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Global Warming 'Undeniable,' Report Says
BergZ writes "Scientists from around the world are providing even more evidence of global warming. 'A comprehensive review of key climate indicators confirms the world is warming and the past decade was the warmest on record,' the annual State of the Climate report declares. Compiled by more than 300 scientists from 48 countries, including Canada, the report from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration said its analysis of 10 indicators that are 'clearly and directly related to surface temperatures, all tell the same story: Global warming is undeniable.'"
So far, it's been a scorcher for folks all around the world. So it might come as no surprise that the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration has released a report revealing 2010 having the record for warmest June, warmest April to June and warmest year to date. The announcement said 'Each of the 10 warmest average global temperatures recorded since 1880 have occurred in the last fifteen years. The warmest year-to-date on record, through June, was 1998, and 2010 is warmer so far.' So far we are even surpassing 1998's records which held the warmest year (despite directly contradicting reports). It certainly seems the scads of winter precipitation we enjoyed were no indication of how we would swelter through our summer this year. Will 2010 turn it around or are we set to break more records?
Aside from that, I'm not really interested in making comments on this anymore because I'm so sick and tired of the armchair idiocy that follows (and somehow gets moderated up). Prediction: Not even 300 scientists from 48 countries and NOAA are going to convince everyone that global warming is real. At this point, I think it's just going to get worse.
My work here is dung.
I thought they were using the less specific term 'climate change' these days.
http://www.acetonestudio.com
It's been pretty cold recently.
"The planet is fine...the people are fucked."
Living With a Nerd
Why do I get that sick feeling that the heat from this discussion will only make the global warming problem worse?
I need trepanation like I need a hole in the head.
I thought the issue wasn't whether climate change was happening, but whether it was artificial or natural.
All sorts of facts are denied by those who refuse to change their positions. See cognitive dissonance
It sure has been getting warmer since the end of the last ice age.
It's often speculated that the warming of the end, and the subsequent end of the last ice age, it was a major factor in the rise and spread of the human population.
Of course, it was the humans, ten thousand years ago, that were driving their SUVs that caused the last ice age to end.
There isn't an intelligent person the planet who denies that global warming is real. The debate is all about causation.
There are (at least) two camps in the global warming skeptics camp--those who deny it is happening, and those like me who know it's happening but don't think it's worth changing our entire civilization to try and stop something that is, well, already happening anyway.
I dont think that the majority of deniers dont believe that the world is warming, I think the majority just believe that its not mans fault, that it is in fact natural. I mean who are we to think we have that much power over the entire planet?
have you seen my sig? there are many others like it but none that are the same
Cue the people who deny it anyway.
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This is not news. There is no debate about whether global warming is real. All available sources show a warming trend when averaged over the past thirty years.
I don't know why these people bother, except perhaps as a red herring to distract people from the real controversy, which is about causation.
I'm somewhat curious about why we got mentioned myself. I mean, I know us Canadians love any acknowledgment that the rest of the world remembers we exist above the states but really? Is it because we're stereotypically cold?
I am deeply offended that you imply I am a corporate shill, or even worse a Republican. Thems fighting words!
If I were God, wouldn't I protect my churches from acts of me?
Yeah - global warming is the new evolution. Successfultroll.jpg
Seven puppies were harmed during the making of this post.
Same asshats that state hot summers or blooming cheery blossoms in the spring are proof of global warming.
It's undeniable. Great. That clears it up. Where is the report that offers "undeniable" proof of God, and the "undeniable" inevitable end of crude oil deposits in the Earth? I am going to file these with my "undeniable" reports on Sky being blue, Sun being warm, and water being wet.
The report that the article refers to is the 2009 State of the Climate report. More information about it is available at the NOAA website: http://www.noaanews.noaa.gov/stories2010/20100728_stateoftheclimate.html
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Fuck it. We are already in a warming trend that will eventually result in a cooling trend heading for the next ice age. Lets just get it over with and warm this puppy up! Then we can enjoy the cool slide down to freezing!
Then what will happen? It'll start all over again.
The only point worth arguing about is whether we warm the planet enough to make a real difference in our species survival. If we can weather the hottest the hot trend can dole out as well as the coldest the cold trend will give us, what does it really matter?
Obviously pollution sucks, but beyond that? I mean seriously, whether or not we succeed in stopping _human_ attributed warming or not doesn't stop the natural trend, it will merely slow it.
Again, I'm not advocating we throw caution to the wind and utterly destroy our planet though mass pollution, but stopping a recurring trend is futile. My point is to question whether or not there is any point to slowing a trend that will eventually peak and fall off to another ice age all on its own. Specifically, mathematically, when is the next ice age due on a non-human involved timeline and when are we apt to see it due to our being?
You right-wing Republican corporate shill! /sarcasm
Does it matter if it's anthropogenic? I'm against a hot world with rising seas, melting ice caps and global drought. I'm against all of the other terrible nastiness associated with it. I don't give a damn who we blame, but let's find a way to halt/fix it, shall we?
What does this say then about all the measures taken so far to quell the onset of global warming? If it has just gotten warmer with all the emissions controls, then is it just egotistical to think that what we change has any effect (at least in the US)?
Why would the presence of glaciers 100,000 years ago cause (accelerated) warming in recent times ?
There isn't an intelligent person the planet who denies that global warming is real. The debate is all about causation.
The deniers set up multiple goalposts. There are the ones who deny it's happening at all (a favorite tactic of this group is to start their time series with 1998, which was an unusally warm year, to insist that there's been no warming trend in the last 10^H^H11^H^H12 years) and then the "reasonable" ones who say it's happening but that human activity plays no part. This mirrors the pseudo-split between young earth creationists and "intelligent design" proponents almost exactly, and it's no surprise that there's a lot of crossover between the groups.
The correlation between ignorance of statistics and using "correlation is not causation" as an argument is close to 1.
this new proclamation does not have a cause listed. This allows them to to avoid some of the debate. It also allows the to solidify their side as well. Global Warming supporters all have "proofs" for their chosen cause. They just don't like to agree and some are pretty vehement in their disagreement. However they can support "Global Warming is increasing".
Still it does come down to two questions.
1) Should we be doing something to change the planet's climate?
2) Can we change the climate should we choose?
* Winners compare their achievements to their goals, losers compare theirs to that of others.
So which is it, Global Warming or Climate Change?
Depends. Do you call it "Christmas" or "Holidays"? The only reason "global warming" was changed to "climate change" was an attempt to take out the "warming" part so that they wouldn't get jumped on every time the odd year ended up colder than expected (which is completely normal - natural phenomena don't follow graphs exactly). However the change neither adds value or information to the name. It's a political thing, it's lame, and I refuse to be forced to change by people in a country that doesn't even adopt the metric system.
Seven puppies were harmed during the making of this post.
Does it matter if it's anthropogenic? I'm against a hot world with rising seas, melting ice caps and global drought. I'm against all of the other terrible nastiness associated with it. I don't give a damn who we blame, but let's find a way to halt/fix it, shall we?
If it's nonanthropogenic, there probably is not a way to stop it.
Advice: on VPS providers
There isn't an intelligent person the planet who denies that global warming is real. The debate is all about causation.
Yes, it is now that the incontrovertible evidence is mounting. Of course, you will still find people eager to attack climate change scientists because they talked amongst themselves about the viability of certain data. Or perhaps news organizations (go ahead, guess which one) that go out of their way to announce "It's snowing" as evidence that Al Gore's book on climate change is pure fiction.
Other than that, yeah, it's only about causation. Oh wait, I think a "scientist" just observed that the temperature in Rush Limbaugh's studio was unusually low for this time of year... Now we have to get this debate out again. The ice on Greenland is growing! The polar bears are plentiful (on shore) and simply avoid the water out of a natural phobia, not because the ice is disappearing (it isn't!) Clearly there is reason to doubt this "global warming" thing of which you speak.
So.. the scientists keep trying to convince people who either refuse to accept logic and reason or are too stupid for it, by using more clear science.
This will change the minds of zero people.
The problem is the half-baked climate models that show doomsday scenarios for everyone. Scientists can barely tell what the weather will be like a week from now, but they are accurately predicting the end of the world???
I think things are getting warmer, but I am not convinced it is man made. By their estimates the combined farting of everyone on earth over the past 100 years should have killed us all already, not to mention after the bean burrito became popular.
I do however believe is that we are stewards of what is around us. And as such we have a moral obligation to do our best to take care of it and it's inhabitants.
Voting them all out of office, now that's change I can believe in.
The real question is whether human activities and human activities which humans are WILLING to curtail are the source of a significant part of the warming?
After all, the Earth has been warming globally for over WELL OVER 10,000 years during the time the last Ice Age receeded until the present.
Framing arguments with an improper word to skew things is NOT good science.
Am I the only one who thinks news of an impending rise in sea level is brought to us by a group called "NOAA?"
Currently hooked on AMP
There is no credible evidence that supports the hypothesis that humans are causing the alleged, theorized global warming.
The study does not address the cause of the warming.
We know no we have caused acid rain and the ozone hole by releasing different materials into the air.
We know that when we mess around with our environment whether it be with lead, pcbs, dioxins or really another chemical it causes problems.
Why do people find it so hard to believe that the incredible increase in atmospheric CO2 is not a problem?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Keeling_Curve
People deny evolution. People deny global warming...
People are incredibly good at denying that reality exists, especially when its reality they don't want to comprehend.
Test your net with Netalyzr
Opps, I meant "thinks it's funny that news.." not "thinks news" Sorry for the hasty post
Currently hooked on AMP
That is a fine job you just did of stating your position while not saying a damned thing about why you hold that position. If you have data that counters this research, then share it. Making fun of the other side and reaching for a "holier-than-thou" position for yourself does not in any way detract from actual data.
Damn_registrars has no butt-hole. Damn_registrars has no use for a butt-hole.
Of course, we might not be able to stop it if it's anthropogenic either. I choose to believe that we have enormous tools and resources at our disposal, and could achieve quite significant change if we wanted to. Modern science is pretty damn impressive. Strictly speaking it is possible to affect the climate globally, whether or not you think it's realistic. And at this point, we'd better be seriously considering trying. Best that current trends not continue.
As we can now see that Global Warming supporters have turned it into a religion ("undeniable" is a typical way to say that you won't accept new facts, eg: "God's existence is undeniable"), perhaps they can qualify for tax free status and I can deny their religion because I'm an atheist?
It's still global warming. They just started calling it "climate change" to shut up the assholes who were saying "It's not getting warmer, this winter was a little colder than the last one!"
Aside: What's their response now that 2010 is shaping up to be one of the hottest years on record, I wonder?
That struck me as odd too. Why not say "including France" or "including Ghana" or somewhere else. Does Canada have a history of being relatively unforthcoming with this type of data? Or maybe Canadian scientists are the best of the bunch and adding them to the list is like having Thomas Jefferson endorse an amendment to the U.S. constitution?
It is unwise to ascribe motive
The data as presented indicates a recent warming trend, but does not say anything about whether this is man-made or not; a 0.5deg rise in 50 years is extremely small in the scheme of things, and drawing the usual alarmist conclusions from this is quite unfounded.
So read the report itself:
The NOAA Annual Greenhouse Gas Index (AGGI) shows radiative forcing relative to 1750, of all the long-lived greenhouse gases indexed to 1 for the year 1990. Since 1990, radiative forcing from greenhouse gases has increased 27.5%.
Nitrous oxide (N2O) and sulfur hexafluoride (SF6) are important atmospheric trace gases with significant man-made sources. Nitrous oxide has the third strongest anthropogenic climate forcing after CO2 and CH4 and is considered a major greenhouse gas (Butler 2009).
The atmospheric N2O budget is out of balance by one-third as a result of man-made emissions, primarily through emissions from nitrogen fertilizers (Crutzen et al. 2007).
Atmospheric greenhouse gas concentrations continued to rise, with CO2 increasing at a rate above the 1978 to 2008 average. The global ocean CO2 uptake flux for 2008, the most recent year for which analyzed data are available, is estimated to have been 1.23 Pg C yr-1, which is 0.25 Pg C yr-1 smaller than the long-term average and the lowest estimated ocean uptake in the last 27 years. At the same time, the total global ocean inventory of anthropogenic carbon stored in the ocean interior as of 2008 suggests an uptake and storage of anthropogenic CO2 at rates of 2.0 and 2.3 ±0.6 Pg C yr-1 for the decades of the 1990s and 2000s, respectively.
In the tropics this increase has been formally attributed to anthropogenic change over the 1988–2006 period (Santer et al. 2007).
all the time series show an underlying rise in OHC consistent with our understanding of anthropogenic climate change.
I mean, the evidence is all over the report. The only thing stopping them from saying that it is conclusively man made is that 1) it's probably impossible to prove it and 2) there might always be some evidence of non anthropogenic warming contributing to the cause but not accounting for all of it.
My work here is dung.
The word used in TFA is 'unmistakable'. Still, all things can be denied/mistaken by hardcore deniers...
--Irrational response squad is a go!--
Rising indicators
1. Air temperature over land
Denial: Measurements are wrong - and the sun did it (despite the solar minimum).
2. Sea-surface temperature
Denial: Measurements are wrong - whales did it, we need to allow more hunting.
3. Marine air temperature
Denial: Measurements are wrong - underwater volcanoes must have done it.
4. Sea-level
Denial: Measurements are wrong - land must be getting lower, or else human sin is causing a new flood.
5. Ocean heat
Denial: Measurements are wrong - sonar must be messing with the equipment.
6. Humidity
Denial: Measurements are wrong - and this is a self-correcting, perfectly natural thing.
7. Tropospheric temperature in the 'active-weather' layer of the atmosphere closest to the Earth's surface
Denial: Measurements are wrong - and heat rises, duh!
Declining indicators
1. Arctic sea-ice
Something must be eating the ice! Must be all those hungry polar bears - caused their own problems!
2. Glaciers
Something must be weighing them down - they're just going underwater! Perhaps all those polar bears crowding on them.
3. Spring snow cover in the northern hemisphere
Ha! Is it too much snow, or too little now - confused scientists don't know nuthin'!
Now, if you'll excuse me, I have a congressional subcommittee to advise.
--/Irrational response--
It's easy to find a 'reason' to deny something, when you don't have a burden/benefit of evidence or peer review. And when all you're doing is stalling for the status quo, denial is all you need.
Ryan Fenton
I had an eye-opening experience the other day over at the Oil Drum, a blog run by folks associated with the industry. Not people you'd exactly think of as being against the consumption of fossil fuels. But the gist of this posting (which had nothing to do with climate change, and received a lot of favorable commentary) was that we're deeply, deeply fucked if we think we're going to continue burning fossil fuels into our old age. The argument was specifically related to the increasing cost of extraction. (In a nutshell, there's a reason we're now getting our oil from wells a mile underwater).
Now, the conclusion of that poster was pretty depressing, though I don't think he covered all of the options. But what struck me is that if you believe his arguments, it doesn't really matter whether you believe that humans are causing global warming. The actions we need to take now to ensure a reasonable standard of living in 40 years are exactly the same actions we need to take in order to deal with the global warming problem. Above all, to place a tax on fossil fuel consumption (and CO2 taxes do this pretty well) as a means to encourage the market to do something reasonable about the problem. The fact that we couldn't even pass the tiny little tax proposed in the recently defeated Waxman-Markey bill tells us something deeply frightening about our chances.
What kills me about the anti-global-warming argument is that its opponents think that it really matters whether AGW exists. It doesn't matter. For either reason we need to dramatically reduce our fossil fuel consumption and develop alternative sources (efficient, cost-effective nuclear, wind, solar, etc._ just to ensure that we and our children have a chance at living a decent life in the future. There's nothing in the universe that guarantees we won't face terrible consequences for our bad decisions, just because we've had a pretty good run for the past few decades.
I can easily disprove the claims of these so called "scientists." They claim that global warming is undeniable, and yet we see people denying it right here in the comments. Ha HA!
Now, if they had said something along the lines of "At this point, the proof is so overwhelming that only mentally deficient conservative hippie-hating anti-environmentalist shills for big business will attempt to deny it," well, that is just self evidently true.
- None can love freedom heartily, but good men; the rest love not freedom, but license. -- John Milton
You mean absence of glaciers perhaps. I took GP's post as speaking to Earth's warming up over a time span of 100k years because the glacier volume now is much less than what it was then.
To-do List: Receive telemarketing call during a tornado warning. Check.
The new report, the 20th in a series, focuses only on global warming and does not specify a cause.
Just stating that it's getting warmer isn't enough. The problem isn't that the planet is getting hotter (on a geologic scale, the planet heats up and cools down periodically for completely natural reasons). What we really need to do is identify the causes - undeniably.
Do you really want FRANCE on your research team!? I heard they hate freedom AND don't even speak american!
What people don't realize is that the earth will get warmer with machinery,cars, power plants, etc.
You've never heard of something called conservation of energy, then? Tell me, sir, where is all the energy coming from that produces all that heat? Magic? Or is it the river that was slowed down by the dam and made to turn a turbine (in exchange for extracting some of its total energy). Is it the uranium that was mined and refined and made to give up its heat and neutrons quickly - in exchange for removing billions of year's worth of slowly releasing that energy into the environment? Do you SERIOUSLY think that an air conditioner produces more heat than the total energy that goes into it? What about all the cold air coming out the other end?
In fact the ONLY net energy input into our system is fossil fuel burning. But even that was produced by energy over millions of years. When it's all gone, that extra source of heat will be gone.
