NASA's Orbiting Carbon Observatory Set For Launch Tomorrow

bughunter writes "The Orbiting Carbon Observatory (OCO) is slated for launch tomorrow, February 24, 2009. OCO is the first earth science observatory that will create a detailed map of atmospheric carbon dioxide sources and sinks around the globe. And not a moment too soon. Popular Mechanics has a concise article on the science that this mission will perform, and how it fits in with the existing 'A-train' of polar-orbiting earth observatories. JPL's page goes into more detail. And NASA's OCO Launch Blog will have continuous updates as liftoff approaches and the spacecraft reports in and checks out from 700km up."

Comments

Lots of Methane from the White House.

[zymano]

All taxes from our socialist friends.

Re:Lots of Methane from the White House.

[Anonymous Coward]

I agree and FLOSS software sucks too. Get the facts folks.

What Are They Gonna Say?

[Anonymous Coward]

When this probe starts returning data that disagrees with the earth based CO2 measurements.

Re:What Are They Gonna Say?

[MightyYar]

I presume by "they", you mean atmospheric scientists? Presumably, they'd follow the scientific method and adjust their theories to fit the new data.

If by "they" you mean career warming deniers, then they will use it as "evidence" when they go on talk shows and sell their newest book to the ignorant on the internet.

If you fall into the latter camp, I wouldn't get your hopes up.

Re:What Are They Gonna Say?

[Beryllium Sphere(tm)]

Stop and figure out which one is right, just like when the satellite troposphere temperature data disagreed with everything else. But the main point of this mission is to gather new data that can't readily be collected from the ground.

Re:What Are They Gonna Say?

[hardburn]

I dunno. What will the climate change critics do when it shows that the theories are spot on?

Re:What Are They Gonna Say?

[Anonymous Coward]

I guess the question is, since Al Gore and his acolytes claim the science is settled, why is money being poured into more research? Because those who study this "settled science" like to keep getting paid.

Re:What Are They Gonna Say?

[Anonymous Coward]

In the past, it was the people who said "the sky is falling", "the world is going to end tomorrow" "etc" that were considered the nuts... Now, those who say, "the sky is NOT falling and the world is NOT coming to an end" are considered the nuts...

Am I the only one who sees a problem with this?

Re:What Are They Gonna Say?

[Locklin]

Because the models can be made better?? When the models can predict sea level rise to the nearest mm in each region of the globe, the exact quantity of ice during the winter of 2094, or the new ocean currents after a 3 degree rise in average temperature, there will still be improvements that can be made.

Re:What Are They Gonna Say?

[Qrlx]

Seeing everything as a dichotomy = your problem. A lot of others suffer from the same disease.

Re:What Are They Gonna Say?

[radtea]

Presumably, they'd follow the scientific method and adjust their theories to fit the new data.

Just like Mann et al did when it turned out some of their tree ring proxies were problematic, and it only took them a decade to replace them with better ones, which produced a conclusion that was similar to but far less sound-bite-worthy than the original.

This is the way science actually works: people generally defend their favoured belief kicking and screaming until they are absolutely forced to give it up. To suggest that people who find the popular press reports of impending doom from anthropogenic global warming less than compelling are in any way anti-scientific is a nice ad hominem that doesn't really belong in a scientific debate.

There are plenty of reasons to be sceptical about climate science: our inability to figure out what is happening to 30% of the CO2 we're polluting the atmosphere with is one of them, and this satellite will hopefully help figure that out.

Re:What Are They Gonna Say?

[MrNaz]

Because as more and more evidence piles up, the point on the IQ bell curve at which people are able to deny the facts moves to the left.

Don't worry, we'll get to you eventually.

Re:What Are They Gonna Say?

[MightyYar]

If NASA suddenly spotted a large asteroid and told us that there was a 85% chance of it hitting earth, would that make them "nuts"?

This isn't some crazy dude sitting in a basement reading tea leaves... and while the science isn't as solid as using telescopes to predict orbits as in my analogy, the science is getting pretty darned good.

Re:What Are They Gonna Say?

[MightyYar]

There are plenty of reasons to be sceptical about climate science

Well, there are plenty of reasons to be skeptical of the exact numbers and timelines that their models come up with, but I don't think that there are any serious detractors in the scientific community to the basic concept of anthropogenic warming... most of the debate revolves around data and the models - will the warming be 2 degrees or 5 degrees in 100 years... not, will there be warming.

Re:What Are They Gonna Say?

[Anonymous Coward]

But the main point of this mission is to gather new data that can't readily be collected from the ground.

Actually the main point of this mission is ... political.

Re:What Are They Gonna Say?

[damasterwc]

I doubt these models. Computer models predicted that the financial crash would never happen. The derivatives were just too advanced to ever possibly crash, right? Look at the weatherman. He has a hard time predicting rain 48 hours from now. You think you really know anything about the weather 50 years from now? Give me an f'in break.

Re:What Are They Gonna Say?

[Tycho]

I doubt these models. Computer models predicted that the financial crash would never happen. The derivatives were just too advanced to ever possibly crash, right?

[citation needed]

Look at the weatherman. He has a hard time predicting rain 48 hours from now. You think you really know anything about the weather 50 years from now? Give me an f'in break.

It is not unreasonable to predict with a high degree of certainty that a person who drives to work will arrive on time and without incident when required. This should be true three years from now, as well as ten years from now. This assumes that the individual is not fired or does not lose their job some other way. However, one can predict that isolated events will occur in ten years, traffic accidents, unusually slow traffic, or their car not starting due to a -35 deg F morning. What you cannot predict as easily is something like an outright bridge collapse, especially when in this case a flawed computer model was used. Granted, the bridge still had serious structural flaws that were only partially taken into account by the previous computer models.

Going back to your financial models, are the models you are referring to a small number of cherry-picked simple simulations that only were done to confirm a bias? Are there financial models that did predict trouble accurately, or are they no longer important? Part of the problem was that too many non-mainstream "economists" and even armchair economic theorists became influential. Most of these types did not develop their theories by using the Scientific Method, attempted to inappropriately apply limited thought experiments from microeconomics to macroeconomics, or did not fully research, distorted the facts to fit their bias, omitted facts contrary to their position, or even outright lied about historical and present day events and data, then used these anecdotes as facts to push their deeply flawed pet theories. The only major figure I have seen to date admit that he was almost totally wrong on the economy was Alan Greenspan. That takes a large amount of testicular fortitude, his announcement not very long after the beginning of the crisis was even more impressive. I would compare this to the Republicans in Congress and in the conservative pundits in the media espousing the same old rhetoric, cut taxes, especially on the rich, and cut spending across the board, especially for the poor.

Re:What Are They Gonna Say?

[damasterwc]

I'm referring to net 0 sum financial models which state given enough time (infinite) the system will rebound, never mind the amount of death and destruction in between now and infinity. It's funny you should bring up Alan Greenspan, the creator of these creative financial instruments which are the reason why the system is collapsing right now. One accurate model which predicted the current collapse is Larouche's triple curve function, which basically says as production decreases, financial aggregates and money will increase at an inversely proportional rate. We can't have less production globally and support a growing population. It's just not possible. This crash is a reflection of that fact. Now, it's still quite possible to reform and change our economic models. It remains to be seen if our leaders are ready to confront the parasitic "international" interests and do the right thing.

In regards to Global Warming, I think we need to look at the ocean floor. Some seashells contain carbon records that are quite contradictory to the ice core measurements Gore hyped up. My mind isn't made up about global warming. There are astronomical functions that researchers are blowing off. The Earth's axis shift (precession), the earth's elliptical degree of orbit, and the sun's position in galactic space all play roles in the climate cycle. Also, isn't the human contribution to CO2 only a small fraction of naturally occurring greenhouse gasses? This new satellite is great because it will give us more details. We're overdue for an ice age anyway. Maybe this is the only thing saving us from glacial advance. You know, in an ice age, the southern hemisphere is supposed to get quite warm in the summer =) (think Australian wildfires). We'll know soon enough I suppose.

Re:What Are They Gonna Say?

[slashm0nk3y]

Don't be a fool man...they'll call it names, put "meaningful" quotes around it, then roll their eyes and nod knowingly to each other.

That should be sufficient to keep all the other satellites in line lest they lose their funding.

It's the new scientific method...

1. Find popular concept.

2. Craft language to demonize and silence the opposition.

3. Control the discussion without regard to civility.

4. Assume a forgone conclusion.

Has anyone stopped to consider what will happen to politics if we reduce carbon emissions?

I think not.

s

Re:What Are They Gonna Say?

[Ambitwistor]

In regards to Global Warming, I think we need to look at the ocean floor. Some seashells contain carbon records that are quite contradictory to the ice core measurements Gore hyped up.

Sign of a climate crackpot: he brings Al Gore into the discussion as if he's relevant to the science.

But go ahead, please explain what ocean cores are inconsistent with the ice core record of the glacial-interglacial cycles. (Also explain why ocean cores are more reliable than ice cores, considering that ice cores actually store trapped atmospheric gas.)

There are astronomical functions that researchers are blowing off. The Earth's axis shift (precession), the earth's elliptical degree of orbit, and the sun's position in galactic space all play roles in the climate cycle.

Researchers aren't blowing off orbital factors. The Milankovitch cycles are far too slow to act appreciably on century timescales. As for the Sun's position in galactic space, you're probably referring to the hypothesis of varying cosmic ray flux, except cosmic ray flux hasn't been varying recently.

Also, isn't the human contribution to CO2 only a small fraction of naturally occurring greenhouse gasses?

Yes, but a few-degree contribution to a 30-degree natural greenhouse effect is still climatically significant.

We're overdue for an ice age anyway.

Probably not.

Re:What Are They Gonna Say?

[damasterwc]

Not that I expect somebody who resorts to ad hominem attacks to even care, but I can cite Beck (2007) Figure 5: First Reconstruction of Trends in CO2 Atmospheric concentration based on actual measurement. The figure is transposed against the Antarctic ice core samples. You can see it here. My link is free. I did not read your article. If you will copy and paste the relevant part or present it for me in a free manner, I will be happy to review it.

As you cited an article saying that we are going to experience a longer interglacial (you know, the one I can't even read the abstract on), I'm going to shoot you one that says the opposite. This is why I argue for more research to be done on what exactly is happening here, and I applaud this new orbital observatory. Note that I did not once call for continued pollution, which is insane. I think we need to be prepared for an ice age. The authors of these papers somewhere write to prevent advancing glaciers, lots high temperature nuclear reactors must be deployed with enough energy density to cull back the advancing glaciers if the situation arises. Therefore, this is just one reason that to attempt to abandon nuclear energy is insanity for the survival and prosperity of humanity. Read it here.

Re:What Are They Gonna Say?

[Ambitwistor]

Beck (2007) Figure 5: First Reconstruction of Trends in CO2 Atmospheric concentration based on actual measurement

I was right. You are a crackpot. Even a halfway intelligent skeptic knows better than to cite Beck or Jaworowski. You don't see, say, Steve McIntyre embarrassing himself like that.

Let me clue you in: Beck's whole "reconstruction" is based on hopelessly flawed and unrepresentative flask samples from a period before anybody learned how to do a controlled experiment. First, those measurements are based on surface fluxes. There are HUGE spatial and temporal variations in surface fluxes based on proximity to e.g. urban sources, vegetative sinks, and atmospheric turbulence in the boundary layer. Furthermore, early practitioners had almost no quality control in place to ensure against sample contamination. There's a reason why Keeling is famous in this area: he spent the 1950s through 1970s carefully demonstrating how flawed previous methods of measurement are. Beck's graph shows ridiculously huge fluctuations in global CO2 which, if they actually existed, would represent physically impossible changes in terrestrial and ocean sinks: the global biosphere and ocean mixed layer literally cannot exchange CO2 that quickly. You'd have to do something like burn down half the planetary biomass in a decade or two.

I wonder why you think that a graph by a random schoolteacher untrained and unpublished in the scientific literature overturns all other work in the field. (P.S. "Energy and Environment" is not a scientific journal, it's a vanity journal and dumping ground for crackpots.) I mean come on, have a little less credulity here. You're supposed to be a "skeptic", right? Then why do you uncritically accept any heterodox claim, no matter how absurd? Simply because you like to feel they're "sticking it to the man"? Or they agree with your political philosophy?

I did not read your article. If you will copy and paste the relevant part or present it for me in a free manner, I will be happy to review it.

That would violate copyright. You can try going to a university library. They will surely have it; Science is one of the top two scientific journals in the world, and pretty much every university subscribes to it.

As you cited an article saying that we are going to experience a longer interglacial (you know, the one I can't even read the abstract on), I'm going to shoot you one that says the opposite.

And, once again, you fail to cite anything from the scientific literature. You do realize the difference between a peer reviewed scientific publication a top scientific journal and a random web essay, don't you? I also note that your article is almost 10 years older than the work which re-evaluated the Milankovitch cycles and found that they favor a long interglacial.

It appears that you get your entire knowledge of climate science from skeptic web sites. Hell, the ice age article you cite is from an all-around crackpot site attacking quantum theory, relativity, biology, etc. Imagine my surprise.

Re:What Are They Gonna Say?

[damasterwc]

I'm not going to the library for the purpose of this discussion. For now, let us agree to disagree. We'll see the new data from the spacecraft soon enough.

Here is something I found while looking for the sea shell study from the 70s. I couldn't find the one I mentioned earlier. Again, I don't think we should be using fossil fuels. We should be using oil solely for petrochem manufacturing like plastics, fertilizers, etc. My position is that I don't agree that we're going to have as drastic changes as people like you claim, and I don't think the solution is low-tech renewable energy. The solution is fast-breeder high tech nuclear energy (you know, the reactors that produce more fuel than they use). That's renewable, and it being high tech will save and boost all aspects of our industries should we produce them on a wide scale. I can't say the same for windmills. Advanced design nuclear plants should be rolled out while we have a full scale drive to fusion energy. If you impose renewable energy on us it's probably going to drain the last of our resources and doom humanity to a painful die down.

Re:What Are They Gonna Say?

[Ambitwistor]

I don't really disagree with anything in your latest link (to UMich). But you should note that the paleoclimate data discussed there are still consistent with modern estimates of the climate sensitivity of CO2. The science does not support your position of a weak CO2 influence on climate; paleo and instrumental data as well as physical theory and modeling all agree on a climate sensitivity of 2-5 C (3 C is what's usually used in projections, so it could be about 50% larger or smaller than that).

I agree that we ought to be using oil only for petrochem manufacturing instead of just wasting it in combustion. However, it will take some time to make that transition.

Nuclear energy has its advantages, but it's not nearly a solution to climate change. At best, it's one component. To make a large dent in fossil fuel emissions in the first half of this century would require an infeasibly large rate of construction (like, one plant per week for decades). Eventually we can get there, but it would take long enough that large CO2 increases will still occur along with the resulting significant climate change. Also, it should be noted that breeder nuclear is still not truly renewable. Furthermore, it's more expensive than many renewables like solar. Finally, while I am pro-nuclear, it should still be acknowledged that there are serious unresolved issues with very large scale waste storage and, worse, nuclear proliferation. The latter is particularly important if we want developing countries to use non-fossil power sources, considering that many of them are not necessarily allies. Nuclear power providers haven't been even able to agree on a common, verified set of engineering standards and practices, which is one reason why the U.S. AEC under the Bush administration didn't end up giving out any new construction permits, despite desperately wanting to.

Fusion energy is not even on the table as anything useful this century. It takes a long time for new power sources to become widely deployed, particularly since new power plants don't replace existing plants until the latter are retired (50+ years). That means the sources relevant to this century need to start being deployed now or in the early decades of this century. Fusion may not even be prototype-ready in the first (or second!) half of this century, let alone deployed, let alone widely deployed.

I disagree that a shift to renewable energy is going to "doom humanity". It's not going to produce all our energy needs, but we can make a major shift towards it, coupled with energy efficiency initiatives.

Re:What Are They Gonna Say?

[damasterwc]

Well, my general point is that this cycle has been going on for quite some time. I have a hard time seeing how these ongoing cycles are going to change. They believe that these CO2 cycles are only interrupted by ice ages, correct? We probably can't stop polar melting, but we can stop glacial advance if we had the motivation. If sea levels really are going to rise any significant amount, engineering projects could keep cities safe, and the waters at bay. Also, if we completely stop using fossil fuels, this cycle will continue, because it is fueled by various factors including astrological forces and gas release from the planet.

I'm glad to hear that there is one more pro-nuclear person in the world. They have a lot of benefits nobody is talking about like being able to produce hydrogen fuels from non-fossil origins, and fresh water for agriculture. These benefits are a lot greater than the benefits I can see from renewables.

You are absolutely right about the current rate for plant production. We're limited by the quantity of casing that Japan Steel can produce (currently enough for 4 plants per year). However, we can start producing them here in the US again if a government corporation would take over surplus steel production. Additionally various types of 4th gen plants can be manufactured in our auto-plants (if retooled). Again, I think a government company should take over the unused portion of our automotive sector to start making these things.

