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Antarctic Ozone Hole Shrinks 30 Percent
polar red sends us news of a story that many outlets have picked up from a European Space Agency press release: the Antarctic ozone hole is 30% smaller than it was during the previous record year. It's still about the size of North America. "Scientists say this year's smaller hole... is due to natural variations in temperature and atmospheric dynamics... and is not indicative of a long-term trend. 'Although the hole is somewhat smaller than usual, we cannot conclude from this that the ozone layer is recovering already,' [one researcher said]."
we cannot conclude from this that the ozone layer is recovering already
In short, EVERYBODY PANIC and give us grant monies!
Since I don't have kids, and probably won't, I say screw the ozone. I'm all for living indoors anyways.
Someday, I'll have a real sig.
Why is it, when the hole gets bigger, it's "ZOMFG WE'RE GONNA DIE"
But, when the hole shrinks, it's "Well let's not be too hasty about saying things are improving"
Hmm?
be embarrassing if the hole was just the result of variations in various decades long solar cycles, after all we haven't been observing it for very long. we may have gone environmentally apeshit for no reason with regards to FHCs.
I don't know how it will happen, but any money says that this will somehow descend into a flame-war about global warming. Not connected, people.
'This writing business. Pencils and what-not. Over-rated if you ask me. Silly stuff. Nothing in it' - Eeyore
If the antartic ice sheet melts faster than predicted, some folks say, with convinction, that its proof that humanity has finally done in poor mother earth, and that we are all doomed. Now, we get a piece of good news, that the ozone hole is actually healing up, and that can't possibly be because humanity did something right.
Worst of all, we're probably going to find down the road that, because the ozone hole closed up, a bunch of carbon producing bacteria that would have otherwise been killed due to UV radiation have now lived, making the earth's carbon burden even worse. Or, perhaps, more oxygen producing bacteria live, making things better. Either way, the ozone hole closing will cause somme other climate change, just as we now find that regulations on the size of particulates in pollution actually made global warming worse.
With all these downsides to cleaning up the environment, I almost think we need to find few brave politicians willing to come out for oceanic dumping of nuclear waste, just to balance things out. Godzilla: wake up, damn you!
This is my sig.
But there's an amusing link between global warming (other such climate disaster) panic artists and hardcore Christians: If anything they want to happen happens, it's due to human activity, or God helping them out respectively.
However, should someone lose their football game, or should a forthcoming climactic disaster suddenly dissipate (even if just a little bit), well, you know, shit happens.
Faith is a beautiful thing, eh?
I like the use of the word "somewhat" to indicate a 30% decrease.
To me, it seems that calling that "a substantial decrease" would be more truthful.
Of course, the researchers know as well that any news outlet these days would misquote or leave out the following sentence saying that the effect is probably temporary. But it's still stupid to (have to) explain a 30% decrease as only "somewhat decreased".
Every expression is true, for a given value of 'true'
how about this: " the ozone hole is due to solar action just as 30-70% of global warming is" I'm in the mood to troll today, and slashdot exists for my amusement as does its readers. So let the sparks of trolldom fly into the fuel-air bomb of the eco-religious' beliefs.
Very strange effect. It seems like lots of studies are done. The ones that show drastic environmental collapse are reported very widely. In this case the news seems good and there isn't an alternative study so we get the comment 'Although the hole is somewhat smaller than usual, we cannot conclude from this that the ozone layer is recovering already'. So the studies may be ok scientfically but picking the outliers which show immininent catastrophe and if that is impossible adding comments that the catastrophe might still be present is not.
So bad news is bad news. Good news means we can't conclude anything.
It reminds me of the 'worst headline ever' : 'Small earthquake : not many killed'. If you want to attract attention, I guess you need a bit of drama.
But maybe I'm complacent and we'll all die of avian flu or global warming or a meltdown in the financial markets causing a collapse of our civilisation.
echo -e 'global _start\n _start:\n mov eax, 2\n int 80h\n jmp _start' > a.asm; nasm a.asm -f elf; ld a.o -o a;
Smaller ozone hole = more penguins = bigger Linux market share!
It was discovered large, and presumed to be larger than before it was discovered, and that has cost human lives. Sigh.
Couldn't the same logic be applied to global temperature averages?
'Although the temperature is somewhat higher than usual [this season/year/decade], we cannot conclude from this that global warming is real.'
There are relatively small recorded data sets for both the ozone layer condition and global temperatures, so I guess it's about which agenda you want to promote: changes either signify a pattern change, or are just abborations.
..spin this. We don't know near enough about long-term changes in our climate to make any conclusions. If you hear any scientist declaring as a fact that it does or does not exist and we did or did not cause it, they are far from credible.
It's absolute proof that global warming is caused by humans! And if it ever gets bigger, or smaller, that'll be even more proof! Watch out for more hurricanes, or fewer, next year, thanks to Global Warming!
we cannot conclude from this that the ozone layer is recovering already
...
But when it gets bigger, that's the signal to start the race down to the Beeb / CNN local news studio, so they can proclaim doom and gloom and the "next ice age being just around the corner".
So if the numbers work in your favour, they are valid
If they work against your "research grant" biased opinion, it's just a "seasonal variation".
I told them to wash it in cold water, not hot!
Global warming is 100% solar action... take the sun away from the equation and I guarantee warming will stop nearly immediately.
That's what all this nonsense of "going green" has ever been about.
The problem with socialism is that they always run out of other people's money. - Margaret Thatcher
"we can conclude that the ozone layer may be recovering."
Isn't it amazing how "scientific" studies can be spinned to always show the bias of the one presenting the argument. I've said it before and I'll say it again - we can't accurately predict the weather one week in advance, and yet, scientists insist that they can predict what's going to happen tens or hundreds of years in the future. And don't get me started on actors and politicians who claim to be "experts" in this area.
