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Could Global Warming Make Life on Earth Better?
mikee805 writes "A lengthy article in Spiegel explores the possibility that global warming might make life on Earth better, not just for humans, but all species. The article argues that 'worst-case scenarios' are often the result of inaccurate simulations made in the 1980s. While climate change is a reality, as far as the article is concerned, some planning and forethought may mean that more benefits than drawbacks will result from higher temperatures. From the article:'The medical benefits of higher average temperatures have also been ignored. According to Richard Tol, an environmental economist, "warming temperatures will mean that in 2050 there will be about 40,000 fewer deaths in Germany attributable to cold-related illnesses like the flu." Another widespread fear about global warming -- that it will cause super-storms that could devastate towns and villages with unprecedented fury -- also appears to be unfounded. Current long-term simulations, at any rate, do not suggest that such a trend will in fact materialize.'"
Only if you bought lake front property in Siberia for no money down ... and you were hoping that one day you could use it as a Winter home.
I live in the Netherlands. We are now taking measures to prevent the flooding of my country. But, recent calculations show that we can manage the extra water that we will have to cope with.
-- Cheers!
the increased popularity of scantily-clad women running around in bikini tops and shorts, due to the heat.
Windows has detected an undetectable error.
Would the decrease in cold-related deaths be countered by an increase in heat-related deaths?
(IANAL)
40,000 more somewhere else from increased range of tropical diseases and their carriers.
====
Crudely Drawn Games
Hate to tell you, but you can get the flu in summer. But all that aside, people die every year here in Texas because of the heat.
"It's not whether you win or lose, it's how drunk you get." -- H. J. Simpson
I don't know if you can call it good or bad, but life will adapt. Some species will die off others will thrive. Humans? We're the best adapters of them all.
For the last 100000 years or so, you're right. The only problem is that in the last 150 years or so, CO2 concentration has changed its correlation pattern with temperature. Now, there's a massive CO2 spike that is not explained by temperature dependencies.
Besides, since you are so sure, riddle me this: we can calculate our CO2 output (it dwarfs natural emissions). We know the physics behind CO2 absorption of solar radiation. What makes you think that this is affecting the earth?
I'm always amazed by how easily people believe things they want to believe.
Those who can, do. Those who can't, sue.
I remember watching a BBC newsclip once where one of their reporters was near Murmansk (northwestern Russia), talking to two Russian engineers working in the middle of a field of snow. He told them about the theory of global warming and they both visibly perked up. One asked him, "Really? How can we help?"
That talk like this will make Al Gore hot, but not in the sexy way.
Take the cheese to sickbay, the doctor should see it as soon as possible - B'Elanna Torres, "Learning Curve"
When the weather isn't consistent with what models predict, it's the weather that's wrong, not the models.
"Ask not what your country can do for you." --John F. Kennedy
Regardless of why the earth is warming (either man-induced or a natural cycle of the earth), I welcome it with open arms.
Milder winters are going to open up trade routes through the arctic.
I will potentially be able to grow stuff in my garden that won't grow there today. My tomatoes may become perennials as they are in their native habitat. And I could do with some citrus trees in my yard.
If the ocean levels rise, landmass on the North American continent will shrink as populations rise. The equity in my real estate investments will grow at an unprecedented rate.
Living in Raleigh, I will be much closer to the coast than I am today.
OK yes this does mean I will have less buffer from hurricanes, and the hurricanes may be more frequent and more violent than is typical.
Inuit may lose their traditional way of life, but they are sitting on vast chunks of currently frozen land that will become desirable temperate areas that the yankees will pay good money to move to once they start experiencing the kind of weather that is more typical of the southeastern US.
It's not all doom and gloom, folks. There will be extensive collateral damages, whole species will be lost, but life has a way of moving on. And Homo sapiens is one of the most adaptable vertebrates on this planet, so I'm sure we'll find a way to thrive through this.
Yes, it's a nice sizable article, featuring women in bikinis enjoying a nice drink on a hot day, quotes from important figures, official-looking charts, and subtext in places like "a warm future" under a simplistic image of warmer-colored earth.
The problem is that I don't see it citing many sources, and when it does, it seems to selectively quote them, such as limiting it's considerations to "gradual thawing of the Greenland ice sheet" only when considering sea level changes. I'm not going to call this a whitewash, but it seems to be a sales job for a point of view, rather than a well-founded findings of a respectable research effort.
Ryan Fenton
Sir, this is Happy Thought Hour!
Didn't you see the pictures in the article of pretty young ladies enjoying the sun?
Eliminate the negative! Accentuate the positive!
Visualize palm trees in Germany, and put out of your mind the massive droughts and desertification in the torrid and equatorial zones.
Article says the global warming will reduce 40,000 deaths because of the flu. However, what about heat related problems. Just a few years ago, thousands died in Europe because of heat waves. Also, the relation between flu and cold weather is not clear. As the temperature increases, we will see more A/C usage which will generate artificial cold. There are some scenerios about why flu spread more in the cold weather. The theories include cold force people to stay inside, creating a good means of transportation in the crowd and the dry weather helps the spread. Either will still be true when people stay inside because of heat and the air will be dry because of air conditioner.
I've got friends who think that global warming is a big crock of shit and (in a very immature way) bring up Al Gore and say how he thinks he invented the internet as their basis for not believing anything he says.
One of my biggest annoyances with people who question global warming isn't that they think it's not happening or that it isn't us who are contributing to it, but rather the fact that they use these previous statements as an excuse to not do anything about it.
Let's say, for the sake of argument, that carbon dioxide emissions really don't have any effect on global warming... does that mean that we should keep driving SUVs and not care about how much pollution we dump into the environment?
Although people who announce that the earth is doomed because of global warming and come across as being panicky appear to be crackpots to all them skeptics, it doesn't mean that we should ignore them. we should do what we can to conserve what we have. It's worth it.
...spike
Ewwwwww, coconut...
The argument that "yay more sunshine, more warmth, what's the fuss, party!" is generally not considered a serious one.
Although arguing based on authority is something I don't usually do, but in the case of global warming most common people just display ignorance about the matter. That in itself is not a problem, but writing articles proclaiming truths which show signs that the guy didn't even bother to do basic research is bad. I wish people would try to inform themselves before trying to form the opinions of others.
Science is complex, deal with it. Naive, overly simplistic ideas set off my bullshit alarm, like in the case of "paranormal" stuff.
It takes a man to suffer ignorance and smile
Be yourself no matter what they say
I never ceased to be amazed at the sheer number of "Global Warming's a Myth / Good for Us" stories in American Newspapers and on American websites.
Hmmm, a German media outlet, Der Spiegel, a German author, Olaf Stampf, and a Swedish physicist, Svante Arrhenius. You really didn't read the article before you jumped on the Anti-Americanism bandwagon, did you?
As for your minority dissent argument (A few "scientists" must be heretics, because the majority disagrees), you might consider that Galileo was considered a heretic because of his accurate minority opinion.
I'm not saying I agree or disagree with the article, because I don't think we have a clue one way or another what the future holds, but you've completely written off a possibility simply because it doesn't fit in with your political agenda -- kinda like the oil companies from the other direction.
Hoaxes take time to be discovered. There are always people saying "um, folks, this is a hoax", but there are so many people who believe the hoax that it takes them time to come to their senses.
I wonder if it would help if Snopes listed Global Warming as a hoax? I don't mean Climate Change -- that's the scientific observation that the climate is always changing. I mean Global Warming -- the idea that mankind is responsible for changing the weather -- as if that were possible!
Don't piss off The Angry Economist
The documentary wasn't broadcast by the BBC. It was broadcast by Channel4 (known for more controversial and speculative content). Many of the scientists interviewed in that programme have since complained that they were grossly mis-represented in it.
It's still an interesting programme though.