Currently we have approximately 100 plants in the US producing approximately 20% of the power we consume. We could replace the coal portion of our power production by building 250 more. Globally, we need 6000 GW of new power generation to support provide 1.5kw per capita, which would equate to 6000 new 1GW plants. This might seem daunting, but if we made an effort like we did during WW2, and fought this economic collapse like a war it's completely conceivable to make a recovery based on new power and water systems, and new high speed rail lines. It would also undo the net production decreases the world has experienced since it began to practice globalization. 6000 new plants might seem like a large number, but just imagine how many solar arrays or wind farms we'd need to do the same (and that power is only on some of the time, you always need a reliable backup power source).

I agree that disposal could be a problem for that many plants, but we should begin reprocessing again. Carter made a blunder... we should completely burn uranium. Even without reprocessing, if you took all the spent fuel we have ever produced, it will fill a football field 5 meters deep. Not too bad... especially considering that this spent fuel is a resource that we can extract new fuel from. Additionally, the 4% that is not recyclable contains valuable medical isotopes that can be further processed.

If fusion was properly funded the past 30 years as it should have been, I'm confident we'd have a commercially viable reactor by now. I think we should roll out as many 3rd and 4th gen fission plants as we can now, while investing heavily into experimental technologies like fusion. Renewables currently power less than 1% of our total energy, and most of that is biomass. I really think it's all hype.

About the costs: I thought nuclear was the 2nd cheapest power source next to natural gas for plant construction... how is solar cheaper? I know it survives on government subsidy... can you provide me with more information on that? Also something to keep in mind are the other byproducts of nuclear, like the hydrogen fuel that is possible to create, and the fresh water. These benefits should be factored in as well instead of just watt to dollar.

Re:What Are They Gonna Say?

[Ambitwistor]

Well, my general point is that this cycle has been going on for quite some time. I have a hard time seeing how these ongoing cycles are going to change. They believe that these CO2 cycles are only interrupted by ice ages, correct?

The natural glacial-interglacial CO2 cycles are coupled to orbital variations, so that part of the cycle will keep going. However, we are currently greatly over-riding the natural CO2 cycle with our excess fossil fuel emissions. The natural glacial-to-interglacial transition is about 100 ppm, and we've already added another 100 ppm on top of that. Another 1000 ppm is quite possible without conscious effort to reduce fossil fuel emissions. Whether that will disrupt the long-term glacial cycle remains to be seen (but see here and Archer's new book The Long Thaw for a sobering discussion). However, it will most definitely disrupt natural CO2 fluctuations over the next few centuries.

We probably can't stop polar melting, but we can stop glacial advance if we had the motivation.

We probably can't stop polar melting, but we can slow and reduce it by quite a bit. This is especially important to avoid crossing the threshold for runaway melting of the Greenland ice sheet, which will add a lot more sea level rise and boreal warming.

If you're concerned about glacial advance, you should want to save our fossil fuels for later when we need them, instead of using them all up now when we don't.

If sea levels really are going to rise any significant amount, engineering projects could keep cities safe, and the waters at bay.

Up to a point, we could do it, but it would be very expensive considering the number of people and value of properties which are currently near the coast. With a potential multi-meter sea rise, you'd probably have to abandon a lot of the planet's current shoreline.

There are, of course, many other serious impacts of climate change besides sea level rise.

Also, if we completely stop using fossil fuels, this cycle will continue, because it is fueled by various factors including astrological forces and gas release from the planet.

That's true, but not really the point.

They have a lot of benefits nobody is talking about like being able to produce hydrogen fuels from non-fossil origins, and fresh water for agriculture. These benefits are a lot greater than the benefits I can see from renewables.

Any power source can do that (hydrogen separation, desalination, etc.), not just nuclear, unless you're referring to processes I haven't heard of.

You are absolutely right about the current rate for plant production. We're limited by the quantity of casing that Japan Steel can produce (currently enough for 4 plants per year). However, we can start producing them here in the US again if a government corporation would take over surplus steel production. Additionally various types of 4th gen plants can be manufactured in our auto-plants (if retooled).

I can't see us realistically producing power plants at the rate I described, especially given their costs and side effects, and the political climate. But a WWII-level effort might do it.

If fusion was properly funded the past 30 years as it should have been, I'm confident we'd have a commercially viable reactor by now.

I highly doubt that. In fact, I don't know if commercial fusion will ever be commercially viable.

About the costs: I thought nuclear was the 2nd cheapest power source next to natural gas for plant construction... how is solar cheaper?

New nuclear plants are actually rather expensive, and as you note, that's not even counting the fact that they're heavily subsidized. Take away the subsidies and they do even worse b

Am i the only one...

[ProfMobius]

Am i the only one to read Orbital Canon in the title ? I freaked out just before realizing... No more C&C for me.

Re:Am i the only one...

[andrewd18]

It's okay, this is only the Orbital Cannon Observatory that the GDI will watch the destruction from. This observatory can't hurt us at all.

Re:Am i the only one...

[riverat1]

Actually I read "Orbital Cartoon Observatory".

Re:Am i the only one...

[Locke2005]

So did I, and my initial reaction was "Cool! I want to work on that project!" Imaging my disappointment upon re-reading the headline and discovering they wanted to observe carbon, not cartoons!

Re:Am i the only one...

[Anonymous Coward]

And I read your post as "Orbital Carton Observatory". I was greatly stumped as to what an Orbital Carton was or why they needed to be observed.

Re:Am i the only one...

[Jeff Carr]

I read Orbital Cartoon Observatory... I'm not exactly sure what I was picturing...

Re:Am i the only one...

[mdrplg]

Caught my eye it did. Did a double take.

Re:Am i the only one...

[Anonymous Coward]

Yes, it's just you.

It will be all fine

[Van Cutter Romney]

As long as it doesn't collide with another satellite. :)

War of the Deniers

[Bemopolis]

Who will win the battle: the pro-troleum anti-AGW crowd, the creationists who believe that man cannot corrupt the Earth since it was created by a loving God, or the Flat-Earthers who think all satellites are a conspiracy from Big Spheroid?

Whoever wins, we lose.

Re:War of the Deniers

[CannonballHead]

the creationists who believe that man cannot corrupt the Earth since it was created by a loving God

Automatic -5 Flamebait (or something) for me, but being a creationist, I can say that I have never heard of the position you just laid out. Incidentally, as a creationist, I think I actually have more of a reason to care about the earth, as most Christians that believe the book of Genesis will also believe that man was put on the earth as a caretaker of it. That definitely implies using it wisely and not destroying it.

On the other hand, I don't exactly know what obligation I have to do anything for the earth if there is no God and I'm a product of evolution.

This is a partial indictment against Christians, by the way, for not developing a better (for lack of a better phrase) environmental worldview. But I haven't actually heard of the position you mentioned. :)

Re:War of the Deniers

[Locklin]

On the other hand, I don't exactly know what obligation I have to do anything for the earth if there is no God and I'm a product of evolution.

The earth will be fine. Life will go on, probably with a small loss of diversity (probably won't even register compared to some of the mass extinctions in the past). The motivation is that our actions on this matter may have drastic effects on the living conditions of our children and grandchildren.

Re:War of the Deniers

[bunratty]

As George Carlin would say, the planet will be fine. The people are fucked.

Re:War of the Deniers

[vlm]

On the other hand, I don't exactly know what obligation I have to do anything for the earth if there is no God and I'm a product of evolution.

Your obligation according to evolution is to maximize the survival of your descendants.
Ruined planet = no descendants, or no descendants of descendants, etc.
No descendants equals evolutionary failure.
So, your obligation is not to screw it up.

Seems obvious?

Re:War of the Deniers

[Qrlx]

I don't exactly know what obligation I have to do anything for the earth if there is no God and I'm a product of evolution.

Well then you should give that one some thought, since at least the latter half of your statement is undeniably true.

Re:War of the Deniers

[Anonymous Coward]

On the other hand, I don't exactly know what obligation I have to do anything for the earth if there is no God and I'm a product of evolution.

So if there was no God you would not feel any obligation to preserve the planet? You feel no compulsion to leave your children a world better than the one that you grew up in?

Please, continue to believe in God, if that's the only thing that makes you care about your fellow humans.

Re:War of the Deniers

[Hatta]

But why do I care if my genes are evolutionarily successful?

Re:War of the Deniers

[pdabbadabba]

I have never heard quite that argument either, but I have heard the argument that the earth's resources were put here by God for our use and so, well...we'd better get to it! I know I've heard Mitt Romney say that, and I think (without much evidence) it is actually a relatively mainstream Mormon position.

Re:War of the Deniers

[TapeCutter]

"But why do I care if my genes are evolutionarily successful?"

As a farther of tow adult childeren and soon to be one grandkid I say you won't know the answer to that until your genes ARE evolutionarily successful.

Re:War of the Deniers

[Oktober Sunset]

Instinct man. If you lack that instinct, oh well, guess your genes are evolutionary failures and won't be carried on.

Re:War of the Deniers

[CannonballHead]

That is presuming a fundamental and rather unfounded proposition: that I have a [moral?] obligation to do my best to let my descendants live. Why should I personally care if "evolutionary failure" occurs? I live, I die, and I'm gone from the world. If my descendants die and evolutionary failure occurs... well, that would imply a few things, at least to my mind/amount of education in evolutionary thinking. (1) I and my descendants were not fit to survive, and thus evolution didn't "fail" but rather succeeded in letting other humans, who were fit, survive. (2) If the entire human race, or even the entire planet has an evolutionary failure (I'm not entirely sure what that "really" means, as evolution is presumably a natural force/process and thus can't "fail," right?), what difference does it make? In the course of the X billion of years, it seems that many planets should have come and gone. So what if earth goes?

My obligation is to not screw it up - obligation to whom? My not-yet-born descendants? Their not-yet-born descendants? Well, not being born, and presuming there is no God and no overarching plan of some sort, they don't care and it doesn't matter if they aren't ever born. Obligation to humanity in general? Well, I don't see why I should worry myself about humanity, unless they're going to kill me if I don't (and that seems to be a rather akin to forcing morality, or ethics, or standards, or whatever, on individuals..)

Here's my bottom line again. I actually don't see any real obligation, if I were an atheistic evolutionist, to do anything about the earth. Or, for that matter, to do anything for humanity. Unless I see a distinct benefit in it for me AND I have a desire to reap said benefit. On the other hand, as a Theistic (not Deistic) Creationist, I would argue that I have actually more of an obligation to the earth/world, because I claim to serve its Creator.

(this is weird, I'm arguing for higher responsibility/obligation on slashdot. what am I thinking?!)

Re:War of the Deniers

[mdrplg]

People who think they are nice because God is watching really scare me. If for some reason their faith falters, does that mean they are going to rampage through the streets. I know, off topic, off topic. Bad robot. As far as being a care taker for the earth--that is the rub. Creationist put themselves (at God's command no less) at the head of the pyramid of life and land. Evolutionist understand that (or most of them I think) ((at least I understand)) we are in a fragile dance with the environment and that no matter how important we think we might be, there is no guarantee that we won't be expunged from the life-play of the planet. No seven trumpets--no falling stars or heavens rolled up, no final judgment and everlasting joy. Just no humans.

Re:War of the Deniers

[CannonballHead]

Well, to expound a bit on the Biblical principle there... the actual idea is that yes, the earth's resources were put here by God for our use but we were put here to care for it... or, in Christian lingo, to be stewards of it. And, obviously, the idea is to be a good steward, not a bad steward.

It's not so much a mainstream Mormon position as a literal-Genesis position, whether that's in a mainstream Christian church, Mormon group, Catholic church, conservative church, evangelical Christian church, etc.

Actually, even non-literal-Genesis Christian groups hold to the idea, as long as they attribute some amount of weight/importance to the Adam and Eve account, story, or myth, whichever they believe.

Re:War of the Deniers

[CannonballHead]

Well, let's see here. Seems most parents get divorced these days, most kids pretty much hate their parents for ~20 years...

Hmmm. I'm not seeing much of a reason to leave the world a better place than I found it.

Realize, though, that I am arguing from an attempt at looking at the world without presuppositions. I have them. You have them. In fact, I would venture to say that most of American's presuppositions about morality, ethics, etc., actually come more from my worldview than their claimed worldview. In other words, from an atheistic evolutionary worldview, I don't see any particular reason for caring for my fellow human being. Rather, doing like the monkey in 2001: A Space Odyssey seems more natural - chase off the other monkeys and claim better land! Now, an atheistic evolutionary worldview that continues in ethics/morals that are more easily attributed to cultural roots that have their own roots in a Judaic/Christian morality and ethic? That's different. And that's where I think most of today's morality/ethics ends up finding its traces to. Yes, it's breaking down, but I think that's where it came from to begin with. Even according to philosophers like Freud, our actions are traceable to self-centered drives. So, if preserving the planet doesn't particularly perk my self-centered drive, then who cares?

And, I think this is starting to come out. People who live for money and sex probably aren't going to care too much about the environment, unless it directly affects their personal gain - e.g., more money and more sex.

Re:War of the Deniers

[CannonballHead]

I'm cool with offtopic conversations... :D

Does it mean that if their faith falters, they will go on a rampage. No more than anyone else who has a breakdown in their worldview. And no more of a rampage than those who don't believe that God is watching or that they are accountable to God for what they do, right? If they suddenly decide they aren't accountable to God (that is not to say they actually are or aren't, they have just decided it in their own minds) and go on a rampage, then they will only be held back by what holds back all the other non-God-fearing people.

One distinct difference, though, is that most of western civilization's morality/ethics, or what's left of it, appears to come from religion (specifically, the cultural Judaic/Christian morality/ethics). It's a serious worldview-crash indeed that will cause someone to completely turn on everything they have been taught culturally AND everything they've been taught religiously AND everything they've been taught parentally/in their families. That's more than "faith faltering." That's more like a "normal nextdoor neighbor" turning into a serial killer. I've known plenty of poeple that have walked away from "the whole religion thing" or "Christianity" or "God" and they didn't go into a rampage. They turned into what you would likely consider "normal" and what I would consider, to use a Biblical term, "worldly."

Re:War of the Deniers

[PineHall]

People who think they are nice because God is watching really scare me.

It scares me too, because that is not Christianity is all about though many people think so. As a Christian, I love because God first loved me. God loves each of us even though we have messed up our lives and this world we live in. It is out of gratitude for what Jesus did for all of us I try to live a life worthy of him. I am not better than anybody else. I am not perfect. I am just thankful for what God through Jesus has done for me.

Re:War of the Deniers

[mdrplg]

I was engaging in a bit of irony (is that what it was?) I think that most people are nice because they are hard-wired that way and they only become mean when they perceive the target as outside of the moral bond that they belong to. So yes, loosing ones faith DOESN'T mean that one goes rampaging, though I think that a lot of Theists are afraid that is what it means. You follow?

Re:War of the Deniers

[dbIII]

We're not using "creationists" in terms of people that believe the book of Genesis because that even includes Charles Darwin. We're using it to describe those people that think the world is 4000 years old which is some rubbish that came in from elsewhere.

The "intelligent design" advocates are a related problem, since their argument is "it's all too hard to understand, the God ate my homework". Unfortunately people that take a very simplistic veiw of faith object strongly to those that want to find out how things work and do not realise that science has nothing whatsoever to do with religeon.

Re:War of the Deniers

[mdrplg]

Yet you believe that EVERYONE has SCREWED UP and deserves ETERNAL DAMNATION. That's why you love Jesus, because he has saved you from HELL. Sorry, my CAPS LOCK is broken. Ha ha? Seriously, unless you are a member of a different sect, you believe that I and my family are doomed to eternal pain and suffering because we are not Christians. Don't you? I am not damned. You are not damned. When you die you are re-absorbed into the universe just like every living thing. We don't know exactly what that means but it's not damnation. Damnation is so tribal. Ah, what am I wasting my fingers for. I very much doubt that I can change your mind.

Re:War of the Deniers

[pdabbadabba]

Interesting. Thanks. (I'd mod you as such if I could)

Re:War of the Deniers

[CannonballHead]

Ah, did not catch the irony... but I still disagree that I don't think that's what a lot of Theists believe. I suppose some do. I can't speak for everyone, obviously, that believes in God. As far as what I think would happen, though... I already explained the rampage thing. I think a lot of 'religious' people do believe that morality and ethics will slowly degrade into very base and behavior. From a Biblical standpoint, this is essentially prophesied. From a more philosophical standpoint, when the only accountability is to yourself, the moral implications should be somewhat obvious.

What I can say, though, from a more conservative Christian viewpoint, is that those in evangelical Christianity are afraid for the - shall we say, eternal welfare - of the person... which is philosophically a more important question. Obviously, many worldviews answer the question rather shortly. And I personally think that many people have never really thought that part of their worldview out. It's not one of the more pleasant things in life...

Re:War of the Deniers

[maxume]

You don't have any obligation.

