Let's see what we have here, viewed from an open standards/FOSS perspective, from someone with no prior knowledge of anyone in the group:
Technology Working Group:
Chair, Charles SteelFisher, New Media Director, Deval Patrick Committee Creative director at ALIPES CME. Original Flash site that takes a few minutes to figure out what the hell is going on. I like it and hate it all at once. Wife(?) is director of Strategy at Cogent Research. Verdict: Not promising, but who knows.
Chair, Richard Rowe, CEO, Rowe Communications Not a lot of info there! More info in the bio here. Looks like an interesting guy. "He is the author of numerous articles and frequent speaker on the impact of digitization and the internet upon society with a particular focus on access to and preservation of academic, scientific, technical and medical knowledge." That could go either way, but sounds good.
Brian Burke, Microsoft For what it's worth, this is a broad technology working group (not just on, say, standards), so I don't think it's insane to have MS at the table. But there are software companies with deeper MA roots...
John Cullinane, Principal, The Cullinane Group Was a trailblazer in the proprietary software industry (a href='http://www.softwarehistory.org/history/culli nane.html'>Cullinane Corp), which is kinda sorta threatened by FOSS. That said, who knows where his head is at today.
Louis Gutierrez, former State CIO and Director of ITD Former as in about a month ago. He's our man!
Keith Parent, CEO, Court Square Let's see, found here that they have "Extensive experience with Wintel, Unix, Citrix and Linux platforms" and "Successful migration projects include; VMS to NT, NT to Unix, NT to Linux." Sounds reasonably OK to me, though a little dated!
David Lewis, Private Consultant I presume this is him. On the board at the Mass Tech Dev Corp, and has done a lot of state IT work, so he's certainly relevant. Can't find anything about him re: ODF.
Larry Weber, Chairman, W2 Group This talk suggests that Larry "gets it", but I haven't listened to it yet. IT Conversations is awesome, by the way. find the Clayton Christensen talk on open source. Here it is.
All told, as someone sympathetic to FOSS, who thinks FOSS is good for most businesses, I find this group to be well qualified, and apparently with a diverse set of viewpoints on standards and such. Diversity is good. I'll be watching this group as closely as I can.
Democrats aren't often on the Free side of things. Think Hollywood- it has many liberals who think their livelihoods depend on DRM.
That said, I have a lot of hope for the Deval administration. My wife and I actively supported his candidacy from early on; he's one of those rare leaders who is actually inpsiring. That said, I am a little worried about his ability to follow through as an effective administrator. We will see.
If the model were making valid predictions (the same model, that is), you could parade an endless list: our model predicted this climate change in this region, and this increase this this kind of weather activity. No, not the past. I mean, predict it *now* and see if it bears out in the future. But obviously, you aren't getting that, or it would be used ad infinitum to shut up global warming skeptics.
These guys are legitimate. I'm quite sure their client list includes big oil, coal, etc, but their business is selling information to these companies, not shilling for them. The energy companies have plenty of alternatives for that.
That's not to say that CERA is right, but they certainly are worth paying attention to.
You seem to think the whole world is a very reasonable and honest place. I'm sorry to break it to you, but that just isn't so. Thanks for the newsflash, kid. Your conclusion seems to be that there is no hope for nations to cooperate, ever, because not everyone is 100% honest and reasonable. Bullshit.
India has a shitload of people who would be threatened by sea level rise. China has atrocious air quality, and at some point their citizens are going to be pissed about their kids dying from asthma (increased wealth leads to people caring about these things- see: US, Clean Air Act). Keep in mind China has a wee problem with civil uprisings already.
You are asking me to provide The Solution. I'm not that smart. But if you have a global carbon emissions cap and trade system, for instance, who benefits? Perhaps those countries with, say, low-cost labor that can crank out solar panels at $0.50 per Watt? Whom might that be? And would it be advantageous to have an agreement that stimulates global demand for such products?