Do the words "closed system" mean anything to you? Sheesh, it's like the people who claim that the earth will "run out of resources". There may not be enough copper to go around if we keep growing our population like we are, but the copper isn't going anywhere. It's still here. But now you have to share it among 7+ billion people instead of the 4 billion we were 30 years ago. Everyone gets less, but we won't ever "run out" until we start putting it on rockets and shooting it out of the solar system.
I dunno, some people just don't think. Well no, many philosophers argue MOST people don't think.
Seven puppies were harmed during the making of this post.
But the thing is, in order to justify creating the global socialist utopia which is the true goal of the "warmers", ALL the goalposts must be cleared. ALL of the following must be true:
a) warming is happening
b) it's a bad thing
c) human activity contributes significantly
d) it's possible to do something about it
e) the cure is better than the disease
Unless every one of those things is true, then the "green" crusade against global warming falls apart. So yes, you do have a goalpost issue: it's that you have to get past (at least) five of them to even have a shot.
The truth is a shitload of science indicates it is us, and unless you're somehow qualified to comment maybe STFU.
I suppose it depends on what record one looks at. Back in the Cretaeus era Antarctica was covered with forests, and trended up towards being semi-tropical. Is this decade really warmer?
Everything is deniable. Look at all the anti-vacination, intelligent design, 9/11 conspiracists. In each case they have had copious incontrovertible evidence shoved in their faces and they still parrot the same idiotic nonsense as they always did. So it is with the anti-global warming crowd. Some people will not budge from a viewpoint no matter how obviously wrong or idiotic it is demonstrated to be.
If we presume that the environment is ours to do with as we please, then aren't we as guilty of those who caused the destruction of the environment in the first place?
Slashdot: Where people pretend to be twice as smart as they really are by behaving like children.
It's all about causation and whether or not it's worthwhile to stop the trend that is naturally occurring anyways.
Think about it. The planet goes into warming trends which peak and then crash into an ice age. Repeat ad nausium.
The question I have, and seems to be the only relevant question, is are we going to survive the hottest hot and coldest cold. It makes no difference to the planet either way. It will warm and cool throughout time (or at least until our sun burns out or some other catastrophic event happens).
If we can survive it, it really makes little difference. If we can't, delaying it would be in our best interest.
Pretty much.
I have found that apathy is the best approach anyway. Personally, I can make virtually no difference. I limit my trash, try to compost what I can, buy what appears to be more environmentally friendly products (although I'm sure half the things that are marketed so are just lying about it or meet some EPA loophole) and cut my driving down as much as possible. (I don't own a hybrid or anything, but I figure the amount of energy used to create and ultimately dispose of a new car makes my old car energy neutral.)
I do these things because I don't want my own environment to be a dump. I don't want the air in my valley to be smog-ridden. It's that simple.
Is global warming man made? Is it natural? Is it both? Don't know. Don't care. If it's man made it will be solved ONLY when its effects damage the bottom lines of the governments and large businesses the pump out most of the pollution. Until then, a couple people like me trying to live cleaner and more environmentally friendly within our means won't do shit and neither will all the screaming and yelling about the eventual devastation it will cause.
While I believe humans certainly do contribute, what's to be done? Get the government involved? You mean the government that's bought and paid for by polluting companies to do something about it? Ha! If that's your solution, global warming sure as shit isn't your biggest problem. Not even close.
So... focus on your broken political systems, then worry about saving the planet. Global warming will effectively take care of itself when it begins to become costly. Heading it off at the pass will involve reasonable nations, governments and people... none of which actually exist.
And mankind had as much to do with that as we do with global warming. The time period during which we've been collecting data is insignificant compared to the age of the earth. You know what the most prevalent "greenhouse gas" is? Water. Yeah H2O. Whoever figures out how to sell capping and trading H2O will be even richer than Al Gore.
The truth is a shitload of science indicates it is us, and unless you're somehow qualified to comment maybe STFU.
I can't hear you - say it louder.
Seven puppies were harmed during the making of this post.
If the earth would be gradually warming over a time span of 10,000 or 100,000 years, there would be no acceleration in the recent years.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:1000_Year_Temperature_Comparison.png
If anything, it looks like the earth was slowly cooling in the last millennium, before industrialisation started.
Alarmist conclusions are the only thing that can be reached when a topic is politicized. Even otherwise intelligent people in this forum become complete fucking morons when this topic is discussed.
If it's nonanthropogenic, it just means we might not be able to stop it by reducing greenhouse gas emissions. However, there are lots of other options. I seem to remember someone suggesting that it would be relatively cheap to just blast large amounts of titanium dioxide particles into the upper atmosphere in order to increase the albedo of the earth and reflect some of the incoming solar radiation, thus reducing temperatures on earth. The scary part of this is that it's supposedly cheap enough that a single country could decide to do it unilaterally.
That's just one possible option, there are others.
When they come back, I doubt a few degrees that may be caused by humans are going to make a difference anyway.
So I guess extreme cold weather is blamed on global warming, and extreme hot weather is blamed on global warming. That's a convenient position to take. Obviously, wanting cleaner air is something you should want regardless, but the way fear is used to force taxes onto people or make them feel guilty for using technology is something I strongly disagree with. So, I agree with saving the planet up to the point that it begins to interfere with useful, necessary technology. Unfortunately, along with global warming comes a lot of anti-capitalist garbage from iPod-using urban hippies who think meat-eating is evil and feel the love at Bjork concerts. I'm being facetious, but you get the idea. There's way too much emotionalism infecting what should be a strictly scientific viewpoint.
George Carlin summed up the alarmist element of environmentalism pretty well. Earth couldn't care less about us. To sum up--"The planet's not fucked. WE are."
IF we can affect global climate, and things are warming up, adding more fuel to the problem will only make things worse... no matter if we started it or not.
About the 0.5 deg in 50 years, the rate matters too. If is accelerating and in the next 10-20 years grows other 0.5, and in the next 5-10 years 1 deg more, we will be running into big troubles soon enough to see it by ourselves.
If we presume that the environment is ours to do with as we please, then aren't we as guilty of those who caused the destruction of the environment in the first place?
Only if you don't see a distinction between "manipulate" and "recklessly endanger."
but let's find a way to halt/fix it, shall we?
If we didn't cause it, and we try to fix it, we may just make it worse and destroy lots of other stuff in the process, no?
Volcanos mess up a lot of humanity and environments and animal life, too, but we don't try to stop them from blowing up. We'd probably end up making things worse.
That's true until it snows in their neighborhood and then we're back to global warming being a myth.
Intelligent and rational aren't the same thing and a lot of important people don't want to believe that global warming is a problem so they use any excuse, including long discredited FUD, they can to dismiss it. This winter as soon as some urban center hits a cold snap some jackasses on TV will help some reasonably intelligent people convince themselves that global warming is a conspiracy to sell carbon offsets or sabotage the oil industry because that's what plenty of intelligent people want to believe.
This is a lot like the birthers or 9/11 conspiracy nuts except this feeds more than an anti-Obama or anti-government bias. This is ignoring an expensive, change-our-way-of-life kind of problem in the hopes that it will go away and reality is going to have a hard time getting through to those people.
If you didn't come to party don't bother knocking on my door. Prince '1999'
The question isn't whether we should do something, but rather whether we should try to mitigate it or adapt to it. If we didn't cause it, chances are we can't mitigate it, so the only choice is to adapt.
One of the most cogent posts I have ever read on Slashdot. Wish I had a mod point for you!
"I say we take off, nuke the site from orbit. It's the only way to be sure."
Does it matter if it's anthropogenic?
I'm against a hot world with rising seas, melting ice caps and global drought. I'm against all of the other terrible nastiness associated with it. I don't give a damn who we blame, but let's find a way to halt/fix it, shall we?
I have news for you. There is nothing to "fix." The world's weather changes over time. There is nothing you or anyone can do about it. There was a time when there were no polar ice caps.
The Earth is fixing itself. I supposed one place to start is looking back and find out what caused the start and end to the past ice ages. Earth's orbit? Sun spots? Solar temp changes?
There are no loopholes. It's either legal or it's not.
Just how long have we been keeping records?
Notice that the second answer has quite a few more zeros in it than the first number even has total digits?
We don't know squat.
File under 'M' for 'Manic ranting'
For those super intelligent folks who are on the AGW bandwagon and believe whoeheartedly in the science of it I have a question: do you believe that life begins at conception - that a separate and distinct human being has thus been created? Yeah, yeah I know it seems quite off topic...
Fortunately there are some facts to back up your argument...
Two of my imaginary friends reproduced once
Why is it so important to stress out that the 48 countries include Canada, again?
Without reading the report, I'm going to assume it has to do with data collection at the North Pole. Arctic areas warm much more than the equator when global temperatures rise, so temperature rises at the poles are very good indicators of global warming.
It's also of strategic interest to us if the Earth is warming -- some good, like the northwest passage, some bad, like ice roads being decreasingly reliable.
Here's the only place I'd like to get to: agreeing that 1) climate is warming to a point of unnatural irreversible damage and 2) man made factors are contributing to it.
I think you might succeed on point #2. But point #1 sets an impossibly high bar. Natural CO2 levels have been much higher in the geologic past and thriving ecosystems existed when there was no ice anywhere on the planet.
No dude you're just falling for the AGW propaganda. Do you really believe we're sitting in some "magical temperature sweet spot"? Does it strike you as odd that the only apparent consequences of a warming trend seem to be bad, if not fatal?
Even if that's true, that's a totally different issue, working on a completely different timescale.
lets see if i can use your analogy a bit more.
you think it's flooding from the tap being left on. when it's the river you built your house next to that has a long history of flooding that's causing you grief. just because you're inconvenienced by the current water level doesn't mean that i have to stop what i'm doing and forfeit my time and money because you think it's something as simple as turning off the tap. if you build next to a river, you're basement is going to get flooded from time to time. its the natural coarse of things. it will auto correct and stop flooding at some point. stop telling me to go turn off your tap when it won't do any good.
Well, it is all clear now. Canada is included so it must be true.
The problem with all previous reports was that Canada was not included which resulted in not correct measurements.
Everybody knows Canada has such vast cold areas that any 'warming' can be proven if you do accidentally leave 'cold' out.
Load New Commander (Y/N)?
Evidence?
The one fact that counts, regardless of whether it's causing the warming or not, is that oil will not last forever. Whether taking millions of years worth of sequestered CO2 and puking it into the atmosphere in the space of three centuries is tipping us over the edge, the real disaster will happen when the price of a barrel of oil skyrockets to the point where everything from fertilizers to plastic spoons are priced beyond what our economic system can bare.
The reality is that complex long-chain hydrocarbons are goddamned fucking valuable for industrial processes and for the production of a stunning number of chemicals and products. The most idiotic and short-sighted thing we can do with these hydrocarbons is to put them in our fuel tanks. It's absolute madness, and the only cure is the disaster itself, that when oil does reach obscene prices, we'll be forced into using the alternatives. The hope of many was that we, as a species, would for once plan the obsolescence of a fading resource, rather than driving headlong into the wall and somehow hoping we would all pick up the pieces.
At some point in the next fifty to a hundred years that's going to happen, global warming or not, and then maybe not us, but our kids and grandkids, are going to be left the horrible mess that we could have dealt with, if we hadn't been dominated by greedy oil companies who don't give a flying fuck how things go down the shits when the flow of cheap hydrocarbons comes to an end.
The world's burning. Moped Jesus spotted on I50. Details at 11.
"Compiled by more than 300 scientists from 48 countries, including Canada ..."
Hmm. I can't tell if the inclusion of Canadian scientists in the 300 is supposed to make me more or less skeptical.
The only reason "global warming" was changed to "climate change" was an attempt to take out the "warming" part so that they wouldn't get jumped on every time the odd year ended up colder than expected (which is completely normal - natural phenomena don't follow graphs exactly).
When our summers grow longer, and winters won't snow...
My summers are hotter and my winters are colder. I'm getting no snow, but I'm not getting RAIN during the winter; the humidity is just so fucking low...
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yes, this year the debate is about causation. next year it will be about economic feasibility the year after that they will start quoting Zeno's paradox and pointing at the impossibility of change.
ultimately scientists debate nested interests stall.
My keyboads not woking popely.
There is decreasing amounts of doubt that the world is warming up
May be true in across this planet in general, it is sadly not true in the USA. In the USA there is still a very substantial number of people who deny global warming outright for various reasons (often nothing more than political - just wait for this story to be tagged "manbearpig" on the front page).
(especially in the United States) liberals are ONLY concerned with the man-made "portion" of the effect
It is almost impossible to be concerned "only" with that portion - assuming it to be significant. That would be like being concerned about second hand smoke but not lung cancer in smokers, the two are directly connected matters. Whether global warming is caused by activities of humans doesn't change the fact that global warming is having dramatic affects on all life around the world.
Damn_registrars has no butt-hole. Damn_registrars has no use for a butt-hole.
There isn't an intelligent person the planet who denies that global warming is real.
Unfortunately, the planet is chock-full of unintelligent persons who fancy themselves intelligent.
The debate is all about causation.
Between you and me, perhaps it is. Introduce the millions of hollering idiots who are the main reason GWB got elected in 2004, and the debate is remarkably similar to the debate over evolution, that is to say, on one side people claiming that an observable, demonstrable event really happened and continues to happen, and on the other side people claiming that an observable, demonstrable event is all imaginary and crazy. Also, that anyone who believes in said observable, demonstrable event sympathizes with Hitler.
"I don't care about the Constitution!" --Bill O'Reilly, November 17, 2009
I don't think it makes sense to claim that global warming will lead to water shortages, since it will mean increased precipitation. As long as people build the appropriate dams to capture the extra water, it should lead to an increase in water supply.
Also, I don't think the adverse effects to coastal cities will be as profound as people say. It would take a major increase in sea-level to really cause any problems, but the change to date has been modest.
The actions we need to take now to ensure a reasonable standard of living in 40 years are exactly the same actions we need to take in order to deal with the global warming problem.
Not exactly.
You could also make sure that other people's consumption decreased faster than the resource.
HTH
Deleted
the discussion about who is at fault for global warming, or even if it exists, is completely besides the point
in fact, make believe, for the sake of argument, that there is no global warming at all
ok: well, mankind's stewardship over this planet is still undeniable. correct? does anyone disagree with the idea that we are responsible for this planet?
therefore, simply for the sake of self-interest, mankind should be monitoring and maintaining the climate according to specifications that suit his purposes. and his purposes are to maintain the status quo. even if rising sea levels were completely natural, no one wants to turn all of our coastal cities into venice. or lose all our crop lands we have invested in to desert, even if, again, that were perfectly natural. therefore, we should do something to counteract whatever is causing difficulties for our status quo
what i am talking about is completely shortcircuiting pointless discussions about who is to blame and pointless discussions about whether or not the climate is changing
if we observe higher heat and smaller crops, we fix that problem. if we don't, we still maintain things as they are, as we are invested in the climate status quo
if we observe rising sea levels, we fix the problem. if we don't observe rising sea levels, we keep watching the sea level. beginning and end of discussion. everything else is pointless hot air, pun intended
in other words, shut the ideologues and politicians up, bring the scientists and engineers in the room:
1. observe
2. if any problems are seen, solve the problems
3. go to 1
every other discussion is methane-rich bullshit. only the problem solvers matter. is there a job to do? then get it done. any else to talk about? NO!
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
"I'm somewhat curious about why we got mentioned myself. I mean, I know us Canadians love any acknowledgment that the rest of the world remembers we exist above the states but really? Is it because we're stereotypically cold?"
It's because TFA was posted on a Canadian news website.
c) isn't necessary. If a,b,d, and e are true it's till in our best interest to stop it. Just because our extinction is natural, doesn't mean we have to accept it.
I wish the scientists and skeptics alike would get beyond any political agendas and simply state it like it is. Yes, global climate change is real and there is evidence to support a warming trend. Yes, man's activities have an impact on the climate but climate change is a given regardless.
Once they get that out of the way we can start talking about ways to respond to the climate change in a rational manner (without the knee-jerk reactions to seeing one's political position being attacked).
I don't see any good coming from denying global climate change OR from claiming that we can control the climate by eliminating pollution.
Please turn in your geek card :)
Slashdot: Where people pretend to be twice as smart as they really are by behaving like children.
Republican or a corporate shill
There's a difference?
Yes, some corporate shills fancy themselves independents, and only become Republicans for the time they're in the voting booth. I personally know several.
"I don't care about the Constitution!" --Bill O'Reilly, November 17, 2009
So far, it's been a scorcher for folks all around the world.
released a report revealing 2010 having the record for warmest June, warmest April to June and warmest year to date
I thought weather is not climate.
I remember hearing that a lot in 2009. Don't hear it so much this year, for some reason.
Maw! Fire up the karma burner!
I still haven't see any evidence that proves this change in climate isn't some sort of natural cycle that happens every few thousand or tens of thousands of years. I think that this might be happening regardless of any impact we are having on the planet, considering that cows produce more methane than all the cars in the world and that volcanoes spew out way more pollution than all the humans combined.
And the people who've already decided what their opposition is arguing will continue to mock them for it no matter how plainly we restate our position over and over.
Well, I've yet to see one of you state it plainly the first time 'round. Come on, no obfuscation, no conflating things which are actually separate, just straight-up logic. What's your position? I'm waiting.
