to informed opinions, but not when collecting the data is a planet destroying process. We sometimes need to extrapolate from incomplete data to derive a prudent course of action.

    The fact remains that the vast majority of climatologists believe humans are contributing to a process of global warming, with undesired results. Only a few vocal fringe elements have their theories amplified to create enough doubt to justify the policy of continuing along our present course while we "study the situation". Credible scientists believe the time to do nothing but study this situation has passed, and we now need to study it as we try to correct the problem.

    This is another case where big money dictates public policy. US energy policy is driven by fossil fuel suppliers, much to the detriment of our national security, balance of trade and environment. There are already plenty of viable renewable energy resources and technologies that would convert the US from an energy importer to an energy exporter, and many more promising technologies await in the near future. Promoting these energy technologies would be good fiscal policy, good defense policy, and good environmental policy. But it won't happen in an administration that invited Enron CEO Ken Lay to secret US energy policy meetings.

    Didja know that Condoleezza Rice had a Chevron oil tanker named after her?

    --
    >> My ultraviolent Linux switch video.
  33. Not all seem to agree by RogL · · Score: 2, Interesting

    IANACS (I Am Not A Climate Scientist), but while there are areaa w/ warming trends, there are also some odd cooling trends. Interesting quote from a link below:

    Since 1940, however, the Greenland coastal stations data have undergone predominantly a cooling trend. At the summit of the Greenland ice sheet the summer average temperature has decreased at the rate of 2.2 C per decade since the beginning of the measurements in 1987.

    Some links:

    Fun quote from a actual MIT climatologist, Richard S. Lindzen :

    the Antarctic is not warming and there is nothing in the models that distinguish the temperature trends they predict in the Arctic from those in the Antarctic.
    Check out the Reason article - some knowledgeable people have doubts about global warming, or question it's magnitude. It's bizarre that one pole is warming, the other is cooling...

    My favorite quote from the Reason article:

    Climate is messy.
  34. Listen, tree-hugger by gd23ka · · Score: 2, Interesting

    We're not, tree-hugger. First of all the one thing I agree with is that we need to cut down on environmental toxity, not only on atmospheric emissions but also on other sources of disease such as for example the less than nutritional food that is forced upon us.

    However, tree-hugger, just as healthy foods such as hormone-free meat, eggs without antibiotica, salad and fruit without pesticide are far more tastier than the crap they sell at the supermarket, there is no reason whatsoever to cut down on the amenities of modern life. Forcing everybody on a train with set schedules and set destinations is communist. Our road system gives us the freedom to go where we want exactly when we want and on top we also get the who we want because we don't have to share our car with total strangers. Hydrogen powered cars will sooner or later replace cars running on petrochemicals and electric trains will sooner or later exclusively carry cargo but not people.

    As to throwing garbage on the ground, maybe we should look into improving and streamlining the process of getting it removed FROM THE GROUND before putting up a waste-basket every 200 feet or so or even making people take their garbage home. Undoubtedly in the mid-term future, "garbage" such as paper, plastic or even organics will be a much in demand commodity. Just consider the fact that once we run out of oil we also run out of cheap plastic.

    Driving through town is indeed a horrible experience, I'll give you that. Most of it however is due to the fact that the demand we put on the road system in general has risen exponentially while existing infrastructure is geared towards the demand of the fifties. Japan is one of the worlds most space constrained countries and cities in the west will adopt japanese traffic solutions such as stacking multiple stories of roads on top of another or moving stores, amusements and even offices below the ground. Small to medium cities and towns will increasingly divert dense traffic from downtown areas to city limits, offering commerce growth at the perimeter. (You, upset walking/cycling dude will have to walk a hell of a lot more, of course),

    Tell you what, you are indeed a member of an odd minority that insists on inefficiency, something an employer is least likely to appreciate. I would suggest that you take your car to work and then in the evening ride your bicycle in a Bicycle-Park or other designated area where it can not interfere with traffic nor be endanged by it.

    Whatever you do, however, don't bitch at us because we do not literally go the extra mile. Bitch at the people that deliberately hold back both technology and society.

  35. Re:I know the idea of actually reading a story... by fmaxwell · · Score: 2, Insightful

    Nice job of avoiding the really important points of his post, in which he quotes the article:

    "The climate system is remarkably sensitive to natural variability," he said. "It's likely that it is equally sensitive to effects brought on by human activity, changes like increased greenhouse gases, altered land-use policies and fossil-fuel dependence.

    "Any prudent person would agree that we don't yet understand the complexities with the climate system and, since we don't, we should be extremely cautious in how much we 'tweak' the system," he said.