Well, actually 100% of the global warming is from the sun: Take the sun away, and I assure you it will not get warmer even a fraction of a degree, and no amount of CO2 will change that!
Also unreported by the major media is the new crack in the consensus on ozone depletion in general. There are new indications that the mechanism scientists told us was destroying ozone might not be doing what they thought.
This is the only info available because the press won't report it and I don't have a subscription to the journal "Nature".
It seems asymmetric, but then, the situation is. There is an asymmetry in the consequences of being right vs being wrong.
If I hand you a bottle of an unknown chemical and say "go on, drink it, I think it's safe." and somehow says to you "He's a good guy, trust him." and someone else says "He's a liar, don't trust him." you're stuck with what might seem (in Fair and Balanced land) like an even choice. But, you see, the truth is that you have many choices of things to drink, and the cost of not drinking is miniscule, while the cost of drinking could be fatal. So I'm betting you won't drink it. Even though it looks like symmetry.
In this case, a large number of scientists have used words like "exponential" and "tipping point" and "cataclysmic change" in ways that suggest a deeper and more enduring truth is looming than mere lack of funding for the person speaking. But suppose we disregard the fact that considerable actual research has been done and considerable mathematical modeling has been done, and we just assume two strangers have flipped different coins and have made predictions that are quite different and unpredictable by any other means than merely trusting them, as effectively describes the days before Science.
The ordinary analysis one wants to do is to multiply the probability of the person being right times the a quantitative measure of the danger involved. In this case, both are 50% probability, since we think Scientists are not a special breed who have trained for life to predict things. So we just have to come up with a quantitative metric for "Oh, darn. We'll not have an ozone layer, we'll all get cancer, and we'll die (or in the good case we'll all move underground and only be able to come up above ground in space suits)." vs a quantitative metric for "Oh, darn. I'm embarrassed by predicting that the ozone layer was going to fail. It's true that the world will move on and we have lots of new Green technology and people are much more ecologically aware, but gosh, I'm blushing."
Something in me wants to assign a higher badness value to that first one than that second one. And hence, something in me believes more caution is warranted in believing safety than in believing a problem.
I have yet to hear a serious argument for why the world will be injured by behaving as if there is an ozone or climate problem (if there is not), and so I just don't understand why anyone ever makes this argument.
People are constantly making the argument that the people who want to do climate research are somehow money-grubbing. But so what? The people who don't want to do climate research are also money-grubbing. The world runs on money, and we're not going to get that out of the system, so we'd better stop discounting opinions because of it or we'll have no one employed to have an opinion.
Science relies on falsifiability at its core, so of course everything is a theory. That's not a condemnation, that's a statement of the bold thing that science is: a willingness to say what might be disproved and to tolerate the slings and arrows of criticism. These theories are holding up pretty well to scientific criticism, and where we don't, we're learning things. The opposition in this game isn't holding up an alternate theory--they're holding up the idea that Science has nothing to offer. If there's another theory, let's hear it, and if it's also "just a theory", let's hear an argument about why it's safe to bet the future of the human raceon that theory rather than this one.
Kent M Pitman
Philosopher, Technologist, Writer
Did you know that the Antarctic ozone hole has shrunk by 30 for the year ending 2007? If this trend continues... AAY!
but I don't suppose you'll be hearing that from any news sources.
Cos if it's good news, it ain't news............
(and besides, a lot of people would loose their grants....)
Sun rays create and destroy ozone at a given, constant rates. That results in some constant level of ozone in the upper atmosphere. It is a simple, differential equation here. Now, what CFCs and similar chemicals do is cause the ozone destruction rate to go up which is proportional to their concentration in the upper atmosphere. So, the result is that the constant solution of amount of ozone in the upper atmosphere will decrease.
The ozone hole is NOT created by CFCs, it is created by upper atmosphere dynamics. Ozone gets moved around (it is in the air there). But then without the ozone holes at the poles (ozone moves people), we would have less ozone near the tropics and people would need SFP 1000. Essentially, in a state state, pre-man solution, it is very likely that there was some thinning of ozone at the poles.
Finally, global warming. Ozone hole does not create or add to global warming. BUT, it is thought that global warming may contribute ozone depletion by affecting atmosphere dynamics.
All the fossil fuel emissions result in the breakdown of O2 in the atmosphere, and in the formation of O3, the build-up of which is clearly responsible for the shrinkage of the hole.
-- What you do today will cost you a day of your life.
Throw people a damn bone, the industry has done a lot to address this issue.
If whatever people do the effects are reported as negative, those people might as well give up and make those reports for natural disaster a self-fulfilling prophecy.
Eco zealots will be happy I assume.
What? No goatse jokes on a "hole" story? I'm dissapointed. There's a hole in the trolling.
Table-ized A.I.
...this news has had not affected my enjoyment of hugging trees in the slightest. It's still just as fun.
But it looks like I am...
Also, to invoke propaganda buzzwords, saying that the climate scientists are SHOUTING "WE'RE ALL GONNA DIE!!" is a bit of a straw man...activists do shout sometimes, but I've never heard a climate scientist shout (verbally or with all caps on paper). And if one has, that particular person isn't the norm. You are exaggerating. Climate scientists are doing their duty bringing potential problems to the table for discussion because there may be a reason for concern, and people like you can only belittle with your arrogance and sarcasm. Yeah, you're a real asset to the debate, aren't you?
Goodness. It can't be more than a month or two ago I either read or heard (documentary/news) that the ozone layer was clearly in much better shape and giving the Montreal Protocol credit for it.
I guess this is a prime example of why I couldn't care less about the current environment/global warming hysteria. Hopefully they'll eventually calm down and start to make sense, as in talking as if they actually thought things through instead of the current knee jerk reactions. It's just political "look, we care!" posturing at the moment.