"Florida, much of California, Michigan, and many East Coast states, including much or all of New York City completely under water"
Hmmm...maybe it will be better.
The flagship publication of the reactionary publishing house Springer Presse puts forth an article in favor of heavy oil and coal consumption?
That's unpossible!
I love the way people are able to discard mountains of scientific evidence on the basis of a crappy documentary.
The documentary (which wasn't made by the BBC) has been strongly debunked, and it was seriously dishonest:
From Wikipedia:
Carl Wunsch, one of the scientists featured in the programme, has said that he was "completely misrepresented" in the film and had been "totally misled" when he agreed to be interviewed. He called the film "grossly distorted" and "as close to pure propaganda as anything since World War Two." Wunsch was reported to have threatened legal action and to have lodged a complaint with Ofcom, the UK broadcast regulator.
People who deny the science on climate change are in the same boat as creationists and Flat-Earthers.
No matter which positive aspects this warming trend has, I think it's also important to look at the flux of refugees that will eventually develop when (if?) most the southern hemisphere transforms into a desert. I'm sure we Europeans would be happy to welcome all North Africans on our shores because their arable land has completely dried out while you guys will embrace most of South and all of Central America moving to the States.
It's now a feature. I love how spinners work, first, it was not happening, then it was not humans really doing it, now the spin is that it is happening, but it's actually a good thing.
It's like a politician caught in a lie trying to turn it to virtue.
You mean like last year . . . with the total of 0 hurricanes. Damn youze Global Warming, I'll get you for that!
I think you'll find that over the past few years the average number of hurricanes may be unusual, but it isn't unusually high.
Apathy; it does a body good.
And, speaking of Katrina, some scientists studying global warming believe that it is responsible for the more-active-than-usual hurricane seasons of the past few years. Which makes sense since the main cause of hurricanes is -- wait for it -- heat. Who paid these shills?
Is it also responsible for last year's dead hurricane season? Really, these things are far too complicated to generalize in that manner. While I do believe global warming is anthropogenic, I don't think it serves any purpose to use half-baked, unreasearched theories to blame everything short of a supernova on global warming.
Yes, there's an entire industry behind it, worth about eight times what a science field with that count of people in it is typically worth. Academic funding goes to hot topics. Watch the video.
StoneCypher is Full of BS
The article is a nice try to put some good spin on Global Warming. To some extent, they're right. There will be positive effects from an overall warmer climate: Siberia won't be quite so forbidding. Canada could get some better agricultural areas. Cold spells will kill hundreds less of homeless people in nothern latitudes.
The problem is that this is akin to talking about the positive effects of smoking: weightloss, fewer old people to draw down retirement benefits, etc. It's disingenuous and generally only used to mask the drawbacks. Is it a necessary part of the discussion? Of course. Does it change the negative aspects of Global Warming? No. Do the negative aspects of Global Warming outweigh the positive aspects? Yes. The cost of Global Warming is still going to be in the trillions, because people generally already accounted for this.
Fewer deaths from flu spells will be offset by increasing deaths by malaria (which is already migrating north). Actually, reading through the article, it seems that the author has no idea about what has already happened, and is content with merely posting speculation about what could happen. I'm reminded of the troll piece recently posted on C|Net about intellectual property. Same lack of content, same latching onto vague promises that have not materialized, same complete lack of evidence for their position.
I'm off to tagging the article flamebait.
Those who can, do. Those who can't, sue.
i notice that the ones that are comfortable with "collateral damage" are the ones who won't be -- or at least believe they won't be -- "collateral damage".
note that i'm not necessarily talking about, just making an observation in the general.
mr c
"Physics is like sex. Sure, it may give some practical results, but that's not why we do it." - R. Feynman
"This new learning amazes me, Sir Bedevere. Explain again how sheep's bladders may be employed to prevent earthquakes."
Read any good sonnets lately?
Oil slicks found to keep seals young, supple.
The issue isn't that I want us not to clean up our mess. The issue is that we are using the spectre of a problem which doesn't exist to prevent the development of the non-industrialized world, and the effects of our preventing that development on the environment alone are far worse than allowing the development would be (and that's before you look into the starvation, the disease, the horror, the menial labor and so on involved in living like it's the 1700s.)
Industrialization is important for a whole lot of reasons. Lots of those wars going on in Africa would never have happened if they had had the kind of reasonable food supplies that you get from electrified irrigation, refridgeration, and cooking without animal dung.
I am not saying we shouldn't try to do the ecologically sound thing. All I'm saying is we have no idea what that is, and we're not doing things we should be doing out of a culture of fear spawned by 1960s science which has long since been disproven to a degree that would have scuttled any other movement in modern politics today.
It's time we started the science from scratch, and then looked a second time at the Kyoto treaty. The Kyoto treaty is well meaning, misguided, ecologically driven international scale murder.
StoneCypher is Full of BS
You're right in implying there's an element of deception in the global warming "debate". People mistake correlation for causation all the time, often because they're told to and they're unable to think for themselves. Many mistake global warming correlating with higher CO2 with a global warming caused by CO2. Having perused material on the matter, and discussed it with colleagues who track this, there is no evidence to suggest that higher CO2 causes the global warming we are seeing today. As well, you are right to assert that global warming causes higher CO2, a known causation.
:)
I don't know if you're right about the sun (though there is evidence to suggest you are), but you're certainly right to be skeptical about CO2 causing global warming. Worse is that the lack of balanced scientific debate on the topic, and the number of lemmings who blindingly need to point a finger without any actual evidence, is undermining the ability to observe and make rational opinions.
However, it's Slashdot. It's a populous opinion. Don't take it personal when the lemmings come and mod you down for, God forbid, positing something contrary to the convenience of their finger-pointing!
As for your minority dissent argument (A few "scientists" must be heretics, because the majority disagrees), you might consider that Galileo was considered a heretic because of his accurate minority opinion.
Galileo was considered a heretic (in a literal sense!) by the Church rather than his fellow scientists. This was because other scientists, after reading his arguments, were agreeing with him!
It's not a hoax. It's gotten so bad that our blatant disregard for the environment is even heating up mars http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2007/02/07 0228-mars-warming.html It's obvioysly us that's doing it. Not that giant orb of fire we orbit.
"Always forgive your enemies; nothing annoys them so much." - Oscar Wilde
Why is Michigan going to flood? Are great storms going to rain down upon us? Lake Erie(which the other four lakes that affect Michigan drain into) is 571 feet above sea level; pretty much all of Michigan is above that.
. shtmlt _lakes.htm7 0407/METRO/704070370
These guys think global warming will *drain* the lakes:
http://www.ecocenter.org/releases/20030414climate
http://www.greatlakesdirectory.org/oh/111803_grea
http://detnews.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/200
So before you say 'shill' make sure you are dealing with actual facts.
Nerd rage is the funniest rage.
It's all there for a great satire: The vaguarity. The complete lack of citation. The telling reference to a controversial and widely decried TV movie. The potent mixture of credulity and cynicism. The reference to the sun.
On the other hand it might a real person who's just new to the subject and not very knowledgable yet.
If it's a joke then Internet Honor demands that I stay away and not get hooked. But if it's an honest post, Internet Honor demands that I respond with well-reasoned rational counters to everything that's wrong.
Maybe I should just go with a goatse link.
Build a man a fire, he's warm for one night. Set him on fire, and he's warm for the rest of his life.
Never, if X is negative :P
El Niño the burrito, or El Niño the global coupled ocean-atmosphere phenomenon?
...and everyone in Bangladesh can move to Germany.
Why does everyone refuse to acknowledge that Katrina was so bad because the levees in New Orleans failed. Other than that, this was no worse than past hurricanes.
Katrina was only proof it is bad to live below sea level.
... All the leftists are blaming the historically bad Hurricane season of 2006 on Bush.