  36. Straw Man Argument by fmaxwell · · Score: 3, Insightful

    I know the idea that our environment is a static entity that will only be changed should someone like the evil corporations or the Bush administration do something to it is a commonly accepted idea, but that is just scientifically inaccurate.

    That's also a straw man argument, since no one is making that claiming. Everyone knows that the environment can be affected by things beyond man's control. But that doesn't mean that we should just ignore those things we can control. "Well, a meteor strike could wipe out life on Earth, so let's not worry about dioxyn, PCBs, air pollution, or greenhouse gas emissions. And what's with those whiners in Bhopal, India? So what if Union Carbide killed thousands. Earthquakes kill thousands of people, so why should Union Carbide have to be concerned with safety?" That's Republican logic (to use an oxymoron) for you.

  37. Re: Dumb Democrat? by Long-EZ · · Score: 5, Informative

    show me a solution to the problem and will back it

    The problems are:

    1) Convention. We have infrastructure in place to burn fossil fuels, and inertia being what it is, we continue along that course. Maintaining the status quo is bad for the environment. It also results in an unfavorable balance of trade for the US. I was amused by the public service announcements equating drug use with funding terrorists. The US is addicted to oil from the Middle East, and that addiction is the real source of funding for Middle Eastern terrorists.

    2) Subsidies. There are pseudo-subsidies which make it difficult for alternative energy to compete with fossil fuels. These aren't direct government subsidies to the oil industry, although some amount of that wouldn't surprise me. Many of the costs of burning fossil fuels are not paid by the fuel infrastructure. Pollution is paid for in a number of other places, including everything from the EPA budget, to the increased cost of insurance and health care relating to environmentally related illnesses, to the increased maintenance costs we all pay for tasks such as repainting because smog damages almost everything it touches. And who pays for medical care of coal miners with black lung? How much of our taxes does the US government contribute to cleaning up oil spills? If fossil fuels paid for all the problems they cause our society, solar and wind power would be more than cost effective in a fair comparison.

    3) Fuelish Government Policies. As one example, the US government offers a substantial tax break to businesses who buy trucks of a certain size. The idea was ostensibly to encourage small businesses to buy delivery trucks and farmers to buy farm related vehicles. But the policy was almost instantly exploited. It encouraged automakers to produce the land barge sized SUVs. Almost every auto maker has a model large enough to qualify, and they're sold to businesses that provide them as company cars. So the government is encouraging auto makers to build 12 mpg SUVs, by offering tax incentives for businesses to buy them.

    GM created the EV1 electric car. They leased them to many customers, and the customers loved them. They were very low maintenance, requiring no oil changes and even reduced brake wear because they employed regenerative braking. Best of all, there was never a need to stop for gas. It charges automatically while parked in the garage at night when the off peak electric rates are low. It's easy to imagine solar charging for the EV1. But GM decided to focus 30+ years down the road on the hope of hydrogen cars. Despite angry protests from their customers, they pulled the EV1 off lease. Some of their customers wanted to absolve GM of all liability and support for the EV1 and purchase it outright, after essentially already buying it during the lease period. GM refused. It sure looks like an attempt to suppress technology.

    So, here are the solutions to the problem. Start backing them.

    We could have electric cars today that pollute much less than internal combustion engine cars, even when they're ultimately powered by coal powered plants as an interim solution. Solar power is available almost everywhere and even though Moore's Law does not apply to solar cells, a similar effect seems likely. Once we converted our energy system to mostly solar, huge economies of scale apply and the price drops enormously. Solar panels have proven to be low maintenance with long term reliability. If we get the initial cost down, the payback period will be shorter and this technology will appeal even to short sighted American businesses.

    We need less expensive solar cells, more efficient energy storage devices, and a change in our infrastructure to support alternative energy solutions.

    Finally, one obviously simple technique that would have the single largest impact in our energy policy would be to drastically reduce the amount of fossil fuels being burned for space heating and water heating.

    --
    >> My ultraviolent Linux switch video.
  38. Bioaccumulation by hey! · · Score: 5, Interesting

    Sure, and in WW2, recruits were doused with DDT powder to get rid of body lice, with no ill effect, as is agreed by anyone who knows anything about the subject.

    The key is that the form in which a substance is delivered determines if it can be absorbed into the body and delivered to the right places to do damage. This is the same reason that the idea of spiking a water supply with plutonium to kill millions of people is not going to work.

    DDT is not all that acutely toxic. But it can be delivered to animals, particularly predator birds, in a very harmful way.