Of course, you can still be a steward of the earth for the same reasons that you don't eat shit for breakfast (stupid things like self interest, joy, aesthetics, etc.).

What bothers me about the way you frame it is the day you decide that you no longer have the obligation (I don't insist on needing an exterior motivator, so I don't need to feel obligated...).

Re:War of the Deniers

[CannonballHead]

Meh, "nice" conversations are better than mods :)

Re:War of the Deniers

[drolli]

I dont know how you can be creationist, but not take the revelations seriously. You are one of the cherry-pickers . You dont have to care abut Carbon Dioxide if Armageddon will come soon. Or are you one of these cherry-picker-types when it comes to the bible?

Re:War of the Deniers

[wish bot]

If it talks like a Nihilist, smells like a Nihilist and quacks like a Nihilist then it IS a Nihilist.

You're not the first or the last to feel this way. However let's put it like this: estimates are that the changes we are making are so drastic, that YOU, not your children will begin to feel the impacts.

Case in point: current bushfires in Melbourne, Australia. Record heat and drought, predicted by climate models, due to weather pattern changes (man-made or not is irrelevant), has created the worst fire conditions ever recorded, and led to the most destructive fires ever experienced in the country.

Outcome: If you lack empathy so much that you struggle with the idea of global and future obligations, then just think of yourself because the future is already here!

Re:War of the Deniers

[TapeCutter]

Yes, the universe is meaningless until you ascribe some meaning to it.

If you want to believe there is a "higher authority" that has already done that for you then fine but please refrain from critizing others who find meaning without serving said authority, for that is the sin of arrogance.

An excellent book on the subject is "Unweaving the rainbow" by R. Dawkins. The book quite clearly demonstrates that like most humans, the current king of the Atheists also experiences the feeling that you might describe as "religious awe".

Re:War of the Deniers

[wizardforce]

those who don't find the need to protect themselves, their descendants or their environment are going to kill themselves off.

I actually don't see any real obligation, if I were an atheistic evolutionist, to do anything about the earth. Or, for that matter, to do anything for humanity. Unless I see a distinct benefit in it for me AND I have a desire to reap said benefit.

From my point of view as an atheist and a scientist [I am an evolutionist but also a gravityist, relativityist etc...] the answer as to why someone suc has myself would bother helping anyone other than myself is that I feel good doing so. Just as any other normal, rational human being would. Part of the reason why this is the case is because of all of that natural selection combined with genetic change that has been going on for billions of years.. those species that had a tendency to cooperate of their own free will no doubt had an advantage than those who exercised their primitive ignorant self interest instead. This is likely a point you would agree with yes? That voluntary cooperation is better than pure ignorant selfishness? The point is this: cooperative behavior is not dependant on the belief of your subservience to a deity of some sort. It is a rather useful set of adaptive behaviors that assist our species to exist and function normally in society. It is normal for human beings to cooperate because they know that doing so makes them feel good about their actions.

Re:War of the Deniers

[TapeCutter]

I drove through Kilmore on the evening of the firestorm. I have experienced bushfires for almost 50yrs including ash wednesday and the '69 fires but this was unlike anything I have ever seen. I knew from the volcanic appearance of the smoke plume that rose to a height of 15km, this was what the CSIRO and others had warned us about.

By time Monday rolled around many in the press where blaming the very people who fortold of such a disater, ie: (rational) environmentalists. One particular anti-science hate monger who has a column in the Sydney Morning Hearald wrote: "It's not arsonists who should be hanging from lamposts but greenies".

Conclusion: We are ALL screwed!

Re:War of the Deniers

[Anonymous Coward]

I believe that is a reference to Interior Secretary James Watt. I don't know if he actually said that but it certainly sounds like something he might have said.

Re:War of the Deniers

[khallow]

On the other hand, I don't exactly know what obligation I have to do anything for the earth if there is no God and I'm a product of evolution.

Your existence is due to the efforts of others, intelligent and not. You decide how much of an obligation that means you owe. Society will impose its own obligations on you. Any gods that happen to exist might attempt to impose their own as well.

Having said that, the grand parent has some absurd and useless caricatures.

Re:War of the Deniers

[PineHall]

I may be wrong, but it looks like to me from your response that you are concerned about Christianity. Do you feel Christianity is wrong and somehow harmful to society? If so how? Or did you have a bad experience?

If God does not exist, then why should you worry about a few do-gooders that follow Jesus? Reality is Christians are a minority in America though many people will say they are Christian and yet they really don't have a clue of what the Christian faith is all about. Unfortunately they have some very wrong ideas.

PS It is your choice. You are free to reject Jesus, but know that God still loves you and does not want you to be without Him which is hell.

Re:War of the Deniers

[segwonk]

Automatic -5 Flamebait (or something) for me, but being a creationist, I can say that I have never heard of the position you just laid out....

Well, I can't comment on exactly how wide-spread this belief is, but I have several relatives who believe Christ will be returning to earth ANY DAY NOW.
Accordingly, they think that environmentalism and respect for the planet is a waste of time. My uncle in particular: he won't recycle, doesn't care about
the ozone layer, etc. "God will be back any minute now to fix it all up."

It drives me nuts. You know, I really don't care what you Christians believe. But when it leads to asinine, selfish behavior like this, I don't know wether
to be mad, or just depressed.

Note that I'm not saying *you* believe this, just thought you should know it *does* exist.

- jw

Re:War of the Deniers

[Anonymous Coward]

So you rather serve some imaginary 'Creator', which has proven rather profoundly that he couldn't care less about you (flue, pox, HIV, Cancer, G.W.B., ...) than your as of yet unborn kids? You are the monster that demonstrates exactly what's wrong with religion. You only demonstrate that you are unable to be altruistic without the presence of a God and very, very sociopathic because of it. Not the opposite that you claim to be.

You deserve to burn in the Hell you believe in.

Re:War of the Deniers

[vlm]

Why should I personally care if "evolutionary failure" occurs?

If, and only if, you're of the belief that tendencies toward intelligence, altruism, responsibility, etc have absolutely 0% zero none nada no genetic component at all, then thats a perfectly consistent belief. Also have to believe that there is zero none nada social/cultural component that trains those attitudes. Its a pretty peculiar set of beliefs, if you think about it, since it implies that intelligence, altruism, responsibility, etc, for all individuals comes completely independently from "nothing" out of thin air, separately for each person, which seems unlikely, or from a creator god, which admittedly seems even less likely to me as an atheistic evolutionist.

So, if your ancestors really believed that (for common genetic or cultural reasons), then there is a strong likelihood you would not currently exist either because they'd fail to reproduce. So this is another peculiar set of beliefs to hold, its basically the argument above put in historical context, if the same genetics / personalities / history / culture / society makes me not want to reproduce now, existed in the past (which seems quite likely), then why didn't it affect my zillions of ancestors convincing them not to reproduce, thus I should not exist to contemplate why I should not reproduce?

"Care" and "obligation" are pointless anthropomorphisms trying to cover up the heartless hand of evolution as it perfects genes, societies, cultures.

Re:War of the Deniers

[Ginger Unicorn]

I don't accept any theistic beliefs, and I do accept the validity of evolutionary theory. I don't recognise any universal, absolute and arbitrary morality. I (like most people I imagine) voluntarily subscribe to a personal ethical framework that I refine and revise the more I experience. Why do I bother? It turns out that I'm not some kind of rapist murdering thief because it's glaringly self evident that that kind of behaviour wouldn't do me any favours. Looking at it from a purely pragmatic viewpoint, it seems it's just a fact of nature that short term "self sacrifice" very often pays off disproportionately in the long term. Going out of your way to help people results in the vast majority of those people wanting to help you at a later date.

But it isn't purely about cold calculated return on investment. There's a reason people that you help want to help you in return. Human beings have emotional triggers that provoke altruistic and cooperative behaviour, feelings of gratitude, friendship, trust, love, compassion, etc. Perhaps a theist would say these come from god. An evolutionary psychologist would say these traits have evolved since, as I pointed out earlier, altruism and short term self sacrifice pay off more in the long term than short sighted coercion and greed and are therefore selectable traits.

So as far as I can see, the reason people act for the good of others / their environment is just a mixture of pragmatism and natural human emotions.

As you rightly point out, the mechanism of evolution implies no moral obligation in any way. It has no intent or conciousness with which to desire any outcome or behaviour.

I always find it interesting the way some religious people bring this subject up in terms of "obligation". It implies the only reason they see to behave ethically is because an authority tells them to. That kind of attitude is something I would reject as potentially extremely detrimental to the well being of myself and the people I care about, so by my "morality" unquestioning deference to some kind of ethical proxy is "immoral".

To put it simply - do you love your family only because your preacher tells you that the bible says that there is an omnipotent being that will torture you for eternity if you don't, or do you love them because it is an innate part of what you are to love them?

Now you can say obviously it's the latter and that innate part of you comes from god. Fair enough, and I can say it's the latter and that innate part of me comes from the evolutionary processes that are part of the natural functioning of the universe.

Now apply that same line of thinking to all the people you like, trust, or feel compassion for, and hopefully at that point you can appreciate why someone with no belief in an arbitrary "morality" can behave ethically and with compassion without the need for divine proscription.

Not only does it seem obvious to me that "goodness" is simply an innate part of being a human, it makes me wonder about the people to whom it isn't obvious. Are they like some kind of barely contained sociopath that would kill everyone they dislike if only god would tell them it was OK? I imagine not, but it seems as shame that they don't give themselves enough credit for the "goodness" that is simply who they are, rather than who they're told to be.

I don't want the world to become an uninhabitable wasteland because as a human, my emotional makeup causes me to care about the welfare of the human race, and my acknowledgement of myself as a member of the common descent of all life on the earth, and my emotional appreciation of the natural beauty of the system causes me to care about the fate the ecosystem of the earth

As a counter example, simply an example - not a generalisation, there are some who use the religious belief of an imminent rapture to justify not caring about the environmental consequences of our behaviour at all. So theism is not always a guarantee of responsibility.

Re:War of the Deniers

[Rei]

Ah, philosophy; always great material for discussions :)

The answer to what you're looking for is "existentialism." Indeed, in a universe without inherent meaning, there is no meaning behind any action. Or any emotion, or anything. If it were to make me "happy" to take care of a child, to what meaning would even that happiness have? None.

But at the same time, if you live in a universe without meaning, what is the meaning of even going on living? None. Of course, there's no meaning to dying, either. There's no purpose to doing anything. Why do anything at all then? Or not do anything? It's a quandary, no?

From this, existentialism arises (also nihilism, although most people don't choose it). Basically, an existentialist acknowledges and accepts that nothing that they do will have meaning. However, they choose to designate certain things in the universe as having meaning. An order for everything else naturally falls into place behind it. You know that it's a house of cards, all relying on a fundamentally meaningless premise that you created from whole cloth; that's the *point* of it. But it allows you to create an order around which your life can be lived, eliminating the quandary from the picture. Once defined, you never have to deal with issues of meaning again unless you choose to. Which is always your prerogative, of course.

One particular branch of existentialism is humanism. A humanist is an existentialist whose definition of meaning in the universe is the betterment of humanity (and often all living things). This is a fairly common route.

Re:War of the Deniers

[mdrplg]

Very deep question--is Christianity harmful to society? I think that in the long run it has as many pluses as minuses. There is no question that many of the early movers of the modern era were men of faith... profound faith, if a little unorthodox. On the other hand, a lot of people have been persecuted, tortured, killed because of modern evangelical Christianity (I'm talking since the 17th century) While it is true that there is not a lot of torturing and killing going on currently, there is a good deal of persecution (you may call it evangelizing.) I feel leery of the evangelical group, like they are not quite trustworthy with the reins of power that they seem to crave so much. For sure they would ban abortions and gay life style. If they had the chance they would harshly suppress other religions in the public forum and who knows what restrictions they would impose on avowed atheists like myself.

Re:War of the Deniers

[mdrplg]

Oh, and by the way, your comment about people who say they are Christian and yet the really don't know what the Christian faith is all about is a perfect example of how evangelicals approach "others" that don't agree with them. They are wrong and are condemned.

Re:War of the Deniers

[PineHall]

Thanks for replying. Something I have noticed in history is when the government and Christianity gets cozy, Christianity loses and the government wins. Primarily Christianity loses its message of good news which is at its core. So I am totally against a theocracy.

Re:War of the Deniers

[mdrplg]

Your welcome. I always enjoy sharing ideas. You are right. Christianity was not at its best when the Church was at it power. Good luck with your spiritual quest. I wish you all the best...

Re:War of the Deniers

[Falconhell]

Quite right Sir.

I flew a sailplane in South Australia on the day the fires occoured in Victoria, riding the front of the incoming change.

I took off and climbed to 10,000ft, and took one look around and headed straight back to the airfield and landed, with a total flight time of 28 minutes.

The front that brought the fatal wind change was the most frightening weather I have ever seen. Ground temp at takeoff was 49 C, wing was gusting to 40kt early in the day.

We have experienced so much hot weather in the last 10 years, the expression has changed to Is 40C the new 35C?

Where I live in South Australia is facing 40C and strong winds this Thursday. One decent spark and half the State could burn. I have lived here for 38 years and have never experienced conditions like the last few summers.

Let me guess the moron in the SMH would be Andrew Bolt, the lead dickhead climate change denier in Australian "journalism". Chris Kenny is a close second

Regretably it is not us that are screwed, it is
our descendants. Deniers dont give a fuck about the future, they just wanna keep pouring carbon into the atmosphere, so they dont have to give up thier hummers.

Why is it that Slashdot, where most folk are reasonably intelligent, has so many people who are
willing to believe that climate change is a product of a huge proportion corrupt scientists,
rather than than true. I guess they love thier SUV more than the children of the world.

You are right, were screwed.

Re:War of the Deniers

[unit8765]

What you say is mostly sensible, however it breaks down at certain points:

I actually don't see any real obligation, if I were an atheistic evolutionist, to do anything about the earth. Or, for that matter, to do anything for humanity. Unless I see a distinct benefit in it for me AND I have a desire to reap said benefit.

In your post you go about declaring how being a humanitarian is in your best interest. You do not actually answer the above statement - That doing something about the earth is in your best interests. What do I care if we as a species die out? We wouldn't die immediatly... life would slowly become harder and harder, and more than likely people would have fewer children than is necessary to maintain the population (the earth's carying capacity would fall slowly, and we would die out)

Secondly your argument that humanitarianism is a result of evolution breaks down because being a humanitarian is often not to your advantage. For example, it makes no sense for a species to preserve its invalid members - result of harmful mutations - because this would pollute it's gene pool. However, we build assylums and we have special schools for instance. In these situations, humanitarianism offers no selective advantage versus a "selfish" mentality.

This can be applied to the human universe where we send money to help with famine, poverty, war, disease. While this is not a direct result of mutations, the concept is often the same. Whenever somebody needs something, often they will need it again. Giving relief money just aleviates the symptoms of the problem. The problem being the poor econonmic problems, the people afflicted by them will rarely escape, and relief money just prolongs their suffering.

I do not believe that cooperation, doing things for humanity, whatever you wish to call it, evolved. I believe that the only way for this ammount of cooperation to come about amoung humans is if they were created. If you look at moral reletavism, which is the logical conclusion for the absense of God, you can see that a society that is truely based on these concepts will ultimately break down.

In conclusion a quote: "There are only two possibilities as to how life arose: one is spontaneous generation -- a rising evolution. The other is a supernatural act of God. There is no third possibility. Spontaneous generation was scientifically disproved 120 years ago by Pasteur and others. This leaves us with only one logical conclusion -- that life arose as a supernatural act. I will not accept that, philosophically, because I do not want to believe in God. Therefore, I choose to believe that which I know is scientifically impossible." George Wahl, former Harvard professor and Nobel Prize winner in biology.

Re:War of the Deniers

[TapeCutter]

"Let me guess the moron in the SMH would be Andrew Bolt"

No he's the moron from the Sun here in Melb, the SMH is one of Australia's better rags except for the ironically named Ms Devine. I won't link to her in case I inadvertantly bump up her hit count. ;)

Re:War of the Deniers

[TapeCutter]

You may also be interested in the facts behind the Sheahans.

The council minutes can be found here (bulky pdf), the interesting bit (sans formating) is reproduced below. I don't know what happened to the felled trees but my estimation is that they would have yeilded at least 5000 tons of timber after processing. Seems odd that with a few mouse clicks I could find what every so called journalist on the planet seems to have missed...

