You are making a very simple logical and scientific error. The position being advocated is that AGW is true because the preponderance of scientific evidence strongly suggests that the probability that is is false is quite small. In fact, it is becoming vanishingly small as more and more observations are made. There reaches a point, in ABSENCE OF EVIDENCE TO THE CONTRARY, that any reasonable person can take it for granted that it is true in every meaningful sense of the word.
Its pretty much the same reason that you don't stay in bed in the morning thinking that, well I won't have to get up today because the sun is simply not going to appear on the horizon in the east today, since there is always an infinitely small probability that it won't. Normally, if someone used that kind of thinking as an excuse for not showing up for work, you would get yourself fired and FOR GOOD REASON.
However, you don't have to take my word for it. I suggest an experiment. Next summer, when temperatures reach new record highs run outside with your parka on yelling that everyone is an idiot for not believing you that its getting colder outside. Let us know what they say about your new career as a logician and scientist. I predict that you won't have to wait too long for the next opportunity.
It would say that either there is a refugia that the world's collector's have missed or that our knowledge of dinosarian biology has been entirely wrong.
However, the probability of that happening is exceedingly small, excepting of course, chicken McNuggests, which are in fact made from organisms, who share a relatively more recent ancestry with dinosaurs (at least compared to ourselves). You are far more likely to be struck by lightening next Thursday or killed by a pig on Saturday.
Sorry to break it to you but while your observation regarding the melt in Greenland is about 80% accurate, the preponderance of ice in Antarctica is not floating on the surface of water but rather is sitting on a continental land mass.
There is little doubt now that Antarctic glaciers are melting at an accelerating rate and that it is being speeded by the fact that the water under the mouths of these glaciers are heating, causing calving at a greater frequency and thus allowing the main bodies of these glaciers to flow more quickly to the sea. We can expect from an complete melting of the Antarctic about a 60+ m rise in global sea levels, ignoring the additional water displacement that will occur as a result of eustatic adjustment. That this may occur within 1,000 years at current rates of warming and lubrication by liquid water at the base of these glaciers, would produce a consequence with considerable impact on humanity. This of course, is entirely independent of the profound biological and oceanographic and climatological changes that would accompany such an event.
Trying to turn climate science into the analog of a rhetorical bumper sticker is most unlikely to alter the course of world history.
Since you are in full doubt mode, let me ask you a couple of questions.
How do you explain the fact that virtually every glacier in the world is receding if it the planet is not getting warmer?
Why do you believe that the production of 300,000,000,000 tons of carbon dioxide by humans annually is not causing the climate to change, when it is known that on average all the world's volcanoes only produce about 220,000,000 tons of carbon dioxide annually and there has been no appreciable change in the level of solar radiation falling on earth in the 50 plus years we have had relatively accurate satellite measurements?
I know of NO evidence that either Mars or Pluto is exhibiting signs of "global warming" beyond the range of changes that one would expect as a result of seasonal effects. If you do, please provide the citation to the peer reviewed publication making such an assertion.
"What we can't prove is what climate change is healthy, natural, and sustainable and which change is not."
Actually, that is the simplest part. When there is a major storm such as the ones that recently occurred in the Philippines and in Tanzania and they literally wash away thousands of people, its fairly easy to see that is not "healthy". One could go on whether it be heat waves or floods. The damage is fairly easy to tabulate as is the number of such storms that are more frequent or more severe than on average.
The hard part is being able to predict the precise amount of change that can be expected in the future and even harder precisely how ecosystems and their included organisms will adapt or fail to adapt or respond to these changes. We know for a fact that the change in temperatures (warming) being observed are taking place at rates which exceed those that have typically taken place throughout human history by about a 100 times or so. What we don't know is precisely how quickly life on earth can adapt and subsequently evolve in the face of such changes. Judging from the extinction or extirpation rates of many species, it would appear that it is certainly isn't fast enough and we are already beginning to witness the single largest extinction rate in earth history.
However, the situation is complicated by the fact that habitat destruction may well account for many of these changes, so the precise magnitude as a percentage of all species being lost to climate change is unknown. However, there is a considerable body of evidence to suggest that it is a factor in the disappearance of many species in their former ranges. Thus, the most recent computer simulations are in agreement with field studies, that suggest that most ecosystems will see about a 50-60% change in species in the next 300 years. From a historical perspective this is an alarming rate, particularly when one realizes that many of these species support the human food chain or are otherwise of economic importance.