The point is, it's conceivable to have a framework that are potentially beneficial for these countries, and not overly injurious to us.
Your powers of recall appear weak. Canada says it remains in Kyoto climate pact, posted 12 hours ago. Australia didn't follow through because the US didn't. Sure, Canada's waffling and having a hard time. But that doesn't exactly excuse the US for failing to offer any constructive alternatives to the (admittedly flawed) Kyoto protocol.
In the CO2 game, compared to our peers in Europe, we are the bad guy, if you think CO2 is a problem. If you don't, we're frickin heroes. I am rightly critical of the US when our leaders do not act in a fashion that is consistent with our country's greatness. I criticize not because I hate my country, but because I love what it stands for.
Do you remember the Non-Proliferation Treaty? It was created at the height of the Cold War. I would submit that the world is collectively much, much better off than if this treaty had never come into place. Sure, you have Iran and North Korea, and we have to deal with that.
And how about the Montreal Protocol on CFCs? Did we have to go to war over that one? Or did countries see a mutual problem and actually agree to do something? Did the switch to CFC alternatives lead to massive economic upheaval?
War (used to) require an immediate threat. No one (myself included) is going to send their kid to die invading another country to reduce their CO2 emissions. The threat is too vague. Like CFCs, it'll have to happen through diplomacy.
Here's an interesting exercise: replace "India" everywhere in your post with "the U.S.", and you'd basically have the status quo. If anyone is getting invaded over global warming, it'd be us. Except no one else is really into invading right now. You may not have noticed, but the U.S. is a teensy bit behind the rest of the developed world on this issue. And we're the ones accusing others of plotting to tear us down by saddling us with emissions restrictions. You've actually captured the situation quite nicely, but in reverse.
it's useless unless we can convince ALL countries to do something about it. I don't see any way of achieving that short of war.
There was a time, ancient history now, when nations employed something called- wait for it- diplomacy. You seem fixated on some sort of war on global warming. Frankly, I think that idea is, pardon me, retarded.
You are mixing up a lot of issues. India and China have less oil than the U.S., so they will have similar geopolitical motivations to move away from it. Interestingly, the US, India, and China all have a buttload of coal; what will be necessary is to strike a deal on using that, or at least sequestering the CO2. Sequestering carbon will probably increase generating costs by 20% or so (that's the number I recall). Factor in distribution costs and you're looking at a 10% increase at the outlet of the cost of electricity. Not insignificant but not exactly catastrophic. Transportation is more challenging but still feasible. Let GreenFuel get their technology mature and use the CO2 from the coal plants to make biodiesel. I don't know what the technology will be, but the point is it's not that hard to do. But right now utilities, oil companies, etc. don't have the incentives to do jack. We do need global consensus, (and yes, it's OK if North Korea and friends don't play), and that isn't easy. But to oversimplify, it really comes down to the US, China, India, and Russia. That's where most of the coal is. Oil will more or less take care of itself through the price of scarcity and where it's located. Natural gas is a low carbon/unit energy fuel, so we don't need to worry about it so much either. If we figure out how to mine the methane hydrate deposits, though, all bets are off!
Okay, we are getting somewhere. The oceans aren't currently a net source of CO2, they are a net sink. In the ocean the extra CO2 forms carbonic acid and dissolves limestone. And this might be a problem for calcifying organisms because... anyone? anyone?
Ok, you kinda sorta have a point. You demonstrated that CO2 has lagged temperature historically, but do not provide a case that demonstrates that the current CO2 pattern (past 150+ years) is a response to the temperature trend. That's what I was (implicitly, I suppose) focusing on. Do you have anything on that? Where's the extra CO2 coming from now?
AARGHHH. There is a TON of research on this stuff. Readers of./: I know how this place works (post before thinking), but this is ridiculous. Why speculate when basic facts are a Google away? Start here.
And now onto policy. Uncertainty yields inaction. That's quite a gamble. What happens if you wait too long?