"I don't care about the Constitution!" --Bill O'Reilly, November 17, 2009
ask the people in the southern part of the world, or of the US, that are suffering through the worst cold spell in 100+ years if they are experiencing Global warming. Reasonable people can and do disagree not only with the conclusion of human caused Global warming, but with the whole concept that global wide climate change is in truth significant. Last year in Michigan, we had the coolest summer in over 50 years. This year the summer is warmer, but not extreme. Also I like to point out that the people that are making the conclusion that there is a global warming trend may or may not be the same people that are making a living off of the fear mongering of Human caused Global warming. Many of these people are not trust worthy. As for the earth warming, in general the temps on the earth have increased since the last ice age ended some 50,000+ years ago. in places, and at times the temps have dropped greatly, look at the "little ice age" in the recent past. Recent in relationship to how long ago the last ice age was. So is the earth warming, in someplace it is this year, in others not. Is it man made, not a chance, it is the height of human arrogance to think we can modify the climate. Is this report relevant? Most likely not. Anytime a report says something is undeniable, beware, it is probably trying to prove a point.
Exactly! then they're just "vast areas" which, quite frankly, just sounds dirty.
The data as presented indicates a recent warming trend, but does not say anything about whether this is man-made or not
That is because the report focuses ONLY on the evidence of existence of the global warming AND SPECIFICALLY does not deal with the cause:
From TFA: The new report, the 20th in a series, focuses only on global warming and does not specify a cause.
0.5deg rise in 50 years is extremely small in the scheme of things
Sure! Tell it to people losing their livelihood in floods, farmers losing entire crops or to ANYONE without an air-conditioned home this summer.
More from TFA: "But," it adds, "the temperature increase of about one degree Fahrenheit experienced during the past 50 years has already altered the planet.
Glaciers and sea ice are melting, heavy rainfall is intensifying and heat waves are becoming more common and more intense."
And let us not even start with half of Asia being fed from those glaciers (which power their major rivers).
Mit der Dummheit kämpfen Götter selbst vergebens
But the thing is, in order to justify creating the global socialist utopia which is the true goal of the "warmers", ALL the goalposts must be cleared. ALL of the following must be true:
a) warming is happening
Virtually all independent science confirms this.
b) it's a bad thing
The rising acidity of the oceans due to CO2 absorption and the upwelling in the Seattle, Washington area have prevented them from harvesting oysters for a few years now. The same thing is killing coral all over the world. Heat waves are straining the electrical grid. The Arctic will have ice free summers in a few decades, with unknown effects. Glaciers around the world are melting, threatening the entire water ecosystem. Probably pretty bad.
c) human activity contributes significantly
Again, virtually all independent science confirms this.
d) it's possible to do something about it
Oh, we can use dirty energy, but we can't reduce our use of dirty energy? Sounds like an addiction problem to me. You just don't want to pay more for your stuff. That's a pretty shitty deal for the rest of the planet.
e) the cure is better than the disease
Returning CO2 levels to what's known to support the only biosphere that sustains human life sounds better than possibly throwing it into an equilibrium that either starves much of the human population, or leads to resource wars than end it in other ways.
Unless every one of those things is true, then the "green" crusade against global warming falls apart. So yes, you do have a goalpost issue: it's that you have to get past (at least) five of them to even have a shot.
The "green" crusade only falls apart when your willingness to delude yourself for your own personal gain doesn't cause you directly measurable harm. Unfortunately, the next generation will probably bear the cost of your self-imposed ignorance. Maybe we can set up some sort of taxation program, so you can opt-out of "green" taxes today, as long as the money is attached to your estate in case you're wrong. That would probably cause some people to think a little bit more.
Global warming will effectively take care of itself when it begins to become costly.
The problem there is that it may only become costly after we've reached a tipping point. The earth is a complex non-linear dynamic system, if we go too far down this road we may never find our way back.
I still agree with you though. Apathy is really the only way to deal with the problem. There's nothing really we can do except sit and wait. Leave it to future generations to fight the inevitable wars over the last remaining scraps of arable land.
Give me Classic Slashdot or give me death!
Canada isn't a poor country begging for multi-billion dollar handouts due to alleged "damages" in some sort of *AA fashion, nor does your country have a history of manipulating facts to gain leverage on the world stage. You're just so... honest. If your country has a sinister political agenda with regards to foreign policy, you do a pretty good job of playing it close to your chest but I suspect Canada to be on the up-and-up. Take it as a compliment, I suppose.
I get tired of the constant "Two Minutes' Hate" from the left towards "corporations." Guess what: if you plan on doing business in any developed nation, then you would be wise from a tax/litigation standpoint to incorporate, even if you are a company of one. Furthermore, it is undeniable that without corporations the standard of living that we currently enjoy would not be possible. When you get your paycheck, you need to multiply it by 2 if you work in the US because that's what it costs your employer to employ you after you account for payroll taxes, benefits, etc. Now try going out on your own and earning a replacement income (your current salary x 2). Not very many people can do that.
So what about everyone who works in the oil, gas, and coal industries? Their rational is that if we do something, they lose their job. Which is a very legitimate argument. What do we with everyone that is now unemployed? How will they make their livelihood? Will they have to move? People's financial stability are at stake when you talk about legislating changes that would mitigate global warming, so of course they're going to oppose it.
A good example of this is the oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico. The people that live there have had their beaches and fishing grounds devastated. But when Obama proposed a moratorium on deep sea drilling, those same coastal states that were devastated opposed it more than inland states. Why? Because that's how regular folks make their money there.
Until you address the social issues that would arise from all these changes, and address them utterly completely, you will have people who will oppose (and yet not necessarily deny) global warming. The UN's Brundtland Commission established that sustainable development is defined as development that "meets the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs." Until we show that we have firm plans for meeting that, well, we're fucked.
I believe that global warming is happening, and that its man-made in origin. I also believe that not a damn thing will be done about it because its more convenient for those in authority (Corporations, Government in that order) to ignore it and let millions of people suffer and die, than it is for them to have to shift their business models at all and accept a potential loss in profits. Humanity is too shortsighted to actually accomplish anything required. We are too ignorant and selfish, and I can't see anything changing that enough to stop the advance of global warming.
Anything I can do to decrease the impact of human civilization along with all the rest of us that might feel and act the same way, will simply be absorbed by some company out there that doesn't feel it has to respond because our collective efforts decreased the impact on the environment enough that they can claim credit for it.
In short, I believe we are all fucked, and nothing will be done to fix the situation. Millions will die, countries will be disrupted, disease will run rampant, civilization may even fall entirely, but up until that point, the corporations and the governments around the world will continue to wear their blinders and rake in the profits for the sake of short term gains.
"The first time I got drunk, I got married. The second time I bought a chimpanzee, after that I stayed sober" Arian Seid
Else it isnt the scientific method. It could be taken to the bring of certainty, but there is always that tiny possibility it could be wrong.
Just the other week there was a paper postulating gravity as an entropic state (high likelihood) state of the universe rather than a force. I dont understand it. But physicist denying gravity as an intrinsic force.
Making something undeniable just makes the deniers deny harder.
Why do they do it? Because they're paid to.
That's why money isn't speech.
and if we DID do something evil, we'd apologize profusely for it and offer you some maple candy and poutine in compensation to show just how very, VERY sorry we were.
Sigh. Global warming is supposed to increase the energy of the atmosphere, which is supposed to increase evaporation, which is supposed to increase the number of storms and hurricanes, which of course will mean a global drought. Right.
I'm for a hot world where crops grow better because of increased CO2, where people don't die in the winter because they don't have heating oil, and where biodiversity and life is increased by larger ranges of habitat.
We might agree on what's happening, and even on who to blame, but we're a long way from agreeing that anything needs to be fixed.
Ok. These scientists keep saying GW is happening. OK. The earth is warming up. We get it.
So why are they wasting so much time trying to prove this? Are they just burning through grant money?
IF GW is caused by humans what do they suggest we do? No one is proposing a viable solution to the problem. People are not going to give up their cars. Al Gore will not give up his privet jet and mansion. China will not cut its coal use and carbon output. I can't ride a windmill to work.
Passing tons of laws in the EU and the USA will do nothing. It just pushes the problem to china and India.
Shutting down a EPA regulated widget factory in Pennsylvania doesn't help the Earth because that widget will just be made in China with zero regulation. The end resolt will just be more hardship for us and the earth being worse off.
Until someone comes up with a better energy source then oil that is cheaper and easier this will never get solved. GW will just continue to be a political football for the Republicrats and Demopublicans to further their agendas.
Get back to us when you have a SOLUTION to the problem. Re-defining the problem and pointing fingers isnt going to fix shit.
I have to return some videotapes...
I think the metaphor needs to be extended a bit -> it's not just that "Earth" has become a God, but they've diametrically opposed humanity to that God. We are evil, earth is good. Green liberals have adopted Earth as God, but also designated the mass of humanity as Satan.
a record going back 500 MILLION years illustrating that our current temps are actually fairly COOL compared to history
lest someone coopts your caveats to deny global warming, and ignores the errors you've made:
1. Anything before a few thousand years ago is pre-history, not history.
2. 500 million years ago the Earth was not inhabited by anything resembling humans, and likely not habitable to us. So referring to it as part of the norm is missing the point.
The point is that pollution is altering our climate in a way that may make the planet uninhabitable by us. Whether that's due to excess warming, cooling, or persistent rains of acid is not relevant. The fact that something bad is happening is true, and the fact that we have the ability to consciously stop it from happening is true.
Al Gore's a politician; calling him a self-promoting dick is a tautology. He's doing good work on this subject, in any case.
It is what it is. Now, what're we gonna do about it?
Well, here's my question - what observation would have falsified their theory? It's not about "1) it's probably impossible to prove it", it's about "1) it's probably impossible to disprove it". If you can't disprove something with observation, you're practicing belief and religion, not science.
"Denial: Measurements are wrong - and the sun did it (despite the solar minimum)."
Yeah you have to love this one. I encountered it today from an ignorant Denier, claiming it was the sun because we were at a Solar Maximum.
Which was the line from paid deniers(liars) several years ago. This guy must have been a clueless parrot that was just regurgitating old nonsense he didn't understand.
Currently we are in the deepest solar minimum in Decades. The more up to date shills (liars) are now proclaiming the great solar minimum will counter GW.:rolleyes:
The Earth is trying to restore balance. Let it happen. There are too many humans on the planet. We are displacing other animals, we are causing extinctions at an accelerated rate, we are fishing the oceans bare, we are pumping oil out, and strip-mining everything.
The Earth and most of it's creatures will continue on without us. We will not be wiped out, but our numbers will be pared down. We're at what, almost 7 billion now? Cut that number at least in half to restore some balance to the planet.
When the cities flood, when the droughts come, when the food burns up in the fields and starvation is rampant, when we are resorting to canibalism, there will still be some who deny.
The bible tells the story of Noah, and how he tried to warn others of what was coming. Ironic that most of those that deny what's happening are bible thumpers. Apparently, they've never learned the stories and wouldn't recognize God if he came down and bitch slapped them.
Well mankind, your bitchslapping is coming. You can chose to prepare, or deny. It might take 100 more years, but our numbers will start dropping. We've gone from 3 Billion to 7 Billion in about 40 or 50 years, it'll probably take about 100 years to bring us back to 3 Billion.
But the planet is working on it. Remember how this year started, Earthquake after earthquake, followed by volcano. In two months we'll be discussing a new virulent strain of the flu, and then there will be more shaking, and more violent weather. Maybe we'll even get a nice rock from space. And the oil will run out.
Sure it'll take time, but it's all going to happen.
We're not here forever and we're on our way down from here.
If telephones are outlawed, then only outlaws will have telephones.
It may be that the majority of Man Made global warming deniers don't deny warming at all. But that strawman is hardly non-existent. Last winter every time it got cold or snowed Faux news idiot Sean Hannity would use the event as a demonstration of the non-existence of global warming.
ClimateGate.
'nuff said...
Not quite... Really only A, and E are relevant, since B and D are implied by E, and C doesn't make any difference at all. If my property in California is going to be underwater in 10 years, I don't care if it's a natural cycle, I just want to know if I should sell now, or expect to spend a few thousand a year between now and then to prevent having to sell it and move inland.
more like undeniablegate IMHO lol...
Why the hell is this never discussed as a serious option?
If humans are capable of destroying the planet accidentally, surely they are capable of saving it deliberately. It's a worthy goal, and it has the wonderful side effect of being applicable to climate manipulation of other planets, so we can go there and live comfortably.
My biggest gripe about this whole debate is the willingness of participants to think small. Forget about whether your SUV is too big or you are not "green" enough. Let's just fix things properly by manipulating our environment deliberately and move on to growing in our abilities as we should be.
And more importantly, it would probably be unwise to attempt it.
Oh, was that my outside voice?
I do these things because I don't want my own environment to be a dump. I don't want the air in my valley to be smog-ridden. It's that simple.
Same here. I'm about the least liberal person you'll meet, and about as far away from "tree hugger" as it's possible to be, but I was raised with the principle of "waste not, want not." I hate throwing useful things away, or using non-reusable items when reusables are just as much (if not more) convenient. For example, a lot of times I'll decline having my groceries put in a bag at all if there are only a few items and I can carry them easily. Why put a two-liter of soda in a bag that I'm just going to throw away or run through a recycler as soon as I get home? I use rechargeable batteries whenever possible because they're cheaper in the long run than disposables, and because they're more convenient as I never run out of batteries. I use CFLs because it cuts down noticeably on my electricity bill and makes my air conditioner run less. I use a programmable thermostat because I don't care if my house warms up to 78F on summer days while I'm not at home or cools down to 62F in the winter. I drive a 12-year-old used car for the same reasons you mentioned; it doesn't get good gas mileage, but I don't drive it many miles and it's reliable and it's paid for.
I don't consider any of those to be "hippieish" in the slightest. I just hate the idea of wasting resources (and in turn, money) on things unnecessarily. Every battery or light bulb I don't have to buy, every kilowatt I don't use for cooling, every car payment I don't have to make for the sole privilege of driving something new and shiny is money in my pocket. I believe it's your right to drive an SUV if you want to, but it's my right to think that you're a freaking idiot for wasting all that money and gasoline to get so very little in return.
Dewey, what part of this looks like authorities should be involved?
Interferes with useful necessary technology? Like fucking what, SUV's? That's pretty much the only piece of technology I know the climate people are up in arms about. (Though there's plenty of other nutcases in the environmentalism movement, but that has nothing to do with global warming)
The time period during which we've been collecting data is insignificant compared to the age of the earth
How exactly is that relevant for the current issue ?
It's like saying that it's okay if New Orleans gets flooded, because, after all, millions of years ago, that place was under water anyway.
And yes, everybody in the field knows that H2O is a powerful greenhouse gas. We also know that CO2 is the second largest greenhouse gas, and that we've added about 35% since the industrial age. We have not a similar influence on water vapour, except that increases in sea temperature due to CO2 greenhouse effect causes higher evaporation rates, and increased atmospheric water vapour.
...can the ship be righted?
Personally I think arguing over global climate change is a red herring. Do we really need an excuse to advocate "green" technologies?
Shouldn't the fact that we would have cleaner air (eg. less smog), and cleaner water (eg. less spills) be enough?
The fact that industry is willing to pollute the air, water, and land to save a buck and use the threat of job losses to keep the populace from demanding stricter environmental regulations should be a huge clue on why we are even having this global climate change debate. It keeps us busy, and as long as we are busy trying to define what global climate change is, we are distracted from the real meat of the argument which is why are we living in this pollution now?
I'm not a registered tree hugger, but even I question why our energy and environmental policies hasn't evolved with the rest of our technological achievements. It becomes more evident by the day that we are keeping a very old and harmful power, industrial, and transportation system just to keep the current revenue generators fat and happy.
These comments are my own and do not necessarily reflect the views or opinions of my employer or colleagues...
So a few years ago you wouldn't believe it because there wasn't enough observational evidence, and now you won't believe it because of the sheer quantity of the observational evidence? Tricky business. Exactly how much evidence is neither insufficient nor excessive? Do you have the exact date and time we should have stopped providing evidence?
Actually, I have never heard of an excess of evidence before.
Can I use this method to destroy all science? Bwa-ha-ha!
All I have to do to create a perpetual motion machine is to fail enough times. Then the second law of thermodynamics will be destroyed, utterly obliterated, by an excess of evidence! Bwa-ha-ha-ha-hahhh!
mt
I think the reason is because some people see global warming as a liberal issue. If you are predetermined to appose anything that you see as liberal, and you see global warming as liberal, you are going to deny it regardless of whether it is true or not.
And what is your personal qualification to speak on the subject that you think YOUR opinion entitles you to comment, but that someone with an opposing opinion should not?
eponymous howard here,
question: Assuming global warming is occuring, is this bad and why? What is the ideal temperature for our planet, is there some consensus on this?
If we can survive it, it really makes little difference
If your metric of success is "will a large enough group of humans emerge from an ice age to repopulate", it's hard to imagine we'll all die out because individually enough of us are resourceful enough to handle that.
Given that at present humankind as a whole can hardly be considered to be healthy or thriving given a very large percentage suffering from malnutrition and disease. Regardless of climate change's cause, if predictions of a drastic drop in crop yields comes true it would most likely cause death and suffering on a scale we've haven't seen since the plague.
So my question to you is do it matter if billions of people die because we didn't care enough to stop a predicted oncoming disaster? I do both for the moral reason, as well as the personal one where my living in the US is absolutely no guarantee I won't be among them.
OK, I really wouldn't care about the controversy about causation here (personally I'm agnostic about that), if only it would drive investment into developing technology which humanity is going to need eventually anyway.
Trying to solve the problem with a space sunshade would hopefully improve our ability to engineer large structures in space and improve the chances we might be able to survive there and eventually migrate to other parts of the solar system or even other solar systems. Better not to have all one's eggs in the same basket, eh?
Trying to attain a new relatively clean power source (some kind of fusion, preferably aneutronic) would probably improve our ability to survive in general, also, even if the greenhouse gases aren't the problem. Assuming it wouldn't make it trivial for Joe Normal to build extremely powerful and destructive weapons, of course.
and you did such a great job in your post.