The problem that you seem eager to overlook is that science has now been conducting tests upon test for the past 50 years and the results are reproducible and all indication, even recently by a Koch-paid scientist, that yes in fact it is getting warmer. Even priests can read a thermometer.
You don't have to feel bullied. You can go out and take the same measures for yourself. You can run the baseline data again. There are hundreds of overlapping independent datasets now, whether one is looking a historical temperature records, tree rings, trapped ice bubbles, radiometric readings, receding glaciers, historical and paleontological zoogeography, or sea level fluctuations. They all seem to point to a single, inescapable conclusion. Its getting warmer and its getting warmer much faster than it ever has before and we know its not because the amount of solar radiation has changed. The basic physical mechanisms by which the warming is occurring has been known since 1896.
Consequently, its well past time for anyone with even a limited knowledge of the science of global warming to take the kind of rhetorical argument you are making seriously. If you or any global warming denier has actual scientific evidence to the contrary, you need to step forward and relieve humanity of its anxiety since all scientific indications are that AWG is real and it poses massive consequences for humanity.
You are essentially saying that they don't care about their own offspring either. It would help we me all might dial back the hyperstimulation of our amygdalas and focus on some of the more observable facts concerning the issue.
if one does this say at http://climate.nasa.gov/keyIndicators/ , it seems hard for me at least to understand what in these graphs the AWG deniers see that doesn't suggest its just going to keep getting warmer and warmer in the relatively near future. As much as I find the politics of most voters in Texas distasteful and counterproductive from my perspective, I don't really want to see my fellow Americans fry simply because they seem to be confused about the science of global warming.
That said, however, those who want to insist its really not getting warmer need to soon start getting credible in terms of observations they can point to defend their position. Its not as if praying can be expected to do much good, or at least one might conclude on the basis of this past summer's experiment or the approach of calling everyone an idiot or a dupe or a socialist or some other totally irrelevant epithet.
Yes, this is a major problem. Far too few Americans have much training in biology. With respect to the AWG issue, while many are aware that there have been tremendous changes in the earth's climate throughout its history, few seem to be aware of the time frames over which such changes have occurred. Yes Antarctica was largely devoid of ice in the Miocene and it subsequently became extensively covered in ice in the Pleistocene. However, these changes took place over millions of years. With the exception of the asteroid strike at the end of the Cretaceous, the degree of temperature change now being experienced far exceeds the rates previously seen. Reasonable estimates of change that can be expected as the earth warms over the next 300 years indicate that about 65% of all plant communities will shift to an entirely different one, with northern forests largely disappearing. If one even for a brief moment thinks about what the implications of this is for human agriculture, humans are in for a very difficult future if even the most conservative of the current climate models are anywhere near accurate. The temperature changes may seem small on average, but organisms and ecosystems are remarkably sensitive to even slight changes. For example, a pH drop of only 0.4 pH would force extinction of virtually all higher life forms in the oceans.
when the AGW deniers trot out how good it will be for growing plants in high latitudes. Not only do high latitudes have essential zero soil, they are also nearly perpetually dark for about half the year. Its not as if most plants can do without sunlight during periods when growth and metabolism are dramatically shut down. Perhaps an agronomist can show me wrong, but I am unaware of a single agriculturally important species that could survive in near total darkness for 5-6 months out of the year.
Maybe the Chinese figure that if they ship large quantities of lithium to Russia for use in their green bus technology efforts, they will build out their lithium industrial manufacturing base, and help them further dominate the alternative energy technology markets.
Given our addiction to products like iPads and cellphones, we will buy them at any price and since most of that production is already in China now, our economy simply serves as a conduit to feed theirs. They have to do something with all those dollars we are sending them right? It would seem that Chinese energy plans are light-years ahead of those in the US, where corporations are doing all they can to keep us dependent on post-peak oil. The location of the plant makes sense, as its not too far from Chinese lithium sources, so freight costs on their expanding rail networks will actually work to their advantage providing a double pay off to two industries, as well as strengthening their strategic ties with the neighbors.
Actually, if you read the original article, evidently something the original poster didn't do all that carefully, it says they expect to be able to produce enough batteries to power 500,000 buses per year. It seems that the Russians and the Chinese are busy preparing to dominate the world battery for vehicles market, while we are hung up on our iPads.
Perhaps the poster should have read the article. The 500,000 figure comes from the number of buses they expect to be able to equip with batteries each year. It seems while we can't even read, the Chinese and the Russians are moving ahead to OWN the battery market for vehicles.
Yes, but coupled with highly efficient internal combustion engines that kick in only once in a while, humans could save burning a lot of fossil fuel and spare ourselves of much of the adverse consequences associated with unnecessarily warming the atmosphere.