For example, the total car pool of the country I live in apparently contribute something like 0.000000012% of yearly man made CO2 emissions. Yet it's virtually the only thing politicians talk about. Way to shift focus away from there being a huge energy production boost to be gained from our hydropower plants by updating the turbines, thus reducing dependency on importing power produced by oh so environmentally friendly coal power plants.
Another example is an article that stated "we don't understand why the ice is melting as quickly as it is, it defies all our models", then later in the same article "there can be no doubt this is caused by mankind".
I think the truth is infinitely closer to "we don't have a clue but it sure gives us lots of column space" than anything else. Doesn't hurt to be conscious of our emissions and work to reduce them either way, but the way the politicians and media is handling this is hurting more than helping imo. I'm not the only one that stopped caring long ago.
Holes in the Ozone layer were caused by CFCs, which chemically are interesting compounds, but one problem of which is that they were depleting the ozone layer. CFCs are not a central part of the economy however, they can be, and have been substituted, and nowadays if things go on track the ozone layer should repair itself within a few decades. The manufacturers are already using the substitutes so there is not much of a lobby out there to use CFCs again.
Global warming is another matter. The international scientific consensus is it is mostly caused by the burning of fossil fuels, releasing gases like carbon dioxide into the atmosphere, contributing to the greenhouse effect and global warming. This strikes at the heart of multi-national corporations, necessitating either less usage of energy, or very expensive research on how to burn fuel cleaner, with higher CAFE standards and the like. A look at the Fortune 500, #2 Exxon-Mobil, #3 GM, #4 Chevron, #5 ConocoPhillips show how incredibly powerful the forces that this threatens the profits of on some level. Not only do they have control of vast sums of money, and have a large amount of political power, they also are quite good at shaping hegemony - they have a heavy influence on what people think about these issues.
I am not really a tree-hugger, but I have no trust of these companies and believe they are quite capable of radically screwing up the environment for a long time all for a short-term profit. What scares me is not people killed in Bhopal and whatnot - what scares me is how screwed up Connecticut beaches are due to oil leaks. Bhopal is a poor city in a relatively poor country - Connecticut is the richest (highest per capita income) state in the richest country in the world. If corporations can get away with destroying New Haven's environment, I fear the future. I don't think the world is in danger, but things could get messed up (New Orleans flood etc.)
If you accidentally read the fine article ('cause we know nobody actually tries to read it), you'll see that first off, it's 30% smaller than the record-setting ozone hole from last year. So while the value for this year is down, it looks to be about at or just slightly below the average level for the 90s. (So far, the 00s seem to have a lot of swings up and down, making it hard to visually estimate off the graph.) Furthermore, this year the hole was less centered over the South Pole than was the case in other years; this allows more warm air into the area which results in less ozone depletion. So the article has good reasons for the caution.
We're all gonna f'ing die and that's a fact, jack. Nuthin you can do about it either.
I dunno about you, but I'm gonna place my faith in Christ because only the Son of the Almighty God Himself is powerful enough to get my sorry ass into Heaven.
So?
.6 degrees in Sri Lanka!" and we're all supposed to sit here and know why its a BFD?
.and this new leader will do exactly very little... there will be no stoppage of the Alaska oil pipeline, there will be no banning of SUVs... the volume on the whole problem is going to go down for two reasons. 1 Bush won't be president. 2. Most all of the Kyoto Protocol countries are failing, and the ones who are exempt will be polluting so much more in 4 years that all the "work" of those that were trying to cut back will be rendered useless by an order of magnatude or maybe more.
.people are so stoopid these days, its a wonder they can take a shit without getting it all over themselves.
I love it when we get told things like "there are fewer lakes in northern Alberta!" or "there is an increase of temperature of
So, the hole got smaller... so what? I didn't give a shit when the hold got bigger because it was probably just naturally getting larger and smaller, kinda like last winter was a total bitch here and set the record for snow, and longest period of snow on Pike's Peak ever recorded, and the previous 10 years had been very very warm and little snow and everyone complained. Guess what, they all complained last year because there was "too much!" snow. Holy shit, there's no pleasing some people, is there?
I say "So what?" to last year and the previous ten years both. I say "so what?" to the ozone hole. I say "so what?" to global warming and climate change doomsayers.
Listen, Jim Jones, the world isn't coming to an end, okay? Some years are warmer and some years are colder. i'm sure if there was really global warming, by definition, it wouldn't get *colder* than its ever been before and there wouldn't be *more* snow than ever before, now would there?
The funniest part is - and you can quote me now because i'm the only one calling it now... but if a Democrat becomes president, all of this wailing and balling will drop in volume by 50% the day after they take office...
So if its not "global warming" that's going to kill us, instead now, its "climate change" who the hell cares? The climate has been changing for a long time, now. Maybe some people like it colder... maybe some people like it warmer? I personally like it colder, and i know most people like it warmer. Hells bells! If its getting warmer, than there's more warmth around the world, maybe the whole fscking planet won't have to move to Southern California now like they've been doing!
And if the water levels go up, then there will be MORE ocean-front property instead of less! Again, not everyone will have to move to SoCal if they want some beach property anymore, eh?
I seriously don't get why the oceans rising is such a big thing.. if it does, i suggest you move! If you don't move, and you want to play pretend that you can hold back the ocean, then you can be as stupid as the people that live in New Orleans, 20 feet under sea level. Seriously, what stupid shit lives 20 feet under sea level, just right up against the ocean? That really seems a daft idea.
There will be PLENTY of land even in America if the oceans rise... have you driven thru Utah and Arizona? There are literally hundreds and hundreds of miles of NOTHING... and that's just what you can see from the handful of freeways... imagine that there's so much more where there are NO freeways.
i hate people..
guns kill people like spoons make Rosie O'Donnell fat.