That's a nice strawman, that we have to go to war to reduce CO2 emissions. It's especially funny that you talk about turning 'global politics upside down', like the status quo hasn't had any of that (see: Middle East oil). The cost of (low carbon) energy independence, fully accounted, might not be so high.
I agree that China and India are huge factors in the CO2 game. Especially considering their economic growth and coal reserves. Kyoto doesn't cut it. Agreed. One interesting issue here is fairness. In the U.S. we've generated a lot of wealth by burning fossil fuels; hardly seems fair to make the rest of the world cap their emissions at a fraction of our per capita emissions. But that's a challenge, not a deal-killer.
I would submit that we can address our CO2 problems without "massive global economic disruption," but that's another debate for another time. I need to ride my bike home and play with my kids.
The oceans are not saturated with CO2, buddy. The oceans were roughly at equilibrium with the atmosphere before atmospheric CO2 increased. The driving force is into the ocean. People actually measure this stuff. Find me valid research that shows a global (not regional- global) net flux of CO2 from the ocean to the atmosphere and I'll buy you beer for a year.
Prior to the Industrial Revolution, the annual uptake and release of carbon dioxide by the land and the ocean had been on average just about balanced. In more recent history, atmospheric concentrations have increased by 80 ppm (parts per million) over the past 150 years. However, only about half of the carbon released through fossil fuel combustion in this time has remained in the atmosphere, the rest being sequestered the ocean
Evidence for solar output as a driver for current warming is weak (but at least plausible). Please stop the idle speculation; there is a rich body of knowledge here.
I did write my M.S. thesis on oceanic carbonate chemistry, so you'll have to do better than 'If water gets warmer, it absorbs less CO2.'. Yes, solubility decreases with temperature, but that's a completely irrelevant factoid.
Most of what you say is true. Up to the "and not vice-versa" part. Bzzzt! Faulty logic! The first part of your statement is true (CO2 can lag temperature changes), but you present nothing to prove the vice-versa (CO2 can't be a driver) part.
Sure, in the past CO2 has lagged temperature. However, that doesn't mean that it hasn't sustained climate changes as a positive feedback. What it does mean is that CO2 has often not been the driver for climate change events. Until now.
CO2 acts as a greenhouse gas. This is basic physics. What's not so basic are all of the other feedbacks, positive and negative- water vapor, ice cover, and so forth. That's where the action is. Let's talk about that. But to get caught up talking about whether we are responsible for increases in CO2, and whether or not CO2 is a greenhouse gas, is just a colossal waste of time. It's basic frickin physics and chemistry. It's the fluid dynamics that makes everything so hard to resolve.
To recap:
Climate varies naturally. That doesn't mean it can't be affected unnaturally. Historically, CO2 concentrations have lagged temperature changes (b/c yes, Virginia, there are other factors that affect climate). That does not disprove that you can drive climate change with CO2; it just hasn't been tried often. All else equal, higher CO2 = higher temperatures. Basic physics. The problem is the all else equal part.
Humans are trying an interesting experiment. What happens if we try to force climate change with CO2?
Why does everyone here think that they are smarter than climate scientists?
Yes, correlation does not prove causality in the absence of plausible scientific theory linking the two.
We're talking about a simple mass balance here. Sources, sinks, and reservoirs. The theory fits the data (Increased anthropogenic CO2 leads to increased atmospheric concentrations of CO2). No other theory comes close (don't even try to start with volcanos). What else do you frickin want?
Man is causing the increase in atmospheric CO2 concentrations. I don't know of any alternative hypotheses that come close to fitting the data. There are large carbon natural fluxes and we've tipped the balance.
OK, climate sensitivity is something worth talking about. I'll bet you my house the sensitivity is closer to 5 degrees than.005 degrees if we go 3x baseline CO2 (closer on a log scale that is). If we could gain high confidence that the impact would be more like.005 degrees than yeah, you can rest your case, but we aren't exactly there yet. Of course, we'd still have to worry about acidification of the oceans (guess where a lot of the excess CO2 goes [CO2 + H2 = HCO3- + H+]), but that's another story.
