Mass Extinctions from Global Warming?

uncleO writes "The current issue of Scientific American has an interesting article, Impact from the Deep, about the possible causes for the five major global extinctions. It contends that only the most recent one was caused by a 'dinosaur killer' asteroid impact. Evidence suggests that the others were caused by 'great bubbles of toxic H2S gas erupting into the atmosphere' from the oceans due to anoxia." From the article: "The so-called thermal extinction at the end of the Paleocene began when atmospheric CO2 was just under 1,000 parts per million (ppm). At the end of the Triassic, CO2 was just above 1,000 ppm. Today with CO2 around 385 ppm...climbing at an annual rate of 2 ppm...to 3 ppm, levels could approach 900 ppm by the end of the next century."

Comments

Fearmongering is not the way to do this.

[fyngyrz]

The only extinction I really expect to see is that of the reputations of "scientists" who harp on CO2 emissions when CO2 is a very small part of the overall picture; Methane has a far greater effect, as do many other things.

We have every reason to reduce emissions. I'm absolutely pro-emission-reduction; cleaner air is better for every living thing and that's a perfectly good justification to swing me. However, bogus, over-hyped faux "science" just serves to give the opponents somewhere to stand and take a swing at the "scientists."

The fact is, we've been warmer, and we've been colder, and CO2 is not the be-all, end-all index of why it is cold or hot. For instance, just let a major volcano erupt and you'll see a temperature swing that'll get your attention. Or let methane generation get completely out of hand, that'll put CO2 in perspective for you.

Aside from all that, we'll cope with whatever comes our way, anyway. We always have; we always will. Barring asteroid impacts, of course.

Re:Fearmongering is not the way to do this.

[Anonymous Coward]

Ahh, yeah. Let's continue pumping out CO2 as fast as we can possibly dig up the oil and coal,
because it is out of our control and we'll cope anyway.

Oh, and ridiculing science is always fun. I'm sure you must know more about the subject than
all of them put together, which is what makes it so funny.

God forbid we should actually change our habits or do something that may take a single cent
off our net profit, until there is 100%, undeniable evidence that we are destroying the planet.
Anyone who thinks we should is a dirty tree hugging hippy who isn't making any money out of it
anyway.

Re:Fearmongering is not the way to do this.

[Daniel Franklin]

Are you a "scientist"?

Perhaps you should read some of the literature. Of all the greenhouse gases, CO2 is, by a considerable margin, the most significant. Methane (and others) are far more potent... there just isn't as much, so their effect is smaller.

The fact is, global temperatures are strongly correlated with CO2 concentration. That's a mathematical fact, recorded in the ice of Antarctica. CO2 concentrations are increasing at an unprecedented rate. This is a real cause for concern. Glaciers are shrinking... major chunks of Antarctica are just melting away. I don't doubt that we can survive. However, unless we do something *now* about all the crap we are pumping into the atmosphere (primarily CO2, but also methane and others) we are going to see significant rises in sea levels within our lifetime.

Re:Fearmongering is not the way to do this.

[ccarson]

I've been following global warming for a long time now doing a lot research on the side for the last couple of years. Here are some facts about global warming. Some of which you hear and don't hear from the main stream media:

1.) The world appears to be getting warmer with many computer models showing an increase in global temperature.
2.) Tying a trend to warmer temperatures based on older data from the early 1900's is suspect at best. Good, reliable, accurate scientific equipment that measures the temperature wasn't readily available until recently (late 1900's).
3.) The sun's activity has increased by approx. 10% in the last 15 years. In other words, it's getting hotter.
4.) Apparently, the Earth magnetic field has decreased by 10% in the last 10 years. I'm an electrical engineer and during my studies in particle physics, I learned that a particles velocity can be affected by magnetic fields. I keep hearing about the increased activity of our Sun and believe it's possible that more of the Sun's radiation is penetrating the Earth's magnetic field due to it being weaker. If more radiation hits the Earth and the Sun is spewing out more heat, shouldn't that also increase the overall temperature of the Earth and can global warming be attributed to this?
5.) Jupitor is experiencing the same climate change that Earth is. (source: http://www.space.com/scienceastronomy/060504_red_j r.html)
6.) Mars is experiencing the same climate change that Earth is. (source: http://www.space.com/scienceastronomy/solarsystem/ mars_snow_011206-1.html)


How can you explain the recent same climate changes on different planets? I doubt it's all those cars being driven there.