Apparently the "natural variations in temperature" argument holds up for the ozone layer when it's recovering, but is heresy when applied to global warming? Well, on the bright side (no pun intended), at least I have one more reason to be very, very skeptical about the "scientists" who believe so religiously in the imminent doom of mankind.
You know what, I would rather be laughed at by the world world for the rest of my life for some prediction I made which turn out dead wrong rather than very very dead.
C. Sagan : A demon haunted world:
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0345409469/
visit randi.org
Gamingmuseum.com: Give your 3D accelerator a rest.
I am not trying to troll here, I really am confused about this; please correct me if you have actually answers.
My understanding is that we discovered the ozone hole in the Antarctic immediately after we started to measure south polar ozone. That is to say, we have no measurements that predate the hole.
Is this the case? If is it, then why are we sure that humans have caused it (as opposed to it just being a natural part of the earth's atmosphere)?
It's the chase for the almighty bottom line again. Climate researchers generate very little, if any, income from their research... operating costs and salaries have to be paid...urban heat islands... nobody's actually done research... whip up panic... grants and contracts to the climate researchers... flogged the increase in the ozone hole for years now... now that it shrinks, they have to downplay the event... causing the research money to dry up... they have to discount the recent evidence that contradicts all their carefully-crafted theories in order to keep paranoia high and money coming in.
I know that in your universe, scientists drive around in pink Cadillacs screaming "M-Fer, I want more research funding and iced tea!", but in the one I inhabit, climate researchers usually point to ozone hole shrinkage as a success story: we changed our behavior and it actually produced noticeable results in the atmosphere.
See the ozone hole in near realtime thanks to NASA:
http://ozonewatch.gsfc.nasa.gov/
The way we watch climatic changes like that of the ozone layers is like an obsessive celebrity reporter tracking Britney Spears' weight. If she gains ten pounds in a year, that doesn't mean she'll be 300 pounds by the time she hits 35. Things fluctuate, and the ozone layer is no different. For use to think we can accurately determine the future of the ozone layer simply by analyzing it over fifty years, which is microscopic by climatic standards, is very arrogant.
"What's truly sad is when it's considered "embarrasing" to be overprotective of the only Earth we have when it comes to extremely complex environment analysis, and when it's somehow wrong to err on the safe side."
What's really sad is turning "jumping to conclusions" into "erring on the safe side". What happens if the actions that you deem "overprotective" are actually detrimental in the long run?
There's no way you or anyone else can know that, so claiming it's "erring on the safe side" is completely disingenuous.
I only go to buffets for the unlimited soft serve.
"You're asking us to gamble, and bet Earth. The prize: deodorant and a fridge."
1. No we're not, we're asking "you" to avoid jumping to conclusions and acting in ways that are unpredictable and may actually make the situation worse not better. You have no way to predict the long term outcome of said actions, so engaging in them is dangerous and irresponsible.
2. The new refrigerants are less effective and use more energy than the older ones. You have traded one problem for another.
Lastly, I think it would be far more embarrassing to overstate the seriousness of a situation, only to have the actions that result from said overstatement be the eventual cause of disaster.
I only go to buffets for the unlimited soft serve.
With your gender genitalia comment, you make the implication that women are weak. Not only have you ticked off the religious but the women as well by continuing to use such gender bias abusive language. Thank you for continuing the stereotypical over-testosteroned male.
and other loaded phrases people use to sour a debate. It's so convenient, isn't it, to use innuendo and insinuations to try and discredit the opposition without actually saying anything substantive? I would love to accuse you of being an astroturfing shill, but I can't prove it, so I can't in good conscience do so. Maybe you're just being an ass for free.
This is why I have trouble with all climate change scientists, on both sides. While it may be quite true that this is a one time change and the hole will go back to growing next year, the researcher quoted referes to a 30% reduction in size as "somewhat smaller."
Now, if the hole had increased in size by 30% do you think this guy would have said that it had gotten "somewhat larger." I don't. I suspect that if this was an increase in size this guy would have been saying its getting "significantly larger."
It doesn't invalidate his other point (that this does not mean there is a recovery in progress) but its the sort of word choice you see on both sides of this debate, doing anything you can to emphasize evidence that supports your position while minimizing evidence that does not. 30% is pretty significant, the fact that the size could fluctuate that much from year to year without being evidence of a trend is also significant.
"In America, first you get the sugar, then you get the power, then you get the women..." -H. Simpson
Watch us really change your behavior when (not if) the oil runs out.
Global warming and ozone depletion are a joke. They'll hurt some, but kill us all or even a lot of us? No.
4 billion will starve in the Peak Oil aftermath. We'll become post-industrial (just like pre-industrial).
No more CO2 emissions or CFCs. Ozone will heal and no global warming, which sucks, since we won't have anything to wear anymore.
(need oil and industry to make clothes - since we'll be naked, warmer would be better).
Look up the Olduvai theory and hail the NEW CAVEMAN!
"But, you see, the truth is that you have many choices of things to drink, and the cost of not drinking is miniscule, while the cost of drinking could be fatal. So I'm betting you won't drink it. Even though it looks like symmetry."
So we shouldn't make judgements based on methods, data, etc, we should just respond thru fear. Scientist A has good methods and solid theory, but Scientist B says everything is going to hell and we're all going to die. Therefore, we should ignore Scientist A. 'You made a good point, but in the end we thought your idea was boring. Try to add some death, disease, starvation, you know, something to grab the reader next time.'
Even when they are wrong, I don't see scientists making any efforts to own up to their mistakes. I don't even see them using science to respond to critics, they just accuse their accuser of being funded by big oil or having an agenda or some other childishness. The history of science is full of big egos that do some pretty unscientific and unscrupulus things.
Environmentalists have their own problems. There is a branch of environmentalists that think preserving an environment is the ultimate goal. That's why they oppose cutting a few trees to make fire breaks. When wild fires burn down the entire forest, I don't see any of them coming forward and saying 'mea culpa'. Same for opposing nuclear power, although some of them are coming around.