It seems kind of sad that its the Russians and the Chinese who are generating both the business mojo and jobs. It looks as if America is too jaded to act, perhaps because it just doesn't seem cool or limit the freedom of the American worker to go unemployed.
Evidently, this doesn't seem to have deterred Wal-Mart. At least we can begin to see where leadership in technological development is going to come from. One can only hope that the Tea-Party republicans are paying attention.
and likewise its relatively trivial to demonstrate that global warming is occurring. One only has to look at the fact that nearly every single glacier on the planet is receding. Exactly how do you propose to explain this if either its getting colder or the temperature is remaining the same? Keep in mind that there are no measured changes within the ranges of what we know with respect to the solar cycle that are of sufficient magnitude to suggest that any change in solar radiance could be a causal factor?
Indeed, this is the burning question those who seem to think global warming is not occurring seem to go to great lengths to hide from explaining.
However, to the contrary, science has known since 1896 that carbon dioxide can and does create a greenhouse effect and can and does cause global warming.
" IMHO a too little thing to worry about anyways." until one reflects a little and recognizes that science, when applied to any topic is little more than critical reasoning. To suggest that its too little a thing to worry about is to advocate that we make decisions based on methods not based on reasoning. IMHO not too good of an idea.
There was an emphasis on "shovel ready" contracts, not because they were based on any long term scientifically based economic philosophy as to the "ultimate cost-benefit analysis" but rather under the expectation these would provide the most stimulus more quickly since they were "ready to go". This hardly establishes an "anti-science" stance on the part of the democrats, since there is ample economic studies to suggest that such kinds of jobs in fact put money more quickly into circulation (ie the economy) as opposed to some CEO's already large bank account, where it may not circulate. I would agree with you to the extent that more of the latter was done than it ever should have been, however, given the way money talks (yells) in D.C., this may be more a function of political considerations rather than any policy anti- or pro-science.
Slashdot Mirror
You are making a very simple logical and scientific error. The position being advocated is that AGW is true because the preponderance of scientific evidence strongly suggests that the probability that is is false is quite small. In fact, it is becoming vanishingly small as more and more observations are made. There reaches a point, in ABSENCE OF EVIDENCE TO THE CONTRARY, that any reasonable person can take it for granted that it is true in every meaningful sense of the word.
Its pretty much the same reason that you don't stay in bed in the morning thinking that, well I won't have to get up today because the sun is simply not going to appear on the horizon in the east today, since there is always an infinitely small probability that it won't. Normally, if someone used that kind of thinking as an excuse for not showing up for work, you would get yourself fired and FOR GOOD REASON.
However, you don't have to take my word for it. I suggest an experiment. Next summer, when temperatures reach new record highs run outside with your parka on yelling that everyone is an idiot for not believing you that its getting colder outside. Let us know what they say about your new career as a logician and scientist. I predict that you won't have to wait too long for the next opportunity.
It would say that either there is a refugia that the world's collector's have missed or that our knowledge of dinosarian biology has been entirely wrong.
However, the probability of that happening is exceedingly small, excepting of course, chicken McNuggests, which are in fact made from organisms, who share a relatively more recent ancestry with dinosaurs (at least compared to ourselves). You are far more likely to be struck by lightening next Thursday or killed by a pig on Saturday.
Sorry to break it to you but while your observation regarding the melt in Greenland is about 80% accurate, the preponderance of ice in Antarctica is not floating on the surface of water but rather is sitting on a continental land mass.
There is little doubt now that Antarctic glaciers are melting at an accelerating rate and that it is being speeded by the fact that the water under the mouths of these glaciers are heating, causing calving at a greater frequency and thus allowing the main bodies of these glaciers to flow more quickly to the sea. We can expect from an complete melting of the Antarctic about a 60+ m rise in global sea levels, ignoring the additional water displacement that will occur as a result of eustatic adjustment. That this may occur within 1,000 years at current rates of warming and lubrication by liquid water at the base of these glaciers, would produce a consequence with considerable impact on humanity. This of course, is entirely independent of the profound biological and oceanographic and climatological changes that would accompany such an event.
Trying to turn climate science into the analog of a rhetorical bumper sticker is most unlikely to alter the course of world history.
Since you are in full doubt mode, let me ask you a couple of questions.
How do you explain the fact that virtually every glacier in the world is receding if it the planet is not getting warmer?