Let's assume for a moment that the world is 1/5 of a degree warmer than it was a few decades ago, and that this is causing glacial melt. Here's my question to you all:
So what?
Climate is not a constant. Never has been, never will be, and the variation has been a whole lot more than 1/5 of a degree. CO2 levels and global average temperatures have been higher and lower at many points in history, and we didn't magically turn into Venus or Mars. There have been times when the icecaps disappeared, and life somehow went on. Sea levels have varied by hundreds of feet, without Americans to blame for, well, everything. There have also been ice ages, and somehow the world didn't end.
So what?
There will be winners as well as losers. Canadians and Russians should be happy, as this will result in much longer growing seasons and more arable lands for them. They will be the breadbaskets of the world. And if this doesn't happen, if we decide that the current climate is decreed to never be allowed to change again, will there be a demand for subsidies for what "might have been"? Lack-of-CO2 credits?
So here's a question. If civilization had arisen 10,000 years earlier, and someone observed how quickly the ice sheets were retreating, would there be a clamor to protect the glaciers that blanketed pretty much everything north of 50 degrees latitude? Would THAT climate change be seen as the Armageddon that the proposed climate change is being presented as? Would rising sea levels lead to a frothing panic about the loss of the Bering land bridge?
So once again, I ask: If the climate is changing, so what? Climate is not a constant, things aren't automatically evil just because it's a human doing it, and I fail to see how this is any different from any other climate change in the four billion year history of everything on Earth.
Mod this down because I don't agree with you. It's the Slashdot definition of "fair". I just hope none of you are ever on a jury with the opportunity to destroy someone's life if you don't like their politics or religion or hairstyle or something.
Everybody gets what the majority deserves.
"There isn't an intelligent person the planet who denies that global warming is real."
There are many people who also deny that there were ice ages tens and hundreds of thousands of years ago. In fact they deny that there was an earth or even universe) before 4004 BC
The debate is all about causation.
When I wish it was about the effects of it all.
Alright, so maybe the tides will rise a foot in 50 years. What does they really mean? How much will it cost to deal with it? What are the chances, really?
The rain might fall 1000 miles north instead of here. What's that going to do both areas? What are the chances of that happening?
If that got more coverage, then people would switch from "it can't possibly be us affecting the system" to "My god I hope we can affect the system".
Or, quite possibly, the reaction would be "huh, that ain't so bad. We can afford to do that. Time to invest in Canadian real estate and relocate all the komodo dragons."
If we presume that the environment is ours to do with as we please, then aren't we as guilty of those who caused the destruction of the environment in the first place?
Double dumbass on us!
Advice: on VPS providers
Don't need any particular qualification, since I'm not trying to deny the leading theory proposed for the phenomenon by a large number of qualified scientists. Well, ok, maybe I do have a qualification. I can, after all, read, which doesn't seem to be some folks' strong point.
the cows are guilty
As shown by this guy, weather stations are positioned next to asphalt parking lots and air conditioner units which produce an unnaturally high reading. So until these monitors are placed elsewhere we will be getting reading that can be several degrees higher than the actual temperature, which will skew the results upwards.
So there may actually be man made global warming, but the man made part is the data...
Thanks to file sharing, I purchase more CDs
Thanks to the RIAA, I buy them used...
But my point isn't if it will happen. It _will_ happen and the problems associated with it _will_ happen as the planet goes through these cycles all on its own. The real question is, does it really matter if we delay the inevitable? If so, how?
Returning CO2 levels to what's known to support the only biosphere that sustains human life sounds better than possibly throwing it into an equilibrium that either starves much of the human population, or leads to resource wars than end it in other ways.
The problem is coming up with a realistic solution to "return CO2 levels" that doesn't in effect starve much of the human population or lead to resource wars of some sort. The truth is that our modern (western) way of life depends heavily on having a ready supply of energy, and that even as we slooooowly manage to convert to more sustainable habits and energy sources (at a significant cost, I should add ... money doesn't come from nowhere, so adding more money to this effort WILL cause pain elsewhere), many other countries (very understandably) are much more quickly bringing themselves up to our standard of living and our levels of energy consumption.
Most solutions to the crisis either involve paying out huge amounts of money without acknowledging that we're already at our fiscal limits and without acknowledging that the payoff will not be immediate, or it involves holding the developing world back (and possibly setting ourselves back as well, somehow) without acknowledging that doing so will piss them off (even if we regress to their level of living ourselves out of some innate sense of fairness that will mysteriously develop in humankind over the next 5 to 10 years). Not trivial problems, and not an easy sell - especially when proponents insist that the result of warming is a doomsday scenario (way in the future) while failing to acknowledge the very real and very immediate (and might I say, occasionally drastic?) consequences of their vague courses of action.
Funny coincidence, I spotted James Delingpole doing this today, while cramming as many denialist canards as possible into a single Telegraph opinion piece. Brilliantly, he actually goes even further than usual with:
The man really is unbelievable.
If we know what causes the warming, we will be more capable of predicting how it will
evolve in the future. So of course it matters if it's anthropogenic or not.
One of the major problems I have is people are associating science with morality.
The scientific process is by its nature completely and utterly valueless. It's why the scientific method is a great tool for objective thinking.
Let us assume that global warming is occurring and it is predominantly caused by human pollution. Let's suppose we have 100% undeniable scientific proof this is the case.
What does that mean in terms of political policy? Absolutely nothing.
Science can only state what is or potentially what the consequences will be. It cannot make value judgments... which is what politics is all about.
For example... let's take China. A huge polluter and contributor of green house gasses.
What is the value judgment balancing the environmental effects of pollution with the ability to bring a billion people out of poverty?
Or in the US.
What is the value judgment of tackling global warming versus resolving terrorists and failed state / healthcare / deficits / freedom...
On these value judgments, anyone's opinion is equally valid. The so-called joe-six pack's opinion is just a valid as someone with 3 PHDs. As it is about values.
Science cannot tell you what your values are.
Unfortunately, this is where I think science is doing itself a disservice by coming too involved in politics.
It's in everything.
Science indicating global warming happening -> We must introduce a carbon tax or
Science shows early childhood education improves test scores -> We must introduce mandatory government run ECE.
It is the implicit assumption that what science shows in one domain should immediately be implemented without regard for the values in other domains.
It is this modern aspect of science that does sadly make it like religion.
It is really no different than a theocracy which says what 'God' says goes.
GOD says adultery is bad -> make law punishing adultery.
They make no effort to talk about other domains (freedom, civil liberties, respect for those who disagree, innovation....)
And so to close.
Global warming is happening is scientific fact.
This does not mean we must take any kind of action to stop it.
Does it matter if it's anthropogenic?
I'm against a hot world with rising seas, melting ice caps and global drought. I'm against all of the other terrible nastiness associated with it. I don't give a damn who we blame, but let's find a way to halt/fix it, shall we?
If it's nonanthropogenic, there probably is not a way to stop it.
Not a reasonable way, for us, anyway.
I'm sure the aliens could help. Someone invent warp so the Vulcans can find us!
-Taylor
Worldwide Military budgets: $2100 billion. Worldwide Space Exploration budgets: $38 billion. Really, world? Really?
Global Warming is undeniable? In a world with Faux News and Rush Limbaugh, that is a big statement, and I think they'll take it as a challenge they can win.
A lot of priests say I won't have a good eternal afterlife unless I adhere to their religion. I pointed out the lack of evidence, flawed models, and non-falsifiability of most of their work, and even to the history of them making failed predictions.
But then they told me I'm not qualified to criticize them unless I get a doctorate in theology, replete with indoctrination into their groupthink and insulation from criticism in the outside world, and making a huge personal investment in the validity of their conclusions.
I guess I should believe them, since everyone *else* who went through their seminary came to these conclusions ...
Information theory is life. The rest is just the KL divergence.
We've removed carbon sequestered in the ground and burned it into the atmosphere, increasing atmospheric CO2 by 36% over 1832 levels. How's that for power over the entire planet?
Never let a lack of data get in the way of a good rant.
So in other words you admit to not being qualified to speak on the subject, so you should, by your own doctrine, "STFU"
As with any religion, Global warming fanatics are quick to tell others to shut up.... apparently they're afraid someone might say something they don't have a good answer for...
... Or if the human race gets wiped out
A caveman dreams of being us, the incalculable power and riches. We dream of being Q, then what?
There isn't an intelligent person the planet who denies that global warming is real.
And there isn't an intelligent person on the planet who can't see the Emperor's new clothes. Please don't appeal to vanity as a method of argument.
Just 6 months ago or so, there was a bunch of "we're in a short-term cooling trend which will last about 10-15 years."
Fine, put me in the Denier camp. This sounds an awful lot like doubling-down on scariness when the climate scientists have almost lost public opinion.
Except for ending slavery, the Nazis, communism, & securing American independence, war has never solved anything.
So far all I've seen is anecdotal evidence, fabricated evidence, and manipulated evidence. Oh, an conspiracy to suppress contradictory evidence. Now we have "even more" evidence. I wonder which of the above categories it'll fall into?
I'm willing to entertain the notion that we might be directly influencing global temperatures in a way the planet can't deal with. But I'm getting tired of the newest "Flat Earth" philosophy of the Global Warming alarmists. It's "undeniable", list like the Earth being flat was. Why? Because there's no funding for "Global Normal" research.
Anyone with any reasonable intelligence is going to question the computer models moving forward, and ask you "how is this any different than global cooling in the 70s?"
Anyone with reading comprehension, the ability to use Google, and some cognitive skills that enable them to avoid certain intellectual event horizons is going to already be familiar with and likely satisfied by a number of available answers to "how is this any different than global cooling in the 70s?"
Tweet, tweet.
And even those gotchas only apply if you assume it's even possible to predict the climate.
The sad thing is, about the past, the IPCC is right : the climate *did* warm (mostly) because of co2 increases. Heh, guess I don't even disagree that "global warming is undeniable". But the IPCC is also absurdly wrong, relying instead on a known wrong intuition : this does not mean that a further rise in athmospheric co2 will increase warming. In fact any change could have any effect, so every policy, from let's pollute because we can to killing of the entire human species has exactly the same chances of influencing the climate. Quite frankly, anyone who's had a theoretical mathematics class at any university should know this, but of course ... there's politics. Blacks and whites have to be the same, even when we're talking about melanine levels, all religions and ethnicities have to be the same, even when talking about page count of important documents, science can answer *any* question 100% correctly to infinite levels of accuracy and anyone who believes otherwise is a racist. (get that ? you're a racist if you point out that the bible, as compared to other religions, is a very long book indeed. Or the fact that more people die from medical mistakes than that have their lives saved by medical intervention. What you are when you point out obvious flaws in the foundation of "climate theory" is simpler : unemployed and unemployable. And God forbid any publication on the "deniers" list should publish a quote from you that could, twisted appropriately, indicate you do not agree to doctrine)
So just putting it here, getting it off my chest : why is predictability an assumption ? Because, mathematically, some things are what is called "chaotic". Which means 2 things :
1) it is perfectly possible to predict the past, and to explain it. Down to the last tinyest little detail you can explain every variation in the graphs
2) said fabulous, genius, nobel-prize-winning theories (or other theories), will fail 5 minutes into the future. Whoops.
Climate is ... chaotic. Meaning it has the two properties above.
And despite seemingly credible sources claiming the opposite (hello "newscientist", "nature" ?), chaotic systems persistently refuse to bow to statistics (if they didn't that would be a contradiction of chaos). There are weaker forms of "chaotic behavior" that can be predicted by statistics. However, they've been tested and ... well the weather and climate are really fully chaotic.
Seemingly absurdly simple questions turn out to be chaotic (the coast of Britain to name a famous paper). How long is the coast of Britain ? Depends on your measurement device. Measure with a ruler 1000 km long and it will be seriously shorter than the English claim. Measure with a ruler of 1 cm and it will be seriously longer than the English claim. By varying the ruler's length you can make the coast of Britain any length, but it is impossible to predict what difference a change in ruler length will do to the length of the coast. The motion of the planets (the famous "three body problem"), another chaotic problem.
The consequences of this chaos conept are vehemently dismissed as total crap, even when it's pretty old and well known mathematical theory. The moon could fly away from the earth tomorrow (and while it probably won't happen tomorrow, the chances that it will eventually happen are very good indeed). That's a trivial consequence of the three body problem. Worse : we can't predict when this event will happen (just like we can't predict the motions of comets and meteorites accurate enough to decide if they'll hit earth until they're right on top of us). At best we can hope for a few days' warning. Despite the seeming absurdity one day the papers will announce "the moon left us, tidal currents slowing to a halt", and this will just happen some day, nobody seeing it coming (or at least nobody correctly predicting when it'll happen).
East Houston stinks because of the Brown Paper Company. Papermaking is very stinky because they boil wood in Sulfuric Acid to break it down into pulp more quickly. Hydrogen sulfide is released in the process and that stinks.
Ron White was sued when he pointed this out, and now he does a good 5 minutes of material about it. "When the wind is right, 2 million people can smell the [Houston] mill. I'm just saying, if someone were playing music that 2 million people could hear, they'd tell 'em to turn it the fuck off!"
The extremely annoying part is that the acid is not strictly required to make paper--it can be boiled in plain old water. But that would take longer and therefore cost more. So it's better to just render an entire city horrible than spend an extra buck for a ream at Staples.
Standard reporting technique to point out the reporting nation's involvement in an international effort.
Thought thinks itself.
Unless you're a Republican or a corporate shill, that is.
You could just call the corporate shills democrat politicians.
Knowledge = Power
P= W/t
t=Money
Money = Work/Knowledge so the less you know the more you make
Is there truly any "independent science"? Anyone without an agenda to prove, one way or the other?
Nonaggression works!
1. CO2 is a greenhouse gas
2. Atmospheric CO2 has increased by 36% since 1832
3. US oil production peaked almost 40 years ago
4. India and China are adding millions of new cars on their roads every year, increasing worldwide demand for oil. China recently surpassed the US as the world biggest automobile market, and they still have plenty of potential to expand
5. Spending our dollars to import oil is hurting our economy
6. When the oil industry swore less than a year ago that offshore drilling was completely safe, they were lying
7. Alternatives to burning carbon for energy exist and grow cheaper and more efficient each year
8. Mining coal is dangerous (collapsed mines) and incredibly destructive(mountain top removal)
Given all the above, I can't see any logical argument against reducing our carbon usage, even if you don't believe in AGW.
Never let a lack of data get in the way of a good rant.
a) warming is happening
Virtually all independent science confirms this.
It's good that we agree on something. It should be noted, however, that there has been a flat line in global temperature for the last 10 or so years. While this is insignificant as an indicator of anything, it should be noted that the models that are used for all projections failed to predict this.
b) it's a bad thing
The rising acidity of the oceans due to CO2 absorption and the upwelling in the Seattle, Washington area have prevented them from harvesting oysters for a few years now. The same thing is killing coral all over the world. Heat waves are straining the electrical grid. The Arctic will have ice free summers in a few decades, with unknown effects. Glaciers around the world are melting, threatening the entire water ecosystem. Probably pretty bad.
I'm sorry, what? I'd like to know how you link a few years of poor oyster harvesting to global warming, so please quote some kind of source. Same goes for the coral statement. Ocean acidification is a scary-sounding theory, but whether it will have any major ill-effects is pretty much an open question.
Heat waves are weather and are caused by natural variability. Same goes for blizzards, neither is proof of anything. As far as your claim about the Arctic, I believe the scariest guess so far has been ice-free by 2015. All of those "predictions"(guesses) are based on models that ignore significant aspects of the inner workings of Earth's climate, most notably changes in cloud cover.
I'd also like to point out that any kind of catastrophic global warming that CO2 might cause requires some kind of significant positive feedback mechanism, but none have been identified as of yet. It has simply been assumed that there must be one without any speculation as to what that might be. Cloud cover for example is likely a significant negative feedback when temperatures get higher.
c) human activity contributes significantly
Again, virtually all independent science confirms this.
I believe the argument used is "we can't make the models fit the historical temperatures without including warming caused by CO2". Another argument I've heard, although not in quite these words, is "I can't think of anything else to explain it and CO2 seems to correlate pretty well". The latter is simply silly and the models in the former do not model cloud cover at all because it is unpredictable by models. Best models are at least 10% off on average, while a 2% change in cloud cover could account for the entire warming witnessed in the last century. Go figure.
d) it's possible to do something about it
Oh, we can use dirty energy, but we can't reduce our use of dirty energy? Sounds like an addiction problem to me. You just don't want to pay more for your stuff. That's a pretty shitty deal for the rest of the planet.
CO2 is not dirty, CO2 is plant food. Another issue is that focusing on CO2 emissions pushes focus away from the real pollutants that actually are harmful to humans. In any case it's not a case of "can't" but rather "why should we?". Personally I'm in favor of replacing coal with nuke power since it's cleaner, safer and does not require a massive raw material transportation infrastructure. It's also funny how your argument pretty much degenerated into an ad hominem and failed to respond to the question.
e) the cure is better than the disease
Returning CO2 levels to what's known to support the only biosphere that sustains human life sounds better than possibly throwing it into an equilibrium that either starves muc
Your post reminds me of the old bumper sticker: "Think Globally, Act Locally". You are anything but apathetic if you continuously act to minimize consumption, reduce waste, buy organic, etc.
I am in the "We must FIX this" camp. Not because I have anything against higher temperatures... but because I am afraid of giant lizards. If the average temperature goes up, cold-blooded animals can become larger. And I really don't want giant alligators and snakes around me.