ORDINARY COUNCIL MINUTES 12 SEPTEMBER 2005 Page 12174 9.6 COUNCIL SIGN AND SEAL SECTION 173 AGREEMENT - L & D SHEAHAN Author David Huxtable - Environmental Services Manager File No: 9538560930 Reference: Item 9.13 - 14 June 2005 Summary This report seeks that Council resolve to sign and seal a Section 173 Agreement under the Planning and Environment Act 1987 between the Council and L & D Sheahan of 93 Thompson Spur Road Reedy Creek relating to a cost settlement in the matter, Mitchell Shire Council v LP & DE Sheahan. Background On the 6 November 2002, Council's Planning and Development Enforcement Officer, responding to telephone complaints, attended at 93 Thompson Spur Road Reedy Creek. The Officer recorded that approximately 3 to 4 acres of native vegetation had and was in the process of being felled and removed. No owners were present at the property. The Officer returned to the Council Offices and searched Council's property and Planning databases. It was established that the current owners of the property were LP & DE Sheahan and that a Planning Permit would be required for the works undertaken. It was further established that no Planning Permit existed for the removal of native vegetation. Officers made contact with the owners of the property and arranged for an inspection and meeting onsite for the 7 November 2002. This commenced the investigation into the alleged destruction of native vegetation. On the 8 November 2002 further evidence was collected in the form of photos etc. An initial evaluation of the evidence collected over the 3 days concluded that a breach of the Mitchell Planning Scheme (MPS) may have occurred and a 'Notice to Show Cause' letter was sent by the Chief Executive Officer. This letter was forwarded to Mr and Mrs Sheahan. Council received a reply to that letter on the 21 November 2002 refuting the allegations and advising that the works had been conducted with regard to fire prevention and therefore they were exempt from obtaining a permit under the Scheme. The evidence collected rebutted the reasons put forward by the Sheahan's. However, Council engaged an aborist to provide independent and expert advice specifically in the following areas: Species and number of felled trees Assessment of the felled trees - Health and Structure If the trees presented a danger to owners or animals Value of felled trees An expert in the field of Fire Prevention was also engaged to provide Council with independent and expert advice with regard to: ORDINARY COUNCIL MINUTES 12 SEPTEMBER 2005 COUNCIL SIGN & SEAL SECTION 173 AGREEMENT - L & D SHEAHAN (CONT'D) Page 12175 Establishing if the nature of the clearing was exempt as prescribed by the MPS Was the extent of the clearing excessive in terms of Fire Prevention Following receipt of the independent advice, which confirmed all the evidence collected by Officers, a Brief of Evidence was prepared and submitted as per Council's Prosecution Policy. It had been established that 259 old growth Eucalyptus trees had been destroyed over a 4 acre site. The Brief was duly authorised and charges were submitted to the Seymour Magistrate Court on the 20 February 2003 and a Summons issued to the owners of the property. The matter was listed for Mention at the Seymour Magistrate Court on the 7 March 2003. On the 27 February 2003 a request on behalf of the Sheahans by Legal representatives Puglisi, Heffey & Pavlidis w

Re:War of the Deniers

[PineHall]

Actually I say this, because surveys point this out. Surveys say that between 70-80% of American's say they are Christian and in surveys a little less than 40% of Americans say they attend church (and that 40% is considered high due to the "halo effect" that is wanting to give the right answer). And George Barna's surveys puts the number of Christians at 30-40% by asking a few questions, but that is still very broad sweep with these people still able to having very unorthodox Christian beliefs like reincarnation. George Barna says about 4% of Americans have a "Biblical wordview" (some debate his definition).

Baylor University with Gallop did a survey of 4 different types of god. The Christian type of a god is the "Benevolent God" and that came in second with 25%, so one in four have a view of a god that fits the Christian view of God.

I really believe most Americans no longer understand what the traditional orthodox Christian faith is about. I am not talking about nitty gritty details, but the broad basics. Thanks for listening to me.

Re:War of the Deniers

[wizardforce]

What do I care if we as a species die out? We wouldn't die immediatly...

going by that logic you'd expect that no atheist would ever follow any preventative care, after all they won't "die immediately" and yet oddly enough, people do just fine on this matter. Why? How does your understanding of human behavior explain this?

life would slowly become harder and harder, and more than likely people would have fewer children than is necessary to maintain the population

Knowing that to be the case, why would anyone regardless of their religion or lack therof, want that to be their inevitable fate?

Secondly your argument that humanitarianism is a result of evolution breaks down because being a humanitarian is often not to your advantage.

You've given me an excellent opportunity to bring game theory into this :) Why on Earth would evolutionary selection favour individuals who were at least somewhat altruistic?
Good question and the answer is fascinating. selective forces not only exist at the individual level but also at the level of small groups [maternal behavior for example], group behavior [tribes] etc. groups in competition with one another have an advantage if members within that group are altruistic toward one another. Groups containing altruistic individuals out-compete pure selfish groups so why would such individuals assist "unproductive" members? Why would that give an advantage? Well, here's why: as an example, the tribe hunter breaks a leg making him unable to contribute however, individuals in the group take care of the wounded hunter who eventually recovers thus saving the tribe from needing to train another hunter. enlightened selfishness underlies group behavior and explains why selection favours groups with altruistic individuals.

If you look at moral reletavism, which is the logical conclusion for the absense of God, you can see that a society that is truely based on these concepts will ultimately break down.

No. I think there is more evidence to the idea that your implied support for state intervention in regard to economics and social issues often causes more harm than good. One only needs to look at societies that are in line with that bit of philosophy to understand. Alcohol prohibition resulted in an increase in crime, the current drug war resulted in a large proportion of the current jail population. Planned economic systems
result in a less affluent populace [soviet union, cuba, most of the world outside hong kong and the USA] There is a lot of reason to believe that leaving people alone and allowing to form their own cooperative groups rather than micromanaging their lives is a great way to improve the situation of the poor and disadvantaged. I think that you need to go take a look at the consequences of an ethical system based on controlling victimless crimes before you conclude that no society that ever deviates from that ultra controlled ideal can not exist. The fact is that it most certainly can and is better off to boot. The point is this, your defence of the position that cooperative behavior couldn't possibly be in the individual's interest seems to be rather short sighted as individuals do indeed benefit from forming groups and it rather doesn't matter what the individual themselves believe about the matter, the ones that don't help one another and don't care about anything outside of their immediate selves are going to kill themselves off. let me repeat: individuals who do not form cooperative groups are going to be completely out-competed by those who can both in biology and in economics! it is simple really, cooperation is an advantageous trait which is selected for at various levels and those who aren't participating are the ones who are not as likely to reproduce and spread those broad traits in their genes now are they? Selection at the group level is a

Broad brush

[Rei]

Very classy there. Oh, sure, go ahead -- lump us in with those two groups of anti-scientific, peer-reviewed-research-denying kooks. But I can assure you, we'll be getting the last laugh when you sail off the edge of the Earth.

Re:Broad brush

[TempeTerra]

The greatest pain of reading at +4 is that when something like this comes up I can't mod it any higher. I salute you, sir.

Deniers will use any discrepancy.

[Samschnooks]

If there is any discrepancy between data sets, those folks are going to use it as proof that Global Warming is a hoax. Like this businessman, well he is in the business of climate, I guess that makes him an "expert" to some people and qualifying him to call Global Warming a hoax.

Re:Deniers will use any discrepancy.

[w0mprat]

The nature of science is that uncertainty is quantified, however deniers crackpots and the ignorant love to re-frame this as a discrepancy.

It's All Magic Anyhow!

[loose electron]

Its interesting that no matter how much knowledge, data, statistics, etc, are gathered, there will always be those that are never convinced. Be the subject, evolution, global warming, or that the earth is round.

I can find people that will vehemently deny the validity of all three of the above. Sometimes you just want to throw your hands up in the air and quit trying.

My favorite one in the right here and now is "Clean Coal" - Well, if you want to convince us that coal is clean energy, then why don't you build a clean coal plant, and let people come in and measure and analyze your work? If they can demonstrate just one "Clean Coal" plant, then that would be worth more than the tens of millions of dollars put into advertising for clean coal. Sorry, but when this OCO gets running its going to be interesting to see the patterns and observations received on the coal plants spewing CO2, NOx, trace Mercury, Sulfur, and other goodies into the air.

But that doesn't mean it will convince some people...

Re:It's All Magic Anyhow!

[Penguinshit]

The invention of the term "junk science" was the rhetorical equivalent to the Manhattan Project. There is now a verbal nuclear device to use when cornered.

Can we add a new corollary to Godwin's Law?

Re:It's All Magic Anyhow!

[thedonger]

Its interesting that no matter how much knowledge, data, statistics, etc, are gathered, there will always be those that are never convinced.

Considering how often knowledge, data, and statistics have changed fundamentally the way we understand various subjects over the millenia why is it that you think now we have all of it correct? Not that I think the earth is flat, cool, and 10,000 years old, but get some perspective.

Re:It's All Magic Anyhow!

[AstrumPreliator]

Of course there will always be people like the ones you describe. People on Slashdot throwing around the word "denialist" is starting to annoy me now though. What, was heretic too strong of a word for you? I mean seriously, how do you deal with someone who believes the Earth is flat? Personally if they believe the Earth is flat then there's no reason for me to talk to them, their mind is made up. Scientific reasoning will never reach them. Lately Slashdot commenters, for whatever reason, have moved away from scientific reasoning onto name calling and petty bickering though. Apparently global climate change is serious enough to warrant discussion, but not well thought out discussion, just ad hominem attacks. Not to mention half the people who are called "denialists" are just people arguing about the extent of anthropogenic climate change, but agree the average temperature of the Earth is rising faster than current models predict it should.

I'm usually too disgusted by these threads on Slashdot to post anymore. This time I'm posting rather early in hopes that at least a few people will read this.

Re:It's All Magic Anyhow!

[Anonymous Coward]

I can understand skepticism about "clean coal". I'm a skeptic myself.

However, in Germany they have a test plant where we'll get to measure the effectiveness, see what is released, etc.

http://www.dw-world.de/dw/article/0,2144,3628912,00.html

The article details complaints about plant efficiency, but if it works and provides less expensive energy than sunlight or wind it might be worth considering. We have more than enough coal around the world for the time being, and it will allow us to improve sun and wind power or, better yet, get nuclear power up and running.

Re:It's All Magic Anyhow!

[Anonymous Coward]

"Clean Coal" is pretty close to an oxymoron in most of the systems that are currently implemented. It sort of depends on what you consider "clean". The ones fired up now are definitely cleaner than the plants historically in terms of NOx, SO2, etc. It's one of the main reasons that acid rain isn't the utter disaster it used to be, but is now somewhat mitigated in many parts of the world. Before dealing with these emissions it was really awful downwind from major industrial centres (and in some parts of the world without stringent NOx/SO2 emissions standards it still is).

But CO2? Other than improving general efficiency, most coal plants do nothing to try to diminish those emissions. CO2 is pretty harmless as an emission with the exception that it contributes to global warming, and per gigajoule of energy (or whatever unit you want to use), it produces far more than other fossil fuels such as natural gas or oil. Unfortunately it is also much harder to get CO2 out of the exhaust efficiently.

But there are experiments underway. The Schwarze Pumpe coal-fired station in Germany is an example. Can these still be economical? Dunno.

But, yeah, instead of pouring millions of dollars into advertising "clean coal", while still doing business pretty much as usual, they should be building these things and trying to get them to work -- not merely as token, small experimental plants, but getting the technology implemented on a bigger scale. And if that isn't possible, then they really shouldn't be calling it "clean coal", but "somewhat cleaner coal that the really awful crap we used to put out". Substantial and genuine improvement still doesn't make it "clean" compared to other options such as oil or natural gas, and the mining operations are far messier too in most cases.

Re:It's All Magic Anyhow!

[Daniel Dvorkin]

People on Slashdot throwing around the word "denialist" is starting to annoy me now though. What, was heretic too strong of a word for you?

We call them "denialists" because it's an accurate description of their ideology: deny, deny, deny, no matter what the evidence says. They're not "heretics" because there's no holy doctrine for them to deviate from. They like to call themselves "skeptics," but that's not really accurate either, because "skeptic" implies that although you may be very dubious about a proposition, you're willing to be convinced by a sufficient weight of evidence. (E.g., I'm a skeptic about ghosts, reincarnation, or any sort of afterlife, but I'd be happy to be shown that such a thing exists, and it wouldn't really be all that difficult.) So if you come up with a better word than "denialist," please let us know. Just remember the way the people you're describing behave.

Re:It's All Magic Anyhow!

[KeensMustard]

People on Slashdot throwing around the word "denialist" is starting to annoy me now though. What, was heretic too strong of a word for you?

I suspect that the name calling really began with the deniers. It seems that those who deny the science of CO2 forced climate change tend to denigrate people who don't as extremists, tree huggers, etc, as if acceptance of the issue we face were a subjective, faith based decision.
And I use the term 'denier', without meaning it to be at all derogatory. When confronted with really bad news, eg. life threatening cancer, a certain proportion of the human population will respond with denial. It's a perfectly normal reaction - but one based on emotion, and not an objective assessment of the situation. This is why the term denier (or 'denialist') is appropriate, but terms like sceptic/heretic are not accurate. The latter terms invoke imagery of someone who does not accept a prevailing but untested belief, someone supposedly more objective than those who do.

Personally if they believe the Earth is flat then there's no reason for me to talk to them, their mind is made up. Scientific reasoning will never reach them. Lately Slashdot commenters, for whatever reason, have moved away from scientific reasoning onto name calling and petty bickering though

But it is impossible to achieve a quality scientific dialogue, for one, none (or very few) of us are experts, but all of us should, and do, feel strong emotions about this subject. For two, the opposing platforms are like this:

Proponents of AGW Climate Change: "CO2 is a greenhouse gas. Greenhouse gases keep the earth warm. Adding more greenhouse gases will make the earth warmer."
Deniers of AGW Climate Change: "Yes - CO2 is a greenhouse gas. Yes - Greenhouse gases keep the earth warm. Adding more greenhouse gases will not, however, make the earth warmer. We can't explain why, but our reasoning is perfectly logical and scientific."

Scientific dialogue between the two sides will continue to be impossible until the Deniers can elucidate the reasons why CO2 we add to the atmosphere would behave differently to the CO2 that was there before.

Re:It's All Magic Anyhow!

[drinkypoo]

My favorite one in the right here and now is "Clean Coal" - Well, if you want to convince us that coal is clean energy, then why don't you build a clean coal plant, and let people come in and measure and analyze your work? If they can demonstrate just one "Clean Coal" plant, then that would be worth more than the tens of millions of dollars put into advertising for clean coal.

There's no such thing as clean coal, because even if it didn't release tons of CO2 (hint: "clean" coal doesn't reduce CO2 emissions, just all the other kinds) you'd still have to mine it and that is a horribly environmentally negative process.

We can ALREADY find smokestacks spewing out more than they are permitted to as quickly as we can pay people to climb them and stick probes in the smoke. The real issue is deciding to do something about it.

Why waste money

[Anonymous Coward]

I am not sure why they dont invest money right, in education and medicare for the citizens .. rather than investing in useless stuff

Everyone follows the scientific method.

[tjstork]

presume by "they", you mean atmospheric scientists? Presumably, they'd follow the scientific method and adjust their theories to fit the new data.

Or, they would have just been wrong. Hansen, Gore, etc, wrong. Just like everyone else who gets up on the soap box, makes a statement about the universe, and comes back down smacked down by reality. Wrong.

If you fall into the latter camp, I wouldn't get your hopes up.

Hey, I'm hanging onto my lack of sunspots. 2008 came in cooler, and we'll see how 2009 does.

Re:Everyone follows the scientific method.

[Cassius Corodes]

If you follow the scientific method the best you can do is go where the evidence takes you. If you get caught up in the right/wrong nonsense then you pollute the process with emotion and ego.

Being an armchair scientist can be fun, but why in the world do you think that all the scientists have missed something so simple as the effect of the sun on global warming? Do you really think that almost every scientist is hopelessly corrupt? Can you imagine something similar in any other occupation?

I would also encourage you to look at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Complex_systems

Re:Everyone follows the scientific method.

[MightyYar]

Or, they would have just been wrong.

Of course they are "wrong", in the same sense that Newton or Darwin were "wrong". Science is no fun at all if we have all of the answers. In fact, it would be completely obsolete. Science is just a method used to try to understand nature. Climate science is young, and it's only been in the last decade that any real consensus has arisen regarding global warming.

2008 came in cooler, and we'll see how 2009 does.

That's not considered to be a long-term trend. Look at the data from the past 100 years... lots of down years, yet the general trend is upward.

Carbon footprint

[Anonymous Coward]

What is the carbon footprint of this sensor?

I find it hard to estimate since the launch is probably only a tiny fraction of the total amount that went into its construction....

I know....

[wpiman]

I know where it went; it is called the carbon cycle. All that CO2 is either in the oceans, in plants/animals and in the air as CO2. I just saved you $273 million dollars, and I take a 10% cut. Check please.

We've probably made the world a better place for our friends who breathe the stuff.

Can someone please answer this: If we are burning fossil fuels; presumably all this carbon we are burning was part of the carbon cycle 100s of millions of years ago. All this carbon was then free to go from life -> CO2 and back. Assuming all the free carbon in the cycle now was available then; wouldn't the amount of CO2 in the air 100's of millions of years ago been far greater than it is today? Fossilization removed carbon from the cycle VERY slowly. We are adding it back quickly; but bringing it to levels where it previously has been. An we went through ice ages AND heat spells then. Are we really changing anything?