Why do you believe that the production of 300,000,000,000 tons of carbon dioxide by humans annually is not causing the climate to change, when it is known that on average all the world's volcanoes only produce about 220,000,000 tons of carbon dioxide annually and there has been no appreciable change in the level of solar radiation falling on earth in the 50 plus years we have had relatively accurate satellite measurements?
I know of NO evidence that either Mars or Pluto is exhibiting signs of "global warming" beyond the range of changes that one would expect as a result of seasonal effects. If you do, please provide the citation to the peer reviewed publication making such an assertion.
"What we can't prove is what climate change is healthy, natural, and sustainable and which change is not."
Actually, that is the simplest part. When there is a major storm such as the ones that recently occurred in the Philippines and in Tanzania and they literally wash away thousands of people, its fairly easy to see that is not "healthy". One could go on whether it be heat waves or floods. The damage is fairly easy to tabulate as is the number of such storms that are more frequent or more severe than on average.
The hard part is being able to predict the precise amount of change that can be expected in the future and even harder precisely how ecosystems and their included organisms will adapt or fail to adapt or respond to these changes. We know for a fact that the change in temperatures (warming) being observed are taking place at rates which exceed those that have typically taken place throughout human history by about a 100 times or so. What we don't know is precisely how quickly life on earth can adapt and subsequently evolve in the face of such changes. Judging from the extinction or extirpation rates of many species, it would appear that it is certainly isn't fast enough and we are already beginning to witness the single largest extinction rate in earth history.
However, the situation is complicated by the fact that habitat destruction may well account for many of these changes, so the precise magnitude as a percentage of all species being lost to climate change is unknown. However, there is a considerable body of evidence to suggest that it is a factor in the disappearance of many species in their former ranges. Thus, the most recent computer simulations are in agreement with field studies, that suggest that most ecosystems will see about a 50-60% change in species in the next 300 years. From a historical perspective this is an alarming rate, particularly when one realizes that many of these species support the human food chain or are otherwise of economic importance.
The problem that you seem eager to overlook is that science has now been conducting tests upon test for the past 50 years and the results are reproducible and all indication, even recently by a Koch-paid scientist, that yes in fact it is getting warmer. Even priests can read a thermometer.
You don't have to feel bullied. You can go out and take the same measures for yourself. You can run the baseline data again. There are hundreds of overlapping independent datasets now, whether one is looking a historical temperature records, tree rings, trapped ice bubbles, radiometric readings, receding glaciers, historical and paleontological zoogeography, or sea level fluctuations. They all seem to point to a single, inescapable conclusion. Its getting warmer and its getting warmer much faster than it ever has before and we know its not because the amount of solar radiation has changed. The basic physical mechanisms by which the warming is occurring has been known since 1896.
Consequently, its well past time for anyone with even a limited knowledge of the science of global warming to take the kind of rhetorical argument you are making seriously. If you or any global warming denier has actual scientific evidence to the contrary, you need to step forward and relieve humanity of its anxiety since all scientific indications are that AWG is real and it poses massive consequences for humanity.
You are essentially saying that they don't care about their own offspring either. It would help we me all might dial back the hyperstimulation of our amygdalas and focus on some of the more observable facts concerning the issue.
if one does this say at http://climate.nasa.gov/keyIndicators/ , it seems hard for me at least to understand what in these graphs the AWG deniers see that doesn't suggest its just going to keep getting warmer and warmer in the relatively near future. As much as I find the politics of most voters in Texas distasteful and counterproductive from my perspective, I don't really want to see my fellow Americans fry simply because they seem to be confused about the science of global warming.
That said, however, those who want to insist its really not getting warmer need to soon start getting credible in terms of observations they can point to defend their position. Its not as if praying can be expected to do much good, or at least one might conclude on the basis of this past summer's experiment or the approach of calling everyone an idiot or a dupe or a socialist or some other totally irrelevant epithet.
Just curious, but what makes you think you and your family won't be living in the same test tube?
Yes, this is a major problem. Far too few Americans have much training in biology. With respect to the AWG issue, while many are aware that there have been tremendous changes in the earth's climate throughout its history, few seem to be aware of the time frames over which such changes have occurred. Yes Antarctica was largely devoid of ice in the Miocene and it subsequently became extensively covered in ice in the Pleistocene. However, these changes took place over millions of years. With the exception of the asteroid strike at the end of the Cretaceous, the degree of temperature change now being experienced far exceeds the rates previously seen. Reasonable estimates of change that can be expected as the earth warms over the next 300 years indicate that about 65% of all plant communities will shift to an entirely different one, with northern forests largely disappearing. If one even for a brief moment thinks about what the implications of this is for human agriculture, humans are in for a very difficult future if even the most conservative of the current climate models are anywhere near accurate. The temperature changes may seem small on average, but organisms and ecosystems are remarkably sensitive to even slight changes. For example, a pH drop of only 0.4 pH would force extinction of virtually all higher life forms in the oceans.