So, to recap:
Increased CO2 concentrations: Our fault. I'll bet my wife and 1st born. Increased CO2 concentration leads to higher temperatures: Yup. I'll throw in kids 2 and 3. Climate sensitivity to 3x CO2 is Y degrees: There's pretty good science here, but there's room to haggle. I'll throw in my two cars and road bike that we need to be worried. Impact of the sun: Obviously a factor, but if there's a smoking gun tying temperature to solar output this century, I sure haven't seen it. Here's a RealClimate article on the subject. Ocean acidification: Definitely happening; this is basic chemistry. Severity of impact not well known, but think "Alka Seltzer'
Ok, so I'll have to repeat my standard response to stuff like this.
I love this logic:
1. The climate has always been variable. 1a. The climate is variable on other planets. 2. Therefore, man is not having an impact on today's climate!
QED, right?
Here's an exercise: Explain to me how increased levels of CO2 (which are rising due to humans- I challenge you to find an alternative explanation that has not been debunked from here to Shanghai and back), which Arrhenius demonstrated over 100 years ago [nasa.gov] could cause climate change, can't possibly be causing climate change?
Hey, climate science is uncertain, and questioning the current consensus is great. But if you are going to do so, please find a coherent argument why the current thinking is incorrect (again, please stick to the stuff that hasn't been shown to be wrong 100x over). So please go read RealClimate, debunk them (you have to do better than the M&M side show), and then we can have a conversation.
Talk about pseudo-scientific gibberish. Good frickin lord. What's your alternative hypothesis for the relationship between human emissions and atmospheric concentrations? Yes, there's a lot of natural carbon flux going both ways. But we've tipped the balance. No one with more than three neurons firing debates this. There are plenty of things about global warming to debate; please for everyone's sake find a topic that's not so obviously wrong and easily disproved.
1. The climate has always been variable. 2. Therefore, man is not having an impact on today's climate!
QED, right?
Here's an exercise: Explain to me how increased levels of CO2 (which are rising due to humans- I challenge you to find an explanation that has not been debunked from here to Shanghai and back), which Arrhenius demonstrated over 100 years ago could cause climate change, can't possibly be causing climate change?
Hey, climate science is uncertain, and questioning it's results are fine. But if you are going to do so, please find a coherent argument why the current thinking is incorrect (again, please stick to the stuff that hasn't been shown to be wrong 100x over). So please go read RealClimate, debunk them, and then we can talk. Debating from ignorance is... ignorant.
PS I think this proposed solution, like most geo-engineering quick fixes, is f-ing nuts. For starters, it doesn't exactly have an 'Undo' button.
PPS Let's forget about climate change. How does changing the pH of the ocean by half a point grab you? We're doing that, too (the excess CO2 is going into the oceans), and we don't really know what the impact will be, b/c it'll reflect conditions the oceans haven't seen in a loooong time (and I'm not talking 1000 years. If memory serves, it's been several hundred thousand to millions of years. We do know that calcifying species will likely not be so happy, which some might argue is a problem. But hey, we couldn't possibly harm the planet, could we?
I'd like to pay for an election whose results I can be confident in, please?
BTW thank you for participating in the process. I am frightened about the state of elections in this country, but recognize that it's not the fault of you or the other poll workers. It's the fault of those who design the processes and select the equipment (and the suppliers of said equipment).
Slashdot Mirror
Let's see what we have here, viewed from an open standards/FOSS perspective, from someone with no prior knowledge of anyone in the group:
i nane.html'>Cullinane Corp), which is kinda sorta threatened by FOSS. That said, who knows where his head is at today.
Technology Working Group:
Chair, Charles SteelFisher, New Media Director, Deval Patrick Committee
Creative director at ALIPES CME. Original Flash site that takes a few minutes to figure out what the hell is going on. I like it and hate it all at once. Wife(?) is director of Strategy at Cogent Research. Verdict: Not promising, but who knows.