Huh? There was no bad hurricane season of 2006?
Nevermind.
Prof. Farnsworth - "Oh a lesson in not changing history from Mr I'm-My-Own-Grandpa!"
Dude. Where to start?
Ok, historically CO2 has been part of the feedback to solar forcing of climate change. But the increased CO2 has been a positive feedback, sustaining the climate change well past the solar forcing. What's different this time is that due to human activity we are pushing CO2 directly, so if our understanding of physics is correct (as established by Arrhenius himself), the result is heating. This is basic theory and the temperature record, though noisy, hardly contradicts this over the 20th century. Now, there's uncertainty about feedbacks, clouds, etc., but the CO2 forcing is there.
Do you see the spike? My eyeballs tell me the slope is roughly 100ppm/century.
Natural gross CO2 fluxes are huge. Net fluxes are small (i.e. they largely cancel out, and that's not accidental). Human fluxes are large compared to the net flux. See above link.
If you really don't think that CO2 traps heat, you are wrong. Grab a physics textbook, or start here. It has pictures and everything.
Simple Unexpected Concrete Credible Emotional Stories
Actually Michigan and the Great Lakes will see a large increase in waterfront property because global warming makes the Great Lakes water levels decrease. When the lakes don't freeze in the winter they lose water all winter to evaporation that was normally protected by ice. There are some people suggesting this is why New Jersey and New York have had flooding recently.
It's already caused some problems with shipping in my area and a lot of marinas are being dredged because they are getting too shallow for some of the larger boats. Warmer water also means less oxygen content so there is a good change the type of animals living in the great lakes will change and fisheries will become more important then ever.
Oh, but didn't you hear? Global warming causes supernovas as well!
Michigan will flood because of the exodus to Canada will create a great flood of pee from all the moosehead drinking. all that urine will raise the great lakes level by 300 feet causing michigan to be a tiny island in the Boyne area.
Do not look at laser with remaining good eye.
Ocean Warming, which is a recorded fact has severely harmed coral reefs.
I have no doubts that life will adapt to global climate change, fewer corals but lots of algae and red tide in the new warm oceans.
I think maintaining the status quo of historical climates seems to have many economic benefits that should not be ignored. And major global climate change would likely shift most markets fast towards the red. The markets would be forced to adapt quickly, which they are not very good at doing without a lot of suffering by the people at the bottom. Perhaps this is the conservative in me talking. (not neo-conservative!)
“Common sense is not so common.” — Voltaire
What part of "don't bother replying without data" is too complicated for you? I most certainly am not dead wrong about that; I've got a history in this. You, I suspect, do not. (Whatever fool moderated that "informative" doesn't have the slightest idea how moderation works; saying "nuh-uh" is not informative in the slightest.)
Stop claiming to know things you don't. Either cite actual data, or shut your mouth. All you're doing is spreading environment FUD. The problem is, this kind of FUD can do us all very real, very permanent damage.
Cite data next time, or consider yourself called a liar in public.
StoneCypher is Full of BS
Is it just me or does this strike others as "lalalalalalalalalalalaI'mnotlisteninglalalalalala la!" Way to ignore the vast majority of solid information out there and try to put a rose on a pile of shit.
Unfortunately, it's not just you. Many people believe that all change must be bad because change, by definition, means things will be different. Some things will be better and some things worse, but all things will be different.
Different != Bad
That said, if I had to chose between between global warming vs global cooling, I'd take the warming 100% of the time! When the climate changes, it's going to go one way or the other.
There is no "I disagree" mod for a reason. Flamebait, Troll, and Overrated are not substitutes.
I listen to the BBC World Service every day on my way to and from work. In my gas-guzzling SUV.
Just about every story is about how the world is ending, mostly because of man-made global warming. Yesterday, I heard that dams and hydro-electric power release more greenhouse gases than coal-fire electric plants. If they keep on like this, the only option for humanity will be mass suicide. Though, only if a decomposing corpse releases less methane than a living person, I guess.
Earlier this week there was a story about RFID devices in trash cans, to measure and control the amount of garbage thrown out by Britons. If this were in support of the George Bush's Global War on Terror, the masses would be out on the streets, but any invasive authoritarian measure can be justified in order to "Save the Earth" (tm).
I'm over it. Bother me no more with stories of global warming. At this stage, it's become a catchphrase to justify all sorts of bureaucratic intrusion and control, instigated by the watermelon left (green outside, red inside).
668: Neighbour of the Beast
Viruses survive more in warmer weather. Though we associate the common cold with colder temperatures, the cold actually inhibits them from growing. Viruses are more prevalent in the winter because humans are in closer proximity to each other due to the fact that they are inside more.
How dare you, Slashdot! You have posted blasphemy in the name of Our Religion. The sins of man have sullied our great Eden, and when the Judgement Day comes and the waters flood and the fires burn, it will fall on your head, so sayeth the Lord Gore. You must repent your sins and pray through ritual recycling, carbon credits to make companies rich, dangerous mercury bulbs, and higher taxes. You damn Christian capitalists and your fundamentalist religion. You're a bunch of Nazis! Now pay the government for the shame of your existence.
"Sufferin' succotash."
I for one will strive to honor your real estate investments to the best of my efforts as I flee desperately from my submerged home along with hundreds of thousands of fellow refugees. I'll try not to raid your garden, but I can't promise I won't be hungry form all that travel. Sure it will be rough, but let's face the facts. If Katrina proved anything, it's that we'll be taken care of in case of a disaster.
Vostok ice core data: http://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/paleo/icecore/antarctica/ vostok/vostok.html
/ molspec/irspec1.htm
/ warming_earth/scientific_evidence.htm
CO2 concentrations over the last 600000 years: http://www.realclimate.org/epica.jpg
Sadly, I can't find the graph that superposes the temperature record over the CO2 record. I'm sure another 30 minutes of googling for it will yield it.
The spike is over the last 150 years or so, and basic modeling techniques show you that it is abnormal. All your questions can be answered by looking through the two graphs I provided you.
Alright, I exaggerated when I said that our CO2 output dwarfs all natural emissions. You're right, that's probably wrong. However, our emissions are currently not being absorbed as fast as they are generated, and total concentrations are rising quite nicely. That's the key part - we are putting stuff into the regular cycle that doesn't get absorbed.
I know you don't think that it's affecting the earth. You still haven't given a reason why, despite the well known physics of infrared absorption, which are described quite nicely here: http://teaching.shu.ac.uk/hwb/chemistry/tutorials
The data about CO2 affecting infrared radiation from earth can be found here: http://www.realclimate.org/index.php?p=142, and at the Wikipedia article about greenhouse gases. If you object to the sources, you can always check the referenced literature.
I've got plenty of data. I can pull data for days. Where's yours? Where's your peer reviewed article? All you have is a few people who had to get a BBC documentary made, because people kept laughing at their theories and wouldn't bother publishing their papers. BTW, I've seen the BBC documentary - the data referenced in there, as well as the analysis thereof, has been widely discredited. For something real, read the IPCC reports: start here (http://www.ipcc.ch/pub/pub.htm), and don't stop until the end. Then come back.
Oh, and just for the heck of it, because I like Woods Hole and a friend of mine worked there, here's a little summary they threw together about the CO2 data collected: http://www.whrc.org/resources/online_publications
Again - where's your data?
Those who can, do. Those who can't, sue.
But it quickly became apparent that the horrific tale of a melting South Pole was nothing but fiction. The average temperature in the Antarctic is -30 degrees Celsius. Humanity cannot possibly burn enough oil and coal to melt this giant block of ice.
Hello, Spiegel. Let me introduce my friend, the Larsen B ice shelf, along with Journalistic Integrity. No, you haven't met.