Wait a minute -- I'll be dead. Never mind.
Just another "Cubible(sic) Joe" 2 17 3061
Including Canada makes all the difference!
Clearly, we must use the traditional description, and say that they have "huge tracts of land". That should avoid any dirty connotations, if you know what I mean.
Wow, not sure how I got modded troll. The existance of Global warming does not equate always hotter no matter what. And my neighbors are asshats, how would any of you know otherwise?
My post had contained argument about whether it would happen.
Fossil fuel burning is the controlled use of energy that originated from the sun.
No it's the difference between burning a candle 24/7 for a year, or setting off one stick of dynamite. Our current use of fossil fuel is the stick of dynamite. We're burning up millions of year's worth of stored energy in a few hundred years. Sure, you don't want to be around the stick of dynamite when it goes off - but it's not something that lasts forever. And fossil fuels won't last forever either. I'm not really worried, but the sheep love end of the world fantasies.
We don't disagree.
Seven puppies were harmed during the making of this post.
I suspect that this will be the sequence of events with the attendant burden of proof required before serious action is taken:
1. Global warming trend is happening.
2. The warming trend is anthropogenic, ie. human-caused, and specifically caused by factors A, B, C, etc.
3. The warming is actually disastrous, and will lead to loss of life and/or livelihood.
4. Addressing the symptoms of the warming after the fact will cost more and be less effective than attempting to curb the warming in the first place.
At this point, #1 is definitely irrefutable. There are some hold outs for #2, but I think the evidence is sufficient to conclude we're causing warming. #3 is pure speculation, but based on reasonable arguments; still, far from a given. #4 is almost beyond our ability to speculate, though there are some proposals to reverse some of the expected warming effects.
I think there are plenty of other good reasons to change the way we regulate environmental impact, eg. poor air quality has been killing thousands of people a year for decades. But anything less than the irrefutable evidence on all 4 of the above points will fail to convince someone. I suspect at least the first 3 will be required to galvanize enough people to make definitive political moves to addressing these issues.
Higher Logics: where programming meets science.
yes, this year the debate is about causation. next year it will be about economic feasibility the year after that they will start quoting Zeno's paradox and pointing at the impossibility of change.
ultimately scientists debate nested interests stall.
Then after that it's the year of Linux?
I don't give a damn who we blame, but let's find a way to halt/fix it, shall we?
Well shouldn't you start with an understanding of the cause before jumping in head first to find a fix?
http://www.physorg.com/news199005915.html
Reduce the CO2 level to pre-industrial levels in 10 years via solar energy, create insane amounts of very pure carbon that can be used in the manufacture of liquid fuels and to generate electricity the traditional, coal-fired way, but without the mercury, radioactives, etc. Just need some lithium and some time to construct it. Should produced about $15 trillion worth of high-quality (zero sulphur) carbon fuel... pay for itself, too.
One of the frustrating things I found when I was a political activist was that I would talk to someone, explain my position, and the person I was talking to would lean in, and say, "Sure, you and I understand this, but most people just don't get it."
And the next person I would talk to would say the same thing. And the next. And the next. And so on.
The list of "apathetic" responses you gave? Lots of people are trying to reduce their impact on the environment, in similar ways. In fact, you probably picked up a lot of what you're doing from the people around you.
The political system is messed up, the economy is messed up. Most people know this. There's disagreement about the details.
There are also idiots and paid operatives who post crap in threads like these. They represent a much smaller proportion of humanity than they make themselves appear.
The earth is a complex non-linear dynamic system, if we go too far down this road we may never find our way back.
I thought complexity meant that there's never a way back.
What I really have trouble grasping is that over the last three months, we've watched one (1) oil well in the Gulf of Mexico cause widespread devastation. Few people would deny the ecological effects of this one well.
Now replace that one well with TEN THOUSAND, and replace those ninety days with ninety YEARS, and take all of that oil and burn it in the atmosphere. Add to that another two centuries worth of coal burning, and you start to grasp the amount of carbon we've placed into the atmosphere. What amazes me is not that the atmospheric levels of CO2 have risen, but that our planet has absorbed enough of that pollution that we can still breath.
Given the inertia and resistance to CO2 mitigation, I think our only real hope is that the oil runs out sooner, rather than later, because we seem to be unredeemably addicted to burning it.
--- Generation X: The first generation to have SIG lines inferior to their parents... ---
Well, the good news is the Earth has lived through 4.5 billion years of "climate change". I'm sure it will be around for a lot more changes. It really is a blip on the radar for old "Mother Earth"........
Real men don't need signitures!!!
As far as they're concerned.
Imagine if the /. crowd believed the climate scientists on the issue of global warming, because, well, they are the *experts* in their field.
And further imagine that the /. crowd believed the Catholic Church on the existence of God, because, well, they are the *experts* in their field.
Ha! I jest. But you realize that the moment you get the general population to accept science without question, you also pave the way to acceptance of other beliefs without question.
I have downloaded the datasets the IPCC used in their report. And I do see the downward trend in the past ten years, when taking into account the 11 year solar cycle.
I know someone out there will certainly tell me I'm wrong; but it would be far more helpful to post the code used to arrive at your conclusion. I really haven't done much with the data except some very elementary statistics in C. In a world where everyone seems to be an expert on global warming, at least one of you could post code, which, when run with the IPCC dataset would produce the global warming trend everyone seems to believe is happening.
Then, I think we can have a fruitful discussion.
The society for a thought-free internet welcomes you.
But the thing is, in order to justify creating the global socialist utopia which is the true goal of the "warmers"...
Holy shit you're a moron. Just... wow...
Is this irony? I am not sure. I am from the US, and up until now I always thought it was just a British myth that we didnt get irony. I am confused, so maybe the Brits are right.
Ok, if you're really curious as to why people doubt AGW, take a moment to realize exactly what its proponents are saying. "Undeniable" implies that the science has proven something. Science doesn't do that. While I'd normally overlook that error by a layman, it's a pretty good indicator that they don't understand the science, and thus they have no idea whether or not the science supports their opinion. Having a climatologist explain it is a little better, but scientists (of any sort) always have opinions about nature that data doesn't support, hence why they gather the data to support or refute those hypotheses (most are wrong). There's also the fact that randomized, blinded trials should be taken with a grain of salt, so climatology as a science is fairly weak. They're making lots of progress, but I wouldn't make important decisions based on their findings at this point. (Keyword: "I", you are free to make your own choices, but I'd prefer if my cooperation isn't forced.)
Second, there's a massive logical non-sequitur between the assessment and plan. If you wake me up to tell me my house is on fire, then suggest I use a squirt gun against it, then I'll assume you're crazy and go back to bed. If post-industrial CO2 levels are causing climate change, then we need to return them to pre-industrial levels. Every year we increase the CO2 level, and cap-and-trade will still allow this. What we'd need to do is cut our emissions even lower than pre-industrial levels so the CO2 level will actually be reduced. (I also like to be optimistic, but not delusional. The only way we'd do this is if it were already too late, so it's kinda pointless IMO.)
Of course, that's ignoring the positive feedback loops that have been triggered (e.g. albedo), and I find the belief that we can control the climate (i.e. stabilize an ever-changing system at the temperature we want) to be optimistic at best. There's also the fact that massive economic hardship will cause a lot more human suffering and death than a change in climate. Sure, it'll cause a mass extinction, but that's not even close to an apocalypse, and humans have proven their adaptability. OTOH, I have a tough time accepting that the lives of a large number of poor people in the developing world are worth more than our precious biodiversity. Rather than wade through the exaggeration and outright lies by both sides, and then grapple with that decision, I've just become jaded about the whole thing.
And I bet you pointed out the lack of evidence to the scientists, too, you clever scientist.
By my doctrine if you're not contradicting people who know way more than you it's ok to speak out in support, whereas if you are contradicting them then you need some sort of qualification. It's one of them crazy meritocratic concepts.
So when I break it down, the global warming argument is one of many steps, which are not all the same evidence wise:
1) The world is getting warmer over all.
This one seems pretty solid, though I have to say I find a disturbing number of gaps, problems, and corrections in the record. Regardless, I think the evidence is pretty good here.
2) Humans are the primary cause for this warming.
This is shakier. I understand the basic theory, but it doesn't hold up so well given other evidence. For example CO2 only absorbs 3 bands of IR, not a wide range and so on. I'll file this one as a "Maybe, but the theory needs some work."
3) This warming will have catastrophic results. Even a small amount will be catastrophic.
Sorry, but I do not see the evidence for this. I'm not saying people haven't linked things that make these claims, I am saying I find the basis of their arguments to be unconvincing. This is speculative at best in my opinion.
4) Humans have the ability to stop this warming, without creating greater harm.
Here I have to call bullshit. Even many people who are proponents of the first three points say that some cutbacks ala Kyoto won't do shit except delay things for a bit maybe. They say a full deindustralization would be needed. Well we know the consequences in terms of loss of life and so on from a pre industrial society, having had one for many centuries, I don't believe that is acceptable.
5) That stopping this is the right answer, rather than focusing on surviving. Implied in this is that the world was effectively steady state before humans came around.
This is complete BS. As best we can tell the Earth has been much hotter and cooler in the past, and the climate always varies, cycles within cycles. That being the case, if a small amount of temperature change is catastrophic our efforts should not be spent on learning why this is happening, but on how to survive the change. Even were this one man made and preventable, the next one might not be. So, better to spend resources becoming resilient so that a change doesn't kill us.
That is a problem I've always had. The GW argument is often presented as a simple thing, and you are expected to accept all the premises and all the conclusions or you are a "denialist". There's no acknowledgment that it is a multi-level argument, and no allowance that someone should be able to have a different point of view as to what should be done.
It becomes a religious argument. You accept everything, as a given, with no argument or you are shouted down and cast out. You aren't allowed to agree with somethings and reject others. You are with us, or you are a denalist kind of thing. That shit is what you see in church, not in science.
Comment removed based on user account deletion
Just wondering.
What makes Canada special among these 48 countries?
http://www.stolk.org/tlctc
I think you mean "Oops."
You have completely changed my mind, and the minds of countless others, with your complete and utter rebuttal of all the relevant evidence. Thank you THANK YOU so much for saving us from our delusion. You are truly a king among men.
This seems to be a key point that is obfuscated or ignored by deniers. That there are gigantic sinks of fossil carbon, in addition to the fossil fuels we bring up, that have been sequestered safely under the conditions prevelant during all of human civilization. Many of these are predicted to, or have already begun being released, as global temperatures rise. Positive feedback means the more it happens, the more it will happen, until the system spirals wildly out of control.
Example of this are the permafrost areas at the edge of the Northern polar region, the Methane Clathrates, reversal of the Amazon rain forest from a carbon sink to a source, and the greater absorption of heat from sunlight as melting ice and snow changes Earth's albedo.
And here is what is meant by irreversible--that these feedback loops will accelerate and cause massive disruption in time scales directly relevant to human civilization--i.e. the next few centuries, at least. Deniers like to bring up crap about there having been massive changes in temp all throughout the billions of years of the fossil record, so we should all relax. That is true, but in each case, these changes caused massive dislocation or extinction of the dominant plant and animal species of that time.
We're talking about what happens to this particular race of animals that is here spending its time reading and writing Slashdot postings. It is disingenuous for deniers to claim some lofty halo of wisdom that transcends mere human-centric concerns, especially when, for the most vociferous of them (such as the paid lackeys of Exxon-Mobile), they are more concerned with making a buck in the next fiscal quarter than they are about the concerns of even the humans alive today, much less those not yet born.
48 countries including Canada? Why did they say that? Has Canada been demoted in countryship? Is that like 9 planets, including Pluto? Or maybe Canadian research is suspect as there are too many polar bears, or they stand to gain a lot of banana plantation business with global warming...
Yeah, but that's the thing! They told me I wasn't qualified to judge their evidence, because I'm "not a real climatologist", and wouldn't be unless I got a doctorate and went through the whole indoctrination thing like for seminary. Something about climatology using "special" math and statistics that only people who are specially trained over 8 years can do in *just* the right way to get the *right* conclusions.
I guess I should learn to trust both priests *and* climatologists because they're the professionals.
Information theory is life. The rest is just the KL divergence.
Therein lies the problem: If it's impossible to prove, it's religion.
That's backward. It's a religion if it's impossible to disprove. In science you can perform experiments to either disprove the hypothesis, or confirm it for the specific conditions involved in the experiment. You can never prove the hypothesis; at most you can show that your model holds for a given set of conditions. The more robust it is against varying conditions the more likely it is to be generally useful, though you can always run into conditions you hadn't yet tested for which the model does not hold. That is how progress is made.
Anyway, the real question isn't whether the climate is changing, or whether the change is man-made or natural. These are questions to be researched dispassionately by experts. The questions we need to answer are these: If climate change does occur, what will the effects be? What can we do about it? What should we do about it?
For myself, I am persuaded that the climate is changing, and that the cause most likely has a human component. I am less convinced that the outcome will be a significant threat to the human population of the planet, particularly in the "first world". I am absolutely opposed to any "solution" which depends on aggression, which is pretty much anything political in nature: cap & trade, carbon taxes, gas taxes, efficiency regulations, etc. I would support stricter enforcement of property rights against polluters, although it's difficult to argue direct harm from CO2 per se. (Smog, acid rain, and so on are a different matter.)
The real problem is that the climate and the atmosphere (and the oceans) are huge commons, and we have no obvious way of partitioning them or otherwise enforcing ownership of and responsibility for specific regions, even on a national scale. Perhaps technological advances can help with that. For all I know, perhaps humans of the future will live in domed cities; that's a possible solution, albeit not an ideal one. I'm open to better suggestions. For now we're left with the only non-aggressive approach there is for such commons: peer pressure.
"The state is that great fiction by which everyone tries to live at the expense of everyone else." - Bastiat
Your Mom is "undeniable"
She's hot too!
Take a stand?
Seeing as I listed things I am ACTUALLY DOING I don't see how I'm failing to take a stand.
Here is the yearly climate chart for my region.
As is easily seen, it's been colder than normal for the last six months, we're ahead on precipitation, February was unusually cold in a very consistent streak, snow continued into late May, quite late as compared to normal, and here, in late July, the temperatures continue to reach below normal ranges consistently, with only occasional excursions above.
One region does not by any means a global climate make, but I'm afraid I still have to take issue with "it's been a scorcher for folks all around the world." Not in this part of the world, it hasn't.
I've fallen off your lawn, and I can't get up.
Of course it matters, because the world is being asked (forced) to spend trillions of dollars to solve what may not be a problem, and may not be solvable.
LOL, yep. Sigh, not my morning, typographically.
Currently hooked on AMP
1) Though it is a massive percentile increase, it still accounts for a minor part of the total gases in the air. When you add up the gasses in dry air it is 78% nitrogen, 21% oxygen, 1% argon. You'll notice that is 100%, since the amount of other gasses are so small you have to increase precision for them to even show. In the case of CO2, it is about 0.04%. In actual air, this is even less since it contains water vapour to the tune of around 1%.
2) CO2 is not a broad band IR absorber. It only strongly absorbs on two frequencies, and a small amount on two more (http://webbook.nist.gov/cgi/cbook.cgi?ID=C124389&Units=SI&Type=IR-SPEC&Index=1#IR-SPEC if you are wondering). As such the amount of energy it can absorb is questionable. This is especially true as opposed to water vapour, which absorbs a whole lot more IR.
3) Looking at the long terms historical record, which admittedly is some guess work, CO2 seems to lag temperature, not lead it. If CO2 is a major cause of warming, you'd expect it to lead warming (CO2 goes up, warming follows). As it stands the data is confusing.
4) The theories seem to leave a major factor unaccounted for, that being the sun. As the sun is the source of basically all of our surface heat, its output would have a heavy effect on the over all temperature. Thus any theory for warming would need to measure and account for solar output.
I'm not saying this "proves global warming is wrong" or any crap like that, I'm saying that these are reasons why people find it hard to believe it is such a problem. Saying "CO2 absorbs IR and is increasing thus must be causing warming," isn't well developed enough. It's a complex system, you need to account for everything. That there is an increase in CO2 and warming for sure merits investigation. When there's a correlation, causation is often found. However there are other things that need to be accounted for.
You seem very well informed. From what university did you get your climate science PhD?
...Compiled by more than 300 scientists from 48 countries, including Canada...
Are we supposed to be impressed by the Canada part? Ooh, they brought in Canadian scientists, this must be serious!
"Ungood", dude, the quote from 1984 is "ungood". And indeed, AGW is doubleplusungood.
I guess they better tell all of the false scientists who deny it. Have some perspective... http://www.geocraft.com/WVFossils/ice_ages.html
I don't believe in karma, I just call it like I see it.
Please explain how a species that survives everywhere from the equator to the north pole is threatened by a 1 degree climate change over a century.
And if there's no way to stop it, we can end the conversation and go back to burning more organics? ;^)
It's funny, but in a way, the non-anthropogenic argument is a bit like someone saying "STFU." From a climate activist's viewpoint, it must seem almost nihilistic.
I'm neither a denier nor an activist. I believe a lot of people are upset with the fact that a minority group of scientists (relative to non-scientist humanity, not within the field) who are just laying groundwork in the study of global climate systems are proposing massive global solutions that will require suffering, perhaps wars, and possibly won't work.
People are frightened and they want to be very sure that it is as bad as the activists say it is, and those activists can't provide anything more than tree rings and ice cores to back up their claims beyond the past few hundred years of climate data collection from the modern scientific era.
The "hockey stick" is unconvincing, because while we're warming, there's no correlative temperature hockey stick proportional to the carbon. Never mind that the presumption is baloney, it's what people see.