That's right we're tired of it, move on with your life.
My Babylon
Do not try to fix the hole, that is impossible. Instead, try to see the truth. Then you will see that its not the hole that needs fixing but mearly yourself.
Attention! This poster has broken SlashKos GroupThink Protocol!
The funniest part is - and you can quote me now because i'm the only one calling it now... but if a Democrat becomes president, all of this wailing and balling will drop in volume by 50% the day after they take office...All SlashKos'ers are directed to mod this post down to -1,000,000 HERETIC!
That is all.
Why are you ranting about global warming? ozone hole != global warming
Sun rays create and destroy ozone at a given, constant rates.
Gotcha! the sun's output is variable, so any action on earth due to the sun must be also. No simple diffy q for U, it's a time dependent partial integro-diffy-q, and those are a bitch.
Now of course, I'm just playing devils advocate today, for shits and grins!
Whenever there is good news about the environment, its never attributed to man. Whenever there is bad news about the environment, its always attributed to man. That's how we know they are lying...
"With your gender genitalia comment, you make the implication that women are weak."
No, you did you stupid fuck. He called them a name, any association with that name and it's implications are totally from your own twisted thought process.
"Thank you for continuing the stereotypical over-testosteroned male."
No cuntrag, YOU DID. He called them a name, any assumption by you of what that implies is straight from your own sexist head.
Fuck off now.
Pot, meet Kettle. Kettle, meet Pot.
Software designers need to consider how someone who is not trained in software design will use their system. Individuals who use computers need to read documentation fully. The Ubuntu install, to my recollection, does NOT warn users to have a 'bootable OS install media' available. Also to my recollection, the Ubuntu install does highly recommend GRUB.
Get off the high horse and make sure the documentation is up to date.
Since the hole is closing, this is proof that we never needed to phase out CFC's. Like I've always said, if you just ignore problems, they'll go away on their own. A problem that is ignored will never, ever come back to bite you in the ass. Why, that's just sound thinking.
Kwisatz Haderach
Sell the spice to CHOAM
This Mahdi took Shaddam's Throne
You have got to be kidding! We changed our behaviour and it worked? In such a short time frame? You know what? That's utter BS and most climatologists would concur. In fact, there is no clue why the hole shrank. Only a half-assed guess that is tailored to not conflict with the current position.
And scientists don't drive in pink Cadillacs because it is not in their nature. But they spend better than half their time screaming "M-Fer, I want more research funding". Or so my 15 years in academia and government research leads me to believe.
"Consensus" in science is _always_ a political construct.
... When something bad (aka grant-worthy) happens, it's time to run around like headless chickens blaming Man, but when something good happens, it's a "random variation"?
Meh.
I guess we just need ban more stuff. If that doesn't work after another 20-30 years, it will be scientific proof that we still haven't banned enough stuff.
Research shows that 67% of those who use the term "research shows", are just making shit up.
Why is this not front page news? I would be willing to bet that next year when the hole fluctuates back larger again, the headlines on major newspapers will read something like: "HOLE IN THE OZONE LARGER BY 30% FROM LAST YEAR : Heroic Democratic Lawmakers race to save the world from the evil money-grubbing Republicans" The bias here is the decision to report only the news that promotes a specific point of view.
It may not be conclusive that the hole shrank because of what we did, but we definitely reduced the stratospheric CFC concentrations: There's probably better stuff to be Googled up but I'm going to be late for work.
But they spend better than half their time screaming "M-Fer, I want more research funding". Or so my 15 years in academia and government research leads me to believe.
I find your credentialism unconvincing- in fact you don't know how many years I have over you. I've been involved in those filings myself and am familiar with what happens. What I find offensive are the accusations that the entire scientific consensus on the issue is attributable to a desire for research funding. Most scientists do not receive funding for climate research. And it's not as if climate research dollars are even in short supply- after all, allocating that money and "waiting until the results are in" is basically how the president has dealt with all these problems.
Global warming, Al Gore and environmentalism are distractions. As the mass media creates climate illusions, Big Brother clamps down by opening our mail, suspending habeas corpus, stealing private lands, banning books like "America Deceived" from Amazon, rigging elections, conducting warrantless wiretaps and starting wars based on blatant lies. Soon, the sinking of an Aircraft Carrier(by Mossad) will occur and the US will 'retaliate' against Iran. Which AIPAC-lobbying country benefits from that? How much will the environment matter after a Nuke attack on Iran? Not much. Stop Iraq, Prevent Iran then work on the environment.
Last link (before Google Books bends to gov't Will and drops the title):
America Deceived (book)
you stopped caring. and that was all your long post was about ?
Read radical news here
This is slashdot. The article is about Antarctica. Penguins live in Antarctica. And this is slashdot. Antarctica-penguins-slashdot. Slashdot-penguins-Antarctica. See why we're concerned?
I'm a scientist. I hereby claim as fact that the sun does exist, and that we didn't cause it. ...
Ok, since I now shed doubt about the existence of the sun, may I offer you some great torches? You know, it may get quite dark without the sun
--
Lies, damn lies, and Slashdot:
"Slashdot requires you to wait between each successful posting of a comment to allow everyone a fair chance at posting a comment.
It's been 1 hour, 20 minute minutes since you last successfully posted a comment"
A new high!
This is proof of the current, politically correct scientific theory.
Not sure how, but - damnit - we'll figure out a way to make it fit our political agenda!
Saint Gore - peace be upon him - and Truth Speaker Moore - peace and a box of Krispy Kreme be upon him - will be along, soon, to explain how it's the evil, capitalistic system that has caused this horrific environmental assault!
"Wait for a trend. That's what the scientists try to explain to you with the "somewhat". It is a hint,hint not to overplay one data point."
Well they're crappy scientists, or at least crappy presenters then.