Is it possible that the warmer temperatures that Earth is experiencing are caused by cyclical natural phenomena? What about glaciers in Greenland that have been shrinking for 100 years (source: http://www.breitbart.com/news/2006/08/21/060821191 826.o0mynclv.html)? What about the American dust bowl in the early 1930's? Was that caused by huge carbon emissions or was it a small natural climate cycle that just happens? Also, how do you explain huge ice ages on Earth? Were those climate changes, which are no doubt more extreme than what's going on now, caused by the combustion engine?

Re:Fearmongering is not the way to do this.

[Anonymous Coward]

Science is a long and slow process. You cannot knee-jerk it into working for you, as so many people want to believe. It has taken science 77 years just to prove that breast really isn't best (it's just equal). Something as simple to study as that takes 77 years to get right, you better believe something as complicated and with so many more uncontrollable factors as the environment will take much longer.

The question is, are we willing to risk total destruction of our economy and pre-industrial revolution living standards over what amounts to little more than a scientific theory? We're not talking about a theory that has concretely provable (and now, again, disprovable) components like Einstein's theory of relativity -- we're talking multiple theories that, while in the general sense show a consensus, in the specific sense show several different paths to take and have no specific way to prove them right now other than to take the plunge and see what happens.

I, for one, would rather take the cautious route and wait for more concrete, proven, and accurate information. The economy isn't a laser light beam that you can turn on and off at will. Turning it off (which is what would be required to reduce emissions to the point that most of the more environmentally-evagelistic scientists wish) will result in drastic changes not only to things like lifestyle, but also drastic changes to our standards of health and hunger.

I, for one, believe there is a much better middle ground than "no more CO2 emissions". But, unfortunately, as long as the extremists are able to shout the loudest, we will continue to be unable to find the middle ground.

This really is not much more different than religion, if you think about it. Consider that to the right you would have extremist christians and catholics, people who would, at some point in time, find a way to get rid of anyone who wasn't white. And to the left you have extremist muslims that would be happy to blow up anyone that isn't arabic. In the middle you have people who are whatever religion their parents were and that go to church once a month out of a sense of duty, and some agnostics that don't care so much. Your ultra-right christians would be like your Exxons of the world that just want it all at any cost. Your ultra-left muslims would be like your greenpeaces of the world that just want everyone to have nothing at any cost. Everyone else wants a life of balance but can't get it as long as the other two keep fighting each other.

Example 1: We could easily power everything we use today with nuclear power, at a cost to the economy, if implemented slowly, that would be negligible. The end result would even likely be positive. But we can't have that because ultra-left environmental groups like the Sierra Club think that nuclear power will kill us all. The truth is it's the safest power we've invented yet.

Example 2: We could give people a perfect mass transit system, again, at a cost that would, if implemented at a reasonable pace, be very low. And, clearly, the end result is positive. But if we did that ultra-right oil companies like Shell would tell us our economy will collapse and we'll all die. The truth is that more mass transit helps cities become safer, more tightly-knit communities and redistributes the wealth away from large corporations naturally by positively encouraging local economy over remote economies WITHOUT the nasty look of "WE HATE WAL*MART MAKE THEM LEAVE".

Example 3: We could work on both of the above at a pace that doesn't get people pissed off, that encourages a healthy economy, and it would be of great benefit. But we can't do that because insano ultra-nutball doomsdayer scientists-that-have-the-PhD-but-not-the-scientifi c-method will tell us it's too slow and why the hell aren't we dead already? We need to stop doing anything at all and freeze to death already, dammit!

The ultimate answer, of course, lies within both of the above ideas, but neither will ever be fully

Re:Fearmongering is not the way to do this.

[Elkboy]

2.) Scientists do new measurements on old sources. We don't just rely on old measurements.

3.) Who says that? According to the World Radiation Center and the Max Planck institute, there has been no increase in solar irradiance since the 40s.

5.) Jupiter, the gas giant, which is so much like the earth? As for Mars, it's interesting how just a few snaps from space can make you think, while years and years of direct measurements and hundreds of thousands of years of proxy data from earth means nothing.