I'm always amazed by supposed scientists being so confident in predicting future states of chaotic systems so far in advance. I'm even more amazed by claims that certain changes to the present state will lead to a specific changes in future outcome. I believe this is called Hubris.
Now then, "Oy vey" is Yiddish for "Oh woe is me". This is a bit premature. Let's save it for when Nemesis gets his revenge.
Set your phasers on "funky"!
No, it was also bad because the wetlands that act as a natural buffer between the city and the ocean have been severely eroded over the past several decades. What caused them to disappear? The levees.
We hope your rules and wisdom choke you / Now we are one in everlasting peace
As much as I hate to sound like I'm defending the stupid documentary, people who "deny the science on climate change" are not even close to the same boat as creationists or flat-earthers.
Flat-earthers can prove themselves wrong with 2 sextants and a friend, or by using "American Practical Navigator" by Bowditch, among many other possibilities. Things easily accessible to anybody with a calculator and a library or a marine hardware store. Flat-earthers are exceedingly rare and inexcusably stupid. Although maybe not rare enough.
Creationists . . . I don't even know where to start. Creationism is more reasonable than Flat-earth theory, but not much. The only real defense there is it is hard to make your own experiments to test evolution. You could see how you are a combination of your parents and extrapolate from there. I suppose you could take a weak antibiotic once a month until you develop some resistant bacteria or something, but that is a whole different variety of bad idea.
How is any individual supposed to measure global climate change? Assuming they don't have access to a world-wide network of observatories and whatnot. Last I checked, most people don't. Factor in things like urban heat island effect and local weather variations, and things become even more difficult for the amateur scientist. Add in that the sea level is changing both at a slow enough rate that people don't personally notice it (maybe in places with extremely small tide action?) and the fact that sea level charts matched against global temperature charts don't correlate the way you would expect (sea level has been rising at a pretty much constant rate over the last 120 years, while temperature has decreased for 10 years or more at least 4 times).
I believe that there is indeed global warming, and I suspect that people are at the very least part of the cause, but I can't personally convince myself to care about it, one way or the other.
Stop it? Meh.
Slow it down? Meh.
Reverse it? Well, that seems like a bad idea, but still; meh.
Apathy; it does a body good.
Here in BC, Canada, we're having our forests killed off by the "mountain pine beetle." While this is a recurring pest, it seems that this time around it's a lot worse than previous. One of the main things that can kill the bugs in a big hurry is a sudden cold snap to about -40c for about 3-5 days. Winters have been milder and shorter lived these last few years though, so the beetle is continuing on. I've heard that Eastern Canada is starting to suffer from something similar with "Pine Wasp" (I'll take the beetles, thanks).
Add to that the issue of beehives being killed off by strange bacteria that seems to proliferate better in the warmer weather, the marked increase in allergy issues locally (according my doctor, and he indicated that it was partly due to the warm, dry weather here), and I'd agree that there are a lot of ways that global warming is not making life better in terms of disease, parasites, and pests...
The issue seems to be dynamics rather than specifics. My understanding for 20 years or so was that global warming would bring more violent weather, rather than more consistently bad weather.
Also, with respect to the warming is good for life argument, the Earth has most certainly been warmer, and likely more violent weather-wise. Our distinct problem is that we have virtually eliminated the possibility of more life spawning by killing its potential habitat and introducing toxic waste of various forms.
I wrote an article 15 years or so ago arguing that global warming wasn't the biggest issue, but rather that desertification and the elimination of biodiversity was. Whether we can live in a world without a functional ecology is going to be something we quickly find out. If it's warmer doesn't really matter, unless you are in a stressed area. My opinion is that a lot of people are going to perish, but as usual YMMV. As if they already are not perishing! It may simply be more permanent for many regions.
Predicting those regions is like predicting the weather!
Umm, no. Galileo was referred to the Inquisistion by a scientist he had accused (baselessly) of plagiarism. Apparently, Galileo was a bit of a curmudgeon (a rude asshole might be a better description), with no social skills to speak of.
"I do not agree with what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it"
I have always heard the same thing, FWIW. That "catching cold" wasn't actually caused by being physiologically cold, but occurred more often in the winter because people tend to be inside, packed together, with the houses/buildings all sealed up, basically creating little petri dishes for bacteria to thrive in.
I can imagine that if you were really cold, for a long time -- like, hypothermic -- that perhaps this would weaken your body's immune system to the point where you would become more susceptible to disease. However, I really don't think that there's much credence to the old adages about "putting your hat on so you don't catch cold!"
"Ladies and gentlemen, my killbot features Lotus Notes and a machine gun. It is the finest available."
...and Lake Michigan is 579 feet above sea level (this means that the majority of the state of Michigan is even higher in altitude). No predictions, regardless of how absurd, ever mentioned the oceans rising by that much.
And no, melting ice caps will not make the Great Lakes flood. If anything, global warming is more likely to make them continue shrinking in size.
Last year was only a "dead" hurricane season in the Atlantic. If you look at it globally, last year was above average for hurricanes, typhoons, and tropical cyclones.
Disclaimer: I have a PhD in meteorology. While paleoclimatology and climate change are not my research areas, I am fascinated by climate change and try to keep up on the research.
I naively thought once the IPCC report came out these types of "debates" about climate change would end. I was wrong. If anything, the naysayers are louder than ever.
I have read the Summary for Policymakers (and actually used it as a teaching tool in my numerical weather prediction undergraduate class). Have you? It's written at a relatively non-scientific level (hey, it's for politicians after all) but is very, very clear.
The results of this international (intergovernmental) exhaustive literature review? Humans are very likely (90%) responsible for the bulk of observed global warming.
That's it. Plain and simple.
Yet, no other topic in the world brings out the armchair scientists more than global warming. It's a frustrating phenomenon for me as a scientist. It's sort of like being an oncologist dealing with a chronic smoker who blames his lung cancer on some genetic anomaly, or living 50 miles away from a nuclear power plant, rather than the bloody obvious fact that smoking two packs of cigarettes for 40 years just might have something to do with the cancer.
This is science, not faith. Just about every climate change doubter starts his sentence with "I don't believe humans cause global warming because..." or "I don't believe in global warming." This clearly demonstrates a huge misunderstanding of the scientific process. Belief has nothing to do with it. It's about physics, meteorology, climatology, astronomy, biology, oceanography, chemistry etc., all of which rely on the peer-reviewed scientific process to further our understanding of the physical world.
I challenge any of the naysayers to do a little research of their own, not simply rely on cherry picking viewpoints which align with their own. It's sort of like a game, holding up their "most credible scientist" as a shield, challenging me to do the same. Never mind the fact that my "army" of scientists is about three orders of magnitude greater than their own... but I digress...
The very least anyone should do before arguing against... or for... anthropogenic climate change is to pick up an undergraduate meteorology textbook and opening up to (usually) chapter 3, the chapter on heat transfer. The section on radiation is the most crucial one. Read about blackbody radiation. The solar spectrum and the terrestrial spectrum are a function of their temperatures. Because the Earth is much colder than than the sun, it emits in the infrared (longer wavelength than visible light etc. from the sun).
Then read about greenhouse gases, those by-and-large trace gases which exist in our atmosphere. Understand how they respond to longwave and shortwave radiation. A little light bulb should eventually go on over your head when you realize "oh, so *that's* why the Earth is habitable." You see, without these trace gases (CO2, H20, CH4) the earth would be in a deep freeze - estimated at about 50 degrees F colder global average temperature.
Once you make it that far, you're almost there. Realize that humans are responsible for increasing atmospheric CO2 levels from preindustrial levels of 280 ppm to a modern day value of 380 ppm, an increase of over 30%. It takes very little stretch to realize that this would lead to a shift in the radiative equilibrium temperature of the earth (related to the global average temperature).
