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We're Creating a Perfect Storm of Unprecedented Global Warming (popsci.com)
An anonymous reader shares a report: If we do nothing to reduce our carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions, by the end of this century the Earth will be as hot as it was 50 million years ago in the early Eocene, according to a new study out today in the journal Nature Communications. This period -- roughly 15 million years after dinosaurs went extinct and 49.8 million years before modern humans appeared on the scene -- was 16F to 25F warmer than the modern norm. [...] During the Eocene, it took more atmospheric CO2 to influence temperatures than it does today. In fact, if we don't change our behavior, 2100 will be as hot as the Eocene with much less atmospheric CO2 than was present at the time. A hotter sun means we get more bang for our CO2 buck. "Climate change denialists often mention that CO2 was high in the past, that it was warm in the past, so this means there's nothing to worry about," said lead study author Gavin Foster, a researcher in isotope geochemistry and paleoceanography at the United Kingdom's University of Southampton. "It's certainly true, that the CO2 was high in the past and that it was warm in the past. But because the sun was dimmer, the climate wasn't being forced as much [as it will be] in the future if we carry on as we are."
Some people say the sun rises in the East.
Other people say the sun rises in the West.
Which is right?
Or maybe the truth lies somewhere in between?
Teach the controversy!
Forget the real world.
Because real-world results don't matter.
What did your MODEL that hasn't successfully predicted sunrise direction for the last 15 years say?
And why have you been ignoring more accurate satellite-based measurements of the sunrise and selectively using only ground-based measurements that have been, errr, corrected from the original data?
We should deal with crisis in the order that they each threaten our extinction. Climate change is the first on the list in terms of immediacy. Later we can deal with other problems that are further out in time.
After climate change the next extinction level problem is the Y10K problem. When four digit years need to be expanded to five digit years. In about the year 9997, everyone will start talking about this problem. But I'll get a jump on this. In the year 9995 I will seriously start learning COBOL which is a skill that will offer many consulting opportunities for the Y10K problem.
I'll see your senator, and I'll raise you two judges.
From what I have read, CO2's warming is logarithmic. Most of the warming effect occurs in the first 40-60ppm. We're somewhere around 300-400ppm right now, depending on what study you're looking at.
So, whatever warming is going on is very unlikely to be strongly linked to CO2. Something else is going on. Focusing on CO2, and only CO2, is like trying to complete a puzzle with just one piece.
I wish I could trust "academic experts". I really do. But all my experiences with academia and academics have been very disappointing.
The first problem can be summed up with the old saying, "Those who can, do. Those who can't, teach. Those who can't teach, research.". That's exactly what we see in academia: those who couldn't cut it outside of academia with their bachelor's degree end up back in academic circles, often for the rest of their lives. Academia provides a safe playpen for those who were below the standards of the real world.
The second problem, which is somewhat related to the first, is that many academics are completely out of touch with reality, and full of, for a lack of a better term, total bullshit. My background is in computer systems design. When I hear industrial practitioners discuss this subject, what they have to say is relevant and interesting. But when academics discuss this subject, it's clear that they're off in a world of their own. For example, just look at all of the colleges that still teach UML, despite industry having tried it and rejected it almost two decades ago now.
The third problem is related to the second. There are entire academic fields that are nothing but bullshit from top to bottom. This should not surprise us. If you take many useless academics and collect them together you will obviously end up with entire fields that are useless. Most of the social "sciences", which have absolutely nothing to do with anything remotely like the scientific method, fall into this category.
The fourth problem is when you take all of the above and add money into the mix. That's when everything really goes to hell. This is a sure-fire way for even the sciences, which are generally among the least-inept of the academic subjects, to become highly politicized. It's no longer just about inept people doing inept research. Now it's about inept people doing inept research but always finding the "correct" results for politicians who need to legitimize otherwise illegitimate practices like carbon taxes and excessive and costly regulation.
So when such a flawed system provides results or information for my consideration, I have to take what they're saying with a very, very, very big spoonful of salt grains. None of it can be trusted, from the individual level all the way through to entire fields of study.
Hey now, let's be fair. These same flappy heads were claiming that Manhattan Island and Florida would be under water by 2000(when I was a kid in the 1980's), and again by 2010, then 2012, and the latest ones screaming it'll be by 2025, and then there's the ones saying 2060 and then there's the others saying by 2100 too. You also can't forget the other alarmist stuff, like acid rain will destroy all the trees by 1995. The ozone hole will make it so you can't go outside except at night. The world will run out of oil by 1985. And my personal favorite? The world will starve by 1976.
Om, nomnomnom...
It's just an argument that deniers make up to justify their selfishness and so they don't have to change a single thing about their lifestyle or lift a single fucking finger to help the planet, which in their arrogance and ego they think they are entitled to do with as they please because they're "human", like they somehow earned that status themselves.
So what is _your_ magic plan exactly?
Sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic.
And we had it too - a nuclear reactor that used up spent fuel from the old reactors and was easy to scale without weapons proliferation concerns. The US Labs had one running very well for a couple years ("thanks GHWB?" omg) until the project was attacked, defunded, then cancelled by the hit squad of: Hazel O'Leary, John Kerry, and Senate President ... Al Gore.
We should have had 1100 of these things running by now but we're talking about "bringing back coal" because politicians fuck everything up. Oh, but they want more money and power to "save us" from global warming.
If you want to stop AGW you either need to believe that this time Lucy will hold the ball for the field kick, or examine the empirical evidence and accept that as long as politicians are in charge, this problem will not be solved. The AGW crowd is chock-full of history deniers, unfortunately.
My God, it's Full of Source!
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