The warming trend started 20,000 years ago and lead to the end of the last glaciation about 10,000 years ago. Temperatures hit a peak during the Holocene optimum about 8,000 years ago and has generally been slowly declining since then, until recently that is.
It's not as simple as you'd like it to be. CO2 is only one factor in plant growth. Higher CO2 helps some plants (poison ivy comes to mind) grow but not others. But you still have to have water, ask the farmers in Texas about that, and appropriate soil.
No one who is alive today has to worry about the next ice age hitting (unless we invent immortality) as it's not scheduled to start for about 20,000 years and it takes 10,000 years or so for the change to happen.
No, but we have documented proof that both Europe and North America were experiencing a "mini ice age" as late at the mid-1800's, and that before the early 1700's (when the mini ice-age started) it was warmer than it is now.
Insightful my ass. It's at least as warm if not warmer now than it was during the Medieval Warm Period.
Greenland is loosing ice at a rate of over 100 Gigatonnes per year as measured by the GRACE gravimetric satellites. This page contains several references to peer reviewed papers on the subject.
No, there really is a consensus among climatologists. 0ver 97% of climatologists who are actively publishing on climate change and over 85% of climatologists in general agree that human influences are responsible for most of the global warming we are seeing (Doran 2009) [PDF].
Further, a single temperature measurement at a single place on the Earth doesn't give us a usable picture of the current state of the climate.
An average temperature for the Earth derived with a consistent methodology from a statistically valid spread of temperature stations over time does tell you something about the the Earths temperature is changing. It may not be correct in absolute terms but it is in relative terms and that's what matters.
Of course there is interest to be paid on the Social Security Trust Fund T-Bills. The average interest paid 2010 was 4.642%. For new SSTF T-Bills in 2010 the average rate was 2.76%. Read all about it here.
You're paying for them whether you like it or not. Something like 10-20% of what health care providers charge is to cover the costs of the people that can't or won't pay. The only way to eliminate that is to execute the freeloaders and even that costs money.
You can't directly measure the mean temperature of your whole body either. That doesn't mean the number you get from an oral or anal thermometer isn't useful.
That 1.4K is the effect of the CO2 alone. After you account for the feedbacks from that warming (more water vapor being the most prominent) the total is probably around 3K.
Look a little deeper. The guy who is complaining that the EPA is calling hay a pollutant is running a feedlot for cattle. The EPA may be going overboard in this situation but it didn't declare hay a pollutant. http://www.agweek.com/event/article/id/19061/
Yes, it's true that climate is always changing. But the temperature changes we are seeing now will happen in a couple of centuries rather than the several millenia that it would normally happen in making the natural world's adaption that much more difficult. The evidence from the past shows that when there has been rapid temperature changes there have been mass extinctions. The biodiversity of the world is one of our sources of natural wealth.
There are fanciful reasons to think that this trend will continue...
It worked out pretty well in the case of Moore's Law. Solar power is just another use of semiconductors. We'll see.
One problem with fossil fuels is that you don't pay the true cost of using them. How much does it cost in terms of health effects and pollution that don't get included in what you pay?
And it's just as much speculation if not more so that global warming will not be a worse place for humanity or the biosphere. Better the devil we know than the one we don't.
Is that 3% of GDP truly lost or is it just spent in different ways, enriching a different set of businesses? It's not being burned on a bonfire.
It's already cheaper to drive your car on electricity. I've heard it said a gallon of gas equivalent amount of electricity us under $2. Now we just need better battery technology which is coming. Some coal plant proposals were recently abandoned when it became apparent that solar PV power will likely be cheaper than coal around 2020.
Of course human activity is not the "SOLE" cause of global warming. But the science (based on the work of John Tyndall) says the increase in greenhouse gases (GHG's) in the atmosphere is the cause of most of the climate change that is occurring now and that humans are the source of most of that increase in GHG's. If we quit adding GHG's to the atmosphere it won't solve global warming, it will simply put a limit on how bad it gets. We put our entire civilization in jeopardy if global warming gets bad enough. Several economic analyses that I've seen say the cost isn't that great (like 3% of GDP/year) if we spread it out over a couple of decades. The longer we wait the more drastic will be the actions we take when we finally respond.
If you can prove how you voted then you can be pressured to prove it by a third party. Since you can prove how you voted it would be possible to sell your vote to the highest bidder.
I've been in computers for over 25 years (Sys & DB admin on VMS & Solaris mostly). The only way I would fully trust the software that was on a voting machine is if I personally vetted, compiled and loaded the software (including the OS). Even then you have to deal with the BIOS and other embedded software. Electronic voting is a solution looking for a problem. Fortunately in my state we have vote-by-mail so almost all ballots are on paper. There are a few DRE's at county elections offices for the sake of handicapped people who require them because of ADA. The ballots still get counted on ScanTron's which I wish they would audit a bit more but recounts of close elections almost never change the results.
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Well, actually we've probably already surpassed the warmth that occurred during the MWP. On to the Ice Shelves post :)
The warming trend started 20,000 years ago and lead to the end of the last glaciation about 10,000 years ago. Temperatures hit a peak during the Holocene optimum about 8,000 years ago and has generally been slowly declining since then, until recently that is.