Chair, Richard Rowe, CEO, Rowe Communications
Not a lot of info there!
More info in the bio here. Looks like an interesting guy. "He is the author of numerous articles and frequent speaker on the impact of digitization and the internet upon society with a particular focus on access to and preservation of academic, scientific, technical and medical knowledge." That could go either way, but sounds good.
Brian Burke, Microsoft
For what it's worth, this is a broad technology working group (not just on, say, standards), so I don't think it's insane to have MS at the table. But there are software companies with deeper MA roots...
John Cullinane, Principal, The Cullinane Group
Was a trailblazer in the proprietary software industry (a href='http://www.softwarehistory.org/history/cull
Louis Gutierrez, former State CIO and Director of ITD
Former as in about a month ago. He's our man!
Keith Parent, CEO, Court Square
Let's see, found here that they have "Extensive experience with Wintel, Unix, Citrix and Linux platforms" and "Successful migration projects include; VMS to NT, NT to Unix, NT to Linux." Sounds reasonably OK to me, though a little dated!
David Lewis, Private Consultant
I presume this is him. On the board at the Mass Tech Dev Corp, and has done a lot of state IT work, so he's certainly relevant. Can't find anything about him re: ODF.
Larry Weber, Chairman, W2 Group
This talk suggests that Larry "gets it", but I haven't listened to it yet. IT Conversations is awesome, by the way. find the Clayton Christensen talk on open source. Here it is.
All told, as someone sympathetic to FOSS, who thinks FOSS is good for most businesses, I find this group to be well qualified, and apparently with a diverse set of viewpoints on standards and such. Diversity is good. I'll be watching this group as closely as I can.
Democrats aren't often on the Free side of things. Think Hollywood- it has many liberals who think their livelihoods depend on DRM.
That said, I have a lot of hope for the Deval administration. My wife and I actively supported his candidacy from early on; he's one of those rare leaders who is actually inpsiring. That said, I am a little worried about his ability to follow through as an effective administrator. We will see.
Remember, these are the same guys who predicted that the earth was going into another ice age in the 1970s
You blew your cover right there. This is a standard skeptic line that is false and has been debunked.
If the model were making valid predictions (the same model, that is), you could parade an endless list: our model predicted this climate change in this region, and this increase this this kind of weather activity. No, not the past. I mean, predict it *now* and see if it bears out in the future. But obviously, you aren't getting that, or it would be used ad infinitum to shut up global warming skeptics.
Or, you could make accurate predictions, and some skeptics might claim (i.e. lie) that you didn't.
Well done, well done. Especially #7.
Here's a prediction that was correct, even though skeptics like to lie about it.
Others have taken a stab at the red herrings in the parent already...
Here, here. While funding sources can be a useful indicator of bias, ultimately it's the quality and transparency of the work that counts.
These guys are legitimate. I'm quite sure their client list includes big oil, coal, etc, but their business is selling information to these companies, not shilling for them. The energy companies have plenty of alternatives for that.
That's not to say that CERA is right, but they certainly are worth paying attention to.
You seem to think the whole world is a very reasonable and honest place. I'm sorry to break it to you, but that just isn't so.
Thanks for the newsflash, kid. Your conclusion seems to be that there is no hope for nations to cooperate, ever, because not everyone is 100% honest and reasonable. Bullshit.
India has a shitload of people who would be threatened by sea level rise. China has atrocious air quality, and at some point their citizens are going to be pissed about their kids dying from asthma (increased wealth leads to people caring about these things- see: US, Clean Air Act). Keep in mind China has a wee problem with civil uprisings already.
You are asking me to provide The Solution. I'm not that smart. But if you have a global carbon emissions cap and trade system, for instance, who benefits? Perhaps those countries with, say, low-cost labor that can crank out solar panels at $0.50 per Watt? Whom might that be? And would it be advantageous to have an agreement that stimulates global demand for such products?