The concern is emotional. It's is hard to get people to move in such drastic unity over a collection of data. They look around and say, "Nothing has changed. Why should I?"
Plus, there's a basic logical failure in a position of "activism," that precedes facts and cause. You have to be able to act, and that action has to be effective. If we (the Western world) stop burning fossils, is China going to? Will India? How about any country in Africa? If not, are we willing to invade and shut down any country that refuses to do so?
What are the tanks going to burn? ;^)
We are a proto-global society, built on oil. We simply don't have the political apparatus to extract from that, regardless of the validity of the research. Activists who ask for global change on climate are politically clueless.
While a global climate exists, a global government does not.
We will be well beyond peak oil before we can pull it together. The oil will be burned, because if we don't, it makes it cheaper for someone else, and they will consume it. The developing world wants our lifestyle. It's all going to burn, at the same rate, no matter how we shoot ourselves in the foot.
That's not nihilism, it's a political analysis of the situation. The best way to slow the process is to invent technologies that get more work with less carbon production. Capping carbon will not help, because someone else in the developing world will gladly use the "bad technologies" that produce more carbon and fill in the gaps with the cheaper fuels. It destabilizes the oil market, and drives up consumption in developing countries.
My alternative: Invent and refine better engines and ramp up alternatives. Fast. Put the money into research. Don't try to draw it from carbon caps, though. That's destabilizing. Here in America? Give it to the NSF and industry spend it. It's a good idea whether we're a cause of warming or not. Plus, if we succeed, we get rich, we get new industries, and we all get to live in peace (hopefully).
--
Toro
Hmm. Of all 1,880 imperiled species in the United States, 49% are endangered because of introduced species alone or because of their impact combined with other forces. (http://www.actionbioscience.org/biodiversity/simberloff.html) Seems our meddling (by introducing a species, which then became an invasive species) caused a few more problems than we anticipated. Are you sure you now want to just blindly attempt to make changes to climate? Shouldn't we pause to determine if what we do could cause MORE problems then what is currently happening?
No, no there really isn't a debate about causation. Increase in CO2 concentrations are most definitely the primary cause here. Beyond that, things get more uncertain, naturally. But there really isn't any question any longer that CO2 is the primary climate forcing that has changed the temperature of the planet since around the 1970's.
It's because we want to be able to buy up prime tropical coastline on the Hudson Bay, of course!
I am officially gone from
So how do you feel about the fact that for every ton of coal we burn for electricity we throw away enough thorium in the ashes and tailings to produce 14 times as much power in a nuclear reactor?
Hmm. Of all 1,880 imperiled species in the United States, 49% are endangered because of introduced species alone or because of their impact combined with other forces. (http://www.actionbioscience.org/biodiversity/simberloff.html) Seems our meddling (by introducing a species, which then became an invasive species) caused a few more problems than we anticipated. Are you sure you now want to just blindly attempt to make changes to climate? Shouldn't we pause to determine if what we do could cause MORE problems then what is currently happening?
That lady and germs, is the internet's famous logical fallacy, the strawman. ;)
I stated that Global Warming is a problem no matter what the cause, and that we may want to pursue solutions. I did not state that we should BLINDLY implement fixes.
And of course their standards of evidence are equivalent, and the 12 years of introductory clergical studies you took in elementary and high school helped you understand that fact.
I thought weather is not climate.
I remember hearing that a lot in 2009. Don't hear it so much this year, for some reason.
Well the reason you heard it then was because many people's subjective experience of the weather was different than the climate. People in the northern hemisphere were getting cold weather and lots of snow, and saying "Ha! Global Warming my ass!" in which case it's important to note that weather and climate are not the same, and increasing global temperatures aren't necessarily going to mean that there will be higher temperatures in a particular region. 2009 was nevertheless one of the hottest years on record.
But then again, sometimes they do coincide. So far, it's been a very hot summer for us in the Northern Hemisphere, and hey, the global temperatures are also higher than ever before. So real reason to point it out; local weather and global climate happen to have coincided for the people who are having the conversation (mostly US and Europe here on /.).
Weather still doesn't prove climate change, if that was your point. Global warming is indicated by record high global temperature, not our hot summer. Notice that the global average is a record high, even though half the planet is in the cold part of their year.
I wouldn't be surprised if there was an Argentinian blog where the "Global warming my ass, look outside!" conversation was happening right now.
But it's the globe as a whole that matters.
The enemies of Democracy are
This is a fantastic post.
The second link is from the CBC. Submitter just copy-pasted that sentence from the article. The CBC mentions Canada because that their audience. Nothing to see here, move along...
I know you're not really going to get that, so let me be blunt: The bar for entry to science is 12 years of training plus 4 years of training plus 2 years of training plus defending yourself in front of your peers. The bar for entry to religion is a couple of years of bible study followed by proving that you really like God. Pedophilic tendencies optional.
Governments can only do two things, tax or not-tax, offer a credit. They both are examples of social engineering, but one is a lot more palatable to people than the other, because it really is the carrot-reward, or stick-punish system. that's it.
A hypothetical then to achieve this goal of cleaner renewable energy sources, by reducing demand and use of the dirtier sources.
Say you are joe blow, make fifty grand a year, and after all other deductions and whatnot, the government still walks off with five grand every year. On top of that, you buy stuff, stuff that uses energy to get made, including a lot of nasty coal that stinks up the air and has a negative effect on climate and so on, all in all, we agree it is bad news in mass quantities..
A carbon tax increases what you have to pay, this is the main point of it, increase the costs to discourage use. These companies are in no manner going to eat any new tax, they just will pass it on to the end user. Nature of the beast. OK, that is the stick method. You are still out five grand taxes, plus now a lot of your stuff costs more, so you went negative after this new carbon tax gets put in. And all the coal is still being burnt.
Now, the carrot method. The government offers a five grand tax credit for *you* to use for personal alternative energy stuff, or perhaps for retrofitting a lot more insulation or what not. So now you have a choice, let the government take that five grand, or you get to spend it, and directly improve your economic and comfort bottom line, whilst also doing your personal fair share of improving the environment.
Which would you pick then? I know I'd take the tax credit over the carbon tax and the rising cost of goods. I think most people would, and it would probably result in much faster uptake and use of the alternative cleaner and more long term carbon neutral methods.
Now say the same five grand credit was pro rated, and you could use it for five to ten years. Now you are talking some serious loot, at ten years, that's a *fifty grand* solar system (random example there)for your house you could get that would rock, this directly would eliminate all that amount of coal burning that your previous demand was responsible for, it would add to the demand in general for panels and increase competition and economies of scale (with millions of people taking advantage of that credit), and keep reducing that coal demand for the life of the system, currently 25-30 years and still then at 80% (most new panels today). In other words, a lot. Buhzillions of solar panels would be going up all over, tons of new factories to make them, hundreds of thousands of productive jobs for the factory workers and installers, etc, and the demand for the coal juice would drop exactly as much as the solar production went up, watt hour for watt hour.
To me, I would much prefer the multi year pro rated tax credit, both for individuals and for corporations doing commercial scale (whatever that might be, make it some millions of bucks, 1-5 maybe, the same pro rated for initial deployment), over just slapping a new tax burden on stuff. Both methods are social engineering, this is undebatable, so which suits human nature better and which would be more likely to be adopted at huge scales, and quite willingly and enthusiastically?
We've already seen just partial credits help a lot, these 10-30% credits that exist now, so imagine full 100% multi year pro-rated credits!
I really think it would work a lot better, individuals and companies would just go to the cleaner, more sustainable solutions, given the two choices. With the carbon tax, they are five grand a year, plus rising costs for just about everything, out of pocket..nothing left to invest in cleaner solutions then, they get tapped out, just have to pay more for everything, and all that nasty coal will still get burnt, it just costs more now, but people still need the power, so they will cut someplace else. With the tax, you go broker faster and nothing much happens to the positive for the environment, with the credit, tens of millions go solar (or whatever works for them at their x-y the best).
And...?
You have the earth covered by a species with the self control of the average locust. We consume and we consume and we consume and we'll keep consuming until some kind of evolutional epoch comes along that either annihilates us, does something to our collective thinking or at least kills off enough of us that the remainder realizes that long term survival will require building society on something more than greed and short-sighted self interest.
If we don't make that change, I say the planet and the universe is better off without us anyway.
I don't like when people think that can go from point A to point X without doing B, C, D, E... etc. "Saving the planet" is like... in another alphabet. Can we get there? Sure. Can we get there without changing our local and national governments and without, as consumers, really saying "no" to the crap being fed to us by mega-corporations? No, we can't.
The population in the USA can't even stand up and say no to the nutritionally devoid sugar filled poison the average person consumes every day and, I dunno, eat a fucking salad and some whole grains. To save a few bucks we're fine factory farming animals which is not only cruel and disgusting but produces food that's unhealthy. I'm not even going to get into corn subsidies.
I know others have posted the link, but since I'm a Carlin fan, I'll post it again because it sums up everything I think about this bullshit:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eScDfYzMEEw
"And the greatest arrogance of all: save the planet. What? Are these fucking people kidding me? Save the planet? We don't even know how to take care of ourselves yet. We haven't learned to care for one another. We're gonna save the fucking planet?"
Regardless of all that, let's say global warming is 100% caused by man, just for fun. What's the ACTUAL solution? What are YOU doing about it? I don't care what the president is doing because I have little to no control of what he does. I don't care what the CEO of BP is doing because... I have no control.
I can affect REAL change locally--and have done so between local activism and flat our suing the state. I'm a big fan of localities that are doing things like taxing bottled water. That's a good start. At a city or county level, that's doable by a few individuals and it's doable one step at a time.
You know what else would be good? How about accountability in government? How about we actually do something about politicians who continue to make being environmentally irresponsible profitable? Of course, this would mean voting outside the major parties and not eating rhetoric like "hope and change" for breakfast, lunch and dinner.
Of course we can't blame the politicians and corporations entirely. Who votes for them? Who buys their shit?
Every fucking time there is a global warming related story on this site it devolves into one group of pricks calling another group of pricks deniers. Woop-dee-fucking-doo. "Let's see who has the biggest intellectual dick and who can cite the most papers that neither side even really understands beyond the introduction and conclusion. Let me impress the other geeks out there with my own environmental enlightenment! I know what's really happening. Oh, and let me mention ice core samples. I saw that on a Discovery Channel episode this one time and it makes me sound like I know what I'm talking about."
So, once the global warming dick has been put on display and measured with the people agreeing lining up to stroke it and the "deniers" branding it as obscenity... then what? Basically we get, "vote for the liberals, they care." They do? How's that been working out for you guys the last couple years? (And just so no one is confused about where I stand, fuck the conservatives too.) And that's it. The only "solution" most of the crowd poses is... let's get the government to regulate this shit. That'll solve the problem!
The "let's get the government to do something abo
How do we know that the "pursued solution" to Global Warming wouldn't cause more problems than it would supposedly fix?
The real issue is not global warming. The real issue is population. No matter what you do to control "global warming," it's pointless without measures to control population, and if history is any indication, if we don't control it ourselves, mother nature will gladly step in to take a hand.
I know you're still not "getting it", but the point is that "You must get buddy-buddy with 'our people' for n years before you're qualified to criticize" isn't a very good standard, because it would validate obvious garbage. Unless some reality-grounded standard *backs up* the process, the requirement to have a doctorate is baseless.
And if the reality-grounded standard exists, scientists should point to *that*, not the fact that being buddy-buddy with their club results in agreeing with them!
Information theory is life. The rest is just the KL divergence.
Eventually you have to determine an acceptable level of risk and do something though. Some people think the risk of action is higher than the risk of inaction. Personally, I'm hardly qualified to make that judgment call, I can just speculate. In the meantime, we can certainly take action to minimize further damage. It's definitely possible to slow global warming without abandoning industrialization, and I've heard lots of ideas toward that end, some clever, some patently absurd.
Ah yes, the standard of scientific achievement is being friends with people. That's clear from the large collection of big-smiling emptyheads that run the scientific establishment.
Science works if and to the extent that uses methods that allow reality to correct errors on the part of scientists.
To the extent that it's just an echo chamber of people who declare themselves right *if* they all agree, and *because* they all agree, it's no different from religion.
When numbers work differently in your specialty, and so you get to dismiss any criticism from the outside -- that's religion.
Information theory is life. The rest is just the KL divergence.
While global warming - or at least some kind of significant climate change - is certainly "undeniable" what remains questionable is where exactly is this change coming from?
What is clearly needed is something that says "Every mile driven in an SUV kills a child in Asia." or something like that. With that information, we can start destroying the SUVs and save some children. Without that information or something like it, as we have seen it is very difficult to stir up the SUV-destroying mobs that are waiting on the sidelines.
Similarly, once it is clear there is a causal link between airline flights and climate change maybe the government will step in and cease all passenger air travel. You know, it really isn't necessary - but if it isn't doing any harm why not let it continue? Do we have some numbers of people that will drown because of sea level changes per airline mile flown?
One thing that might help is some sacrificial folks seeking climate martyrdom. Blow up some airliners (on the ground), start burning cars on a large scale. Sure, you might get arrested but the trial could be good PR. As it is today you can expect some of the "climate scientists" to be driving SUVs and flying in airplanes. Heck, Al Gore even has his very own plane. Talk about lack of committment!
Obviously, coal-fired power plants are putting out a lot of CO2 and it would be nice to just turn them off. However, this would be a serious inconvenience for a lot of people. Crushing every SUV and eliminating passenger air travel wouldn't really be that much of an inconvenience, at least compared to turning off some large percentage of the electricity in the US. We aren't going to have any other sources of electricity for a long time - decades, probably. So doing anything about the coal power plants is probably off the table.
I feel certain that until the people convinced of AGW (especially the "A" part of it) start actually walking the talk, the talking part just isn't going to make much of an impact. So far, I haven't heard anyone destroying anything that is destroying the environment in the name of preserving the planet. Let's see some action. Then maybe people will start to take things seriously.
Then again, if the mission is just to push the standard of living back to around 1870 or so (pre-electric), then maybe nobody is really all that committed. In which case, you can expect nothing to get done.
Yes, there are asshats on all sides. It would be nice if people would examine the facts for themselves rather than repeating the bullshit they hear from their favorite asshat.
You are contradicting MANY people who know a lot more than you do. Just not the ones that you personally choose to believe.
You MAY agree with the majority, but that doesn't mean that nobody smarter than you is on the other side of the argument.
You might have a point if you said that nobody unqualified to speak on the matter should do so, but to say people that are unqualified are allowed to speak as long as they are on YOUR side isn't science, it's fanaticism.
You can either allow all opinions, or only qualified opinions, but picking the conclusion first and then only allowing arguments that agree with it is one of the biggest problems with this whole mess in the first place.
I think it's abhorrent. That's kind of the epitome of wasteful.
Dewey, what part of this looks like authorities should be involved?
It's good that we agree on something. It should be noted, however, that there has been a flat line in global temperature for the last 10 or so years. While this is insignificant as an indicator of anything, it should be noted that the models that are used for all projections failed to predict this.
Careful... that line worked in 2008, but not in 2010. 1998 is a useful year for selection bias.
http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/articleshow/5951409.cms
Following the release of global temperature data which revealed April of 2010 was the hottest April ever and that this year so far has been warmest on record, Nasa has said global temperatures have been steadily rising since the late 1970s with no significant let-up in the trend.
I'm sorry, what? I'd like to know how you link a few years of poor oyster harvesting to global warming, so please quote some kind of source.
Using google is really not that difficult. (Further down the article downplays the link, but that's business press for you.)
http://seattle.bizjournals.com/seattle/stories/2010/06/28/story1.html
Young oysters seem to be dying in their swimming larval stage because the slightly acidic seawater is dissolving their shells from the outside faster than they can grow, Kaufman said. The breeding cycle has failed for each of the past four years, he said.
Same goes for the coral statement. Ocean acidification is a scary-sounding theory, but whether it will have any major ill-effects is pretty much an open question.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ocean_acidification
Research has already found that corals, coccolithophore algae, coralline algae, foraminifera, shellfish and pteropods experience reduced calcification or enhanced dissolution when exposed to elevated CO2.
Heat waves are weather and are caused by natural variability. Same goes for blizzards, neither is proof of anything.
When the variability starts marching away from known records, then the climate is changing beyond it's known natural cycles. El Nino weather patterns and other variables of course come into play, but hey, you got to pretend you were thinking for a second.
As far as your claim about the Arctic, I believe the scariest guess so far has been ice-free by 2015. All of those "predictions"(guesses) are based on models that ignore significant aspects of the inner workings of Earth's climate, most notably changes in cloud cover.
The Northwest Passage has been navigable for the first time in history for two years in a row. The US military is already reorganizing itself to defend it as a new attack vector. Russia, Canada, and the US are already squabbling over the resources under the ice.
I'd also like to point out that any kind of catastrophic global warming that CO2 might cause requires some kind of significant positive feedback mechanism, but none have been identified as of yet. It has simply been assumed that there must be one without any speculation as to what that might be. Cloud cover for example is likely a significant negative feedback when temperatures get higher.
In this case, you're entirely full of shit.
http://www.pnas.org/content/97/4/1331.full
Ice-core records show that climate changes in the past have been large, rapid, and synchronous over broad areas extending into low latitudes, with less variability over historical times. These ice-core records come from high mountain glaciers and the polar regions, including small ice caps and the large ice sheets of Greenland and Antarctica.
As the world slid into and out of t
Fuck that! There are a number of diploma mills that can provide you an authentic degree for about the price of a high-end iPod.