I don't want my scientists making ambiguous statements like "somewhat" and hinting at things, if they need to say "this is only one data point, do not read too much into it" why don't they say that?
Nothing is gained by the ambiguous presentation made in this case.
I only go to buffets for the unlimited soft serve.
Its ridiculous to mock the loud crying out of the "tree-huggers". They might be overreacting but because they are, things such as this can happen. And then the non-"tree-huggers" say that the tree-huggers were ridiculous for wanting and promoting change when the change of course was all natural.
What is this? The DailyKos or MoveOn.org?
How do you know a knee-jerk definition of your "safe side" isn't utterly wrong?
Interesting no one else had brought up this documentary. For the past couple weeks since I saw it, I thought I was the only one who viewed it.
The parent is right on this. According to the documentary, global warming is only a very tiny trend, which gets heavily outweighed by global cooling, which for some reason the "open minded" folk here seem to have their minds set doesn't have any affect on us. I would recommend looking at the wiki article on the Cryogenian period which produced a "Snowball Earth".
As it relates to the discussion of man-made affects on climate, the documentary points out continental drift has a much more significant impact on climate as it affects ocean current. It appears drift has even a much larger impact on the grander scheme of things than the impact that killed off the dinosaurs.
I understand what I'm about to speak of is considered heresy since global cooling seems to be equivalent to saying "I love Jack Thompson", but here goes...
Since you're talking about TRENDS, it seems you won't go as far to identify how many points are needed to make it such. Some people in this discussion have asked why are we identifying things as trends since we've only been truly measuring things like ozone for 30 years, temperature for around 100 years, and so on.
You also don't point out that at least until the 1970s there was in fact a global cooling trend, which actually seems to be part of a much larger significant cooling period starting around 65 million years ago. I would say in terms of time, the global warming TREND (sorry habit you got me into), while is very real and due to some man-made interaction, would be seen as a short term anomaly by those looking at the much longer TRENDS.
Avoid items called "books". The amount of text will likely give you a massive coronary.
Toss away old dihydrogen monoxide petitions, it's time to save Ozone Hole!
Tag article "aninconvenienttruth"
As for saying that the ozone hole would get larger
We've seen interannual jumps of 30% in ozone hole size before (e.g., here); it's within the range of natural variation, and as such, does not indicate some total failure of the models.
... Has anyone in the Northern Hemisphere ever worried about the Southern Hemisphere anyways- People pay lip service to the whole in the Ozone layer but who is really immediately and perceivably affected by it in a way they can understand. The same holds true for Global Warming, for most people its something that for the most part is happening somewhere far away, at least as far as they can tell. I think a more successful environmentalist campaign should harp on the immediate affects of our environmental irresponsibility - for example concerns about air quality which can immediately affect people in the form of chronic respiratory conditions. People are way to selfish to protect the environment for future generations, we need to tell them why its good for them now.
For that matter, research money is not going to dry up if the ozone hole keeps recovering. Ozone is barely in the public eye right now. You'd be better off applying your paranoid conspiracy theories to global warming than ozone research. But hey, why not apply them to a field of research, like ozone, where they're even more patently irrational. Paranoid conspiracy theories work for everything. they have to discount the recent evidence that contradicts all their carefully-crafted theories in order to keep paranoia high and money coming in. Oh, please, tell me what recent evidence "contradicts all their carefully-crafted theories". I hope you aren't going to point to the decrease in ozone hole size this year: ozone hole size zig-zags up and down all the time due to natural interannual variability, and it has certainly decreased from one year to the next before — even while the overall positive trend continued. Interannual variability is a completely different issue than decadal trends — and, for that matter, the trend ought to start decreasing soon anyway as the ozone hole recovers.
According to the World Meteorological Organization's 2006 assessment report on ozone depletion,
"By 2005, the total combined abundance of anthropogenic ozone-depleting gases in the troposphere had decreased by 8-9% from the peak value observed in the 1992-1994 time period. The overall magnitude of this decrease is attributable to the estimated changes in emissions and is consistent with the known atmospheric lifetimes and our understanding of transport processes."
I'm sure the WMO must be populated by renegade scientists who disagree with the majority findings.
Anyway, they also note,
"The shorter-lived gases (e.g., methyl chloroform and methyl bromide) continue to provide much of the decline in total combined effective abundances of anthropogenic chlorine-containing and bromine-containing ozone-depleting gases in the troposphere. The early removal of the shorter-lived gases means that later decreases in ozone-depleting substances will likely be dominated by the atmospheric removal of the longer-lived gases."
In other words, when we cut CFC emissions, we saw a significant and almost immediate change in trend as the short-lived CFCs were removed from the atmosphere (and we failed to replenish them). Now that the low-hanging fruit are gone, we're going to see a more gradual decrease in the future, as the longer-lived CFCs slowly disappear.
There are plenty of studies supporting these statements if you care to dig through the full report.
P.S. You also appear to be confusing atmospheric chemists with climatologists. There is some overlap, but mostly the ozone hole guys are not climatologists per se.
What, are you recycling anti-global warming propaganda now? We've known for 10-15 years that the ozone trend is not explicable by solar cycles. (Heck, see this report from 1994 — and we have 12 more years of data to back it up.) And we don't need ancient data to demonstrate that: we just need the solar data for the same period we have ozone data. We can see the solar cycle in the ozone measurements, but the solar trend doesn't match up with the ozone trend. Sure, more data would help, but it's not necessary to make the case.
You the one who modded me off topic.
Do you know what off topic means you fucking retard?
I swear to go sometimes you idiots make me wonder how you type with only a brain stem.
No, we know what happened, I refuted you after one of your idiotic posts, and like the child you are, you used your mod points to retaliate you fucking coward.
I only go to buffets for the unlimited soft serve.