Noone is denying that natural cycles exist. But there is no theory to explain the observed climate changes based on natural cycles alone. They work on time scales of thousands of years, while we're seeing change on a scale of just decades or centuries. What natural cycles do show us, however, is that an increase in CO2 concentration means higher temperatures. That is a fact, just as the observed spike in CO2 concentration is a fact. The data also shows that natural CO2 fluctuations did have a strong effect on ice ages and warm periods, and now humans have increased CO2 levels to historical highs.

Re:Fearmongering is not the way to do this.

[Xiroth]

Depends on the living thing, actually. Higher CO2 levels would be good for most life which relies on photosynthesis, for example - which in the end means just about all of it, because almost everything that doesn't rely on photosynthesis directly relies on it indirectly. There is little evidence to suggest that increased levels of CO2 has significant adverse effects on life which relies on aerobic respiration either - it acts pretty much as a neutral participant, like nitrogen (unlike clearly destructive pollutants, such as CO).

However, global warming is bad for humans because of the instability it would create in the climate globally, as well as the obvious effects of the rising sea levels. The environment doesn't need our help in this, and this should be a humanist movement rather than an environmental one - all of the significant reasons to prevent global warming are to do with saving ourselves.

Re:Fearmongering is not the way to do this.

[fyngyrz]

Who says that? According to the World Radiation Center and the Max Planck institute, there has been no increase in solar irradiance since the 40s.

There have been some really exceptional flares recently, X-class and basically darned near off the scale (X22(!), in 2001 if memory serves.) We've been lucky enough to miss a direct hit from the worst of them, but clearly, old sol is having a bit of a temper tantrum, at least when you consider the narrow environmental window we can survive within. As a ham radio operator, I've been carefully watching, and been directly affected by, the 11-ish year solar cycle for the last fifty years, and I can tell you that the atmosphere's behavior today in terms of propagation is not even remotely similar to the way it was when I first began paying attention. This is essentially a direct the result of solar activity, and of little else, as near as anyone has been able to figure out. So I'm inclined to be doubtful when anyone says that solar input to the planet isn't changing, based on my own observations, for which I have logs dating back to the late fifties.

But there is no theory to explain the observed climate changes based on natural cycles alone.

This does not mean that we are not seeing a natural cycle. There is no validated theory connecting quantum and macro level activity, either, but that doesn't mean it isn't connected. There is no theory that definitively explains how a "big bang" could come about, yet it may be the case, and so on. The bottom line is, nature doesn't give a hoot for our theories, it does what it does despite what we believe. Theories are our best shot at trying to understand what is going on. But in many cases -- how brains work, what intelligence means, interesting details about gravity, and yes, climate, theory is not really very well nailed down.

The fact that in the geological record, CO2 increases lag warming periods by quite a bit puts at least some reasonable doubt on it as a causative agent, per se. Dust, on the other hand, is a known causative agent (see 1816, AKA the "year without a summer" for a seminal example.) It may well be that particulates are a far greater villain in the end. Certainly the more recent records (last millennium or so) favors this outlook.

Look, it is perfectly reasonable to argue for reduction of emissions. We have lots of right here, right now, reasons to so argue. Acid rain. Particulate levels of various unfriendly materials. Radioactivity from burning coal. Simple visibility beyond a mile or so in urban areas. Why not stick with what we actually know instead of creating a cult of "CO2 is the Evil Heat God" worshipers out of what is really pretty doubtful (and ass backwards in terms of causality) theory? Maybe a hundred years from now we'll have a handle on climate. Maybe (though I personally doubt it) on weather as well. But clearly, we do not today, and it seems quite ridiculous to get in a froth over such doubtful science.

And then there's the whole "politically correct" factor; there is no question that speaking against the climate change faction is not any way to get funding, to get published, or even to get invited to a party. That's got a very bad smell when it applies to science. We're supposed to make predictions from the data, not match the data to our predictions, no matter what the outside influences are. I fear climate science has done very poorly in this regard. From strident predictions of an "immanent ice age" to "we're all gonna fry!" within the space of a few decades is a real bell-ringer. It seems to me that these folks need to spend a little more time looking at what is happening before we should pay them a whole lot of attention in terms of them having the definitive scoop on what's going to happen... or not.

