There is plenty of evidence that human activity is to blame, you just choose to ignore it.
Early in the Earth's history the Sun was only about 70% as strong as it is now (that works out to a 1% increase every 150 million years). So even though CO2 levels may have been higher they are partially balanced out by a cooler Sun. Life is adapted to the climate it forms and lives in. If the climate changes significantly it may take a long time (on human time scales) for it to readapt. Meanwhile there may be chaos.
And yet temperature are still within the margin of error of the GCM's projections. It might benefit you to read these FAQ's on GCM's so you understand how they work better.
Either way, I don't really give a fuck. I'll be dead before any of it matters.
Don't count on that if you're going to live for more than a decade more. It's already probably a factor in rising food prices and the cost of extreme weather events.
That's a good way to describe it. Climate is the sum total of weather over a period of time and weather varies around the mean climate. If the the center of the weather bell curve shifts that means climate has changed.
In fact, Earth has been warming for 10,000 years since the last ice age.
I see this stated all the time but it's not true. Temperatures reached a peak during the Holocene Climatic Optimum about 8,000 years ago and have gnerally been slowly declining since then.
Oh please, humans can do practically nothing to affect the humidity (water vapor level) of the atmosphere. The planet is 75% covered by water, a ready source of humidity. Any excess humidity we add quickly* precipitates out to rebalance the level, any humidity we remove will be replaced quickly from the vast sources of water. Temperature is the primary controller of humidity and water vapor levels in the atmosphere.
*By quickly I mean in a matter of days, maybe a week or two.
Hurricane + flood + drought + tornado + superultramegastorm Sandy + record high temperature at a given location + record low temperature at a given location + all of the other weather in between taken over a long enough time period = climate.by definition. How they change over time in number, length and strength is an indication of climate change.
The most current research I know of on the effects of cloud cover on global warming says clouds most likely have a slightly positive effect on it. The uncertainty ranges from moderately positive to slightly negative but strongly negative is probably out of the picture.
Bwahahahaha! Nuclear power is anything but cheap. The reason more nuclear power plants haven't been built has far more to do with the fact that it's cheaper and faster to build a coal power plant (and now natural gas) than because of environmentalist's opposition. Wind and solar are cheaper or well on the way to becoming cheaper too.
I notice your graph ends in 1950 and so doesn't cover the last 60+ years where nearly all of the human cause warming has occurred. I suspect the originator of the graph you're using, Richard Alley would say you are misusing it to try and say something it doesn't say.
One thing that's readily apparent and not disputed is that our planet's temperature takes wild swings.
The issue isn't so much the temperature change but the rate of change. The slopes on the temperature graphs on that paleoclimatology page may look steep but they look that way because of compression of the time scale. We may be causing a temperature change to happen in 200 years that takes 10,000 years to happen naturally. The natural systems of Earth's life are probably not well adapted to that rate of change and we'll likely pay for causing it. I agree with you that a lot of people will die before this settles out.
That depends on the source of your CO2. If they condense it out of the atmosphere then it's carbon neutral. Naturally carbonated beverages like beer and champagne are carbon neutral because the CO2 is a result of the metabolism of yeast burning sugars from natural ingredients. But apparently most industrial production of CO2 is as a byproduct of ammonia and hydrogen production which uses natural gas as a feedstock so the CO2 in your soda is probably not carbon neutral. But it's such a small amount compared to other sources that it's pretty low on the scale of things to worry about.
The CO2 emitted by burning tobacco is from carbon that is already in the carbon cycle so it doesn't cause a net increase, just changes the location of it from some plant material to the atmosphere. The next crop of tobacco will reabsorb an equivalent amount of CO2 and the cycle goes on. Same thing for the CO2 you exhale, it comes from the plant and animal materials your body burns to run your metabolism. It's the carbon we dig up and put back into the active carbon cycle that's been sequestered for millions of years that is causing the problem.
Right now man's emissions of CO2 are over twice as high as the year to year increase in CO2 in the atmosphere. It doesn't matter how much CO2 is released naturally because it's all part of the carbon cycle and more or less all of that naturally released CO2 gets reabsorbed every year. The primary source of additional carbon in the carbon cycle is human emissions.
So I looked through that World Bank report and I fail to find where is says "doing enough to slow that by 2 degrees could consume almost our entire GDP". I searched for "dollars", "$", "GDP" and "gross" and none of the sections I found said anything like that. Perhaps you could enlighten us.
It's true that the warming from a doubling of CO2 alone is around 1.6C but that ignores the feedbacks you get, particularly from the increase in water vapor that that 1.6C of warming causes. The full rise of temperature from a doubling of CO2 including feedbacks is thought to be a bit over 3C.
I always thought Lovelock was over the top. Now he's come back to reality. But for him to say "The problem is we don't know what the climate is doing." is probably just as wrong as his previous position. But Lovelock is not a climate scientist. A real climate scientist would say that 12 years is not enough time to change a long term trend.
I don't give a damn if the solutions are left wing or right wing. I just care if they work. What solutions would you propose from a right wing POV? If you reject climate science because you perceive the only answers to the problems it presents are what you consider left wing then you're doing it wrong. Don't put the cart before the horse.
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There is plenty of evidence that human activity is to blame, you just choose to ignore it.
Early in the Earth's history the Sun was only about 70% as strong as it is now (that works out to a 1% increase every 150 million years). So even though CO2 levels may have been higher they are partially balanced out by a cooler Sun. Life is adapted to the climate it forms and lives in. If the climate changes significantly it may take a long time (on human time scales) for it to readapt. Meanwhile there may be chaos.