The point is, it's conceivable to have a framework that are potentially beneficial for these countries, and not overly injurious to us.
Your powers of recall appear weak. Canada says it remains in Kyoto climate pact, posted 12 hours ago. Australia didn't follow through because the US didn't. Sure, Canada's waffling and having a hard time. But that doesn't exactly excuse the US for failing to offer any constructive alternatives to the (admittedly flawed) Kyoto protocol.
In the CO2 game, compared to our peers in Europe, we are the bad guy, if you think CO2 is a problem. If you don't, we're frickin heroes. I am rightly critical of the US when our leaders do not act in a fashion that is consistent with our country's greatness. I criticize not because I hate my country, but because I love what it stands for.
Do you remember the Non-Proliferation Treaty? It was created at the height of the Cold War. I would submit that the world is collectively much, much better off than if this treaty had never come into place. Sure, you have Iran and North Korea, and we have to deal with that.
And how about the Montreal Protocol on CFCs? Did we have to go to war over that one? Or did countries see a mutual problem and actually agree to do something? Did the switch to CFC alternatives lead to massive economic upheaval?
War (used to) require an immediate threat. No one (myself included) is going to send their kid to die invading another country to reduce their CO2 emissions. The threat is too vague. Like CFCs, it'll have to happen through diplomacy.
Anyway, I'm done here. Good luck.
Hey man,
Here's an interesting exercise: replace "India" everywhere in your post with "the U.S.", and you'd basically have the status quo. If anyone is getting invaded over global warming, it'd be us. Except no one else is really into invading right now. You may not have noticed, but the U.S. is a teensy bit behind the rest of the developed world on this issue. And we're the ones accusing others of plotting to tear us down by saddling us with emissions restrictions. You've actually captured the situation quite nicely, but in reverse.
it's useless unless we can convince ALL countries to do something about it. I don't see any way of achieving that short of war.
There was a time, ancient history now, when nations employed something called- wait for it- diplomacy. You seem fixated on some sort of war on global warming. Frankly, I think that idea is, pardon me, retarded.
You are mixing up a lot of issues. India and China have less oil than the U.S., so they will have similar geopolitical motivations to move away from it. Interestingly, the US, India, and China all have a buttload of coal; what will be necessary is to strike a deal on using that, or at least sequestering the CO2. Sequestering carbon will probably increase generating costs by 20% or so (that's the number I recall). Factor in distribution costs and you're looking at a 10% increase at the outlet of the cost of electricity. Not insignificant but not exactly catastrophic. Transportation is more challenging but still feasible. Let GreenFuel get their technology mature and use the CO2 from the coal plants to make biodiesel. I don't know what the technology will be, but the point is it's not that hard to do. But right now utilities, oil companies, etc. don't have the incentives to do jack. We do need global consensus, (and yes, it's OK if North Korea and friends don't play), and that isn't easy. But to oversimplify, it really comes down to the US, China, India, and Russia. That's where most of the coal is. Oil will more or less take care of itself through the price of scarcity and where it's located. Natural gas is a low carbon/unit energy fuel, so we don't need to worry about it so much either. If we figure out how to mine the methane hydrate deposits, though, all bets are off!
Okay, we are getting somewhere. The oceans aren't currently a net source of CO2, they are a net sink. In the ocean the extra CO2 forms carbonic acid and dissolves limestone. And this might be a problem for calcifying organisms because... anyone? anyone?
Yes, you are right, strictly speaking, it is (was) a steady-state.
So you concur, then, that there is a net flux of carbon into the oceans? And that given carbonate chemistry, this will tend to reduce pH?
Ok, you kinda sorta have a point. You demonstrated that CO2 has lagged temperature historically, but do not provide a case that demonstrates that the current CO2 pattern (past 150+ years) is a response to the temperature trend. That's what I was (implicitly, I suppose) focusing on. Do you have anything on that? Where's the extra CO2 coming from now?