You must be using Linux.
when the AGW deniers trot out how good it will be for growing plants in high latitudes. Not only do high latitudes have essential zero soil, they are also nearly perpetually dark for about half the year. Its not as if most plants can do without sunlight during periods when growth and metabolism are dramatically shut down. Perhaps an agronomist can show me wrong, but I am unaware of a single agriculturally important species that could survive in near total darkness for 5-6 months out of the year.
Obviously, it would depend how often the car was full of passengers.
The sad part of your comment is that it was not the coldest year on record in the Southern Hemisphere or anywhere close to it.
and just by chance all the glaciers of the world are disappearing. If its not getting warmer can anyone explain why they are all receding?
What were the previous records for the warmest temperature in Antarctica and when they were reported?
Perhaps so, but the Prius is pretty popular worldwide and Toyota is making quite a bit of money off their sales. Getting 50+mpg isn't bad either.
Maybe the Chinese figure that if they ship large quantities of lithium to Russia for use in their green bus technology efforts, they will build out their lithium industrial manufacturing base, and help them further dominate the alternative energy technology markets.
Given our addiction to products like iPads and cellphones, we will buy them at any price and since most of that production is already in China now, our economy simply serves as a conduit to feed theirs. They have to do something with all those dollars we are sending them right? It would seem that Chinese energy plans are light-years ahead of those in the US, where corporations are doing all they can to keep us dependent on post-peak oil. The location of the plant makes sense, as its not too far from Chinese lithium sources, so freight costs on their expanding rail networks will actually work to their advantage providing a double pay off to two industries, as well as strengthening their strategic ties with the neighbors.
Actually, if you read the original article, evidently something the original poster didn't do all that carefully, it says they expect to be able to produce enough batteries to power 500,000 buses per year. It seems that the Russians and the Chinese are busy preparing to dominate the world battery for vehicles market, while we are hung up on our iPads.
Perhaps the poster should have read the article. The 500,000 figure comes from the number of buses they expect to be able to equip with batteries each year. It seems while we can't even read, the Chinese and the Russians are moving ahead to OWN the battery market for vehicles.
Yes, but coupled with highly efficient internal combustion engines that kick in only once in a while, humans could save burning a lot of fossil fuel and spare ourselves of much of the adverse consequences associated with unnecessarily warming the atmosphere.
It seems kind of sad that its the Russians and the Chinese who are generating both the business mojo and jobs. It looks as if America is too jaded to act, perhaps because it just doesn't seem cool or limit the freedom of the American worker to go unemployed.
Evidently, this doesn't seem to have deterred Wal-Mart. At least we can begin to see where leadership in technological development is going to come from. One can only hope that the Tea-Party republicans are paying attention.
and likewise its relatively trivial to demonstrate that global warming is occurring. One only has to look at the fact that nearly every single glacier on the planet is receding. Exactly how do you propose to explain this if either its getting colder or the temperature is remaining the same? Keep in mind that there are no measured changes within the ranges of what we know with respect to the solar cycle that are of sufficient magnitude to suggest that any change in solar radiance could be a causal factor?
Indeed, this is the burning question those who seem to think global warming is not occurring seem to go to great lengths to hide from explaining.
However, to the contrary, science has known since 1896 that carbon dioxide can and does create a greenhouse effect and can and does cause global warming.
" IMHO a too little thing to worry about anyways." until one reflects a little and recognizes that science, when applied to any topic is little more than critical reasoning. To suggest that its too little a thing to worry about is to advocate that we make decisions based on methods not based on reasoning. IMHO not too good of an idea.
There was an emphasis on "shovel ready" contracts, not because they were based on any long term scientifically based economic philosophy as to the "ultimate cost-benefit analysis" but rather under the expectation these would provide the most stimulus more quickly since they were "ready to go". This hardly establishes an "anti-science" stance on the part of the democrats, since there is ample economic studies to suggest that such kinds of jobs in fact put money more quickly into circulation (ie the economy) as opposed to some CEO's already large bank account, where it may not circulate. I would agree with you to the extent that more of the latter was done than it ever should have been, however, given the way money talks (yells) in D.C., this may be more a function of political considerations rather than any policy anti- or pro-science.