Re:Fearmongering is not the way to do this.

[Bongo]

Realclimate.org explains it -- basically, there are other factors besides CO2 that affect global temperature. CO2 is released when warming starts and drives the majority of the later warming. 800 years is a small part of the warming cycles and all this lag shows us is that historically, global warming has been triggered by other factors. There's no doubt that increased CO2 traps more heat and it's a fact that CO2 concentrations are at historical highs due to human emissions.

They "explain" it using a hypothesis. And yes, the 800 year lag doesn't disprove that CO2 traps heat, but then, their hypothesis doesn't prove that it traps all the heat needed for that further 4200 year warming. Instead, consider a simpler hypothesis, namely that whatever caused the initial 800 year warming, also caused most of the subsequent 4200 year warming. Otherwise, why else would temperatures eventually drop while CO2 remained high?

Re:Fearmongering is not the way to do this.

[ajs]

First off, excellent post, and thank you.

I just wanted to follow up on one bit:

Look, it is perfectly reasonable to argue for reduction of emissions. We have lots of right here, right now, reasons to so argue. Acid rain. Particulate levels of various unfriendly materials. Radioactivity from burning coal. Simple visibility beyond a mile or so in urban areas.

This is where classic risk management comes in, a topic sadly ignored by most of the current round of environmentalists. Topics with long-range impact and highly variable outcomes (global warming, nuclear waste) are hot-buttons, but companies that are polluting the third world to an extent where immediate and large-scale deaths result (Coca-Cola and Union Carbide, for example, not to mention the Chinese government) get almost no attention. All of the focus right now is on the emission of CO2. Sulphur and other toxins which have greater impact on the environment in the short term are nearly ignored.

In fact, most of the problems that you list have very little to do with CO2, and current plans to reduce CO2 emissions would have little impact on them.

Re:Fearmongering is not the way to do this.

[AoT]

I must say, this is a wonderful expansion of the older versions of anti-global warming arguments. Let's boil it down to what you're really saying.

Science is a long and slow process. You cannot knee-jerk it into working for you, as so many people want to believe. It has taken science 77 years just to prove that breast really isn't best (it's just equal). Something as simple to study as that takes 77 years to get right, you better believe something as complicated and with so many more uncontrollable factors as the environment will take much longer.

Yes, the environment is a complex system and can be quite difficult to understand. I'm a bit confused about the "breast isn't best" comment. I assume you mean the recent study that showed that breast feeding didn't contribute to intellegence levels, which is fine, but it does contribute to the immune system.

The question is, are we willing to risk total destruction of our economy and pre-industrial revolution living standards over what amounts to little more than a scientific theory? We're not talking about a theory that has concretely provable (and now, again, disprovable) components like Einstein's theory of relativity -- we're talking multiple theories that, while in the general sense show a consensus, in the specific sense show several different paths to take and have no specific way to prove them right now other than to take the plunge and see what happens.

Ah, here comes the scare factor. I can flip this around and ask whether we are willing to bet our living standards on continuing things the way they are now on the assumption that things will remain the same? Do we expect our world to support continued growth for an indefinite time? We're talking about multiple assumptions that seem reasonable but have no evidence at all that things will remain the same, in fact we have evidence to the opposite.

I, for one, would rather take the cautious route and wait for more concrete, proven, and accurate information. The economy isn't a laser light beam that you can turn on and off at will. Turning it off (which is what would be required to reduce emissions to the point that most of the more environmentally-evagelistic scientists wish) will result in drastic changes not only to things like lifestyle, but also drastic changes to our standards of health and hunger.

I, for one, believe there is a much better middle ground than "no more CO2 emissions". But, unfortunately, as long as the extremists are able to shout the loudest, we will continue to be unable to find the middle ground.

Again, this isn't what you're saying. What you're saying is that you would like hard evidence that what you think is wrong, and yet you fail to present evidence that your view is correct.

This really is not much more different than religion, if you think about it. Consider that to the right you would have extremist christians and catholics, people who would, at some point in time, find a way to get rid of anyone who wasn't white. And to the left you have extremist muslims that would be happy to blow up anyone that isn't arabic. In the middle you have people who are whatever religion their parents were and that go to church once a month out of a sense of duty, and some agnostics that don't care so much. Your ultra-right christians would be like your Exxons of the world that just want it all at any cost. Your ultra-left muslims would be like your greenpeaces of the world that just want everyone to have nothing at any cost. Everyone else wants a life of balance but can't get it as long as the other two keep fighting each other.