And yet temperature are still within the margin of error of the GCM's projections. It might benefit you to read these FAQ's on GCM's so you understand how they work better.
http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2008/11/faq-on-climate-models/
http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2009/01/faq-on-climate-models-part-ii/
What does "EVENLY" have to do with it. Just because the planet isn't warming evenly doesn't mean it's warming randomly.
Either way, I don't really give a fuck. I'll be dead before any of it matters.
Don't count on that if you're going to live for more than a decade more. It's already probably a factor in rising food prices and the cost of extreme weather events.
That's a good way to describe it. Climate is the sum total of weather over a period of time and weather varies around the mean climate. If the the center of the weather bell curve shifts that means climate has changed.
In fact, Earth has been warming for 10,000 years since the last ice age.
I see this stated all the time but it's not true. Temperatures reached a peak during the Holocene Climatic Optimum about 8,000 years ago and have gnerally been slowly declining since then.
Oh please, humans can do practically nothing to affect the humidity (water vapor level) of the atmosphere. The planet is 75% covered by water, a ready source of humidity. Any excess humidity we add quickly* precipitates out to rebalance the level, any humidity we remove will be replaced quickly from the vast sources of water. Temperature is the primary controller of humidity and water vapor levels in the atmosphere.
*By quickly I mean in a matter of days, maybe a week or two.
Hurricane + flood + drought + tornado + superultramegastorm Sandy + record high temperature at a given location + record low temperature at a given location + all of the other weather in between taken over a long enough time period = climate.by definition. How they change over time in number, length and strength is an indication of climate change.
Except that we are burning the equivalent of hundreds or thousands of years of tree growth in fossil fuels every year.
The most current research I know of on the effects of cloud cover on global warming says clouds most likely have a slightly positive effect on it. The uncertainty ranges from moderately positive to slightly negative but strongly negative is probably out of the picture.
Um... I think you meant the Gulf Stream. The jet stream moves all over the place.
Nuclear power has been shown to be cheap ...
Bwahahahaha! Nuclear power is anything but cheap. The reason more nuclear power plants haven't been built has far more to do with the fact that it's cheaper and faster to build a coal power plant (and now natural gas) than because of environmentalist's opposition. Wind and solar are cheaper or well on the way to becoming cheaper too.
I notice your graph ends in 1950 and so doesn't cover the last 60+ years where nearly all of the human cause warming has occurred. I suspect the originator of the graph you're using, Richard Alley would say you are misusing it to try and say something it doesn't say.
I hope you're referring to the 1780's and 1790's.
One thing that's readily apparent and not disputed is that our planet's temperature takes wild swings.
The issue isn't so much the temperature change but the rate of change. The slopes on the temperature graphs on that paleoclimatology page may look steep but they look that way because of compression of the time scale. We may be causing a temperature change to happen in 200 years that takes 10,000 years to happen naturally. The natural systems of Earth's life are probably not well adapted to that rate of change and we'll likely pay for causing it. I agree with you that a lot of people will die before this settles out.
That depends on the source of your CO2. If they condense it out of the atmosphere then it's carbon neutral. Naturally carbonated beverages like beer and champagne are carbon neutral because the CO2 is a result of the metabolism of yeast burning sugars from natural ingredients. But apparently most industrial production of CO2 is as a byproduct of ammonia and hydrogen production which uses natural gas as a feedstock so the CO2 in your soda is probably not carbon neutral. But it's such a small amount compared to other sources that it's pretty low on the scale of things to worry about.
The CO2 emitted by burning tobacco is from carbon that is already in the carbon cycle so it doesn't cause a net increase, just changes the location of it from some plant material to the atmosphere. The next crop of tobacco will reabsorb an equivalent amount of CO2 and the cycle goes on. Same thing for the CO2 you exhale, it comes from the plant and animal materials your body burns to run your metabolism. It's the carbon we dig up and put back into the active carbon cycle that's been sequestered for millions of years that is causing the problem.
Your Holocene Periods graph only covers to 1950.
Right now man's emissions of CO2 are over twice as high as the year to year increase in CO2 in the atmosphere. It doesn't matter how much CO2 is released naturally because it's all part of the carbon cycle and more or less all of that naturally released CO2 gets reabsorbed every year. The primary source of additional carbon in the carbon cycle is human emissions.
So I looked through that World Bank report and I fail to find where is says "doing enough to slow that by 2 degrees could consume almost our entire GDP". I searched for "dollars", "$", "GDP" and "gross" and none of the sections I found said anything like that. Perhaps you could enlighten us.
It's true that the warming from a doubling of CO2 alone is around 1.6C but that ignores the feedbacks you get, particularly from the increase in water vapor that that 1.6C of warming causes. The full rise of temperature from a doubling of CO2 including feedbacks is thought to be a bit over 3C.
I always thought Lovelock was over the top. Now he's come back to reality. But for him to say "The problem is we don't know what the climate is doing." is probably just as wrong as his previous position. But Lovelock is not a climate scientist. A real climate scientist would say that 12 years is not enough time to change a long term trend.
Perhaps you could point to the research that says 0 BCE was way warmer than it is now so we can judge it for ourselves.
I don't give a damn if the solutions are left wing or right wing. I just care if they work. What solutions would you propose from a right wing POV? If you reject climate science because you perceive the only answers to the problems it presents are what you consider left wing then you're doing it wrong. Don't put the cart before the horse.
Well played. While I don't think that describes climate scientists in any way I laughed when I read it.