It's not as simple as you'd like it to be. CO2 is only one factor in plant growth. Higher CO2 helps some plants (poison ivy comes to mind) grow but not others. But you still have to have water, ask the farmers in Texas about that, and appropriate soil.
No one who is alive today has to worry about the next ice age hitting (unless we invent immortality) as it's not scheduled to start for about 20,000 years and it takes 10,000 years or so for the change to happen.
No, but we have documented proof that both Europe and North America were experiencing a "mini ice age" as late at the mid-1800's, and that before the early 1700's (when the mini ice-age started) it was warmer than it is now.
Insightful my ass. It's at least as warm if not warmer now than it was during the Medieval Warm Period.
Greenland is loosing ice at a rate of over 100 Gigatonnes per year as measured by the GRACE gravimetric satellites. This page contains several references to peer reviewed papers on the subject.
Nice insightful comment there Jeremy.
No, there really is a consensus among climatologists. 0ver 97% of climatologists who are actively publishing on climate change and over 85% of climatologists in general agree that human influences are responsible for most of the global warming we are seeing (Doran 2009) [PDF].
Grrr... /the the/how the/
Further, a single temperature measurement at a single place on the Earth doesn't give us a usable picture of the current state of the climate.
An average temperature for the Earth derived with a consistent methodology from a statistically valid spread of temperature stations over time does tell you something about the the Earths temperature is changing. It may not be correct in absolute terms but it is in relative terms and that's what matters.
No, if the cost is truly several times what your mother(s) makes they will be subsidized to make it affordable.
Of course there is interest to be paid on the Social Security Trust Fund T-Bills. The average interest paid 2010 was 4.642%. For new SSTF T-Bills in 2010 the average rate was 2.76%. Read all about it here.
You're paying for them whether you like it or not. Something like 10-20% of what health care providers charge is to cover the costs of the people that can't or won't pay. The only way to eliminate that is to execute the freeloaders and even that costs money.
I see your point as well, but at least it's out in the open.
You can't directly measure the mean temperature of your whole body either. That doesn't mean the number you get from an oral or anal thermometer isn't useful.
That 1.4K is the effect of the CO2 alone. After you account for the feedbacks from that warming (more water vapor being the most prominent) the total is probably around 3K.
There were a lot of ridiculous papers written 150 years ago.
There has been enough work in the field done in the ensuing 150 years that if Tyndall's paper was ridiculous we would know it now.
No, it's not likely that a warmer world will cause more harm than benefit to humanity or the biosphere as a whole.
That's just pure speculation on your part since the current biota has never had to deal with a climate like we will have in 2100.
Look a little deeper. The guy who is complaining that the EPA is calling hay a pollutant is running a feedlot for cattle. The EPA may be going overboard in this situation but it didn't declare hay a pollutant. http://www.agweek.com/event/article/id/19061/
Yes, it's true that climate is always changing. But the temperature changes we are seeing now will happen in a couple of centuries rather than the several millenia that it would normally happen in making the natural world's adaption that much more difficult. The evidence from the past shows that when there has been rapid temperature changes there have been mass extinctions. The biodiversity of the world is one of our sources of natural wealth.
There are fanciful reasons to think that this trend will continue ...
It worked out pretty well in the case of Moore's Law. Solar power is just another use of semiconductors. We'll see.
One problem with fossil fuels is that you don't pay the true cost of using them. How much does it cost in terms of health effects and pollution that don't get included in what you pay?
And it's just as much speculation if not more so that global warming will not be a worse place for humanity or the biosphere. Better the devil we know than the one we don't.
Is that 3% of GDP truly lost or is it just spent in different ways, enriching a different set of businesses? It's not being burned on a bonfire.
It's already cheaper to drive your car on electricity. I've heard it said a gallon of gas equivalent amount of electricity us under $2. Now we just need better battery technology which is coming. Some coal plant proposals were recently abandoned when it became apparent that solar PV power will likely be cheaper than coal around 2020.
Of course human activity is not the "SOLE" cause of global warming. But the science (based on the work of John Tyndall) says the increase in greenhouse gases (GHG's) in the atmosphere is the cause of most of the climate change that is occurring now and that humans are the source of most of that increase in GHG's. If we quit adding GHG's to the atmosphere it won't solve global warming, it will simply put a limit on how bad it gets. We put our entire civilization in jeopardy if global warming gets bad enough. Several economic analyses that I've seen say the cost isn't that great (like 3% of GDP/year) if we spread it out over a couple of decades. The longer we wait the more drastic will be the actions we take when we finally respond.
If you can prove how you voted then you can be pressured to prove it by a third party. Since you can prove how you voted it would be possible to sell your vote to the highest bidder.
I've been in computers for over 25 years (Sys & DB admin on VMS & Solaris mostly). The only way I would fully trust the software that was on a voting machine is if I personally vetted, compiled and loaded the software (including the OS). Even then you have to deal with the BIOS and other embedded software. Electronic voting is a solution looking for a problem. Fortunately in my state we have vote-by-mail so almost all ballots are on paper. There are a few DRE's at county elections offices for the sake of handicapped people who require them because of ADA. The ballots still get counted on ScanTron's which I wish they would audit a bit more but recounts of close elections almost never change the results.