Re:I know....

[riverat1]

Most of the life on earth today is evolved for the current conditions, not the conditions that existed when that carbon as sequestered from the environment. At a minimum going back to those levels of CO2 would be uncomfortable. Studies have shown that when the CO2 level in a room is 1000 ppm then over 20% of people feel discomfort from it. With business as usual we could reach that level around 2100.

Re:I know....

[flaming error]

Whoa, dude, you just freed my mind.

We could totally turn the oceans back into primordial soup, man. It'll still be all the same, right? Better maybe - we could all be trippin on our oceans of carbonic acid, and snorting ammonia. Transcendental Peace, brother.

Re:I know....

[Rei]

I know where it went; it is called the carbon cycle. All that CO2 is either in the oceans, in plants/animals and in the air as CO2. I just saved you $273 million dollars, and I take a 10% cut. Check please.

The point is to know precisely where it's going, to know how much its future capacity to soak carbon will be. For example, here's a known case: the oceans. Since we know that a lot of it is going to the oceans, and how much, we can determine what it's carbon soaking capacity will be in the future as it gets more and more saturated. But, to pick some random possibility... carbonates formed from exposed surface rock. If we don't how much CO2 is going into forming additional carbonates naturally, we have no ability to model how much that ability will fade off in the future.

The current models, which generally assume that unknown carbon sinks will remain equally able to keep sinking an unlimited amount of carbon into the future, are likely very overly optimistic on this front on this front.

We've probably made the world a better place for our friends who breathe the stuff.

Most of the world's oceans (2/3rds of the world's available area for photosynthesis) are not CO2-limited, but nutrient-limited. In particular, iron.

Can someone please answer this: If we are burning fossil fuels; presumably all this carbon we are burning was part of the carbon cycle 100s of millions of years ago.

Not necessarily. Oil, and even natural gas and coal deposits are just a fraction of all entombed carbon. There's also shales and all sorts of carbonate minerals. Carbon levels are constantly in flux. Back during the Cambrian, they hit as high as 7,000 ppm. By the mid-Carboniferous, they were down to around 350 ppm. But that took place over the course of 250 million years, an average change of 1ppm every 40,000 years. Some periods were steeper than others, of course; the mid Devonian dropped a ppm every few thousand years, and there are probably more dramatic spikes that we just don't have the resolution to see (more like what we see in the Holocene record). But nothing in the historical record even approaches a relentless 1 1/2 ppm/year.

It's not *that* the Earth is changing. The Earth always changes. The problem is how fast it's changing. I don't know about yours, but my species certainly can't rapidly evolve over the course of a few dozen generations. And much of our infrastructure is fixed in place, unable to adapt at all; you can't just pack people up from areas that are drying out and move them to new Canadian/Siberian farmland without huge expense and hardship.

Re:I know....

[Qrlx]

Assuming all the free carbon in the cycle now was available then; wouldn't the amount of CO2 in the air 100's of millions of years ago been far greater than it is today?

An answer to that question can be found here:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carbon_dioxide_in_the_Earth's_atmosphere

Changes in carbon dioxide during the Phanerozoic (the last 542 million years). The recent period is located on the left-hand side of the plot, and it appears that much of the last 550 million years has experienced carbon dioxide concentrations significantly higher than the present day.

We are adding it back quickly; but bringing it to levels where it previously has been. An we went through ice ages AND heat spells then. Are we really changing anything?

I am going to paraphrase your question:
It gets warm in the summer and cold in the winter. But then it gets warm again. So does anything really change?

Re:I know....

[wpiman]

Oceans of soup? Sweet... That would solve the hunger crisis.

not a moment too...?

[blackfrancis75]

from the summary: "And not a moment too late". Am I missing some hidden meaning, or did they mean not a moment too _soon_?

Re:not a moment too...?

[bughunter]

Busted. I spent my efforts reviewing the html and forgot to review the plaintext. You are correct.

CO2 not a killer gas

[dtjohnson]

It seems impossible to have any reasoned discussion about carbon dioxide. Carbon dioxide concentration in the atmosphere has increased from 290 ppm in pre-industrial times to 365 ppm today and that increase is NOT having a significant effect on climate. In the 'global warming' scenario, short wavelength radiation from the sun passes through the atmosphere and warms the earth. The warmed earth then re-radiates long-wavelength infra-red radiation back into space, or at least tries to but is allegedly stopped by carbon dioxide. So...what's wrong with this? CO2 absorbs infra-red radiation in only a narrow wavelength band and it will not absorb any infra-red radiation with a wavelength outside of its absorption band. There is already far more CO2 in the atmosphere than is needed to effectively absorb ALL infra-red radiation in the CO2 absorption band. (A much bigger absorber of infra-red radiation in the atmosphere is...water vapor...but that's another movie.)

The effect of increasing CO2 concentration is therefore only to cause absorption to occur at a slightly lower altitude in the atmosphere and after carbon dioxide absorbs infra-red radiation, it quickly collides with nearby, and far more abundant, oxygen and nitrogen molecules, transferring heat to them. These then re-radiate heat out into space. So...does increasing carbon dioxide concentration increase temperatures at all? Yes, but only to a relatively small extent because a linear increase in temperature requires an exponential increase in carbon dioxide concentration due to the basic physics of absorption. The best estimate is that a doubling of the atmospheric carbon dioxide concentration from the pre-industrial value (290 to 580 ppm) would increase global temperatures by 1.2C. Based on our current CO2 output it will take us another 100 years to reach 580 ppm, by which time we will have probably exhausted our fossil fuels anyway, if we believe the gloomy forecasts about petroleum reserves.

So...if carbon dioxide is not changing our climate, what is? Look to the Sun. Based on current information, the sun activity is declining and we can expect cooler weather in the future.

Re:CO2 not a killer gas

[bunratty]

I hope you're right. If the climate in the future is cooler, I would admit that global warming does not seem to be caused by greenhouse gasses. I wonder if you will admit you're wrong if the climate does keep warming. If there's less Arctic ice in twenty years than there is today, will you admit it?

Re:CO2 not a killer gas

[vlm]

290 ppm in pre-industrial times to 365 ppm today and that increase is NOT having a significant effect on climate.

Hmm. Lets think polar ice cap. 365 ppm / 290 ppm * 273 Celsius gives us 343 Celsius.

So, shouldn't the polar bears currently be living in lukewarm tea?

Another way to look at global warming is by time. During an ice age temperature warms or cools at a rate of X degrees per century. Some shriekers claim over a century global warming will make the temperature rise by Y degrees. What are X, Y, and X/Y. I'm unimpressed. The land I live on has been under a warm tropical sea giving nice limestone deposits and also more recently under two miles of ice giving crazy terrain. The future is not going to be any less inconsistent.

Re:CO2 not a killer gas

[Anonymous Coward]

I hope you're right. If the climate in the future is cooler, I would admit that global warming does not seem to be caused by greenhouse gasses. I wonder if you will admit you're wrong if the climate does keep warming. If there's less Arctic ice in twenty years than there is today, will you admit it?

That depends, What is the state of the sun... High or low number of spots... In other words, if you want a response about a result then you need to provide a complete set of conditions. YOU CAN'T NEGLECT THE SOURCE TERM and expect to make credible predictions.

Ein = Eout + Estored

The polar ice caps represent a measure of the stored energy and YOU are ASSUMING that Ein is a constant for all time... IT IS NOT!!!

Re:CO2 not a killer gas

[bunratty]

I'm not assuming anything. One person made a prediction that the Earth will get cooler, based on the natural cycle global warming hypothesis. I asked if that didn't happen, would he admit he was wrong. I predict that the Earth will get warmer, based on the anthropogenic global warming hypothesis. If the Earth gets colder, I will freely admit I was wrong.

It's called the scientific method. You know, use hypotheses to make predictions, then see which prediction matches our observations.

Re:CO2 not a killer gas

[slashdotlurker]

Hmm. Lets think polar ice cap. 365 ppm / 290 ppm * 273 Celsius gives us 343 Celsius.

The unstated assumption being that temperature is a linear function of CO2 concentration. Any particular reason why that should be true ?

Re:CO2 not a killer gas

[Hatta]

Carbon dioxide concentration in the atmosphere has increased from 290 ppm in pre-industrial times to 365 ppm today and that increase is NOT having a significant effect on climate.

Day length has increased from 9.2 hours on the Solstice to 12.5 hours today and that increase is NOT having a significant effect on weather. February tends to be colder than December even though the days are longer. Is this evidence that the seasons are not caused by the Earth's position with respect to the Sun?

Re:CO2 not a killer gas

[Rei]

It seems impossible to have any reasoned discussion about carbon dioxide. Carbon dioxide concentration in the atmosphere has increased from 290 ppm in pre-industrial times to 365 ppm today and that increase is NOT having a significant effect on climate.

Oh really?

In the 'global warming' scenario, short wavelength radiation from the sun passes through the atmosphere and warms the earth. The warmed earth then re-radiates long-wavelength infra-red radiation back into space, or at least tries to but is allegedly stopped by carbon dioxide. So...what's wrong with this? CO2 absorbs infra-red radiation in only a narrow wavelength band and it will not absorb any infra-red radiation with a wavelength outside of its absorption band. There is already far more CO2 in the atmosphere than is needed to effectively absorb ALL infra-red radiation in the CO2 absorption band. (A much bigger absorber of infra-red radiation in the atmosphere is...water vapor...but that's another movie.)

Sorry, but you should really start reading peer-reviewed research and stop listening to viscounts. First off, for something to be a greenhouse gas, it *needs* to be selective on what it blocks. An optimal greenhouse gas is *transparent* to light in the visible and near-IR spectrum, and *opaque* to far-IR. You need to let the sun's energy in (mostly visible and near-IR) while making it harder for what the Earth radiates (mostly far-IR) out. A gas that blocks everything evenly is not a greenhouse gas.

Secondly, your argument is akin to saying that if a reflective blanket keeps 95% of your heat in, putting another reflective blanket around you won't help much. Earth is not a simple physics problem with a surface, a single one-pass medium, and an energy input. Light is constantly absorbed and re-radiated all throughout the atmosphere. The upper layers are colder than the upper layers. The higher the absorption of far-IR, the slower energy can transfer from the lower layers to the upper layers; the lower the absorption of near-IR and visible, the faster energy can transfer from the upper layers to the surface (or even straight to the surface). In short, until a 10-meter or so column of atmosphere can absorb 95%, increasing CO2 levels is a *major* impactor on surface temperature.

Lastly, water vapor is 100% feedback, not forcing. Water vapor has a tiny residency in the atmosphere (days), while CO2 has a long residency (hundreds of years). Any disequilibrium in water vapor is rapidly remedied. Now, on *geological time scales*, CO2 is feedback, mostly to Milankovitch cycles. But that's on the scale of tens of thousands of years.

The effect of increasing CO2 concentration is therefore only to cause absorption to occur at a slightly lower altitude in the atmosphere and after carbon dioxide absorbs infra-red radiation, it quickly collides with nearby, and far more abundant, oxygen and nitrogen molecules, transferring heat to them. These then re-radiate heat out into space.

Wow, was the person you read that from a comedian or just an idiot? CO2 is perfectly capable of radiating IR. *All* objects in the universe are. It doesn't matter whether it's CO2, O2, N2, or what. There are different spectral lines (rather than a perfect blackbody), but it's not a practical distinction. The energy can be radiated in any direction -- up or down. It's almost invariably reabsorbed unless it's in the outermost fringes of the atmosphere. As mentioned before, the more transparent the atmosphere is to "incoming" radiation types, the faster solar energy can migrate to the surface. The less transparent it is to "outgoing" types, the slower far-IR energy can migrate away from the surface. I can make you a drawing or a rudimentary python script to illustrate this concept if you're still having trouble with it.

So...if carbon dioxide is not changing our climate, what is? Look to the Sun

Re:CO2 not a killer gas

[Anonymous Coward]

You are making assumptions... Maybe you should re-read your original post... You ASSUMED that the climate model (CO2) would cause warming... In case you can't figure it out, the planet can get HOTER if you TURN UP THE HEAT from the SUN!!! NOTE, this can be completely decoupled from the atmospheric CO2 concentration... So yes, you did make an assumption... A BAD ASSUMPTION!!! My Ph.D. is in physics... I am aware of the scientific method... I like to examine all parts of a system before drawing conclusions... That helps you reject things like personal bias, systematic errors... Never cut corners and only consider part of the system... You will get the wrong results (as you have) every time.

Re:CO2 not a killer gas

[bunratty]

No, I did not assume the climate model would cause warming. How can a model cause warming anyway? I used the hypothesis that excess carbon dioxide in the atmosphere will cause warming, which is the consensus among climatologists. If the predicted warming is not observed, I will admit that the hypothesis does not seem to be accurate.

My question is simply if the cooling predicted by the OP is not observed, is he willing to admit that his hypothesis might be wrong. It's very simple. Two predictions from the hypotheses. Let's see which prediction is correct.

Re:CO2 not a killer gas

[dtjohnson]

Oh really?

Pointing to temperature change as evidence of a CO2 effect is circular reasoning.

An optimal greenhouse gas is *transparent* to light in the visible and near-IR spectrum, and *opaque* to far-IR. You need to let the sun's energy in (mostly visible and near-IR) while making it harder for what the Earth radiates (mostly far-IR) out. A gas that blocks everything evenly is not a greenhouse gas.

Water vapor is a greenhouse gas and a much stronger one than CO2.

In short, until a 10-meter or so column of atmosphere can absorb 95%, increasing CO2 levels is a *major* impactor on surface temperature.

A '10-meter' column of atmosphere is an insignificant height.

Water vapor has a tiny residency in the atmosphere (days), while CO2 has a long residency (hundreds of years).

Water is ALWAYS present in the atmosphere. We even have a special term for it. We call it 'humidity' and it is caused by the presence of oceans of water that are in constant contact with the atmosphere. Similarly, CO2 is always present in the atmosphere. Of course, the same specific molecule of H2O or CO2 is not perpetually present in the atmosphere but, when it comes to those molecules, one is as good as another.

CO2 is perfectly capable of radiating IR.

Yes, but there is so little of it present in the atmosphere compared with other molecules such as oxygen and nitrogen.

Re:CO2 not a killer gas

[Anonymous Coward]

It's true because it's in slashdot discussion and is used to prove a point.

Re:CO2 not a killer gas

[dtjohnson]

I hope you're right. If the climate in the future is cooler, I would admit that global warming does not seem to be caused by greenhouse gasses. I wonder if you will admit you're wrong if the climate does keep warming. If there's less Arctic ice in twenty years than there is today, will you admit it?

The earth may get cooler but that would NOT be evidence that greenhouse gases had no warming effect, just as a warming earth is not evidence of a greenhouse gas warming effect. The temperature change, by itself, whatever it is, is not evidence of anything. As far as the physics of infra-red absorption, there is nothing to admit either way. The absorption spectra of CO2 are fairly well known as are the atmospheric dimensions and composition. There might be less arctic ice in 20 years, there might be more, or it might be about the same. Whatever the case, it says nothing about the cause of any underlying global temperature change.

Re:CO2 not a killer gas

[Rei]

Pointing to temperature change as evidence of a CO2 effect is circular reasoning.

No, it's a direct counter to your claims of there not being any effect.

Water vapor is a greenhouse gas and a much stronger one than CO2

Did you even read my post? Water vapor has such a short atmospheric residency that it can only act as feedback, not forcing. And water vapor's net results are actually mixed, depending on where it is in the atmosphere, as clouds reflect sunlight.

A '10-meter' column of atmosphere is an insignificant height.

Apparently you're 15 meters tall. The rest of us here live near the surface, and it's the surface temperature that matters to us. The atmosphere's ability to absorb far-IR on the scale of the very bottom of the troposphere is tiny. And that's what matters when it comes to surface temperature.

Water is ALWAYS present in the atmosphere.

Any more non-sequiteurs you'd like to mention? I point out that water vapor has a tiny residency, on the matter of days, and you point out that it's always there? Duh! And a given molecule of water vapor still only remains in the atmosphere for a matter of days on average. Water is constantly cycling in and out. You could take every last molecule of moisture out of our atmosphere and (neglecting that the plants would die), things would be back to normal in a matter of months. Water vapor cannot force climate change for this reason. It can only react to other types of forcing (say, more water vapor because of hotter seas, or less because of more aerosols increasing cloud formation) because it lasts for such a short period. Hence, it can *amplify or suppress* other types of forcing, but it cannot *be* forcing on its own.

Re:CO2 not a killer gas

[dtjohnson]

Pointing to temperature change as evidence of a CO2 effect is circular reasoning because the assumptions in that conclusion are that the CO2 effect would manifest itself as a temperature change and that the only cause of such a temperature would be the CO2 effect. Google on 'circular reasoning' for more information.