No, it is completely different than religion. Religion has no basis in evidence, religion is based on faith.

Example 1: We could easily power everything we use today with nuclear power, at a cost to the economy, if implemented slowly, that would be negligible. The end result would even likely be positive. But we can't have that because ultra-left environmental groups like the Sierra Club

Re:Fearmongering is not the way to do this.

[shma]

There is no validated theory connecting quantum and macro level activity, either, but that doesn't mean it isn't connected

There is no need for such a theory because quantum mechanics applies in macroscopic situations as well.You can easily show that for systems where the scales are macroscopic the quantum equations reduce to their classical counterparts (mathematically, you just take the limit of h --> 0). I suggest you look at Ehrenfest's theorem, which gives back the newton's laws.

There is no theory that definitively explains how a "big bang" could come about

Actually, there is. It's called inflation, and is generally accepted as describing what actually happened in the early universe.

And then there's the whole "politically correct" factor; there is no question that speaking against the climate change faction is not any way to get funding, to get published, or even to get invited to a party.

Why is it I always see this argument brought up? Do you really think that oil companies and republican think tanks aren't paying as well universities? That the only way to make a living as a climate scientist is to tow some kind of party line? That there's some secret pact among 2000 scientists to lie about climate chage? To what end? For what reason? What do they have to gain? They could make a lot more playing for the other side.

Re:Fearmongering is not the way to do this.

[shma]

...funny how hard they're trying to come up with one, them. :)

They aren't, as far as I know. Perhaps you're thinking of theories which attempt to unify general relativity and quantum mechanics. These are theories that are problematic at high energies and small length scales, not macroscopic scales. Like I said, quantum mechanics works perfectly well at the macroscopic scale.

I said "come about": That means, the conditions that led to it (big bang), not how it progressed once it was under way.

Perhaps you haven't studied this, but inflation does not only solve the problems of Big Bang theory (and in case you didn't know, the prediction of all of space reducing to a point at zero-time is understood to be false, a result of the failure of general relativity at high energies), but does correctly bring about a universe which resembles that of a FRW universe at early time.

I suspect you see it because it is a valid argument.

I see it only as an attempt to portray scientists as being as corrupt as the politicians and businessmen who try and put their pseudo-science out into the public and pass it off as real science for their own economic benefit.

Tenure, funding, pride of place at cocktail parties, self-respect...Your argument of funding from oil companies is pitiful. No serious scientist wants that.

No serious scientist would consider 'pride of place at cocktail parties' to be a deciding factor in what they research either. Maybe you are unaware of how much scientists are paid, but they could earn much more in any other position. most do it for the love of research, and no SERIOUS scientist would consider 'going with the herd' on any issue. They're convinced of climate change because they recognize that the results of their experiments are scientifically sound.

You caught me on 'tow' though. Seriously, though, who expected its origins to be from a foot race?

Give Up - Commercial Interests too Powerful

[SRA8]

Give up people. Commercia interests are too powerful to care about Global Warming. Heck, they cant manage to fix things that will affect us in 10 to 20 yrs (social security, balooning health care.) Who cares about something truly long term? Please correct me if i'm wrong, but I do think that we're screwed on this one...

Re:Give Up - Commercial Interests too Powerful

[LaughingCoder]

Commercia[l] interests are too powerful to care about Global Warming.

This attitude drives me crazy. If a large number of consumers start demanding greener products, some "commercial interest" will supply them. They will do this to gain an advantage over their competitors or a foothold in an entrenched market. Witness hybrid cars. They command a significant price premium over gas-only, yet there are waiting lists to buy them. Most financial analysts say they don't pay back that premium, even at $4/gallon for gas. But yet many people buy them anyhow - because they believe in the cause. And I'm sure they are very profitable as well (that nasty p-word). Those profits help the "commercial interests" to re-invest in even better models and progress is made. What is not helpful is reams of well-meaning government regulations which mostly serve to suffocate innovation, while at the same time, usually having unintended consequences that are more damaging than the problem they were attempting to address.