You see, this is really easy science. There is NO REASON TO ASSUME that CO2 values increasing the way they have would NOT lead to an increase in global average temperature!! This is exactly what we'd expect! And this doesn't even involve the scary discussion of feedbacks (water vapor feedback, snow/ice albedo feedback) which may accelerate the warming.
And that's just the back of the envelope part. Yes, there are still unknowns. Not, it's not the sun (we've checked into that if you can believe it). No, it's n
A squid eating dough in a polyethylene bag is fast and bulbous, got me?
I had with a friend who is a *very* fundamentalist Christian who believes in the Rapture. A time when all the "good" Christians (opposed to what?) get taken up to heaven for a thousand years. It went something like this:
Him: And then there will be plagues.
Me: What kind of plagues?
Him: The earth will get hot.
Me: Let me get this straight...all you right wing Christians will be gone and the rest of us can live our lives in peace without your religious dogma and misguided legislative agenda and it will be endless summer here? What's the bad part again?
That's our life, the big wheel of shit. - The Fat Man, Blue Tango Salvage
Your attitude is fairly typical, but contains a very troubling assumption -- namely that if the global warming phenomenon currently ongoing is not anthropogenic, that somehow we don't need to worry about it.
I think this is completely false, and quite dangerous. Furthermore, I think that the debate over what has caused global warming, has really just become a distraction to the real issue, which is quite simply "what the hell are we going to do about it?"
It doesn't really matter whether the cause of the warming is anthropogenic or not; unless you're going to debate that the planet is not getting warmer -- and it doesn't seem like you are -- we still have a serious problem on our hands. It's a little academic to most people whether it's caused by power production, or automobiles, or cow farts, or energy fluctuations in the Sun, or a lack of pirates.
Telling people in Bangladesh who are up to their knees in seawater that "hey, we're just coming out of a geological cold phase!" isn't particularly useful. Or when the power grid and water supplies in the whole Eastern half of the U.S. fail because the average summer temperature is up in the mid-to-high 90s (or higher), saying "it was a lot worse a few million years ago" isn't getting us any closer to a solution.
The causes of the warming phenomenon are only interesting insofar as they give us possible solutions for dealing with the problem -- because it's not CO2 that's the problem, it's the warming that's the problem. If you don't think it's anthropogenic CO2 that's the cause of the warming, fine, but that doesn't mean that the actual problem just goes away because we didn't cause it, which seems to be the attitude taken by many of the anti-anthropogenic-global-warming side. We still have to deal with the same consequences even if the cause isn't anthropogenic. (And if it's not anthropogenic, then we're probably screwed even further, because it's probably a lot more difficult to reverse the process.)
"Ladies and gentlemen, my killbot features Lotus Notes and a machine gun. It is the finest available."
Flunked statistics did you?
This guy is a layman, huh? Or the journalists who write ALL of the articles?
People who complain in knee jerk fashion without reading TFA set off my bullshit alarm. Can't touch the argument, attack the credibility of the researcher - standard procedure.
Truth is, you wish the opposition to your viewpoint would stfu, otherwise you would have had nothing to say. It's not ignorance, its another valid point of view on the phenomenon of climate change - and in the vast sea of apocalyptic points of view being spat at the entire world on a daily basis, I find it a refreshingly more level headed one.
I'm still highly amused that you have not provided a single graph, analysis or paper that supports your position or your claims. This, in spite of a lengthy post that must have taken a good chunk of time to write up. BTW, here's a quick link for you to peruse about volcanic emissions versus human emissions: http://volcanoes.usgs.gov/Hazards/What/VolGas/volg as.html
Oh how wrong you are about volcanoes. Sucks when you have no data to back you up, doesn't it? For someone who harps on data and models, you are amazingly bad at picking your supporting graphs, your supporting models and your supporting papers.
Those who can, do. Those who can't, sue.
There's a lot more to "warming" than more sunny skies. Heat evaporates water.
The most simple definition of "weather" is water in the air. The weather is all about water in the air. The force and fury of storms comes from differences in temperature and water in the air. If you have even paid a LITTLE attention to the news during hurricane season, you would have learned that the forces that power a hurricane are differences in temperature and the temperature of the water. (That's why hurricane season is during the months that they are and not during the winter season.)
A global climate change will kill many species and cause others to flourish. This will create an unpredictable change in the global eco-system. We don't have the knowledge or computational power to take into account ALL known factors (let alone all unknown factors) to form a prediction. But one thing is pretty certain when it comes to global events like these. A lot of life is lost and it takes millions upon millions of years to bring the planet back to the level that we know it to be today. We won't see what happens. Our kids... our great great grandchildren will not see what happens. Humans may well be extinct when it happens and not necessarily for reasons we bring on ourselves. (In the grand scheme of things, very few species last THAT long, but given that we have effectively halted human evolution, it's quite possible we'll survive.)
But back to the possibility that global warming might HELP the planet? No way... it will destroy anything close to the oceans, and areas identified as "tornado alley" such as an area close to where I live, will see expansion and intensification of those danger zones.
Again: more heat, more water in the air, more intensely violent weather.
I'm not a climate expert, but I stayed a weekend at some hotel that somehow makes you really smart.
It was a dead hurricane season in 2006? Typhoons in Asia
Sounds to me like you're forgetting the world is a big place, every year one part of the world has a worse season than another part. Weather is crazy, when Katrina hit during a bad year the rest of the world saw less storms. It's been happening for as long as we've been keeping records.
Despite what you seem to think the relationship between heat and the intensity of hurricanes is very well researched and documented. Just because its hot in one place one year doesn't mean that same place is going to be the hot spot the next year. Ocean currents and trade winds take quite a while to round trip the earth.
So yes, global warming contributed to the weather that we are currently enjoying, except for the fact that Florida is in drought and experiencing some mighty bad forest fires along with Georgia. Yep, no affect at all. Oh yeah, all those extremely powerful tornadoes, also not affected by increased temperatures. Climate change is violent, it always has been in the past, I have no idea why people seem to think it would be easy to deal with now.
Do we need to outlaw oil and stop all emissions? Of course not, but we need to do something about the problem at hand, the problem we can see now, projections of the future don't mean jack as we know now that the climate is changing and we're in a position to do something about it.
You're right I didn't get that from your post, but, that isn't the point your post appears to make.
However, the melting glacial ice has volume that correlates directly to rising ocean levels. Rising ocean levels correlates directly to displaced populations.
Warmer earth includes warmer oceans. Warmer oceans mean stronger, more frequent tropical storms. I imagine you're also familiar with the meteorological phenomenon known as El Nino and La Nina. These terms describe the effects on weather caused by variations of surface water temperatures in the Pacific. The changes caused are observable, predictable and bad. Changes include flooding in areas unused to flooding, causing landslides, and drought in areas unused to drought, causing wildfires and failed crops. El Nino is not related to Global Warming. However, Global warming by definition will create surface water conditions similar to El Nino in more places around the globe.
So again, you're right, change isn't bad. However, too much change too fast can be bad. In this case, our change seems to indicate bad consequences.
And which historical climate do you propose maintaining? The Little Ice Age? The Medieval Warm Period? With or without human intervention, climate is constantly changing. We need to learn to deal with it.
Support Right To Repair Legislation.
I don't think you are a shill or dumb. But I reject the weather vs. climate argument, and the coin-flipping analogy is a pretty good one.
Predicting weather is about forecasting the dynamics of a system on time- and distance scales on which the system is chaotic. This is coin flipping. It's possible to predict the distribution of the results, but it's impossible to do much predicting the next flip.
Here's another analogy. Take a cup of coffee. Pour milk in it. Can you predict the precise way in which the milk swirls around? No, that's weather. Can you figure out what the average temperature and milk concentration of that cup will be in five minutes? Yes, depending on your ability to measure the thermal conductivity of the cup, the ambient temperature and humidity, etc.