    The key is that DDT persists in the environment. It is not broken down by organisms ingesting it, it is mainly stored in their tissues. Thus it disappears from the environment very, very slowly. Exotic organic chemicals that behave this way, or that break down into other chemicals that behave this way, are a problem even if they don't necessarily have immediate impact on the environment. If critter A ingests the rather low concentrations in the general environment, no particular harm occurs. What people immediately missed is that if critter B eats critter A, he'll get a somewhat bigger dose of the material than critter A did, because terrestrial animals need to consume something like ten pounds of food to create a pound of body mass. Critter C gets an even bigger dose, all the way down to critter Z which gets a huge dose.

    This process of amplification of the background concentration of a non-biodegradable substance is called bioaccumulation. Birds are particularly vulnerable because their energy requirements are so high, especially raptors like eagles.

    Yet, even so, the effect of DDT on birds is not very acutely toxic. It has a subtle effect. Unfortunately that subtle effect happens to be that they lay eggs with extremely brittle shells.

    Personally, I don't think DDT should have necessarily been banned, however, it was overused. It could have been used in emergency situations for a limited time at a rate close to the rate at which it would eventually disappear (if that rate could be determined). However it was used in typical 50s fashion as a miracle quick fix agent. The spirit is not completely lost -- we use antibacterial agents in soap, even matresses, for absolutely no good reason.

    In any case, materials now in use, such as permethrin (targetting adult insects) do break down in the environment. This means that they don't bioaccumulate. The disadvantage is that you have to use them more frequently. The advantage is that you use them in response to an actual problem. Other materials such as BT that target larval stage insects not only biodegrade, but target smaller habitats. Rather than saturate broad swathsw environment with an agent that kills adult insects (including beneficials), you target the specific habitat where insects develop in their early larval stages. Furthermore with integrated pest management, a combination of strategies are used such as targetting and reducing specific habitats important to precise life stages of specific insects.

    The bottom line is that properly and wisely applied, the world probably could make use DDT. But we were wrong to use it the way we did, and probably right to ban it so we'd be forced to develop effective and environmentally responsible strategies and materials. And we have. If we hadd DDT in our armamentarium, it'd only make a marginal difference.

    --
    Post may contain irony: discontinue use if experiencing mood swings, nausea or elevated blood pressure.
  39. Re:DDT by WindBourne · · Score: 2

    DDT is still used outside of the USA but it is tightly controlled. Panama (and other central/south American nations) has found the same problem that we had. That is it does not break down and it accumulates up the food chain. In particular, it made bird eggs brittle and was killing them. As to no alternatives, permethrin does the job nicely and breaks down and kills the same insects. Environmentalists vs. Companies who ignore or hide science.

    --
    I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.
  40. Planet X Is COMING TO KILL YOU! by JavaLord · · Score: 2, Funny

    You beat me to posting this, but it's obviously Planet X! The Sun's long lost brother is coming back to kill us, everyone knew we were a binary star right? Some people also call Planet X by the name "Nibiru"

    From Wikipedia:

    Nibiru has an orbit around the sun of 3,600 Earth years. It is suggested that current astronomy points to the possibility that Nibiru is a brown dwarf or dark star rather than a planet. This has the implication that our solar system, like the majority in the known universe, is a binary star system; in other words, Earth has two suns with Nibiru being the second and less bright.

    According to Sitchin, Nibiru/Marduk's inhabitants called Anunnaki (Ningischzida) survived and afterward came to Earth. Sitchin says some sources speak about the same planet, possibly being a brown dwarf star and still orbiting the Sun with a perihelion passage some 3,600 years ago and assumed orbital period of about 3,600 to 3,760 years or 3,741 years. Sitchin attributes these figures to astronomers of the Maya civilization, but the supposed sources are unfamiliar to Mayanists.

    In a recently published book, titled 2012: Appointment With Marduk, Turkish writer/researcher Burak Eldem presents a new theory, suggesting a 3,661 years orbital period for the planet, and he claims a "return date" in the year 2012. According to Eldem's theory, 3,661 is one-seventh of 25,627, which is the total time span of "5 World Ages" according to Mayan Long Count Calendar system. The last orbital passage of Marduk, he adds, was in 1649 BC and caused great catastrophes on earth, including the Thera Eruption.


    So there you have it. Planet X is coming, the internet said so. We are all going to die. Look at the bright side though, at least we won't have to watch Episode 3 or code for Longhorn.

  41. Re:fp? by Stephen+Samuel · · Score: 3, Insightful
    and others saying that ice ages come in between warm periods.

    That's known as a truism. It's the warm periods that delineate the ice ages (and vice versa). If you had two ice ages in a row, we'd just call it one long ice age. Similarly for warm periods.