Politicians won't care

[PhoenixAtlantios]

The politicians, their children, and even their children's children will all be dead and long gone by the time the next century ends (2200). If you want them to do something, try pointing out the implications global warming will have before they die.

Re:i wouldn't worry,

[Jules IV]

Sorry to be bad news, but i really doubt we will ever live on Mars,its an utopia. We might get some minerals and riches (some rare metals and alloys maybye) but there will never be any life or civilization on this planet, it will probably be exploited by robots. It has seized its volcanic activities for a long time, so the 'core' of the planet died several thousand of years ago, so there is no hope of having a planet with any atmosphere, and since the magnetic core is not existing at all, the gamma radiation levels will always be unfavorable to any settlement of human colony. So, to our knowledge, there is only one planet on which life is possible, its earth, lets try to manage it cleverly for a while, since there is no escape from it.

Re:One wonders

[meringuoid]

Which side is right ... Environmentalists : -> CO2 will cause mass extinctions but also -> gsms cause brain cancer (show me one single case ...) -> against nuclear power, the easiest and most economically viable option to stopping global warning

You think you have to actually pick a side, and sign up to a complete party line? Do that and you don't think at all.

Re:One wonders

[Alef]

Environmentalists :
-> CO2 will cause mass extinctions but also
-> gsms cause brain cancer (show me one single case ...)
-> against nuclear power, the easiest and most economically viable option to stopping global warning

Everybody else
-> There is not sufficient evidence to really change our policy (this btw, is unfortunately very true)
-> Therefore CO2 does not cause problems (this conclusion may be true, but the honest answer is : we don't know)

You are trolling. First you label everyone believing that human induced global climate change is really happening as "the environmentalists" in an attempt to discredit that opinion, ascribing it to a relatively small number of extremists. Then you put a bunch other opinions in the mouths of these people to make them sound irrational and stupid.

All this when in reality the vast majority of researchers and people (at least outside the US) find that there are strong reasons to think that we are causing global warming, and that the consequences likely are devastating for a large portion of the Earth.

Re:One wonders

[RoLi]

Environmentalists: [..] gsms cause brain cancer (show me one single case ...)

First of all, "environmentalists" are not a single block of people but there are many different opinions. Second, the mobile phone hysteria was bred by esoterics, not environmentalists and even though there might be some overlap, those are different groups. Third, this hysteria is pretty much over already, so you are not knocking down a strawman - it's already knocked down. 4: Even if "environmentalists" said that, being wrong on one thing doesn't make you wrong on everything.

There is not sufficient evidence to really change our policy (this btw, is unfortunately very true)

Actually there is sufficient evidence and a large part of the world DID already change it's policy. Germany is leading in wind power and Sweden wants to be independent of oil within some years. Many other countries do similar things to attack the problem.

Also, do you remember the problem with the ozone-layer? A world-wide effort by most countries (that time including the USA) dealt with the problem and it worked amazingly well. Today the ozone-layer is almost back to normal.

Therefore CO2 does not cause problems (this conclusion may be true, but the honest answer is : we don't know)

There is already a mountain of evidence that it does cause problems, but even if you ignore all that, messing around with something you are dependent on and you don't fully understand is pretty stupid, don't you agree? I think we should use a very conservative approach to environmental issues BECAUSE we don't fully understand it. To say it's "not a problem" because we don't understand it doesn't make the slightest sense at all.

Imho the environmentalist option to be against both oil and nuclear power is not going anywhere, it's just not helpful. You can call all you want for the moon to come down, but regardless it's just not going to happen. Also, you cannot turn of all energy in the country for 5 years until an alternative is developed. It needs to be here now, working and functional, and proven. Obviously you cannot turn over the country to something like wind power.

Things that can be done easily, without new technology and with modest investment:

• insolate the houses better to safe heating
• Use stone instead of wood houses so you no longer need air-conditioning (heavy stone houses don't heat up so quickly)
• Yeah I know, it's a terrible suggestion, but using smaller cars would safe a lot too. There is no need to move 3 tons to transport a 70kg human

BTW, wind power is already covering 4,3% of Germany's electricity (per 2005) and will cover 10% or more by 2020. The USA with a much lower population density could cover a much higher percentage than that.