Modeling climate sure isn't easy or particularly precise. But it is a false premise to reject such activities based on the fundamental constraints of weather prediction. Weather and climate are obviously governed by the same dynamics, but they differ fundamentally in terms of their time and distance scales.
Simple Unexpected Concrete Credible Emotional Stories
When a polygon gets smaller, its perimeter also tends to get smaller(If the underwater topography were right it could get larger...is that smoothness?). So there will be a bunch of new waterfront property, but there will also be a bunch of not-waterfront-property-anymore property to go with it.
Nerd rage is the funniest rage.
Global warming may be happening and it may not be. Who can say with any absolute certainty that global warming is really happening? Who can say with any certainty that global warming will lead to abrupt climate changes? As Michael Crichton points out, all we have are computer models and theories. A computer model is just that, a prediction that is quite error prone. I think rather than being concerned about global warming, we should be actively conserving our natural resources and engage in environmentally friendly practices. It is my belief that money, time, and energy are better spent in actively reducing air, ground, and water pollution than throwing money into global warming research. Also, conservation of our forests and open spaces should be paramount. I think we can say only one thing with certainty: we are polluting our air and water. Let's deal with the immediate problems that are within our power to solve.
I would make the argument that significant change in an ecosystem will usually be bad for the dominant species that have adapted to live in that ecosystem. Change can of course give opportunities to other species that have struggled to live in an ecosystem. The obvious examples are the past mass extinctions, especially the one that gave rise to the dinosaurs, as well as the one that destroyed the dinosaurs and gave rise to mammals.
Significant change destroys. It destroys existing systems. It plays havoc on most species. It creates starvation for species that have grown to need the existing systems that are being swept away. Of course, this allows new species to rise and fill the vacuum. Change is the prime driver of evolution. Evolution works at its fastest when there is mass death and destruction.
And today, we are the dominant species on the Earth. The agricultural systems that we rely on are built on our current climatic conditions. Farms are located in certain places that have the perfect combinations of good soil, and good weather. Too much rain, or too little, or rain at the wrong time can destroy crops. If the rain moves from an area with good soil to an area with bad soil, then this will reduce crop yields, even if our farmers follow the rain. Moving the water by canal or pipeline is an option, but it is expensive (how much did the Panama Canal cost to build?).
I can think of no better an example of the problems of climate change than the Australian drought. Australia has already lost 1% of its GDP due to drought conditions. And without significant rain in the coming weeks, the country faces draconian water restrictions: Brisbane is at stage 5 water restrictions right now, which effectively means flushing the toilet every 7 uses and keeping shower water in a bucket for later use. Agriculture along the Murray Darling River (the main agricultural river system) faces a complete cutoff of irrigation. That means the death of the many grape vines that form the basis for Australia's wine industry.
Here is a map that shows how rainfall patterns have changed. The interior (where no one lives) is receiving more rain. The coasts (where almost everyone lives) are receiving less rain. The rainfall patterns have changed, and the Australians are struggling to adapt to the new conditions.
This and no other is the root from which a tyrant springs; when first he appears as a protector - Plato (423 to 327 BC)
Would global warming increase the availability of solar energy? My first thought is no, because global warming is just retaining more heat in the atmosphere, and not increasing the amount of energy reaching the earth's surface. Does anyone have a different take on that?
Prov 9:8 Do not rebuke mockers or they will hate you; rebuke the wise and they will love you.
Wow. Not a single reference. Not a single discussion about how CO2 absorption works or how it compares to the absorption of other gases. Not a single discussion of the physics of atmospheric warming, the statistics of ice cores and satellite measurements, or even of the carbon cycle. All I see is massive hand waving, lots of statements, lots of posturing. Apparently, it's ok for you to demand - in bold and italics and all caps, no less - data and support, but when it comes to providing it for your claims, it's ok for you to wave your hand and say "it's all here". All there is is vapid posturing.
None of the data is there. All I have is your word that what you say is accurate - and from the brief googling I've done on some of your claims (like the volcanoes - hah!) they're just patently wrong. You make pompous claims about your knowledge, about how science is supposed to work, about how everyone needs to support their claims with data, and then fail every last one of your own boastful demands and statements.
As for real scientists.... I sure hope you don't consider yourself one of them. I've worked with them, and you are so far out in crackpot land that you don't even qualify as an amateur scientist in the Scientic American sense, nor even as someone who has any idea how to interpret data. All you are is a complete waste of time whose only method of debate is intimidation. Shoo.
Those who can, do. Those who can't, sue.
What does that teach you?
Well, for one, you might start reading the damn papers. There's a reason that the two claim an order of magnitude difference in the carbon deposition rate: one counts underwater volcanoes, and the other doesn't. Underwater volcanoes release a hell of a lot more CO2 into the atmosphere, because there are so damned many of them (that shouldn't come as a surprise, considering how much more seafloor there is than land shelf, as well as the better proximity to the mantle, the higher thermal stresses and the placement of fault lines.)
For two, one paper counts total human CO2 output, whereas the other counts CO2 outgassing. There's a huge difference. Human CO2 output counts all the CO2 trapped inside plastic, all the CO2 used to treat timber, all the CO2 baked into bricks, all the CO2 captured and sold industrially, all the CO2 bound into salt, all the CO2 used to crack gasoline, all the CO2 used in treating steel, et cetera.
Does it really surprise you that less than one percent of the CO2 we create is lost to the atmosphere? It's an extremely useful industrial gas, and using it typically consumes it by binding it into the material.Not quite.I wouldn't know. If you had been reading what I wrote more closely, maybe you would have found the data I cited, and had the good sense to try to figure out the differences before going into attack mode.
If you want to reply to this, wait until you've calmed down. You seem to think you're an information bully, out to strip people of their childish beliefs by throwing data at them which you briefly googled up. When you learn that a brief glance over data isn't the same thing as an understanding thereof, lemme know.
If you don't wait until you've calmed down and started to behave as an adult before replying, I will simply ignore you. I'm sure you'll claim it's because I'm wrong and flee-ing, but it's actually because I find conversation with agressive people unpleasant. Yes, I know I'm aggressive too. You don't need to mention it. The difference is that I'm not just blindly pasting data I got off of Google. I'm citing things I actually understand.
Settle down, or find someone else to talk to. There's making your case, then there's being a dick about it.
StoneCypher is Full of BS
The total CO2 output of all the volcanoes in the world in any given year is still less than 2% of annual anthropogenic emissions.
You are probably getting CO2 confused with aerosol precursors. There are more than a dozen things on this planet that regularly put out more CO2 than we do. That's kind of a red herring, just like the wingnuts who like to point out that more of the greenhouse effect is due to water vapor than CO2.
As the previous poster pointed out, there are large non-anthropogenic sources of CO2, but until recently they have been essentially balanced by non-anthropogenic sinks of CO2, so that net CO2 concentrations remained pretty much constant on timescales of millennia. We are now sourcing CO2 at a much greater rate than it can be sunk, leading to a rapid rate of accumulation.
Out of curiosity, what do you believe is responsible for the current rapid increase in CO2 concentrations? They were until 1983, and our CO2 output has not increased much since then (sure we're growing, but we're also becoming more efficient.) I challenge you to justify that claim with published data.
Not only is that not true, it's also not as relevant as you would have it appear: even if our CO2 output leveled off (which it most definitely has not), it would still continue accumulate in the atmosphere because we would still be sourcing it faster than it can be sunk. (Unless we go in for sequestration in a big way.)
Incidentally, you say: Most climatologists believe that humanity has a net decrease on global CO2 creation, because industry generates less CO2 per acre than biota do. I challenge you to justify that claim with published data. It certainly disagrees with every land use CO2 estimate I've seen (e.g., Jain, Houghton,
Furthermore, the paleo T/CO2 record does not contradict anthropogenic global warming, nor does it explain the current temperature or CO2 trends.