    So it was a quiet period followed by ...
    Another quiet period.
    So there was just one long quiet period
    No. There were two quiet periods. Two distinct quiet periods.
    Was there a noise between the two quiet periods?
    No, I already told you that! Nothing between them!
    So how could you tell that there were two qiet periods and not one?
    Are you trying to call me a liar.???!!!!
    Saying things like "we have less effect than one major Eruption", may be true while the eruption is going on, but few major eruptions continue for more than a few days. Our society is having an effect in the range of a major eruption, but 24/7, 365 days a year.

    It's like the difference to your electric bill between baking a cake, and leaving the oven on -- door open -- for an entire month.

    Especially in the early days of global warming research, there was a lot of controversy over whether it was happening, and whether human activity was a (or the) prime contributor. In the last few years, however, it's become more a question of how fast and how far.

    The north pole, which has survived for millenia has thinned by 30% in the last couple of decades -- at that rate it could be gone in my lifetime -- and in the meantime, it's eating a lot of the excess energy that we've been pumping into the ecosystem and capturing with the greenhouse effect.

    A similar effect is occurring in antarctica. Ice shelves that have survived 3 or 4 ice-age cycles are breaking off wholesale. Right now, there's a massive 80 mile long iceberg that is threatening to starve one of the major penguin colonies (as well as possibly preventing this year's supplies from being delivered to three antarctic research station)

    Consider now, an entirely different analogy:
    Let's say you're driving down the road one night, and 5 people try to warn you (over the CB radio) that the bridge ahead seems to be washed out. You're in a rush (late for a hot date), and none of these people has actally seen the washed out bridge. Furthermore, one person is telling you that the road ahead is fine (your rival for the date you're going to meet). Do you keep going pedal-to-the-metal, or do you slow down enough so that you can stop if the bridge is really out?

    --
    Free Software: Like love, it grows best when given away.
  42. Re:It was clear 20 years ago we would be dead by n by Cally · · Score: 3, Informative
    it was clear that the oceans would die by the turn of the century, the ozone hole would be so large it would cover parts of Africa, people would be dieing of radiation poisoning from the sun... etc etc etc.
    No-one ever suggested any of this would happen. The ozone hole has stabilised and perhaps started to shrink because the world took notice of warnings from atmospheric physicists and chemists and agreed to phase out the use of CFCs. It was called the Montreal Protocol and is an excellent examlpe of worldwide action to counter an imminent threat to the whole planet.

    Weren't the ice caps supposed to be all gone soon?
    I defy you to find a single reputable scientist who made this prediction. Just because your eyes glaze over when the subject comes up so that yuo hear the equvialent of radio static when peiople use words with more than two syllables doesn't mean that people talk bollocks you know.

    Proof has been constantly cited since the 70s and yet all the dire predictions have come to naught.
    Look, this is just bullshit. You keep on making these wild assertions that have no basis in fact and then knocking them downas if that proves something. These are what we call 'straw man' arguments.

    A few good volcanoes provide visible effect that the public can see and in some cases experience.
    This is just not true, and if you're so stupid as to regurgitate such outright crap it indicates you haven't bothered doing the most cursory attempt to research any, like,... 'facts'. You have humiliated yourself in public, well done. I'm not sure I can be bothered going thru' the rest of your post. Go away and read some facts about the subject, then come back and apologise for spouting nonsense on a subject yuo know nothing about. A google search for 'FAQ climate change science' would be a good start. Otherwise I recommend:
    --
    "None are more hopelessly enslaved than those who falsely believe they are free." -- Goethe
  43. Discount Climate Change by The+Wicked+Priest · · Score: 2, Funny

    When I went to RTFA, in the Google ads in the left column, I got this one:

    Ads by Goooooogle
    Discount Climate Change
    New & used Climate Change. aff Check out the huge selection now!
    www.eBay.com

    I swear I am not making this up.

    --
    Share and Enjoy: 09 F9 11 02 9D 74 E3 5B D8 41 56 C5 63 56 88 C0
  44. Black Sea flood debunked by Democratus · · Score: 2, Informative

    This theory has been largely debunked since its release in 1998.

    While it makes for a good story, the evidence simply doesn't back up the claim.

    From the conclusions of the ocenographers, Dr. Abrajano and Dr. Aksu:

    For the Noah's Ark Hypothesis to be correct, one has to speculate that there was no flowing of water between the Black Sea and the Marmara Sea before the speculated great deluge. We have found this to be incorrect."

    Evidence was found of sustained, non catastrophic interaction between the Mediterranean and the Black Sea for the past 10,000 years.

    However the flooding of the Persian Gulf is still a compelling theory as to the Great Flood stories.

  45. NATIONAL SECURITY ALERT -- MOD PARENT DOWN by Mr+Guy · · Score: 3, Funny

    Parent post is revealing Cheney's undisclosed location! Mod parent down unless you hate America!