If you want to dispute actual climate science findings, go ahead. But insinuating that it's all a faith issue and there's no scientific evidence involved is a political ploy, not a rational argument in support of your position.
At least someone's posting cited facts for a change. Pity it was as an AC...
CFCs are emitted mostly in the northern hemisphere but they get mixed throughout the globe. Antarctica is the coldest part of the planet (due to its polar location and large land mass, as well as the isolating effects of the circumpolar Southern Ocean). This forms stratospheric clouds which, through a sequence of chemical processes, break down ozone. In addition, the isolated Antarctic polar vortex prevents ozone rich air, and ozone depletion-slowing chemicals, from entering the Antarctic.
1. The transition is already happening without banning, and enviromentalists are already whining about the mercury present in CFLs. LED bulbs are still too expensive to be economical.
2. Raise CAFE to 40MPG and watch people stream to even less efficient trucks and SUVs. If you eliminate the exception for trucks, watch out for the trailoring crowd and farmers and other such workers to scream.
3. Already done. Seriously, I haven't seen one below 90% for sale in quite a while. Going above that does start marginalizing gains though. You'd save more going to heatpumps, preferably geothermal where possible. Other than that, increasing the SEER rating for AC systems would save quite a bit, as would additional insulation.
4. Believe it or not, depending on your usage tankless heaters don't automatically save energy over a modern, properly sized tanked one. Especially if they're electric. You lose ~5% efficiency going to a tankless design, even though you reduce heat losses during non-usage periods.
By just switching every bulb in the US to a CFL, we'd save $600 million a year).
Are you talking every bulb, or just the 'conventional' ones - excluding the ones in things like EZ-Bake ovens, refridgerators, outside lights, and ovens where the enviroment isn't suitable for them?
Wouldn't save much money in my house - you'd replace a total of 2 lights, both in the basement, which are turned on for ~2 minutes once a month so I can check my water meter. Haven't bothered to put a CFL in yet because they haven't blown.
I don't read AC A human right
shrinking ... but getting hotter ... looks at the images ...
RUPERT! I TOLD YOU TO WATCH THE BAGS! You were looking at the boys again, WEREN'T YOU.
The world would be covered in ice by now.
Yeah, except that never happened. Basically all the media scare from that period can be traced back to a single 1971 paper by Rasool and Schneider — it was hardly some scientific consensus at the time. The link goes to someone who has made a thorough effort to track down all those media stories and the science they cite, as well as other scientific papers at the time. The idea that the climate community thought "the world would be covered in ice by now" — implying, of course, that they were wrong before and therefore can be safely disregarded now — is a myth being peddled by those with a political agenda.
Note that your link is, ah, shall we say "sparse" in its supporting links to the scientific literature.
Your accounting leaves out the fact that CFCs are also greenhouse gases, and that when refrigeration equipment was upgraded to use the new refrigerants, it was also frequently made more efficient and with less leakage.
Some of the CFC replacements are worse greenhouse gases, although they also tend to break down quickly. So far the IPCC finds that there has been a net reduction in warming due to refrigerants. No one even considered the big-picture environmental impact of banning CFCs, we just lurched in to action. That's a nice story, but like most stories, it takes certain liberties with reality. Check out this NYT article, published a month after the London Amendment to the Montreal Protocol. The parties involved were indeed aware of, for instance, risks of an increased greenhouse effect. They chose to proceed anyway.
Considering the rate the ozone hole was growing, "lurching into action" was probably the best course, anyway. Far better than "let's wait indefinitely to learn more" which just turns into an excuse to do nothing for an arbitrarily long amount of time, canceling known benefits with uncertain risks. Better to get something underway and revise it as you know more. Indeed, even with today's knowledge, reduced CFC emissions are still regarded as a net win.
While the reasoning for the title is disputed, the conspiracy theory I believe most is that Orwell wrote about his fears back when he was writing the book, and rather than naming it 1948, he titled it 1984. This, of course, is after the original title The Last Man in Europe was rejected.
Perhaps those that live under the hole (Australia, New Zealand) can give a slightly different perspective. These two countries have the highest rates of skin cancer in the world. This hole kills people, every day.
Furthermore it has proven quite cheap and easy to improve, as witnessed by the removal of CFCs. Those scoffing at environmental concerns would do well to remember that this was identifies as a real problem, an appropriate intervention was taken and this is improving the situation.
dominionrd.blogspot.com - Restaurants on
MillionthMonkey, who you responded to, was talking about the effects of the Montreal Protocol on the ozone hole trend. PastaLover thinks that you were instead talking about the 2006-2007 drop discussed in TFA. If so, I apologize for the wording of my response. As stated in the summary, this latest drop is due to natural variations, not our behavior. I do take exception to the claim of "a half-assed guess that is tailored to not conflict with the current position". You don't need to invoke conspiracies mantain the status quo in order to attribute the drop to natural variations, given the observed interannual variability in the past.
there are multiple overlapping solar cycles, with periods from decades to centuries and more. your 12 years of data are nothing and lead one to believe you only know of the so-called "11-year cycle", when there is, for example, a roughly 22 year cycle of dipole reversal, and many, many others that are quite long and NOT a harmonic multiple of the roughly 11 years. And the data we have focuses mostly on electromagnetic output of sun, when considering levels of particles other than photons (which are KNOWN to affect upper atmosphere) from the sun there a great lack of data for the last 30+ years.
It doesn't matter whether or not there are 10, 100, or 1000 year solar cycles. The attribution of ozone hole depletion to non-solar causes has nothing to do with that: it does not rely on historical correlation between solar and ozone trends. Rather, it has to do with measurement of the effects of the Sun on atmospheric chemistry: they do not account for the observed changes in ozone. If the Sun can't account for ozone trends during the measurement period, it doesn't matter what solar trends were doing before that period. And the data we have focuses mostly on electromagnetic output of sun, when considering levels of particles other than photons (which are KNOWN to affect upper atmosphere) from the sun there a great lack of data for the last 30+ years. The effect of solar wind on atmospheric ozone has been studied for at least 15 years. No study has ever found evidence that the solar wind can account for the observed ozone trend. Many studies have found that CFC emissions can account for that trend. If you want to argue that the Sun is responsible (through direct irradiance, solar wind, or whatever), you need to both find a mechanism by which that is physically possible (nobody has yet), as well as explain why CFC emissions did not contribute.