Having said all that, I'm not really worried about global warming because the very same people who want to "safe the economy" by wasting oil will run the economy right into the ground as soon as Saudi-Arabia hits peak oil. (probably before 2010, but even if they can hold out longer it's merely a question of when, not if)

Re:i wouldn't worry,

[gEvil (beta)]

That's something that I love about the whole terraforming argument. So many people out there believe that we'll be able to produce drastic rapid climate change on another planet and that it will completely stabilize itself the moment we snap our fingers and say "stop." We're only barely beginning to understand the climate of the planet we've inhabited for 2 million years. What makes you guys think we'll be able to go somewhere else with variables that we don't even know about and effect changes we can't make happen here?

Re:One wonders

[SirWinston]

> Nuclear power (especially on its own) isn't going to do much to reduce oil dependency.
> It's not like much electricity comes from burning oil or derivatives.

First, we in the U.S. burn large amounts of fossil fuels (coal, oil derivatives etc) for electricity--precisely because unlike Europe we haven't built new nuclear power plants in decades.

Second, the ubiquity of cheap nuclear-generated electricity would easily have a ripple effect on other areas of infrastructure, phasing in electric capacitance charging stations to slowly displace gas pumps as electric cars replace petrol guzzlers.

All-electric retrofits of existing gas/electric hybrids are so impressive that cars designed from the start as all-electric would be phenomenal; today's battery tech makes this feasible, unlike the early days with the EV1. Add large capacitors like the ones mentioned in a recent /. article in to the equation, and performance, range, and recharge time can be improved.

An abundance of cheap nuclear-generated electricity would change everything. Cutting back on fossil fuel use and resultant greenhouse gasses would merely be the tip of the iceberg--imagine if energy eventually became an order of magnitude cheaper due to a real effort to create a nuclear infrastructure, the ripples that could have. In IT alone the effects would be huge--one of the largest ongoing costs to companies like Google, for example, is the big energy bill its countless servers and cooling solutions generate. A nuclear infrastructure generating more and cheaper energy could boost the whole economy in the long term.

How many obese wild animals do you see?

[arcite]

Answer, none. ALL animals establish equilibrium with their environment.

If pathetic short sighted people like you become the only voice out there the human race is indeed #ucked. If however, more rational voices and policies can be established, there is hope yet. We have about 100 years to save this planet, I don't see how that is impossible.

Ofcourse, you'll probably be dead by then anyway. Lung cancer from too much smob mb?...

Global warming is real

[Orp]

Global warming is real. The data is clear.

Global warming is indeed due to greenhouse gas emissions, and not some natural cycle.

If we keep a business-as-usual approach to emissions, climate change will be dramatic and catastrophic for many.

This is what virtually all climate scientists believe (and by "believe" I mean "have concluded from painstaking scientific research involving paleoclimatology, basic therodynamics, oceanography" etc...). Not "believe" as in "I believe in the Flying Spaghetti Monster."

I can't tell you how much it frustrates me as a scientists that more people can't see the obvious. I believe (heh) it is due to an overwhelming lack of people exercising critical, scientific thought.

The truth is, unless you at least have a basic understanding of atmospheric radiation theory, you really have no place arguing about the effect of anthropogenic greenhouse gas emissions.

Let me put it this way: It makes absolutely no sense whatsoever that increasing greenhouse gas emissions would *not* lead to a shift in the earth's radiative equilibrium temperature (related to global average temperature). If there were too many negatives in that sentence, I'll put it this way: Global warming is no surprise, it is physics in action.

Pick up any intro meteorology college texbtook - there are several - and read the chapter on radiation and climate change. And climate feedback mechanisms. And the thermohaline circulation. And then argue against global warming being forced by greenhouse gas emissions. I'd love to hear a decent argument which wasn't politically motivated or based upon selective omission of the research on this topic.

I have grown weary of trying to get people to do a small amount of basic science research so that they may use their own goddammed heads and draw a scientifically based conclusion about climate change rather than re-spew crap they heard from some douchebag whose politics aligns with their own. This includes you too Lefties/greenies: Do some homework. If you are right for the wrong resons, you're not helping things. Educate yourself scientifically. Everyone.

Think, people, think. It seems that precious few people (well here in America) do much of this any more.

And yes, I have a PhD in meteorology.