Water vapor has such a short atmospheric residency...

Water does not have a 'short' atmospheric residency. It is ALWAYS present in the atmosphere. And no, that is not a non-sequitur but is apparently central to your argument.

I point out that water vapor has a tiny residency, on the matter of days, and you point out that it's always there? Duh! And a given molecule of water vapor still only remains in the atmosphere for a matter of days on average. Water is constantly cycling in and out. You could take every last molecule of moisture out of our atmosphere and (neglecting that the plants would die), things would be back to normal in a matter of months. Water vapor cannot force climate change for this reason. It can only react to other types of forcing (say, more water vapor because of hotter seas, or less because of more aerosols increasing cloud formation) because it lasts for such a short period. Hence, it can *amplify or suppress* other types of forcing, but it cannot *be* forcing on its own

Both water and carbon dioxide are constantly cycling in and out of the atmosphere, including from your body. That has absolutely nothing to do with the alleged effect of a longterm change in their average atmospheric concentration on the global climate unless you're trying to build a strawman.

Re:CO2 not a killer gas

[Anonymous Coward]

"Apparently you're 15 meters tall. The rest of us here live near the surface, and it's the surface temperature that matters to us. The atmosphere's ability to absorb far-IR on the scale of the very bottom of the troposphere is tiny. And that's what matters when it comes to surface temperature."

Apparently you, sir, are either an idiot or you're attempting to advance an odd theory of atmospheric stratification in 10m layers which would be...gone with the wind.

Re:CO2 not a killer gas

[bunratty]

Of course, greenhouse gasses do have some warming effect, by definition. The question is whether the warming we've noticed so far is primarily caused by an increase in greenhouse gasses (the AGW hypothesis) or is part of a natural cycle (the NC hypothesis). The AGW hypothesis predicts the temperature will continue to increase. According to the OP, the NC hypothesis predicts the temperature will reverse course and decrease. If that is the case, it is a simple matter to make an observation and confirm one hypothesis and falsify the other. It does not prove conclusively which one is correct, but then again, science never does prove anything conclusively. My question is a simple, straightforward one, and one that requires a simple yes or no answer. If the observed warming continues, will the NC advocates admit they were wrong?

Re:CO2 not a killer gas

[Beryllium Sphere(tm)]

>So...if carbon dioxide is not changing our climate, what is? Look to the Sun.

Yes, and in particular look at the direct measurements of solar output outside the atmosphere since 1978. Look at whether there's a trend, and look at how the current numbers compare with the numbers from the first measurements. Then look at what average temperature has been doing over the same time span.

Look to the research on proxy measurements of solar activity going back 250 years. Look at the upper bound it sets on the fraction of climate change that could be caused by solar output changes.

>There is already far more CO2 in the atmosphere than is needed to effectively absorb ALL infra-red radiation in the CO2 absorption band.

There's a complicated answer to this, but a simpler one is to look at Venus.

>It seems impossible to have any reasoned discussion about carbon dioxide.

Not impossible, but it's made difficult by a campaign that repeats provably false assertions so often that even technically literate people start taking them seriously.

Re:CO2 not a killer gas

[dtjohnson]

Yes, and in particular look at the direct measurements of solar output outside the atmosphere since 1978.

You apparently have not actually looked at the solar data but, if you did, you would see that the data is compiled by eight different platforms since 1978, the newest of which is SORCE, the solar irradiance has generally declined, and is now at the lowest levels measured. The ACRIM platform website (www.acrim.com) puts it thusly: "TSI monitoring, cosmogenic isotope analyses and correlative climate data indicate that variations of the TSI have been a significant climate forcing during the current inter-glacial period (the last ~ 10 Kyrs.). Phenomenological analyses of TSI monitoring results during the past (nearly) three decades, TSI proxies during the past 400 years and the records of surface temperature show that TSI variation has been the dominant forcing for climate change during the industrial era."

There's a complicated answer to this, but a simpler one is to look at Venus.

Other than the fact that Venus is a lot closer to the sun, has an atmosphere with sulfuric acid clouds and without oxygen and nitrogen, and has a mass only 80 percent of the Earth's, they are a lot alike. Yes, your answer is a simple one.

 

Re:CO2 not a killer gas

[Ambitwistor]

It seems impossible to have any reasoned discussion about carbon dioxide.

You're not contributing to the reasoned discussion here.

Carbon dioxide concentration in the atmosphere has increased from 290 ppm in pre-industrial times to 365 ppm today and that increase is NOT having a significant effect on climate.

A large amount of science disagrees with you. (And by the way, it's more like 388 ppm today.)

There is already far more CO2 in the atmosphere than is needed to effectively absorb ALL infra-red radiation in the CO2 absorption band.

This is false, and is directly contradicted by the line-by-line radiative transfer codes which calculate this absorption (e.g., MODTRAN), as well as actual spectral measurements of increasing IR saturation in the CO2 bands (e.g., here).

In particular, this response to another poster is also false: "The re-radiated infra-red radiation would mostly be outside of those spectra and would either radiate out into space or radiate into the earth. Your conceptual model about radiation bouncing around between CO2 molecules in the atmosphere does not agree with the physics of absorption." Molecules radiate infrared according to their temperature. If they absorb IR from molecules of a similar temperature, then the re-radiated IR will be in the same band as the absorbed IR. Since nearby molecules are generally of a similar temperature, "radiation bouncing around among CO2 molecules" does happen. That is, in fact, what leads to the exponential temperature-forcing relationship you mention: partial absorption by nearby molecules radiating in similar bands as they absorb. Which, again, is verified by actually calculating the radiative transfer. There is a vertical thermal gradient, so eventually the high cold layers are passing most of what makes it out of the warm lower layers, but by that time some more of the outgoing IR has already been re-reradiated back to the surface.

The best estimate is that a doubling of the atmospheric carbon dioxide concentration from the pre-industrial value (290 to 580 ppm) would increase global temperatures by 1.2C.

(Pre-industrial is usually taken to be 280 ppm.)

Yes, the forcing/concentration relationship is logarithmic due to partial saturation of the absorption bands, and yes, CO2 doubling leads to an unamplified ~1.2 C of warming by itself. However, the net feedbacks in the climate system are positive, according to theory, instrumental observations, and paleo data regarding the climate sensitivity. That increases the climate sensitivity from 1.2 C to somewhere between 2-4.5 C.

Based on our current CO2 output it will take us another 100 years to reach 580 ppm, by which time we will have probably exhausted our fossil fuels anyway, if we believe the gloomy forecasts about petroleum reserves.

Ha! Not even. "Current CO2 output" isn't going to stay the same; it's been continually increasing. Under high emissions scenarios we could pass 800-900 ppm this century. Don't forget that petroleum is not the only source of fossil fuels: coal is far more abundant. Power plants use fossil fuels too, more than the transportation sector. And if we really want to go digging in the sands and shales, there's probably several thousand ppm worth in there, although it would take a few centuries to exhaust all that.

So...if carbon dioxide is not changing our climate, what is? Look to the Sun.

Solar irradiance trends and cosmic ray trends disagree profoundly with the modern warming period, as I'm sure has been pointed

Re:CO2 not a killer gas

[Ambitwistor]

Pointing to temperature change as evidence of a CO2 effect is circular reasoning

It is not circular reasoning. It's how inductive science works. "Hypothesis X predicts we will observe effect Y. Alternate hypotheses W predict different effects Z. We observe Y, but not Z. This observation is evidence in favor of hypothesis X, and does not support alternate hypotheses W."

Water does not have a 'short' atmospheric residency.

Water molecules do have a short atmospheric residency.

It is ALWAYS present in the atmosphere.

That does not contradict the preceding statement.

Both water and carbon dioxide are constantly cycling in and out of the atmosphere, including from your body. That has absolutely nothing to do with the alleged effect of a longterm change in their average atmospheric concentration on the global climate unless you're trying to build a strawman.

Yes, it does have to do with the long term accumulation of gases. CO2 remains in the atmosphere for much longer than water vapor does. If you put a bunch of excess water vapor into the air, it quickly precipitates back out and concentrations return to normal. If you put a bunch of excess CO2 into the air, it hangs around for centuries before being scrubbed out. That's one reason why it's accumulating so fast, and will affect the climate for so long. (The other reason is because we're just emitting so much of it.)

Now, if you raise the temperature of the planet, you shift the evaporation-precipitation balance, so that more water can stay in the air at one time on average. That water is a greenhouse gas and adds to the original warming (whatever the source). This is how the water vapor feedback on climate works. Conversely, if you don't change the temperature of the planet, then excess water vapor into the air won't accumulate and change the overall long term average; it will just rain out because you haven't change the evap-precip balance. That's why water vapor is not a forcing by itself.

Re:CO2 not a killer gas

[Rei]

Atmospheric mixing is not instant. You may have noticed that our atmosphere is not a uniform temperature. Both convection and radiation play important roles in atmospheric heat transfer.

Re:CO2 not a killer gas

[dtjohnson]

"Pointing to temperature change as evidence of a CO2 effect is circular reasoning"

It is not circular reasoning. It's how inductive science works. "Hypothesis X predicts we will observe effect Y. Alternate hypotheses W predict different effects Z. We observe Y, but not Z. This observation is evidence in favor of hypothesis X, and does not support alternate hypotheses W."

So, to use your inductive science model, my hypothesis is that washing my car will cause it to rain. I washed the car yesterday and...guess what...it rained. Hypothesis proved.

If you put a bunch of excess CO2 into the air, it hangs around for centuries before being scrubbed out.

Fuzzy thinking. The atmosphere is a 'reservoir' for CO2 to which CO2 is constantly being added and removed. If more is added than is removed, the concentration increases. If less is added than is removed, the concentration decreases. If you look at the atmospheric carbon dioxide concentration measured at Mauna Loa since 1958, it rises and falls during the year in a regular cycle apparently related to photosynthetic activity. The long-term average concentration has shown a slight increase from 290 ppm in pre-industrial times to a current value of 387 ppm as the average value for January. The increase is probably due to the increased combustion of fossil fuels, which releases CO2 into the atmosphere as a byproduct of combustion. Your statement above is pure nonsense as it is impossible to "put a bunch of excess CO2 into the air" due to the sheer global scale that such an effort would require.

Re:CO2 not a killer gas

[Ambitwistor]

So, to use your inductive science model, my hypothesis is that washing my car will cause it to rain. I washed the car yesterday and...guess what...it rained. Hypothesis proved.

Are you really this dumb?

You don't prove hypotheses, you support or contradict them by evidence. In your strawman example, you don't have a real prediction (I could equally well claim that washing my car will prevent it from raining; you are lacking a mechanism), and you haven't considered any alternate hypothesis for rain.

EVERY scientific theory amasses support by (a) making predictions which are supported by observations, and (b) demonstrating that alternate hypotheses are not supported by observations. It is completely absurd to claim that passing an experimental test is "circular reasoning". It is evidence for a theory. It may be evidence for another theory too, but that doesn't make the first theory circular.

You also falsely claim that it is assumed "that the only cause of such a temperature would be the CO2 effect".

Fuzzy thinking. The atmosphere is a 'reservoir' for CO2 to which CO2 is constantly being added and removed. If more is added than is removed, the concentration increases. If less is added than is removed, the concentration decreases. If you look at the atmospheric carbon dioxide concentration measured at Mauna Loa since 1958, it rises and falls during the year in a regular cycle apparently related to photosynthetic activity. The long-term average concentration has shown a slight increase from 290 ppm in pre-industrial times to a current value of 387 ppm as the average value for January. The increase is probably due to the increased combustion of fossil fuels, which releases CO2 into the atmosphere as a byproduct of combustion.

All of this is generally true, but then you jump to:

Your statement above is pure nonsense as it is impossible to "put a bunch of excess CO2 into the air" due to the sheer global scale that such an effort would require.

The increase of atmospheric CO2 from ~280 to 388 ppm is precisely "the bunch of excess CO2 into the air" I'm referring to. The point is that with CO2's long residence time, an imbalance between source and sink leads to a long-term shift in concentration (until the CO2 can finally be removed), whereas with water vapor's short residence time, the imbalance is quickly neutralized (unless something happens to change the source-sink relationship, like an external increase in global temperature).

Re:CO2 not a killer gas

[dtjohnson]

(And by the way, it's more like 388 ppm today.)

Actually, the January average was 387 ppm. A typo prevented me from saying 385 ppm in the OP.

"There is already far more CO2 in the atmosphere than is needed to effectively absorb ALL infra-red radiation in the CO2 absorption band."

This is false, and is directly contradicted by the line-by-line radiative transfer codes which calculate this absorption (e.g., MODTRAN), as well as actual spectral measurements of increasing IR saturation in the CO2 bands (e.g., here).

No, it isn't false, it's simple physics. Absorption of electromagnetic 'light' radiation passing through a medium is described by the Beer-Lambert equation: I = Io x exp(-kL) where I is the exiting radiation intensity, k is the 'extinction coefficient' determined by the molecular species and concentration, and L is the path length. It's easy to calculate, using the known extinction coefficients for CO2, that 99% of the radiation in the CO2 absorption bands is absorbed within a few hundreds of meters from the source, which in this case is the Earth. The extinction coefficients are derived from measurements in modern, high-resolution spectrometers and are widely published.

Molecules radiate infrared according to their temperature. If they absorb IR from molecules of a similar temperature, then the re-radiated IR will be in the same band as the absorbed IR. Since nearby molecules are generally of a similar temperature, "radiation bouncing around among CO2 molecules" does happen.

You have very fuzzy understanding of what is happening and the principles involved. Molecules absorb infrared radiation based on their vibrational modes and do not care if there are nearby molecules of a 'similar temperature.' The absorption spectra for a particular molecular species is specific to that species, so much so that the absorption spectra are commonly used to 'fingerprint' or identify the presence of a particular molecule. After absorption, the molecule is excited to a higher temperature and subsequently collides with other molecules in the gas, thereby transferring thermal energy to them resulting in a uniform temperature for the gas mixture. Since by far the majority of molecules in the atmosphere are N2 and O2, most of the collisions involving CO2 will be between CO2 and either N2 or O2. All of the molecules in the atmosphere reradiate infrared radiation. The emitted wavelength of the thermal radiation is not the same wavelength as the absorbed radiation, as you claimed, but is instead a probability distribution depending only on temperature that can be predicted with Planck's law.

"Current CO2 output" isn't going to stay the same; it's been continually increasing. Under high emissions scenarios we could pass 800-900 ppm this century.

You apparently believe that CO2 production from fossil fuel combustion is about to explode or something. Therefore, you must also believe that there's some new huge deposit of fossil fuels that is going to be exploited soon. The reality is that fossil fuel use is likely to be flat to declining for the forseeable future due to the increasing scarcity and cost of developing new fossil fuel resources. It takes the discovery of enormous new petroleum reserves just to maintain our current production rate of these. Developing the shale oil resources you allude to will require an enormous expenditure of capital and will not occur until petroleum reserves have been much more depleted than they are presently. Based on current fossil fuel use and the measured atmospheric CO2 changes, it will take approximately 100 years for the atmospheric CO2 concentration to reach 2x the pre-industrial value or 580 ppm. The effect of this increase on global temperature would be an increase of approximately 1.2C which would not melt any antarctic ice sheets or lead to global calamity. On the other hand, severe global cooling events have occurred in the recent past and are likely to occur again. Such an event would, unlike a small amount of warming, be a true global catastrophe that would cause enormous hardship and the deaths of billions of people. The sun's output has declined in the last two years so if you want to worry about something, worry about that.

Re:CO2 not a killer gas

[dtjohnson]

Your thought process on this seems to be:

1) A rising CO2 concentration will cause an increase in the average global temperature.
2) The average global temperature has increased.
3) Therefore, the rising CO2 concentration caused an increase in the global average temperature.

This is obviously circular reasoning but if you cannot see that, you're unlikely to ever see it and I'm unlikely to convince you.

Re:CO2 not a killer gas

[Ambitwistor]

No, it isn't false, it's simple physics. Absorption of electromagnetic 'light' radiation passing through a medium is described by the Beer-Lambert equation

You want the Schwarzschild equation, not Beer-Lambert, which ignores emission. Beer-Lambert works well for shortwave absorption, because the atmosphere doesn't radiate in shortwave, but doesn't fully capture what's going on in the longwave. Upwelling IR is modified by neighboring layers of GHGs, as long as they're warm enough.

Molecules absorb infrared radiation based on their vibrational modes and do not care if there are nearby molecules of a 'similar temperature.'

I said that molecules RADIATE infrared based on their temperature, and that CO2 molecules absorb infrared in wavelengths which correspond to a particular (range of) temperature. As I said, if you're in the high cool atmosphere, then the difference between the radiating temperature's wavelengths and the absorption window is large, and the IR largely escapes. But when the radiating temperature is near the absorption window for the gas, as is the case in the lower atmosphere, then CO2 molecules do absorb and re-radiate between neighbors.

You apparently believe that CO2 production from fossil fuel combustion is about to explode or something.