The world's burning. Moped Jesus spotted on I50. Details at 11.
It gets worse - if we would have built 13 thorium breeder reactors for every coal plant we've built in the last 30 years (or one plant with 13 times the capacity) the extra energy produced would be enough to, using existing technology, generate 200 billion gallons of (carbon neutral) gasoline per year from seawater and atmospheric carbon dioxide.
" A warmer planet is a better planet for life, period."
Yes, for "life", in general, a warmer planet is "better". On a geological timescale.
Myself, I'm less concerned whether or not something is good for "life" or not, and whether or not it's good for "humans". And some consequences of warming are crop failures. A 2 degree mean global increase in temperature means that, in july and august, in the non-coastal areas of North America, a six degree rise in daytime temperature high.
So it takes very little to have massive, massive crop failures.
And that's if nothing happens to water supplies. OK, some areas, depending on your latitude, might end up with more rainfall. But there's a lot of people, and a lot of farming, in the regions where expanding Hadley cells means more deserts.
Sea level rise - personally, I think the effects of this on coastal cities has been much overblown. The dutch figured out how to build dikes a long time back. However, if you think about the big river deltas of the Yellow or the Yangzee, you have millions of people living within 1 meter of sea level. Oh, and, those millions are frequently farmers who feed billions. Anyway. How much of a sea level rise do you need to destroy an awful lot of rice paddies?
So yeah, in a sense, a warmer planet is "better for life". However, on the much-shorter-timescale of a human lifetime, it's going to be very unpleasant for a few lifetimes.
Oh, and, your argument about "telling a family in Africa that they have to watch their children die of malnourishment", um, that really only makes sense if your budget for combating climate change comes out of your foreign aid budget. Maybe that's how it works in the Free Republic of Ayn Rand-ia, but I don't know of any _real_ countries where it works like that.
The plural form of "anecdote" is "anecdotes", not "evidence".
Hmmm... Anybody keeping track of the checklist of climate-change denier bingo here?
First, we get the "the earth isn't warming. And if it is, it isn't anything humans did. And if it is, it isn't a problem" progression.
Now the AC above me gives us the (so thoroughly debunked I'm not gonna bother searching for links) "in the 70s climate scientists told us the earth was going to cool so it's all a big hoax!" argument.
I have a theory that, the reason a lot of people get so upset about this issue because, when you're trying to have a logical, reasonable discussion with someone, and you realize, they aren't having a discussion at all, they're doing something between deliberate disinformation and a political speech, you realize that your opponent has been entirely deceptive and mendacious.
That tends to make people angry. Especially if the former in this example is a scientist or a researcher, and they're used to dealing in something like objectivity, and don't have much in the way of "political skills" or "media literacy", and you realize you just got ambushed by somebody with a hidden agenda.
The plural form of "anecdote" is "anecdotes", not "evidence".
You wouldn't be paying for my things, the things you are saying are "bad", I'd be paying for an improvement in energy production, which means I am *not* paying for the thing you are against, because I would then *not be using that product*, I'd be using the new better product, in this case, the switch from coal burning, and all the costs you mention, to solar, which has little of the downside coal has.. Both sides win under a tax credit, I win, you win, plus the environment gets cleaner.
I'll turn it around, why do you not want me to switch to solar, when with a pro rated ten year tax credit, this could be possible? You want me to stay stuck on coal brand electricity, just pay a lot more for it, because of the externalities which I admit exist readily, or to actually switch completely off coal? That's my point, what is the *real* goal? Just pay more to keep using coal, or like I suggest, take that money and go directly to solar, and do it quite willingly, and wind up owning the means of production, rather than renting my grid infrastructure forever, where the costs just go up, and you never get to own anything?
Me, I'd rather dump the coal, and go to solar, given the two choices. Your method keeps me stuck on coal, just costs more than, because there's no extra loot for doing anything else then. If you make the coal just way more expensive, I won't have the money to go to solar, because I'll be stuck in an endless loop of paying for the more expensive now coal, which is still being burnt.
You are talking to one of *the* biggest alternative energy enthusiasts and proponents on this board, and I tell you, the carbon tax is the worst way to achieve the goal of getting away from burning nasty stuff. Offering full tax credits for the alternatives is by far and away the fastest, easiest and cheapest way to slide away from the fossil fuel economy to a renewable and cleaner energy economy.
We just have two differing philosophies headed towards the same goal, you want to punish the bad, I prefer to route around/bypass/shun the bad and reward the good, and do that directly and as soon as possible. We can recognize that what we did in the past wasn't all that swift, and we need to do something better in the future, but the money has to come from somewhere, ultimately, the tax payer and energy buyer. Spend the effort and all the money in punishing, there isn't as much left to reward. It's really simple. If my x-amount of money is going to go someplace, I would much rather it go directly to the solution, not just to punish the problem. The problem will be solved once the solution is implemented. Punishing the problem will not pay for any solution, it will just delay it and make it cost way way more than it needs to be.
I defer to your obvious scientific mastery and superior knowledge, which you have totally proved here.
You're right, all those totally honest not-in-a-conflict-of-interest corporate scientists and well informed slashdot commenters count as smarter than me.
And of course those who get them are the scientists everyone turns to for opinions on the subject.
The major factor preventing the NOAA report from credibly attributing significant warming to anthropogenic greenhouse gasses is the fact that H20 completely dominates CO2, while CH4 is largely due to bogs and clathrates. That doesn't leave much influence for humans. Omitting the infrared reflectivity of H20 from the equation is the equivalent of a stacked deck. I'm not playing by those house rules -- at least not with real money.
-I like my women like I like my tea: green-
One individual is not threatened--he could just move when his ecosystem gets unworkable, although he would have a hell of a time selling his old assets(who would buy them?) and buying new ones somewhere else.
The problem is, when this happens to hundreds of millions or billions of people all at the same time, where do they all go? Into your cozy niche?
Not to mention the problem of losing many of the investments of thousands of years of civilization, when cities are made unusable due to rising coastal waters and tidal estuaries, failing water supplies or the repeated damage of extreme weather events. What is the economic hit of losing Manhattan or London, or Tokyo?
Sure, some people will be OK, but do you really think we can maintain our economic growth, our just-in-time global industrial systems, our political stability and the rule of law under such stresses?
Maybe, but why would anyone think so, when tiny little fluctuations in the economies of single countries (like the runs on currencies in Mexico, Thailand, Russia, etc.) end up causing huge global disruptions. Don't you think a systemic change in the physical viability of large areas of the planet might knock a point or two off the old DOW?
Every generation deals with the mess of the previous generation. The suffering is much less now because we have Dominican nannies and ipads.
-I like my women like I like my tea: green-
It isn't happening all at once - it's spread out over a century.
Contrary to common belief, science is not the process of gathering a large number of scientists into a room and having them vote on what the truth is. What makes a scientific argument compelling is the strength of the evidence presented, not the number of experts convinced by it. Which is why stories like this always bug me; little time is spent discussing the evidence presented in the report which would actually useful information. Instead we're presented with a laundry list of people talking about how great the report is and how no one could possibly question it, expecting us to be swayed by appeal to authority alone.
I suggest you read what you have written and then think about it. The stuff about the sensors is paticularly similar to looking at the contents of death row in a prison and concluding that all 600 million Americans are murderers.
Go visit China and see it.
I'm curious, where did you get this stupid misconception that SOx and NOx would not turn into acid? A power company I used to work for had to pay a fortune to get a lot of cars repainted when they messed up, put out a lot of NOx and the wind was blowing over the town, so definitly real enough to touch.
Who is it that is feeding you such stuff and creating a generation that is poorly equipt to function in an increasingly technological world?
Just a few thoughts. I don’t claim to be smarter or know anything more then anyone. I don’t know if the globe is warming or not. I think that anyone wanting to be honest would be able to tell is this fact (I don’t think that putting monitoring stations in some of the places I have heard them placed is being Honest then again maybe what I was told was dishonest). My main hang up is in what we are to DO? 1. Change all my light bulbs to CFC. OK if it was my choice (some places make it the Law, so no choice). I’m not sure if I think it better to have something containing Hg around all over the place, tends to make me question the Better for the environment. I was told that they are more energy efficient because the make less heat(being in a place that about half the year you have a heater on the heat is welcome) 2. I need to drive a hybrid car. So I need a car that has two motors (gas and electric), a gas tank, and a set of batteries. Not sure how that is better. Also most of the batteries contain things that are not good for the environment. 3. Use renewable energy sources. Like hydro electric (can’t do that they hurt the fish, cause erosion, and flood a bunch of land), Geo thermo (cause earthquakes), and windmills (I bet you are thinking that I’m going to ask about the birds but lets talk about the wind itself. Our global weather is move on the winds, when we take energy out of the wind we are slowing it down and affecting the weather over the globe) 4. Stop using fossil fuels because they are putting CO2 in the air. Here is a question for you, where do fossil fuels come from? Answer “Fossils” Plants and animals from long ago. Where did the Plants and the animals get the Carbon from? The way I understand it, the animals get it from eating the plants, and the plants get it from the Air (CO2). Wait a second I thought it was bad in the air. I don’t think that everyone is being honest here. I think they fall into different camps of people. Some people want to make $$$ selling things that we say are new and Green even if they are just as bad or worst for the environment. People that are doing research on the issue and if it is a BIG world changing issue then they are better off ($$$ or fame). People that truly want to fix the issue that they are seeing. People that don’t want the world to change (the global temp should be this year exactly what it was last year. Or what ever year they really wish it was) and there will be no animals extinctions (I don’t like to see it happen esp. if it was caused by something I did, but I also think that some are good ie Dinosaurs) what ever part of the world they take up is ok and others will pay to make it happen. People that don’t really know what is going on and are pushed around. People that don’t care, maybe they have other worries in their lives. I also think that you have people that want to see the world destroyed for there own gain (well some people think there are people like this and who am I to say no). Thank you for your time.
Yes, well played. If his logic is sound, attack his credentials.
The people who decided some time ago that they dislike global warming for whatever reason will always find a way to rationalize their denial of it. They are not about to let some pesky "facts" from "experts" cloud their judgment.
How can people be this dumb, is beyond comprehension.
People are not denying that there is a climate change. You can feel it yourself.
What people are arguing is whether it is 'induced' by humans or it's a part of some natural cycle.
Slashdot has gotten to the point where you can't even refer to the people that devote their lives to the study of climatology across the world without being called a Troll. And the real awesome thing is that I see people who haven't even read the report in question being moderated up up up up.
You are being far too negative about slashdot. In fact slashdot has a readership/moderatorship with a far higher level of science and technical education than most online fora. No really!
So here's a little experiment for you. Wait for 24 hrs while the moderation does a global timezone sweep, then come back and browse at a threshold of 4. You may be pleasantly surprised. The Dunning-Kruger filter works pretty well actually. Even the posts opposing scientific orthodoxy tend to be of the more considered sceptical variety as opposed to the outright denialist ones. And when considering truly sceptical arguments, let's not forget this isn't "settled science". Well OK some if it is. [in which AGW "sceptic" and intelligent designer Roy Spencer's intellectual chickens come home to roost.]
You are not wasting your time.
Better to be despised for too anxious apprehensions, than ruined by too confident a security. --Edmund Burke
I tend to disagree with "c) human activity contributes significantly" on the basis that regardless of any human correlation to climate change, humanity cannot afford to let the planet destroy itself. Such climate change needs to be mitigated in order to perpetuate a habitable environment, which probably means large-scale terra-forming operations. Unfortunately we can't get our act together enough to build a self-sustaining internal infrastructure, much less worry about the mechanics of the planet as a whole.
It's kind of funny - in a tragic way - that the old repeated-enough-to-become-true meme still works.
There wouldn't be all these arguments if we could *prove* that global warming exists and that it's man made. Note that there are two separate statements here that needs to be proven for the full monty.
Now, the first is all about historical data combined with modern data and interpretation of these. You can use them to plot graphs that show everything from "ice age approaching", over "no change" to "global warming". You can even mess with the data to make "a more obvious warming" as we've seen it done. As there's still a lot of arguments in this department it is obvious that there's no standard way, nor some carved-in-stone way, to work with these data.
The second statement assumes that the first exists, and seeks to explain why. It tends to focus on CO2 for some reason, despite the two obvious problems: The exact role of CO2 in the atmospheric greenhouse balance is unknown but it is assumed that it acts as a reflected energy blocker in the mix just as it does alone. Nobody knows for sure. The second problem is that much worse greenhouse gasses are also released in increasing amounts, methane in particular. So, working on reducing CO2 might not do anything except waste time and money.
Finally - Occams Razor. There was no human activity during past massive climate changes so what caused them and might that factor still be a work today? - The obvious culprit is the Sun. A change in output will affect the climate. I've even heard some respected climate scientists say "the Sun has no significant influence on Earth's climate" which is utter lunacy of course. Without the Sun the Earth would be a ball of ice, barely warmer than the surrounding space (warmer only due to radioactive materials and tidal forces), so of course the Sun has a huge influence. But minor changes, both in radiated heat and in high energy particles that interact with the Earths atmosphere in various ways, what does that do to the climate? - We don't know, but we know that something, most likely the Sun, caused the ice ages and the warming in between. It is by far the simplest explanation of any climate change we may or may not be observing today.
"For every complex problem, there is a solution that is simple, neat, and wrong." -- H.L. Mencken (1880-1956) --
It's good that we agree on something. It should be noted, however, that there has been a flat line in global temperature for the last 10 or so years. While this is insignificant as an indicator of anything, it should be noted that the models that are used for all projections failed to predict this.
Careful... that line worked in 2008, but not in 2010. 1998 is a useful year for selection bias.
http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/articleshow/5951409.cms Following the release of global temperature data which revealed April of 2010 was the hottest April ever and that this year so far has been warmest on record, Nasa has said global temperatures have been steadily rising since the late 1970s with no significant let-up in the trend.
Interesting. Looking at the Nasa GISS temperature graphs, they seem to disagree with themselves, see here. Your point about selection bias is correct, but I was not claiming that global warming has stopped, I was claiming that the models used for all kinds of funky predictions about the future temperatures failed to predict the 10-year flatline(what happens next is anyone's guess). I should probably also point out that choosing the year 1880 can also be seen as selection bias, since the Little Ice Age ended right about then, so increasing temperatures is only natural after an extended cooling like that. Without context, graphs beginning at 1880 also provide a nice upward slope all the way to the present, save for the "small" dive at around 1950.
I also think it's curious that you choose to use an article in the Times of India as proof, instead of pointing to the data that they draw their conclusions from. Climate science is so politicized that everything on the Internet having to do with it should be taken with a truckload of salt, whether it agrees with your position or not.
I'm sorry, what? I'd like to know how you link a few years of poor oyster harvesting to global warming, so please quote some kind of source.
Using google is really not that difficult. (Further down the article downplays the link, but that's business press for you.)
http://seattle.bizjournals.com/seattle/stories/2010/06/28/story1.html Young oysters seem to be dying in their swimming larval stage because the slightly acidic seawater is dissolving their shells from the outside faster than they can grow, Kaufman said. The breeding cycle has failed for each of the past four years, he said.
Using google runs into the problem I outlined above. Using google to find a business journal article that suggests ocean acidification as a reason for poor harvest of oysters, even if "some scientists" think so, is anecdotal and not evidence of anything. As the guy later on in that article says, the problem is not unprecedented and is likely caused by entirely natural factors.
Same goes for the coral statement. Ocean acidification is a scary-sounding theory, but whether it will have any major ill-effects is pretty much an open question.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ocean_acidification Research has already found that corals, coccolithophore algae, coralline algae, foraminifera, shellfish and pteropods experience reduced calcification or enhanced dissolution when exposed to elevated CO2.
Uh-huh. I also experience increased perspiration when subjected to higher temperatures. I should also point out that using wikipedia as a source in any highly political issue is pretty futile, since one side will always highjack any articles having to do with it, even if attempts are made to avoid it. The wikipedia article
Out of over 1000+ comments, this was the most rational view I read, and one that mirrored my own. I too try to live, more aware of my impact, as a consumer, in the world. As a citizen in the United States who has traveled abroad I am astounded at the disconnect we have between perception and reality.
Without revamping any industry, I thought about two ways in which this country co immediately reduce energy consumption; Smaller potions, less driving.
I go out to eat. I order a meal and almost always the portions are way to much for a reasonable meal. If restaurants cut portions by a third they would have potentially less food waste and by keeping the same price, more profit. That we serve 12/14/16 oz steaks is beyond me, but the salad size bowl of pasta, the 1/2 lb of hamburger, the oversize potato is just as wasteful. "I'll take it home" is said to appease guilt, but I would guess much of that food is ultimately tossed out. It has been a rare moment when I would be able to eat dessert at the end of a meal, because the proportions of main dishes allowed room and calories for a slight indulgence.
For four years I worked at home. I went from a 35 min commute (one way) to none. Gas consumption dropped dramatically. During this time I received a promotion, two raises and hit every target on my projects. If business looked at how how much they truly spend on energy consumption for bringing employees into the office I think they would strongly consider more work from home policies; real estate costs, lighting, heat/cooling along with having to provide network connectivity for many, not few. Granted, this cannot apply to jobs that require physical assembly (large manufacturing for example), but in today's more connected world, We could start to push some jobs back to the house. By working from home I support my local economy, I reduce my carbon foot print, I also have time to deal with family/life issues better and in general find a better balance between work and life. Some argue that this effects "teamwork", that face to face adds value not found in WAH situations. Why? I ran a project having never seen the face of three of my team. We got along great, we communicated well, and the work got done. Out of 130 million workers, if even 10% were sent home to work it would have more positive impact on reducing consumption then trying to force reduction through taxes.