Way to ignore the vast majority of solid information out there and try to put a rose on a pile of shit.
Way to dismiss all thoughts and opinions that don't agree with you.
I think it is pretty much an agreed-upon fact that earth temperatures are rising, and I think that it is naive to think that human activity can't have an effect on climate. However, this does not mean we all have to have are eyelids glued open and be forced to watch An Inconvenient Truth until we believe the polar ice caps will melt away, the sky will turn to water and fall on out heads and we'll all drown unless we all live like the Amish. Global climate modeling is mind-bogglingly complex and there most certainly is room for debate on the magnitude and nature of human-activity-induced climate change.
Global temperatures are probably slowly rising overall. If we do not adapt to the changes, it will probably be detrimental overall too, but overall does not mean universally. Some places will be cooler, some will be wetter, some will be drier too. It seems to me that where I live, winters have gotten warmer over the years but summers are actually COOLER and a bit wetter. This might improve yields for some types of crops. In other parts of the world, productive land may become deserts. There is NO WAY we can know with certainty HOW bad (or good) how changing climate will affect related issues like food production.
I think dialogue needs to be kept open and opinions of all types must be considered. As far as reducing our CO2 emissions to slow global warming goes, however, I think we've reached a point where even severe reductions will be akin to trying to stop a speeding, fully-loaded freight train using the mass and power of a Smart Car: it'll make a small, essentially meaningless impact immediately and unless we turn off the train engine (akin basically to voluntarily wiping out the human population) the train will just keep rolling along. Whatever good intentions the Kyoto accord was intended to address, it has done something quite dangerous I think--it has shifted the focus on environmental issues very heavily towards one single issue to the detriment of all others (especially as the deadline to meet targets looms). Projects to install scrubbers on smokestacks to remove pollution that endangers our health are being cancelled in order to purchase emissions credits or invest in CO2 capture, but in the meantime we still get smog, acid rain and asthma-inducing particulates belching into the air! Expansion of nuclear power is being seriously discussed as a solution to the Kyoto problem--what is the environmental impact of uranium mining, and what about safety and security around the handling of nuclear fuel and waste?
I am not sure of the motives behind the huge effort to control the nearly uncontrollable (global climate), but it is getting in the way of true environmentalism--an approach based around conservation and sustainability. Reducing oil consumption isn't just needed to keep global warming in check--it just makes common sense to make more judicious use of a resource that is expensive to extract and refine, is non renewable and of finite supply. Thankfully, much of what is done in the name of CO2 reduction does in fact help sustainability, but it is not the whole picture. What is important to keep in mind though is the TOTAL impact of what we do: What'll we do with all the mercury in spent CF bulbs once incandescents are banned? What is the environmental impact of creating the batteries (energy consumption, chemicals and metals used, etc) used in your Prius? What about loss of habitat and damage to wildlife caused by hydroelectric dams and wind power farms (both Kyoto-friendly but they have a large negative impact on the environment nonetheless)?
Anyway, it is always good to give opinions "on the fringe" the benefit of the doubt.
"Or did you just miss the half dozen places where I said I was able to read the models, and was doing so at that time? Or the links, the references to work, et cetera?"
I've just managed to browse through the tedium of your entire body of posts in this thread, and I found only two relevant links: the documentary on google video, and the umich.edu page, which you summarily dismissed as supporting your points anyway.
I now officially think that you're batshit fucking crazy, and just forgot to take your meds. I've said it before, I'll say it again - it's nice to know that the opposition to global warming seems to to be comprised almost entirely of paid whores or nutbags off their meds.
Those who can, do. Those who can't, sue.
We don't need *more* people on the planet. The lines at movies theaters are already too long.
Seriously, faster population growth is not a good thing.
You've stated a number of unsubstantiated "facts", but other than one link to a chart, and your heavy and embarrassing reliance on the Swindle show, no independently verifiable references. A reference means providing a mechanism so I could evaluate your statements. Just throwing out "data" that I know to be wrong is not sufficient.
Or did I miss something?
BTW your chart showed more or less the same data that I had already cited here.
I've known about Arrhenius and CO2 for over a decade; my MS thesis at MIT concerned oceanic carbon cycles, so I read up on him then.
If you can point out the errors in his 1896 paper, that would be a good start.
And I actually have done my homework on this topic, beyond watching a "documentary" that I would be embarrassed if my 5-year-old referenced as a source for anything.
By the way, did you know that Durkin admitted that the volcano argument is wrong?
Here's a poorly worked reference that provides some data about Mt. St. Helens. It contradicts your claims. They screwed up on which numbers are sources and which are sinks (some units should be kg/year), but you get the idea. Volcanism is not the current driver of the spiking CO2 trend. Period. End of story. Find a new talking point.
Your turn- please, please, please provide a scientific reference that demonstrates that humans are not the primary cause behind the current atmospheric CO2 trend. As to why that matters, see: Arrhenius (and yes, I know about the Arrhenius equation; I took high school chemistry too).
You just hit all the standard talking points, don't you? Show me that this theory was anything other than a footnote (as opposed to a broadly held consensus view).
Simple Unexpected Concrete Credible Emotional Stories
I've been watching this stuff for a long time, and the part that bothers me the most about this is that we've become so accustomed to giving everyone an equal voice that people become numb to issues. For better or worse, we are starting see intellectual insight and armchair philosophy as equally valuable and perspectives that carry the same weight. While I hate to read comments like Phaedrus' above because it's a position that's ruining our world, I can also empathize with his position. I'm sick of hearing the debate as well, but as long as there are those out there delivering disinformation about climate change, we need to keep up the fight. It's unfortunate. Luckily the corporate world is now onside with climate change. A recent article I read talks about how climate change has become a corporate priority, and describes a "perfect storm" situation where multiple stakeholders are doing the right thing (and not always for the right reasons). To me it's a fascinating development. So while it appears there will always be debate on issues that truly warrant none, there are other issues in the world that may force our hand for the better - even if they are corporate (or greed) driven. There's debate, then there's action - it's interesting to see that the climate's enemy may become it's greatest ally.
...nuclear radiation was found to be beneficial for certain sports. For example, in the NBA, extra arms may improve ball dribbling and defense; and extra eyes may reduce the chance of somebody sneaking up from behind for a steal. It should be pointed out the extra limbs and eyes in a large percentage of irradiated individuals tend not to fully function. But for those who do have full-functioning extra limbs and organs, the NBA welcomes them with open arms (all 3 of them).
Table-ized A.I.
Just about every argument I've heard about global warming can be summarized by a few talking points:
Liberal talking points
* Because of over a century of adding carbon dioxide to the atmosphere, the average temperature in Earth is increasing.
* This has foreseeable negative impacts.
* The scariest impacts are from subtle effects that we can't even predict.
* Models say we are approaching a tipping point where the changes become self-sustaining and self-feeding.
* We can slow or stop this, but we're running out of time, and must act now.
Conservative talking points
* Global warming is not happening. It's a liberal myth.
* It's a normal cycle, not caused by man.
* It's pointless for us to try to slow global warming because India and China are putting much more carbon dioxide in the atmosphere than the United States is, and they won't stop.
* What's the big deal? It's only a few degrees change, and will make life better on Earth. Don't you like nicer weather?
* It's too late to stop the major effects of global warming. Better for the the government to encourage and subsidize business to adapt to and profit from the major changes that will inevitably occur.
I'm not sure how idiots can even speculate about what the earth will be like in 2050. Obviously, the point about saving 40,000 germans is stupidity. I mean, by 2050, I hope nobody is dying from the flu, let alone cold people. Computer simulations can't consistently predict the weather the next day, let alone 40 years from now.