AARGHHH. There is a TON of research on this stuff. Readers of ./: I know how this place works (post before thinking), but this is ridiculous. Why speculate when basic facts are a Google away? Start here.
And now onto policy. Uncertainty yields inaction. That's quite a gamble. What happens if you wait too long?
That's a nice strawman, that we have to go to war to reduce CO2 emissions. It's especially funny that you talk about turning 'global politics upside down', like the status quo hasn't had any of that (see: Middle East oil). The cost of (low carbon) energy independence, fully accounted, might not be so high.
I agree that China and India are huge factors in the CO2 game. Especially considering their economic growth and coal reserves. Kyoto doesn't cut it. Agreed. One interesting issue here is fairness. In the U.S. we've generated a lot of wealth by burning fossil fuels; hardly seems fair to make the rest of the world cap their emissions at a fraction of our per capita emissions. But that's a challenge, not a deal-killer.
I would submit that we can address our CO2 problems without "massive global economic disruption," but that's another debate for another time. I need to ride my bike home and play with my kids.
The oceans are not saturated with CO2, buddy. The oceans were roughly at equilibrium with the atmosphere before atmospheric CO2 increased. The driving force is into the ocean. People actually measure this stuff. Find me valid research that shows a global (not regional- global) net flux of CO2 from the ocean to the atmosphere and I'll buy you beer for a year.
Here's a decent page at NASA:
Evidence for solar output as a driver for current warming is weak (but at least plausible). Please stop the idle speculation; there is a rich body of knowledge here.
I did write my M.S. thesis on oceanic carbonate chemistry, so you'll have to do better than 'If water gets warmer, it absorbs less CO2.'. Yes, solubility decreases with temperature, but that's a completely irrelevant factoid.
Most of what you say is true. Up to the "and not vice-versa" part. Bzzzt! Faulty logic! The first part of your statement is true (CO2 can lag temperature changes), but you present nothing to prove the vice-versa (CO2 can't be a driver) part.
Sure, in the past CO2 has lagged temperature. However, that doesn't mean that it hasn't sustained climate changes as a positive feedback. What it does mean is that CO2 has often not been the driver for climate change events. Until now.
We are generating lots of CO2. A small amount relative to natural fluxes, but enough to . Can anyone provide a plausible alternative hypothesis for current conditions?
CO2 acts as a greenhouse gas. This is basic physics. What's not so basic are all of the other feedbacks, positive and negative- water vapor, ice cover, and so forth. That's where the action is. Let's talk about that. But to get caught up talking about whether we are responsible for increases in CO2, and whether or not CO2 is a greenhouse gas, is just a colossal waste of time. It's basic frickin physics and chemistry. It's the fluid dynamics that makes everything so hard to resolve.
To recap:
Climate varies naturally. That doesn't mean it can't be affected unnaturally.
Historically, CO2 concentrations have lagged temperature changes (b/c yes, Virginia, there are other factors that affect climate). That does not disprove that you can drive climate change with CO2; it just hasn't been tried often.
All else equal, higher CO2 = higher temperatures. Basic physics. The problem is the all else equal part.
Humans are trying an interesting experiment. What happens if we try to force climate change with CO2?
Why does everyone here think that they are smarter than climate scientists?
Yes, correlation does not prove causality in the absence of plausible scientific theory linking the two.
We're talking about a simple mass balance here. Sources, sinks, and reservoirs. The theory fits the data (Increased anthropogenic CO2 leads to increased atmospheric concentrations of CO2). No other theory comes close (don't even try to start with volcanos). What else do you frickin want?
... which brings us back here.
.005 degrees if we go 3x baseline CO2 (closer on a log scale that is). If we could gain high confidence that the impact would be more like .005 degrees than yeah, you can rest your case, but we aren't exactly there yet. Of course, we'd still have to worry about acidification of the oceans (guess where a lot of the excess CO2 goes [CO2 + H2 = HCO3- + H+]), but that's another story.