Yet, you are correct. Government apathy (or arrogance), big business interested in the short term gain even as the ship sinks...not much will change until powerful people are effected. By then the general populus will have either drowned, starved, or driven into indentured servitude to survive. I'll continue to do what I can to reduce my impact, I'll always advocate work from home ideas,l but it's like the little Dutch boy with his finger in the wall as a tidal wave looms over head.
Life is a great ride, the vehicle doesn't matter
Yes, it's UNDENIABLE ... except for the thousands of scientists that deny it, of course. Don't worry, as long as we continue to hand billions of dollars per year over to these unbiased researchers, they'll save us... don't worry about the faked or misinterpreted data, it was all for a good cause.
New religions are so fun to watch.
So a few years ago you wouldn't believe it because there wasn't enough observational evidence, and now you won't believe it because of the sheer quantity of the observational evidence?
No, I don't believe the data's being handled correctly at all. There's "no" evidence because any counter-evidence is suppressed or ridiculed.
Look at fanatical religious nuts who want everyone to know they're not going to hell and you are:
What I hear from the global warming crowd:
Humans are causing the world to heat up! We will all die in the apocolypse!
Look, the levels of CO2 are rising, and the temperatures are going up! CO2 is causing global warming! Humans produce tons of CO2, humans cause global warming!
We switched some data, instead of using core samples we use tree ring analysis. That whole "Medieval warm period" was like a half degree warmer; the bathtub curve is now a hockey stick. See? Global warming is a new thing! We're causing it because of the industrial age polluting the atmosphere leading us to a firey apocolypse!
An ice shelf melted off! That PROVES global warming! We must stop burning so much fossil fuel!
We have IRREFUTABLE PROOF of global warming! Look at the numbers!
It's REAL, DAMMIT! How can you not believe in global warming!
We're calling it Climate Change now.
This isn't a progression of study. This is a progression of justification. It's a load of "LOOK LOOK IT'S REAL BELIEVE IN IT!" crap, because it's apparently very important that the infidels convert to the religion of Global Warming.
And it's the dominant religion in power now, so any counter-claims are ridiculed because they go against consensus and against the well-known and publicized understandings. Truth is relative to propaganda.
Because of this, it's impossible to know what's going on. Maybe this is a minor issue that will go away in 10 years naturally. Maybe it's going to compound into something we can manage. Maybe it'll turn into another ice age, as some have said. I'm sure it's not an unsurvivable apocalypse (although, as far as global ice ages go, the Norse said that at Ragnarok the Calliach Bleuhr would release the Fimbulwinter and all worlds would freeze until no life could be sustained...). But beyond that we know nothing about global warming because too much of the data is dictated by goals: we want the data to say something, and if that happens to be what comes out naturally without any massaging then that's just bonus. The only ones who know what was massaged in any given set of data are the handful of scientists that collected and analyzed that data.
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that all happened in the last 100 years or so (the inclusion of long-chain hydrocarbons in industrial processes), depending on the raw material. What do you think will come in the next 100 years? As we once stopped using steam and furnaces for every single piece of machinery, so we will stop using petroleum for every single industrial process. Don't underestimate the economy's ability to change and reinvent itself only because you can't see 20 years from now.
No one denies that the earth is getting warmer, but there are people that deny the cause of it (natural vs. human). "Global Warming" describes the ideology that humans are the cause of the earth getting warmer.
And those wise people in "government" -- if only given sufficient power -- will get us out of this problem? What gives you faith that, among all the competing possibilities, the right one(s) will be chosen? The problem with the government is its power ... to screw things up more than any private person could do. Well meaning, intelligent people can be wrong, and with the power of the government behind them, horribly wrong. Look at recent legislation--the best of intentions, but the results? Just one example: back when Carter was president, he imposed gas rationing. "Government" looked at gas usage from the past summer, noted that a lot of gas was used at the vacation spots (the Maryland/Delaware shore for DC) and allocated a lot of gas there. Unfortunately, people couldn't get there because there wasn't enough gas allocated to DC, so people couldn't drive to the shore, so the gas stations at the shore had lots of gas but no people. Just an example that, luckily, didn't cause major harm. If Shell alone had made that decision, perhaps Exxon would not have made the same decision, and no problem would have arisen. Command economies just don't work. That government is best that governs least--because people are fallible, limit their power and thus limit the damage they can do. Of course, if you like being forced to pay for ethanol . . .
Wow. Just because your reading on the subject has been superficial doesn't mean the evidence is superficial.
mt
The evidence of God isn't superficial either. I mean, the whole bible thing is historically accurate, and we know some dude named Jesus was followed around by a bunch of people wanting healing or wine. They figured he was the son of God, and Mary was known to be a virgin (nobody ever accused her of adultery; they didn't figure anything out except that she's somehow pregnant). He was beaten and crucified for being ... well... Jesus.
Obviously, in the politically charged atmosphere, we can believe that any evidence against the righteousness of Jesus and the existence of God was just fluff from the enemies of Truth, right? I mean there's a lot of evidence for the existence of God.
(Not that I'm faulting anyone for any beliefs, mind you....)
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It's easy to sound well informed. It's difficult to be well informed. It's difficult for me to tell the difference, so I asked for his credentials, to determine whether he is a well-educated professional who has spent many many years studying the minutia of this subject, or just some wanker who thinks he knows a lot because he can throw around some funny terms which are above the understanding of his interlocutors. I didn't attack anyone. He could easily come back by telling me his real name and the university where he achieved that stunning level of knowledge.
Government funding isn't the only game in town. There are many, many wealthy businesses that stand to lose big bucks from the cost of controlling CO2 emissions. They've already spent huge amounts on lobbying. Funding some scientists to do climate studies is small change by comparison. And most scientists aren't picky about who gives them money; they just care about doing the research. I imagine that a climate scientist with real credentials and a contrarian view of CO2 would do quite well in terms of financial support for their research.
Unless, of course, it simply isn't possible to find any credible academic climate scientists whose research challenges the consensus regarding the role of CO2 in climate change. After all, nobody in academia gets rich off of doing research. The university thinks the grant money that you bring in belongs to them, not you. They keep a close eye to make sure that your aren't lining your pockets with your research funds, but are spending them on actual research. Your salary is constrained by the institution's salary scale, and academic salaries aren't that high. So academics generally really have to believe in the value of their research, because the only real reward for research success in academia is getting to do more of it.
This is an urban myth. To investigate allegations the CRU was hiding (or worse, altering) data and computer models, the Muir-Russell report actually went so far as to independently reproduce CRU's analysis. Here were their conclusions
Just in case anyone is interested, this is the graph you can be looking at. It's from the same data set, and though it begins in 1880, the spike does not occur until 1950.
You can also look at reconstructed data here that shows that the current temperature spike lies outside of the Medieval Warming period. Claims that the Northwest Passage was open at that time are unverified. There isn't any archaeological evidence for any European seafaring past certain points in modern Canada.
This simply means that any species that can't adapt may die out(if a change that small even necessitates adaptation), but they will be replaced by species that can live in that environment. Why this is considered to be catastrophic or even bad I do not understand.
Because our current way of life is very dependent on the current food chain, and some of us don't want to have a toxic lifeless soup for an ocean. Oysters in particular serve as filters, and are necessary to keep tidal creeks functioning. Corals are also a vital part of the shallow ocean ecosystem.
You're confusing CO2-induced warming and CO2-induced health effects in that argument.
I was pointing out that too much of anything is pollution.
There's also a saying I heard somewhere: "Lack of food kills you in weeks, lack of water kills you in days, but lack of warmth can kill you in hours."
There's also a saying: this is the 21st Century, and very few people die of simple exposure. Humans that die in the winter are people whose immune systems fail to protect them from communicable diseases that are more prevalent when everyone's immune system is weakened. Any variation in weather will present the same seasonal death rate - that's why the curve is the same from Greece to Norway. So the equatorial states have little variation, but that's due to the lack of weather changes, not due to the heat.
There are no variations with water supply. If you don't have access to clean water and sanitation, you're going to be very sick, and probably dead.
Anyway, enough of reality. Go back to blogging against those evil scientists, whose plot to Destroy America will surely succeed if they aren't thwarted by your amazing intellect.
The 5 easy steps to being green and adverting the worst effects of climate change and peak oil. And these strategies create stable and local job growth which is the best economic sense: 1) Stop SprawL!!! 2) R.R.Recycle! 3) ReForest/FoodForest!/VirginForest!! 4) Wind!/GeoThermal!!/Solar! 5) Electric&OpenSource Trains!!/Cars/Media! http://www.nrdc.org/globalWarming/solutions/ http://www.usgbc.org/DisplayPage.aspx?CMSPageID=1989
Just in case anyone is interested, this is the graph you can be looking at. It's from the same data set, and though it begins in 1880, the spike does not occur until 1950.
You can also look at reconstructed data here that shows that the current temperature spike lies outside of the Medieval Warming period. Claims that the Northwest Passage was open at that time are unverified. There isn't any archaeological evidence for any European seafaring past certain points in modern Canada.
What about the spike from 1910 up until about 1940? It's just as steep as the one from 1960 onwards. Noone is denying warming, it's how strong the causal link with CO2 is that's being questioned and whether or not the warming will be an issue. As far as the Northwest Passage claims go, those are not evidence of anything either. Ice melt around the northern latitudes is more dependant on wind factors than actual temperature, since it's below freezing almost all year around (wind pushes the ice to lower latitudes where it can actually melt).
Your graph also shows about 0.8 degrees of warming from 1910 to present, hardly something to be so alarmed about. If that trend continues, we're looking at a total of 1.6 degrees by 2100. Hardly the kind of catastrophic values that everyone in the alarmist camp is peddling. As far as the proxy graph goes, I'd have to take a look at the actual methodology in the studies because I do not trust graphs like that. I am sure you are painfully aware of the hockey stick generator Mann built that generates hockey stick shapes even from random noise and then used that as evidence.
This simply means that any species that can't adapt may die out(if a change that small even necessitates adaptation), but they will be replaced by species that can live in that environment. Why this is considered to be catastrophic or even bad I do not understand.
Because our current way of life is very dependent on the current food chain, and some of us don't want to have a toxic lifeless soup for an ocean. Oysters in particular serve as filters, and are necessary to keep tidal creeks functioning. Corals are also a vital part of the shallow ocean ecosystem.
Here we go with alarmism again. Most of our food supply comes from farming and raising livestock, not from oysters. Are you suggesting that all fish will disappear within a hundred years? No? Your claim about oceans becoming toxic soup is funny as well, would you care to provide some form of evidence to support it? I'd also like some form of science to support that corals are being threatened by the current warming or ocean acidification or whatever it is you think they are being threatened by.
You're confusing CO2-induced warming and CO2-induced health effects in that argument.
I was pointing out that too much of anything is pollution.
And I was pointing out that CO2 will never reach levels that are anywhere near to actual pollution (which I define as emissions directly affecting human health, such as small particle emissions).
There's also a saying I heard somewhere: "Lack of food kills you in weeks, lack of water kills you in days, but lack of warmth can kill you in hours."
There's also a saying: this is the 21st Century, and very few people die of simple exposure. Humans that die in the winter are people whose immune systems fail to protect them from communicable diseases that are more prevalent when everyone's immune system is weakened. Any variation in weather will present the same seasonal death rate - that's why the curve is the same from Greece to Norway. So the equatorial states have little variation, but that's due to the lack of weather changes, not due to the h
Or at least, you haven't bothered to look it up
More record temperatures and bigger snowstorms are expected consequences of global warming (weather is not climate, but climate does influence weather). They are not strong evidence of global warming (which is already well established by a huge mass of data, anyway), but they are examples of the consequences that we can expect, and that are likely to become increasingly common.
Very likely. If over a thousands of years, people had adapted to living on the ice sheets, agricultural methods had been developed that depended upon growing plants specifically adapted to cold climates, and huge numbers of people were living on the edges of the ice sheets--and suddenly, there were the prospect of the ice sheets vanishing over a couple of hundred years, faster than any known climate change in the past, it would be an immense disaster with enormous costs, both financial and in terms of humans suffering.
So of course people would be clamoring for a way to protect the ice sheets.
Did you have a point?
The majority of oxygen is generated at sea.
Combustion engines are a pretty useful technology, last I checked.
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Combustion engines are a pretty useful technology, last I checked.
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Combustion engines can run on other fuel sources then oil, who would have thunk!
Those are still carrots or the stick examples. "Investing" in research by the government is done with tax money, it's a tax, the stick. Writing a law against something is the stick, BAM, you can't do that. Allowing some research to go forward, by encouraging it with a tax credit, that's a carrot. It's just variations on social engineering, and there are still only two basic ways they can do that, bribe or punish, tax or not-tax.
Well, the prediction is more like 2 degrees C (3.6F) by 2100. But that's a global average. At the poles, particularly the North Pole and surrounding areas it will be more like 4 or 6 degrees. Maybe that doesn't sound like much to you but ask some biologist about it.
Predictably enough, Anthony Watts is at it again ([1] [2]). Haven't looked too deeply into his claims, and I'm really not too tempted to do so either. So has anyone else looked at it? Any comments?
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MWP and LIA were both local. The global climate was still exactly what the models show.
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The MWP was local. The global climate was not warmer overall. The Roman Warm Period is a lie. Humanity may have survived, but we have been on the brink of extinction before. Furthermore, changes didn't happen as rapidly as they do now, and the population was only a fraction of today's over-populated world.
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I like, how with how old of the earth is, and how we actually have so little data of what it does, that we can say anything.
Man don't know shit.
Be seeing you...
Wow, that is so great you choose to believe something. Some people choose to believe they can talk to plants and the plants understand, you know. Way to be a chooser. You are so great.
Qxe4
This is of course complete and utter nonsense. You are clearly not very knowledgeable. A lot of things have been proposed as counter-evidence, but one found that it did hot hold up when analyzed further.
Nice straw man. Is it a result of ignorance or dishonesty on your part?
More misrepresentation. The MWP was a local phenomenon, and the hockey stick is perfectly valid.
No, it's still called global warming.
No, the science is clear: AGW is here. You are the one with the justifications for rejecting the scientific facts at hand.
Considering that you are merely parroting denialist propaganda, I find your comment to be quite amusing. And counter-claims are not ridiculed. Scientific ones, that is. Yours aren't.
Oh, we know what's going on. Those of us who paid attention to the actual science, and the facts, you know?
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No. Unlike the massive amounts of evidence for AGW, of which you are apparently ignorant.
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You are getting it all wrong. Those who accept the scientific facts don't continuously have to find reasons to continue to accept the facts. The continuously have to refute denialist bullshit. Furthermore, more research is coming all the time, shedding new light on the issue. That research is talked about, obviously.
So it's not about finding reasons to believe. It's about countering denialist bullshit.
You, on the other hand, seem to be desperately looking for reasons to reject the scientific facts that show AGW.
It's already there. The science is cold and factual, and clearly shows that human activity is causing warming.
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Climate change in the past has been much slower, and/or there haven't been a lot of humans around to suffer from it. Today, the planet is over-populated, and the rapid climate change we are seeing today will indeed cause major problems.
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Yes, people are indeed denying that there is climate change, and that the climate is warming. Sometimes they'll change their position and accept that the climate might be warming, but it is certainly not because of humans! Those are dogmatic positions based on political ideology. The scientific facts clearly show warming, and that the warming is man-made.
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These are not leaps of faith. You are just throwing up a straw man and red herring in one.
The science clearly shows that the planet is warming, and that it is caused by human activity. That's the science.
You disagree with the policies proposed to address this issue, so you throw the baby out with the bathwater. "I don't like the policies, therefore the science the policies are based on must be wrong."
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You should perhaps educate yourself a bit. Global warming increases humidity, which also increases snowfall. Snow won't go away with a warmer planet, but the patterns will change.
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What happens today will not happen naturally. Natural cycles are extremely long, whereas the changes we are talking about now are mere generations into the future. This kind of rapid change is disastrous to humanity, which would otherwise be able to adapt to the slower natural changes.
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I'm sorry, but the debate is settled. The warming is caused by humans, as all the research shows. Of course, a tiny minority is trying to trick others into thinking that the debate isn't settled, just like with creationists and tobacco denialists.
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Just keep telling yourself that. The level of evidence that humans cause global warming is about as deep as the level of evidence for life on Mars. Correlation is not causation, and what correlation there is is _extremely_ weak. If you don't have a theory with predictive power, scientifically speaking you don't know anything. There is no warming model that has demonstrated an iota of that.
It's already there. The science is cold and factual, and clearly shows that human activity is causing warming.
Including the science that rejected core sample analysis in favor of simple tree ring analysis, which is a lot less accurate and less meaningful? That was important: by eliminating reliable data, we eliminated the medieval warm period 800 years ago that showed hotter global temperatures than we're experiencing now.
My cite for this particular instance is this particular piece of analysis, which cites 33 sources and gives a calm and rational analysis of the politics twisting the facts. There is plenty of debate over this even, with other sources bouncing around talking about how "some people claim statistical errors generated the Hockey Stick, but they're wrong" to so far as actually having citations to papers that support their points. The interesting part is that you can actually find enough respected scientific papers to prove that the bathtub curve AND the hockey stick are both correct, and thus prove both that the medieval warm period was hotter than temperatures today AND that it was barely any hotter than the past 500 years.
For clarity, that means somebody is fucking with the data.
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Why don't you look at what the science actually says instead of jumping to conclusions and ending up looking like a complete idiot?
So you reject AGW because you don't like what other people are doing with the facts?
Yes, on your part. Not on part of the actual scientists.
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