I bag mine up, feed it to my chickens (so far a lot of really good eggs, pretty soon some freezer meat) or use it for mulch around my little trees or grapevines, etc. The chickens *love* grass clippings, scarf em down quick. A lot of folks in suburbia could do the same thing, they just don't feel like it or somehow think it's "weird" or something, even though caring for a small kitchen flock has been something humans have done for the bulk of our civilized existence.. A small flock is remarkably easy to care for too, and doesn't have to be any sort of huge mess or "eyesore", kinda fun really. And they can be housed in a sharp looking and relatively inexpensive to build (plans galore on the net) coop, then allowed a little walk around the lawn "free range" time during the day.
[update: Damn you, NeutronCowboy, for beating me to the punch. But really, thank you. You have been a lot more elequent than I in this thread.]
0 2/1686
You do *not* get to have the last word. Everyone here is mostly trying to have a civil discussion with you. But so far, all you've done is insult and intimidate your critics. You say I don't provide any references or resources. I need to cite only one:
http://www.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/full/306/57
Oreskes has sampled almost a thousand seperate scholastic studies across multiple disciplines. and there was *NO* direct dissent. This is a far cry from the "gobal warming hoax" you claim. These researchers are serious scientists. They only responsibility they have is to their own designated area of research.
What have you done? Aside from providing a link to that god-awful documentary and a reference to "the global carbon cycle" at the Umich website cited by one of your critics, you have produced absolutely squat. I have gone through all your comments and as of 2 PM PDT, everything you've expressed so far in reply to those in this discussion thread has been a whole bunch of hand waving, groundless assertions, or evasive facts. You're quick to dismiss the references provided by others but other than just those two citations, I can't find any other sources despite your repeated assertion that you have indeed provided references. In reply to my earier comment, you mention:
ice record
CO2 sedimentation
weather balloons
atmospheric temperature gradient
oceanic outgassing measurements
the CO2/temperature correlation
(basic common sense)
saying doesn't make it so. where is the reference to back up your position? Where are the figures and charts from studies that use these methods to disagree with the conclusions of our current understanding of global warming? I think your engaged in this exchange just for the sake of arguing without any genuine intention to enlighten or be enlightened. Some of what you say just makes absolutely no sense. "realistic data that predates animal life"????? "wholesale rape of baby seals."??????
In light of such bizarre comments, I am left with no alternative but to urge you to stop bothering the nice folks at slashdot and don't skip out on your medications.
Stay sentient. Don't drink bad milk.
Irrelevant to the argument of warming, the use of the 'C' word is disingenuous. We all know that there are plenty of conspiracies, and anyone who doesn't believe conspiracies exist is not very bright. That being said, it becomes an issue of how big a conspiracy can get, and still keep hold. Historically, we have seen plenty of conspiracies that have involved millions of people. Just take religion as a single undeniable example. We have Christians, Jews, Muslims, Hindus and various other groups. Now, these groups each have millions of followers, yet their statements of 'fact' are mutually exclusive of each other. This requires millions of people to support each other in the furthering of a lie. I am not going to take sides on which one is right, which ones are wrong, or even if they are all wrong, but it is only possible for one to be right.
I can't count the number of times I have heard people use 'An Inconvenient Truth' as a reference for their pro warming arguments. That particular movie is loaded with outright lies and half-truths. Huge numbers of numbers of people believe it though. The biggest problem with the whole global warming debate is that there is so much money to be made, by so many people that it is almost impossible to get the real facts.
A beauty is the line from an 'An Inconvenient Truth' that says "You can reduce your carbon output to 0." Yet, on the other side, we regularly see the crap that the oil industry pulls on us.
You just hit all the standard talking points, don't you? Show me that this theory was anything other than a footnote (as opposed to a broadly held consensus view).
Well here is a newsweek article from 1975 which states that global cooling is(was) coming:http://www.numberwatch.co.uk/cooling1.pdf
Does it matter what the scientific consensus was in 1975 if the public was made to believe a certain view based on "scientific evidence"? No, the only thing that matters is that global cooling was credited as legit in the mainstream press, albeit it's not the wide spread panic / money making machine that global warming is today.
So that's where the skepticism comes from. It's not baseless or a simple talking point, it's real history. Shocker, science has been wrong before and the public was made to believe the wrong thing. So that's where you get the skeptics from.
Honestly I don't understand why people so involved in science are outright angry at global warming skeptics. If anything they should embrace skepticism within their own work and prove with testable evidence that it actually is man made, instead of just calling someone a idiot in so many words because they don't believe.
I found a nice spoof on an advertisment for the Flemish socialist party (sp.a).
I don't think you need a translation, but you might not know that Spa is *the* best known mineral water in Belgium !
Flourescent (adj): smelling like ground wheat.
You *do* realize just how fragmentary the fossil record is, don't you?
My personal opinion (without studying the matter) is that we probably don't have enough evidence to guess whether there were more or fewer species. (Well, except that clearly there were fewer, e.g., right after the asteroid hit. And right after whatever caused the Permian Catastrophe. Etc.) Most species never leave any discovered and recognized fossil record, and we don't know what percentage "most" means, just that it's large relative to 50%. (There may, of course, people who have reasons to believe some particular number is "about right", but I'm not one of them.)
I think we've pushed this "anyone can grow up to be president" thing too far.
my girlfriend gets that catalog. I suppose they could sell more shorts and t-shirts if the weather just cooperated. That would truly make life better.
I am always amused by those who post URLs and say (paraphrased), "you must be a moron for not having read this: _________", as if anyone is going to actually read the link. In a "science" as vague and vast as monitoring earth's climate there are always going to be those that over exaggerate their own importance if it seems to lead to continued employment.
In my opinion, the doomers rely on the fact that most people have no sense of scale ("wow, a million of anything must be a lot") and manipulate popular attitudes by using emotional triggers. This is inherently dishonest as a tactic to gain more mindspace.
The End of Human Existence is what they predict, if you don't do what they say. Conveniently, the answer to all the problems is big government intervention.
Are they nuts? Until HIV/AIDS overtook it, Malaria was the number one identifiable cause of death in the world.
Even modest increases in temperatures can have non-linear effects in transmission of vector borne diseases. For example Mexico City, while in a latitude where Malaria is endemic, is free of it because its altitude makes it too cool for the Anopheles mosquito to establish itself; that is to say the range of the disease vector is limited by latitude and altitude. Once conditions at its 2240m elevation become inhabitable, the tenth most populous city in the world becomes vulnerable.
In the US,there have been serious outbreaks of Yellow Fever as far north as Boston. The 1793 Philadelphia epidemic killed 10% of the population and was only checked by cold weather in November. Philadelphia was an interesting case because it epidemic came in with slave trading ships; international trade is now a major transporter of disease vectors such as the asian tiger mosquito.
Infectious agents are now thought to play a role in both maintaining and disrupting ecological stability. New organisms who move into an already occupied are immunologically naive to pathogens present in the habitat, which forms a kind of natural defense. Likewise they may bring new pathogens in; the European settlement of the Americas would have gone differently were it not for smallpox.
The disruptions caused by both climate change and the human response to it are likely to spill a number of novel tropical infectious agents (such as Ebola) from their currently limited geographic ranges. International trade will transport them around the world. In particular vector borne diseases that have a capacity to establish themselves in wild animal populations have the potential to become endemic in temperate regions (as West Nile did, although WNV is relatively benign as such things go).
That's not to say global warming won't have some health benefits. But we can expect a number of novel diseases to emerge, many well known diseases to become more of a problem.
Post may contain irony: discontinue use if experiencing mood swings, nausea or elevated blood pressure.
We're obviously so good at it right now. There wouldn't be global warming if we could plan ahead well. What does that really mean anyway? We can't see the future and our estimates and whatnot are constantly changing. The best thing to do would be to try to prevent it getting worse since we know how we're screwing it up.