Man is causing the increase in atmospheric CO2 concentrations. I don't know of any alternative hypotheses that come close to fitting the data. There are large carbon natural fluxes and we've tipped the balance.
OK, climate sensitivity is something worth talking about. I'll bet you my house the sensitivity is closer to 5 degrees than
So, to recap:
Increased CO2 concentrations: Our fault. I'll bet my wife and 1st born.
Increased CO2 concentration leads to higher temperatures: Yup. I'll throw in kids 2 and 3.
Climate sensitivity to 3x CO2 is Y degrees: There's pretty good science here, but there's room to haggle. I'll throw in my two cars and road bike that we need to be worried.
Impact of the sun: Obviously a factor, but if there's a smoking gun tying temperature to solar output this century, I sure haven't seen it. Here's a RealClimate article on the subject.
Ocean acidification: Definitely happening; this is basic chemistry. Severity of impact not well known, but think "Alka Seltzer'
Oops I screwed up the Arrhenius link. Just Google for him.
Gee, that's a lot of broken links.
Ok, so I'll have to repeat my standard response to stuff like this.
I love this logic:
1. The climate has always been variable.
1a. The climate is variable on other planets.
2. Therefore, man is not having an impact on today's climate!
QED, right?
Here's an exercise: Explain to me how increased levels of CO2 (which are rising due to humans- I challenge you to find an alternative explanation that has not been debunked from here to Shanghai and back), which Arrhenius demonstrated over 100 years ago [nasa.gov] could cause climate change, can't possibly be causing climate change?
Hey, climate science is uncertain, and questioning the current consensus is great. But if you are going to do so, please find a coherent argument why the current thinking is incorrect (again, please stick to the stuff that hasn't been shown to be wrong 100x over). So please go read RealClimate, debunk them (you have to do better than the M&M side show), and then we can have a conversation.
Talk about pseudo-scientific gibberish. Good frickin lord. What's your alternative hypothesis for the relationship between human emissions and atmospheric concentrations? Yes, there's a lot of natural carbon flux going both ways. But we've tipped the balance. No one with more than three neurons firing debates this. There are plenty of things about global warming to debate; please for everyone's sake find a topic that's not so obviously wrong and easily disproved.
Here's another fun graph
Hi, welcome to slashdot.
I love this logic:
1. The climate has always been variable.
2. Therefore, man is not having an impact on today's climate!
QED, right?
Here's an exercise: Explain to me how increased levels of CO2 (which are rising due to humans- I challenge you to find an explanation that has not been debunked from here to Shanghai and back), which Arrhenius demonstrated over 100 years ago could cause climate change, can't possibly be causing climate change?
Hey, climate science is uncertain, and questioning it's results are fine. But if you are going to do so, please find a coherent argument why the current thinking is incorrect (again, please stick to the stuff that hasn't been shown to be wrong 100x over). So please go read RealClimate, debunk them, and then we can talk. Debating from ignorance is... ignorant.
PS I think this proposed solution, like most geo-engineering quick fixes, is f-ing nuts. For starters, it doesn't exactly have an 'Undo' button.
PPS Let's forget about climate change. How does changing the pH of the ocean by half a point grab you? We're doing that, too (the excess CO2 is going into the oceans), and we don't really know what the impact will be, b/c it'll reflect conditions the oceans haven't seen in a loooong time (and I'm not talking 1000 years. If memory serves, it's been several hundred thousand to millions of years. We do know that calcifying species will likely not be so happy, which some might argue is a problem. But hey, we couldn't possibly harm the planet, could we?
I'm with you. Give me a verifiable paper ballot, and an open and transparent auditing process, and I'm pretty happy.
Of course like with anything there will always be ways to commit election fraud, but can we at least make it difficult?
I'd like to pay for an election whose results I can be confident in, please?
BTW thank you for participating in the process. I am frightened about the state of elections in this country, but recognize that it's not the fault of you or the other poll workers. It's the fault of those who design the processes and select the equipment (and the suppliers of said equipment).