Emissions under business-as-usual are expected to increase quite a bit over the 21st century, yes.

Therefore, you must also believe that there's some new huge deposit of fossil fuels that is going to be exploited soon.

There are centuries worth of unexploited coal to be used for power by both the developed and developing world.

The reality is that fossil fuel use is likely to be flat to declining for the forseeable future due to the increasing scarcity and cost of developing new fossil fuel resources. It takes the discovery of enormous new petroleum reserves just to maintain our current production rate of these.

How many times do I have to tell you, there are fossil fuels other than petroleum? And business-as-usual projections already INCLUDE peak oil.

Based on current fossil fuel use and the measured atmospheric CO2 changes, it will take approximately 100 years for the atmospheric CO2 concentration to reach 2x the pre-industrial value or 580 ppm.

Once again, fossil fuel emissions is expected to increase throughout most if not all of this century under most BAU emissions scenarios. It's possible they will decrease and we'll be limited to 2x preindustrial; it's possible that they won't and we'll get 3x or more under high emission scenarios. (Or if carbon sinks weaken.) 2x is the most optimistic case absent additional mitigation efforts.

The effect of this increase on global temperature would be an increase of approximately 1.2C

This is wrong, for reasons I already explained.

The sun's output has declined in the last two years so if you want to worry about something, worry about that.

Two years of decline in solar output does not exactly compare to a century's worth of greenhouse forcing.

Re:CO2 not a killer gas

[Ambitwistor]

Your thought process on this seems to be:

1) A rising CO2 concentration will cause an increase in the average global temperature.
2) The average global temperature has increased.
3) Therefore, the rising CO2 concentration caused an increase in the global average temperature.

No. It's not. The initial reasoning is:

1) A rising CO2 will cause an increase in average global temperature with a specific rate, timing, and magnitude.
2) An increase in average global temperature with that rate, timing, and magnitude is observed.
3) Therefore, the temperature evidence supports CO2 increase as a cause. (Other causes which make the same prediction would also be supported by this observation.)

You then add:

4) Competing theories, such as changes in total solar irradiance, do not predict the observed change.
5) Therefore, these theories are weakened relative to the alternatives, and any remaining consistent theories, such as CO2, are relatively strengthened.

You then add:

6) CO2 increase makes other predictions about climate, such as stratospheric cooling, top-down warming of the oceans, etc.
7) These effects are observed.
8) Competing hypotheses do not predict all these other observations either.
9) See 5.

And so on. Now, we can discuss the individual lines of evidence involved in this reasoning (such as your citation of Scafetta and West as "proving" it's all solar), but your ridiculous strawman is just that: a strawman.

Re:CO2 not a killer gas

[dtjohnson]

You want the Schwarzschild equation, not Beer-Lambert, which ignores emission. Beer-Lambert works well for shortwave absorption, because the atmosphere doesn't radiate in shortwave, but doesn't fully capture what's going on in the longwave. Upwelling IR is modified by neighboring layers of GHGs, as long as they're warm enough.

More nonsense. The Beer-Lambert 'Law' has not been repealed. Adding the emissions factor (see my earlier reply) does not change the underlying issue: more CO2 will NOT increase the absorption by CO2. The thermally-excited CO2 will transfer heat to the surrounding atmosphere of N2 and O2 and the atmosphere will then re-radiate infrared radiation into space in a wavelength distribution based on Planck's law. The people who are making the sorts of arguments you are making sound like people who 'know' what the answer is supposed to be before they start the experiment and they fiddle with their equations and data until they get the 'right' answer. Your last sentence above is a 'masterpiece' of crappola if you will: 'upwelling IR is modified by neighboring layers of GHGs as long as they're warm enough.' Are you a music major in college or something?

There are centuries worth of unexploited coal to be used for power by both the developed and developing world. How many times do I have to tell you, there are fossil fuels other than petroleum?

Sure there are...but exploiting and using those reserves will also take centuries. It takes a lot of time and resources to exploit coal. The extraction is difficult, the combustion equipment is difficult to operate and maintain, the logistics of transportation are complex, and the entire process is...very dirty. There is a reason why the 'great white fleet' converted to oil from coal back in 1910. It's highly unlikely that you will ever jump in the driver's seat of your coal-burning buggy to drive on down to the pub. Transportation is the biggest use of FOSSIL FUELS and is likely to remain so and those transportation fuels are likely to be petroleum based as long as they are using 'fossil' fuels. Future Electric cars are likely to be fueled with electricity produced from renewable sources, natural gas, and nuclear power rather than coal. Coal will continue to be used but will not cause any massive runup in atmosperic CO2 that you allude to with your 900ppm by 2100 nonsense.

Re:CO2 not a killer gas

[Ambitwistor]

The Beer-Lambert 'Law' has not been repealed.

The Beer-Lambert law has not been repealed, but it also explicitly ignores the very phenomenon we are discussing.

Adding the emissions factor (see my earlier reply) does not change the underlying issue: more CO2 will NOT increase the absorption by CO2.

This is wrong. Certainly the atmosphere re-radiates IR, but it also radiates in wavelengths which can be absorbed by other CO2 molecules, when its temperature is similar to the absorption band of CO2. This occurs in the lower layers of the atmosphere.

Sure there are...but exploiting and using those reserves will also take centuries.

No. We're already exploiting coal and can easily ramp up global production.

It's highly unlikely that you will ever jump in the driver's seat of your coal-burning buggy to drive on down to the pub.

Coal is used for ELECTRICITY, in case you didn't notice. (It can also be converted to liquid form for transportation, but this requires energy. If coal liquifaction is economical relative to electric vehicles, you'll continue to see internal combustion; otherwise, you'll get a fleet of coal-driven electric vehicles.) And, in case you didn't notice, lots of people use electricity, and lots more want to.

Transportation is the biggest use of FOSSIL FUELS

Electricity generation represents about half of fossil fuel emissions in the U.S., and it's even larger in many developing countries where the demand for a universal electricity grid outweighs the demand for more automobiles.

Future Electric cars are likely to be fueled with electricity produced from renewable sources, natural gas, and nuclear power rather than coal.

Not likely without strong economic incentives to reduce fossil fuel use. Over the lifecycle of a power plant, coal is WAY cheaper than most of the alternatives, including all renewables and nuclear power, and that's going to remain true for the foreseeable future barring explicit economic disincentives for fossil fuel use. There's a reason why China is going all-out building coal plants.

That may change with sufficiently numerous and large breakthroughs in alternative energy, but it's not going to change quickly. Nothing is even in research phase now that can beat coal in cost-effectiveness, let alone developed, let alone widely installable over the next few decades. (Remember too that it's not cost effective to simply replace existing coal plants; you want them to live out their natural lifetime, which can be 50+ years. So whatever coal plants you're building while waiting for your technological silver bullet are going to hang around for quite some time.)

Coal will continue to be used but will not cause any massive runup in atmosperic CO2 that you allude to with your 900ppm by 2100 nonsense.

You're even more out of touch with economic/energy use projections than you are with climate projections. It is not at all hard to exceed 560 ppm this century. Most projections predict that. The fossil fuel emission problem isn't just going to "solve itself" anytime soon. I'm not saying that 560 ppm is impossible or even unlikely, just that it will probably require some additional mitigation effort to limit ourselves to 2xCO2.

Re:CO2 not a killer gas

[dtjohnson]

The Beer-Lambert Law is elementary physics and accurately predicts that there is more than sufficient CO2 already in the atomosphere to absorb your 'upwelling IR' within a few hundreds of meters of the ground. The re-radiated IR is in a much wider wavelength distribution, only a very tiny portion of which can be re-absorbed by CO2. I know you will not understand this basic principle but maybe there's always the hope that someone else might. It's unbelievable that such obviously false ideas can become widely accepted without question. The world may have been warming up until 2007 but it was obviously not due to rising carbon dioxide levels.

We're already exploiting coal and can easily ramp up global production.

No we can't...because the supply of coal (and the market for it) is limited. At CURRENT production rates, there are an estimated 133 years of coal reserves remaining. However, much of that coal lies at great depths and will only be extracted at great difficulty and expense. A similar situation exists for petroleum reserves. There is no bountiful future supply of either of these and your stupid forecasts based on quadurupling production over the next 50 years are just...nonsense.

If coal liquifaction is economical relative to electric vehicles, you'll continue to see internal combustion; otherwise, you'll get a fleet of coal-driven electric vehicles.) And, in case you didn't notice, lots of people use electricity, and lots more want to.

The basic chemistry of coal means that 'Coal liquifaction' is never going to be a commercial source of internal combustion fuel. That has only been done in a time of war and desperation, produced a very low quality fuel, and was abandoned as soon as possible. Coal gasification has been done on a commercial scale for at least one hundred years, has only been done when a supply of natural gas was not available, and was quickly abandoned when natural gas supplies appeared. As well as a multitude of other problems, coal gasification produces an extremely toxic byproduct residue ("coal tar") that has required major expenditures to clean up at dozens of former coal gasification sites. Coal-fired electricity generation power plants are your only hope for any new use of coal and most of world is shutting existing such facilities down as they age. Most new electricity generation is coming from natural gas turbines, hydroelectric , and wind power. The new Three Gorges Dam in China can generate 22.5 gigawatts of electricity, which is roughly equivalent to 20 nuclear power plants. The State of Texas currently has over 5 gigawatts of wind turbine power generation capacity in operation with more planned. These kinds of projects are not being done to save the world from your stupid carbon dioxide nightmare scenarios. They are being done because they make money...a lot of money. You seem to think that coal mining is an enormous growth industry so let's see you go out and invest your personal money in...coal mining companies. You'll be rich...not.

Re:CO2 not a killer gas

[dtjohnson]

The temperature mixing between a thermally-excited CO2 molecule and its nearby neighbors is essentially instantaneous as collisions between molecules in a gas mixture are continuous and frequent and such collisions transfer heat as a result. Therefore, the temperature of any cubic centimenter of atmosphere is essentially uniform. With your comment, you are looking at gross mixing in the atmosphere on a much larger scale which is a different process.

Re:CO2 not a killer gas

[Ambitwistor]

The re-radiated IR is in a much wider wavelength distribution, only a very tiny portion of which can be re-absorbed by CO2.

Yes, IR is radiated over a wide distribution. The same is true of radiation from the Earth's surface. That doesn't prevent a non-negligible portion from being absorbed by CO2 as it radiates upward.

The world may have been warming up until 2007 but it was obviously not due to rising carbon dioxide levels.

A non sequitur. As I noted in my first response, the models do have an approximately logarithmic forcing-concentration relationship, and they do predict an unamplified 1.2 C warming to 2xCO2. Citing these facts as if they somehow contradict model predictions of CO2-induced warming is completely bizarre. If you want to make an argument that models overpredict CO2-induced warming, you can't do it by agreeing with their quantification of radiative transfer. Try again.

NAt CURRENT production rates, there are an estimated 133 years of coal reserves remaining.

There is certainly more than "133 years" worth of coal remaining. A proven reserve is not "the amount of exploitable fuel in the ground". OPEC roughly doubled their "proven reserves" of oil overnight in the 1980s merely by changing their extraction policies. Did twice as much oil magically appear under their soil? No. A "proven reserve" is something that is economically likely to be extracted under today's demand, under today's market regulations, and with today's technology.

(Note also that the amount of time before we run out of coal isn't even the right figure if you're talking about 2100 CO2 concentrations . If production rates increase and we run out sooner, then that just increases the amount of CO2 that gets burned by 2100, since you're running through the same supply only faster.)

Personally, I'm "optimistic" that the coal supply will end up limiting us to 2x preindustrial CO2 this century, absent uncertain carbon cycle feedbacks (which could add a couple hundred ppm). (Optimistic as far as the climate is concerned; of course, from a broader perspective it's not good to run out of a cheap energy source.) But there's certainly enough coal there for more, and whether we end up extracting more depends on how quickly the world (not just the U.S.) can universally transition to non-fossil energy sources. I'm not so optimistic about that.

The basic chemistry of coal means that 'Coal liquifaction' is never going to be a commercial source of internal combustion fuel. That has only been done in a time of war and desperation, produced a very low quality fuel, and was abandoned as soon as possible.

As I said, it depends on whether it's economical; otherwise, electric vehicles will be the alternative. Whether it's economical in turn depends on how desperate we are for liquid fuel when petroleum starts to run out. And by "we", I mean the world, not just the U.S.

Most new electricity generation is coming from natural gas turbines, hydroelectric , and wind power.

Tell that to China, who has been building more than one new coal plant per week. That will probably run its course over the next few decades, but other developing countries are lining up to do the same. Coal is cheap and although its price will increase, it's likely to remain the cheapest electricity generation alternative for quite some time to come. Excluding emissions regulations, the marginal cost of building a new coal plant is lower than other technologies of equivalent capacity, excepting hydro which is already mostly tapped out. Coal isn't being ramped up in the U.S. for power generation because they're afraid of getting hit with an emissions cap or carbon taxes over the lifetime of a new plant (which they probably will be), not because other technologies are so much cheaper in comparison. When I talk about "business-as-usual" emissions scenarios, I'm r

Re:CO2 not a killer gas

[dtjohnson]

Yes, IR is radiated over a wide distribution. The same is true of radiation from the Earth's surface. That doesn't prevent a non-negligible portion from being absorbed by CO2 as it radiates upward.

You are finally conceding that the re-radiated IR is not concentrated in the narrow CO2 absorption band. Progress. As I said, though, the re-radiated IR is in a much wider wavelength distribution, only a very tiny portion of which can be re-absorbed by CO2.

As I noted in my first response, the models do have an approximately logarithmic forcing-concentration relationship, and they do predict an unamplified 1.2 C warming to 2xCO2.

Elementary physics establish that there is more than sufficient CO2 in the atmosphere NOW to absorb all of the IR radiating from the earth's surface in the narrow CO2 absorption bands. The best (and most 'optimistic' to your side) estimate is that increasing CO2 concentrations to 580 ppm would result in an increase in global average temperatures of 1.2C which is not going to cause any global catastrophe or melting. At the present, the atmospheric CO2 is only 32 percent of the way towards even that result. Since a linear temperature increase requires an exponential CO2 concentration increase, this means that most of even that modest 1.2C increase will be...later. Again...the world may have been warming up until 2007 but the temperature increase was NOT due to CO2 concentrations in the atmosphere.

Tell that to China, who has been building more than one new coal plant per week.

They can build all of the plants they want (your numbers are doubtful and unverifiable) but there simply is not enough coal on the world market to sustain such an increase over time, nor will there be.

Smoking hole in the ground

[Anonymous Coward]

The current administration (Oh Bomb Us) won't be happy until there is a smoking hole where the U.S.A. currently resides.

Re:Smoking hole in the ground

[Anonymous Coward]

The rest of the world wouldn't mind that either.

Re:Smoking hole in the ground

[Hurricane78]

I prefer it to only cover the government, all banks, the disease industry, all churches, the oil industry, the media reproduction industry, and all churches and banks (bomb them twice, just to be sure). Did I forget anything?
Yes. I said *only* ;)

Oh, and use the rest of the bombing power to do that for the whole world instead of just the USA. After all, we are not discriminating any country. We hate all those bomb targets is all countries equally. ;)

Project MAYHEM

P.S.: Please ignore all mails from a project GAY-HAM. They are a cheap knock-off, except if you like big man-orgies (a la South Park) instead of big fight clubs.

Payment = Bullets

[myspace-cn]

fuck everyone.
never pay a carbon tax.

Ignorance Really Is Bliss

[tjstork]

Its interesting that no matter how much knowledge, data, statistics, etc, are gathered, there will always be those that are never convinced. Be the subject, evolution, global warming, or that the earth is round.

What you don't understand, as you triumph evolution or the round earth, is how many times scientists have been WRONG. Before the earth was round, it was flat, it's been shaped like a disk. It's been hollow, filled with magma, it's had a liquid core, a solid core, and now it might have two cores orbiting each other.

First we heard that mega-disasters could not happen and the dinosaurs died of disease because mega-disasters are bible thumping things, and then we find a comet smashed into the earth, and then it is possible that not only did a comet smash into the earth, but the siberian traps exploded at the same time and then maybe there was a big disease after all or maybe just rats ate all the damn dino eggs.

And don't even get me started on diseases... first you bleed people and then you got some guy sticking his finger into Lincoln's brain and then you got a cure for all bacteria and soon viruses and cancer then woops we're nowhere on cancer and viruses and bacteria are going to win after all.

Hot damn.

But, before you go on about how science progresses and is never wrong, let's apply that same standard of excellence to our former President? I mean, George Bush wasn't wrong when he invaded Iraq. He merely learned that Saddam did not have WMD, and the original plans for the invasion needed to be revised to consider an increased number of soldiers. He wasn't wrong... he just learned!