[OffTopicPedantry] The ozone hole shrinks by 30% for a hobby? Or it shrinks 30% per decade? i think the author meant to say "The ozone hole shrAnk by 30%". ShrinkS is the infinitive. Tony Hawk skates for a living. Tony Hawk skated yesterday. Tony Hawk will skate tomorrow.
Utilizing the synergization of benchmark e-solutions to pre-workaround action items!
"You are offtopic. We are talking about ozone depletion caused by CFC pollution, not about snails, flowers, or bunnies."
No I'm not. And I wasn't talking about snails, flowers or bunnies, I was talking about the unintended consequences of acting on incomplete scientific data to influence the environment.
Exactly like they did with the CFC/ozone hole situation.
I realize it takes a certain level of intelligence to get this, but it appears you're having a problem, so kindly get someone smarter than you (perhaps one of those snails or a flower) to explain it to you.
I only go to buffets for the unlimited soft serve.
It doesn't matter whether or not there are 10, 100, or 1000 year solar cycles. The attribution of ozone hole depletion to non-solar causes has nothing to do with that: it does not rely on historical correlation between solar and ozone trends
Proof you are wrong, the 30% reduction in the hole this year doesn't correlate with solar output but with weather. end of argument. you obviously aren't a scientist, that's an absurd absolute claim you've made with no evidence to back it up.
Proof you are wrong, the 30% reduction in the hole this year doesn't correlate with solar output but with weather.
Uh, no, that is not "proof I am wrong". I never claimed that the ozone reduction correlated with solar output. In fact, I argued that solar data do not explain ozone trends.
"Ahh, so until we can say for sure what is causing the ozone hole, we shouldn't bother trying to do anything about it, correct?"
No, NOT correct. That actually a straw man (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Straw_man) and it doesn't surprise me at all you would resort to it.
"Even if we are simply eliminating one of our pollutants?"
And replacing it with a pollutant that requires MORE ENERGY (thus increasing emissions) and is a far worse greenhouse gas.
But you didn't know tha tdid you? You drew conclusions without all the fact didn't you? You are exactly what I said you were.
"I'm sure you'll say the same thing about global warming"
It doesn't matter what I'd say, you would lie and misrepresent my position like you have in the last two posts. What I think is apparently irrelevant to to you.
"Clearly we should sit on our hands and let the world fry - at least we'll know that we couldn't definitely say for sure that it was our fault! (I'm not sure who we'd be saying it to...)"
Hey look another straw man. How fucking stupid are you that you cant be bothered to avoid such obvious logical fallacies?
Are you so juvenile and pathetic that your entire argument boils down to misrepresenting what I say? Because that's all you've done so far, and you have yet to provide a single valid counter point.
In fact the sum total of your argument has been, essentially "BUT WHAT IF WE DON'T!!!!". Not much at all really.
Get back to me when you get out of middle school, or learn why your arguments are garbage. Hint: It has to do with you lying and using straw men.
I only go to buffets for the unlimited soft serve.
"In other words..."
NO cunt, here's what I meant, which you AGAIN misrepresented.
IF I choose to respond with solutions, YOU will lie and misrepresent them, because that is your SOP.
By making the response YOU JUST MADE, you proved my concern about your willingness to lie and misrepresent correct, and did EXACTLY what I knew you would had I chose to answer your previous question.
Again, I respond and you put words in my mouth, because you have no argument, no facts to refute me, and no debate skills apart from logical fallacies and lies.
That "In other words..." shit may work for you on others, but you're simply too easy to predict for that childish garbage to work on me.
Thanks for proving my point, good job.
I only go to buffets for the unlimited soft serve.
"IF I choose to respond with solutions, YOU will lie and misrepresent them, because that is your SOP."
You dare not suggest a solution for fear of me twisting it to my advantage! Someday maybe my opinion of you will matter less to the world - sadly that day is not yet at hand...
"You dare not suggest a solution for fear of me twisting it to my advantage!"
No, I won't say anything because you refuse to debate fairly, and rely on logical fallacies and lies.
Which you used AGAIN, as though I hadn't called you on it several times already.
"Someday maybe my opinion of you will matter"
If it's like the rest of your opinions, then no, it won't ever matter for anything.
YOu can keep trying that stupid straw man/lying crap, but so far you've lost even with it.
I only go to buffets for the unlimited soft serve.
From your post:
a) you agree with me that the evidence isn't conclusive that humans contributed to the reduction in the ozone hole size;
b) you actually support my point of view by citing a Google item that concludes that CFC concentrations will remain significant into the next century ie. it will take time to see any effects of the present reductions; and
c) you refer to an accusation that I never made ie. that scientific consensus is attributable to a desire for more funding.
So, I am correct and you agreed. As for c), well I agree with you that scientific consensus isn't necessarily linked to funding. But then I never said it was. However, I have filed for funds, currently manage those who do, and have been part of approving committees for funding. Scientists do not work for free. The cry for funding is persistent and often strident. If you think differently, then I suspect that the years you have over me (assuming in research/academia) is at most nil.
"Consensus" in science is _always_ a political construct.
Apology accepted. And I in turn apologize for the "half-assed guess ..." But it is infuriating to see such a pat response tossed out when the hole size almost reached '97-06' min levels at one point. Why can't we just say "We don't know. We are still learning."?
"Consensus" in science is _always_ a political construct.