Now, my point is really this. The ratio of right to wrong in science will most definitely approach 0, but, the consequences of each step will also approach 0. Basically, the big stuff smart people figured out long time ago, fire, food, water, and that had big consequences. Then lesser consequences as more was learned, different kinds of fire, food, water... the air... and we keep drilling down and also learn about things that don't matter as much... the earth is flat / round. really, if you are a 10th century farmer, why care? Doesn't matter. Same thing today... the Higgs is X ev or Y ev, is that going to make my dick bigger? It might, down the road, but the dirty secret of science is that the more we know, the less it matters, and, since we know so much, and invalidate so much, scientists are pretty increasing the probability of being wrong.

So, rather than worry about whether or not there's global warming, I'd build a fire, have a drink and a cigar, and don't sweat it. Science has given you enough to have a pretty darned good life, anything else it gives you is nice to know but probably obsolete as soon as you hear it, so why bother with it?

I mean, seriously. You rail on the ignorant, but, look at what science says : the ignorant are everywhere, so obviously, they must be better than you... that's what Darwin says.

Re:Ignorance Really Is Bliss

[huckamania]

"Before the earth was round, it was flat, it's been shaped like a disk."

The idea that 'people in the past thought the Earth was flat' is an invention of the 20th century. Stephen Jay Gould has an excellent article discussing this fact. The Egyptians, Greeks, Incas, etc all had a very good idea about the shape of the earth. Using it as an ad-hominem is ironic.

I think as far as the scientific method goes, it is almost always better to be a denier then a cheerleader.

Re:Ignorance Really Is Bliss

[tjstork]

The thing that Gould missed was that yeah, some smart people, were clued into the Earth being round, but by and large most people were pretty stupid. I mean, before we go and bestow great piles of brains on our middle ages ancestors, we do need to be reminded that even some of the kings could not read. Like some Vikings, they were going to sail off the edge of the planet...

Re:Ignorance Really Is Bliss

[Script Cat]

You're still using denier's what is this the era of Charlemagne. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/French_denier

Re:Ignorance Really Is Bliss

[TapeCutter]

"But, before you go on about how science progresses and is never wrong, let's apply that same standard of excellence to our former President? I mean, George Bush wasn't wrong when he invaded Iraq. He merely learned that Saddam did not have WMD, and the original plans for the invasion needed to be revised to consider an increased number of soldiers. He wasn't wrong... he just learned!"

The basic tennet of the philosophy of science is scientists are never "right", the basic tennet of Bush was that he was never "wrong".

Re:Ignorance Really Is Bliss

[White Flame]

and now it might have two cores orbiting each other.

The Core II: Raping Science Harder
Coming this summer!

Re:Ignorance Really Is Bliss

[Ginger Unicorn]

Your post amounts to one very long winded series of straw men and non-sequiters.

Before the earth was round, it was flat, it's been shaped like a disk. It's been hollow, filled with magma, it's had a liquid core, a solid core, and now it might have two cores orbiting each other.

what you've very neatly laid out there is the progression of scientific knowledge gradually refining the consensus towards something more and more accurate. Notice how that sequence didn't go "first it flat then it was round then it was flat then it was a pyramid then it flat again, then a giant donut then flat now there's a 50-50 chance of it being flat or round and we haven't got a clue which it is"? That would be what you would expect from your weird caricature of the scientific process whereby everybody just seems to be bumbling around making things up as they go along, but as you freely illustrate, it isn't what actually happens.

and then you got a cure for all bacteria and soon viruses and cancer then woops we're nowhere on cancer and viruses and bacteria are going to win after all.

so could you cite exactly when the scientific concensus was that "you got a cure for all bacteria and soon viruses and cancer" and when this position was abandoned in a spectacular about-face to "woops we're nowhere on cancer and viruses and bacteria are going to win after all" because correct me if i'm wrong, but that's just something absurd that you pulled out of your ass.

before you go on about how science progresses and is never wrong

Well it's lovely of you to put words in people's mouths, but it's one of the basic tenets of science that all positions are provisional in the face of further evidence. EXACTLY the opposite of your straw man. This of course renders your following "analogy" completely irrelevant and specious

different kinds of fire, food, water... the air... and we keep drilling down and also learn about things that don't matter as much... [...]is that going to make my dick bigger?

I think perhaps the reference to the size your dick is supposed to be the "tell" that you are just trolling but the sad truth is some people actually think this way. So your attitude is that science is pointless because it just gets more wrong with time and even if it was right the things it teaches us are increasingly unimportant.

I think you've failed to show that science gets more wrong with time, indeed your earlier shape of the earth example illustrates exactly the opposite, and i think the correlation between how difficult to understand science becomes as time goes on, and you lack of interest in it as time goes on, might be a good indicator of some kind of causation, but of course, further independent evidence is required before i could make a firm assertion.

the ignorant are everywhere, so obviously, they must be better than you... that's what Darwin says.

I think you mean better adapted to reproduce in their environment. That's what Darwin says. And being better adapted to reproduce in your environment like everything else is a temporary status, especially if you are drastically altering you environment.

Your idea of what science is and what science "says" is grossly ignorant and absurd. I'm hoping you're just a troll and you got modded +5 interesting become someone though it would be funny.

Re:Ignorance Really Is Bliss

[huckamania]

You're just perpetuating the myth and this myth is insidious. It started as a commentary on the progress mankind had made since the dark ages and has grown to include all peoples from the past, including the people who started the myth.

As an example, it is common to regard Columbus as a staunch globist, fighting the good fight against the ignorant flat Earthers of his day. But the Spanish and Portuguese knew the world was not flat and when they argued with Columbus it was because they knew his calculations for the distance from Spain to China was grossly under the actual value. Columbus was just lucky that there was a continent between Spain and China or he and his crew would have starved (more likely mutiny and the plank for him).

First observation

[EZLeeAmused]

A huge plume of CO2 located off the eastern coast of Florida.

Re:First observation

[Anonymous Coward]

D'oh! Mildly funny...but the launch is from from Vandenberg Air Force Base in California.

OCO being the rough shape of CO2 :)

[slashdotlurker]

Particularly apt name.

Time to Fire Up the Barbeque

[ghbpiper]

Tasty pig parts smoked w/pecan and applewood. low and sloooooooow. The plume should be visible from space. Now will just have to see if anyone from NASA shows up for dinner...

Not a moment too late?

[Sensible Clod]

And not a moment too late.

Actually, some are saying it may already be too late to do anything about global [climate change|warming].

Maybe OP meant to say, not a moment too soon?

Re:Not a moment too late?

[bughunter]

Yes. (/shame) I did mean to write "too soon." I stand corrected.

Corrections

[Rei]

The upper layers are colder than the upper layers.

Erm, colder than the *lower* layers.

the lower the absorption of near-IR and visible, the faster energy can transfer from the upper layers to the surface or even straight to the surface

Poorly phrased; most visible and IR energy makes it direct to the surface (~1400W/m^2 arrives, ~1000W/m^2 hits a perpendicular plane on the surface on a clear day). And it's not such a simple correlation of altitude and temperature as I presented it for simplicity. That relationship holds in the troposphere, reverses in the stratosphere, reverses again in the mesosphere, then rises very high in the thermosphere. But that's all beside the point; the fact is that for energy to escape from Earth's surface, it has to be absorbed and reradiated many times. Increasing the CO2 concentration significantly increases the expected number of times to be re-radiated.

Re:Corrections

[dtjohnson]

Poorly phrased; most visible and IR energy makes it direct to the surface

Most of the radiation with a wavelength in the visible portion of the spectrum makes it to the surface. However, the CO2 in the atomosphere would absorb infra-red radiation in its absorption spectrum regardless of whether it is coming from the sun or the earth. However, the sun is not a source of infra-red radiation, for obvious reasons.

Re:Corrections

[dtjohnson]

But that's all beside the point; the fact is that for energy to escape from Earth's surface, it has to be absorbed and reradiated many times. Increasing the CO2 concentration significantly increases the expected number of times to be re-radiated.

No, it doesn't. The only 'energy' that would be absorbed would be that which had a wavelength lying within the absorption spectra of a 'greenhouse' gas such as H2O, CO2, CH4, or O3. The re-radiated infra-red radiation would mostly be outside of those spectra and would either radiate out into space or radiate into the earth. Your conceptual model about radiation bouncing around between CO2 molecules in the atmosphere does not agree with the physics of absorption.

Re:Corrections

[Rei]

The sun is a strong source of near-IR. It's not a very good source of far-IR. Image.

Re:Corrections

[Rei]

The re-radiated infra-red radiation would mostly be outside of those spectra

Wrong, wrong, wrong. The frequencies which energy gets radiated is largely due to its temperature. Now, it will be concentrated within the spectral lines of a given material, but the general distribution still roughly follows the blackbody curve for that temperature. You don't have -20 degree gasses radiating visible or near-IR light (the main relevant transparent bands in the atmosphere) in any relevant quantities.

Learn.

Re:Corrections

[dtjohnson]

Wrong, wrong, wrong. The frequencies which energy gets radiated is largely due to its temperature. Now, it will be concentrated within the spectral lines of a given material, but the general distribution still roughly follows the blackbody curve for that temperature. You don't have -20 degree gasses radiating visible or near-IR light (the main relevant transparent bands in the atmosphere) in any relevant quantities.

No, it's not. The emitted wavelength of thermal radiation is a probability distribution depending ONLY on temperature that can be predicted with Planck's law. It is NOT "concentrated within the spectral lines of a given material" as you claim. The portion of that distibution that lies within the very narrow CO2 absorption bands is tiny. Those upper-atmosphere gases might be at a temperature of -20F due to radiation of heat into space.

Why exactly is that a motivation?

[Anonymous Coward]

Just to play devil's advocate, why would a thoughtful atheist consider "drastic effects on living conditions of [progeny]" as relevant desiderata? We ought to make life better for posterity, um, why exactly?

Re:Why exactly is that a motivation?

[Locklin]

Some of us love our kids, not because some divine entity told us we must, but simply because we love our kids. Anyone that says loving one's children is conditional on a belief in God is a fool or a lier.

Anthropogenic CO2 maps

[simonff]

Meanwhile, you can browse interactive maps of US antropogenic fossil fuel CO2 emissions based on the data produced by Project Vulcan at Purdue. Google Earth browser plugin is needed, or you can load all data in a KML file in Google Earth directly. There is also a flythrough video explaining the different data views. Full disclosure - I'm the programmer who created the maps. Yes, the page is slow to load, but once a layer is accessed, it'll stay cached.

It's only magic if you don't ask about the tricks

[dbIII]

coal plants spewing CO2, NOx, trace Mercury, Sulfur, and other goodies into the air

The other bits have been removed for decades with things like bag filters, scrubbers, electrostatic precipitators etc - they even do this in China, Brazil etc. Carbon dioxide is a different story, and that's what people are talking about with new "clean coal" technology which is just a shorthand for "carbon capture and storage". It doesn't appear to be an easy thing to do, unlike the much simpler process of just using a lot of water (scrubbers) to remove NOx, SOx and all the fly ash.

The large amount of advertising is IMHO due to the example of the nuclear industry which effectively stopped R&D and instead spent a lot on advertising and has now convinced everyone that their 1960s white elephant designs are a good idea. Perhaps after a lot of advertising and a few years "clean coal" will be exactly what we have now apart from planting a couple of dozen trees somewhere.

Mod up please

[Anonymous Coward]

Whoever modded you Troll is an idiot.

I get tired of polarized arguments as well. It's a shortcut for people who aren't able to do their own critical thinking. In a word, morons.

And you're exactly correct.

I wonder

[silvertree]

I wonder if it will be able to measure its owe carbon dioxide from its launch...

It's pretty simple

[tjstork]

Being an armchair scientist can be fun, but why in the world do you think that all the scientists have missed something so simple as the effect of the sun on global warming

I would say its pretty simple. There's not actually that many scientists that are building climate simulation engines and the result is so vague that it is easy to experimentally verify. The basic output is that the earth is getting warmer since the industrial revolution coincident with a rise in CO2, and that really means, to people in the field, to look for signs of warming, and to look for CO2, and then also to then try to understand the effects.

My skepticism is with the model. Wall Street models were quite successful too, but they never actually ran them in a regime of falling housing prices to see what would happen. Woops, and I think the same sort of woops is extremely likely in climate software. This to me isn't a failing of the climate scientist community per se, as much as I think it is actually a failure of the software community as it is simply too hard to create complicated models, and scientists are notoriously the worst of all programmers.

My bet on sunspots is really well, indicative of some unknown or seemingly benign assumption turning out to be wrong. I'm looking forward to seeing the results from this CO2 satellite as, if the manmade theory is right, we should really see CO2 plumes rising up from, well, the USA, and spreading throughout the world. If they time it right, we should see highways without traffic without CO2, and highways with traffic, with more CO2, and that CO2 should not be consumed by anything on the way. I understand that they've already got a pretty good amount of evidence that says that the CO2 in the air is from human activities largely because of some weird radio thing, but, the graphic evidence of that, and where these concentrations are, is what's interesting. We should expect to see local fluctuations in temperature in CO2 plume areas, I would think. You should be able to take all the temperature data, match it up to all the CO2 plumes, and see anomolies fall off as the concentration of CO2 falls off around where the CO2 is introduced, even if only a small amount. But of course, there could be surprises. It could turn out that there is some massive unknown source of CO2 bubbling up out of the unexplored regions of the earth. It could turn out that the CO2 coming from the USA is getting consumed by the USA due to some new thing that they discover. It could actually turn out that the USA is actually covering up what should be a fairly big and natural sinking of CO2 caused by sunspots, and we should otherwise be in an ice age, if it were not for our SUVs. It could actually be something new, beautiful and unimaginably cool, and that, my friend, is why we give scientists billions of dollars, to make us wonder, more than to answer questions.

Launch failed

[specific_pacific]

http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/oco/main/index.html

Ohwell...?

Let the scientist do their work....

[elkto]

How pious of you. I assume by your tone that you must be in the global warming alarmist camp. The article clearly states that the scientist can only find 40% of the carbon in the atmosphere that they were expecting. Add the lack of sunspots in this cycle and it seems that we are actually headed for a freeze. Are we human beings prepared for that? I genuinely feel that someone is selling global warming like a peddler selling bottled water to me while I hold a water hose in my hand.

Re:Let the scientist do their work....

[Ambitwistor]

The article clearly states that the scientist can only find 40% of the carbon in the atmosphere that they were expecting.

That's not true. It says that only 40% of our emissions remain in the atmosphere, and the land and oceans take up the rest. Scientists knew that, and they also know the rough partitioning: about 25% go in to the land and 25% into the water. (The article clearly states that about half of the remaining 60%, or 30%, goes into the oceans.) But there's still uncertainty in the total sink; the land sink might be a little bit larger than that, or the ocean sink smaller. That's one of the questions OCO is supposed to help address. It's also supposed to help nail down which parts of the land the carbon ends up in.

Add the lack of sunspots in this cycle and it seems that we are actually headed for a freeze.

Only if you ignore the greenhouse effect, and also assume that solar activity is going to drop into a new Maunder Minimum, and even a new Maunder Minimum would be likely warmer than the "Little Ice Age" because the whole planet is already warmer.

Re:Let the scientist do their work....

[MightyYar]

Your "genuine feelings" are exactly what science is supposed to address. If the sunspot theory has any merit, then a proponent of the theory will create a model that fits existing data well. To my knowledge, this has not occurred and so I still consider it conjecture.

Someone else already addressed your misunderstanding of the 40% "missing" carbon.

Anyone Else Surprised?

[drinkypoo]

Did this fail because they wanted it to fail, or because NASA couldn't hit the broad side of a barn with a bass fiddle?

Re:Anyone Else Surprised?

[ashitaka]

"Fairing failed to separate"???

This is one of the most basic pieces on a launch vehicle. Even SpaceX can get this part right.

Wonder what the turnaround time on a new satellite is. Obviously this would be insured.

This will be a BIG impact on orbital

[WindBourne]

Orbital won part of the ISS re-supply contract. But, l-mart, boeing, and atx are suing saying that they had a better plan. In point of fact, NASA said that the alternative had better points, etc. Now, Orbital loses an important sat. This may well lose that contract for Orbital or at least allow that partial contract to be cut in half (half to each). To be honest, I would not mind seeing that happen. We NEED multiple launchers. But if that happens, I would love to see Boeing, L-Mart, or even the US buy a bigelow station and attach it to the ISS. If we buy one at costs, it helps bigelow move forward quickly, while expanding the ISS inexpensively. The important thing is that it would get bigelow moving forward which would allow all 3 launch companies to survive and thrive.

Aliens

[harvord]

NASA satellite crashes minutes after launch:
http://www.cnn.com/2009/TECH/space/02/24/nasa.launch/index.html

Not the first one

[udittmer]

The Japanese satellite Ibuki has been in orbit since January.

It Just Crashed....

[loose electron]

Launch Failed this morning. Fairing around satellite failed to separate and it went into the ocean down near the Antarctic.

http://www.cnn.com/2009/TECH/space/02/24/nasa.launch/index.html