There's some discussion about global warming going on in another post. So, what harm could a small post by me do, except for increasing the spam in my blog's mailbox :)
The main reason that I believe that global warming, which can be influenced by humanity, is not a hoax, is that 194 countries including traditionally "selfish" ones like China, Russia and India are part of these climate conferences. Sure, progress is terrible as is to be exspected considering that they have to deal with the mother of all Free Rider problems.
But don't look so much at what is being written and more at was is being done. If so many countries accept high costs to do something, there's something to it in my opinion. I don't think the European Union would unanimously give away billions of dollars if it were a hoax.
To a degree, you can also try to look at the science yourself. That more CO2 causes heating is pretty obvious. It's even easy to see in very simple experiments. You can do these things yourself at home, actually. Alternatively you can do a youtube search for "greenhouse effect experiment".
It's also a pretty good explanation for why other planets, like Venus, are as warm as they are. At least I favor this explanation to aliens having installed heaters there :)
I guess the only thing about global warming which is uncertain is what the exact effects will be. But since 194 countries on the planet - irrespective of their current governments - seem to think that the consequences could be a real problem - so do I.
Honestly, the only people I know who don't believe in global warming are right-leaning US-Americans. And they have a good excuse: they have an active and well founded press in their country that understands that the more controversial a topic the higher the profit. Still, right-leaning Americans are a very tiny global minority.
So, sorry Goodmongo, but I think the reasons to believe in global warming are overwhelming. And I say "believe" on purpose. Only in the church do people believe to know something. Outside the Church we all know that we can only believe.
Final sentence: there are many scientists who lie and cheat to make the countries do something against global warming. They are stupid and should know better.
Global Warming is an excuse for goverments to spent money to the global corporations as is the terrorism where they spend billions of dollars for better "police", "defense systems" while more people are dying from a simple cold than from terrorism every year...
ReplyDeleteThere was big periods of global warming on earth before human exists..our impact is minimal and there are a lot of documantaries explain this but you have to dig deep to find those documantaries for obvious reasons
There are documentaries for everything.
ReplyDeleteI don't think it is completely impossible that western politicians have been tricked into giving money to global corporations at this scale. I just don't consider it very likely. That's just my gut feeling.
And... George Bush arranged 9/11 in order to give contracts to companies secretly supporting him (I don't know either! to clear away the rubble or something) and the holocaust never happened, and ... insert your favourite conspiracy theory here.
ReplyDeleteI'm sure there have been "documantaries" on all of them.
no there is a dirty guy that lives in the caves and he is organizing terror attacks and such things, of course...oh no, I mean he was now he is dead.
ReplyDeleteyears ago was communism, now is terrorism, there always must be a huge enemy...conspiracy theories is the one side..being naive and moron is the other...
I said, there was ice ages and global warming ages in the history of earth without you cars and your "not class A" electric devices...
"Global corporations" as a whole, Giannis, stand much more to lose from greater regulation of any sort, including regulation of industrial carbon emissions. Why do you suppose energy companies sponsor hack scientists to try to muddy the waters of the climate change consensus?
ReplyDeleteThat said, there has emerged a "green technology" race which may ultimately lead to a large part of the answer, but probably not before some fairly catastrophic temperature changes already take place.
This is an interesting matter because it highlights the limitations of democracy, and in fact most global political arrangements. Politicians with an eye on the next election simply aren't incentivised to deal with subtle problems whose effects will be felt decades from now, no matter how overwhelming the scientific evidence.
I think it's good if we can agree on only discussing the consequences of warming and not so much whether it takes place.
ReplyDeleteIce ages and warm periods, if they happended today, would cause immense costs - and loss of life. What's also important is the time during which the cooling/warming takes place. 1 degree over hundred years is different from 1 degree over 10,000 years.
I don't think that nature will collapse. But coast lines, where most cities are located, which require giant dams seem reasonable to me. Not much of a problem for nature. But certainly a problem for Hamburg or New York.
@Goodmondo
ReplyDeleteClimate science is not physics and so it's not possible to come up with the e=mc2 formula that you are looking for. You can check out current estimates of the extent of man made climate change (and the suspected % caused by different greenhouse gases) on any number of reputable web sites - just don't rely on the climate change equivalents of Answers in Genesis.
Your views on the effect of climate change on ecosystems appear naive - as I pointed out in previous comments. You seem to have the rosy view that climate change is actually a good thing where we all get to sun ourselves on now tropical beaches. That's just not how ecosystems work; when you perturb a complex system the effects are likely to be almost uniformly damaging: In other words, there are very many ways of being dead, but you have to walk a slender path to be alive.
Oh and I like Nils's reasonableness arguments. That tends to be how I think about these things too: If you want to cook up some conspiracy theory then you really have to ascribe the most absurd motives and actions to a huge number of people and it just doesn't make much sense.
soresu almost every electronic device have a model "class A" with less energy consumption that usually cost triple than normal..plus lot of goverments invest money and motivate you to change them (goverment pay a % of the cost to help you..but company get 100% the price)
ReplyDeleteI don't deny there isn't a global warming problem, I just believe that humans have minor impact to this, at least the normal humans. Goverments that test nuclear weapons may be affecting the environment a lot but thats another story..the thing is that there is a huge industry built around "global warming"...
"1 degree over hundred years is different from 1 degree over 10,000 years."
ReplyDeleteAgree, that's crucial. 10,000 years is an evolutionary timescale giving some time for ecosystems to adapt. 100 years is not.
After accepting that global warming takes place, the question of whether humanity is responsible comes to mind.
ReplyDeleteBut, honestly, I think this is a stupid dabate. If a small meteor which would devastate Kuala Lumpur were detected, we wouldn't discuss wether this is the consequence of our sins or just nature, either. We would simply try to do something against it.
At this point I do think that we need to move on to new ideas. Just limiting CO2 emissions might work or not, but the problem is it's not going to happen. It is politically impossible to achieve on any significant scale.
That's why we need to look at ways to actively cool the planet: something that unfortunately can prove very dangerous as well. That's why more science has to be done.
"After accepting that global warming takes place, the question of whether humanity is responsible comes to mind."
ReplyDeleteWell there's a big hint in what you said earlier: We are talking about changes that are likely to occur in the span of a single human lifetime, not over geological time scales of many thousands of years, and ones that are concurrent with our depradations on the planet. That would be a big enough clue for any detective novel.
"That's why we need to look at ways to actively cool the planet: something that unfortunately can prove very dangerous as well. That's why more science has to be done."
ReplyDeleteIsn't there a danger that such ideas might turn out to be totally ineffective, except in inspiring complacency, so that any realy attempts at curtailing carbon emissions get shelved.
Well, Roq, transporting volcano-ash-like particles into the atmosphere is quite certainly going to cool the planet. And if global warming does take place and some countries come to the opinion that it's harmful to them they might well decide to do that on their own.
ReplyDeleteThe problem is not so much that it might not work, but that it might work too well or has side effects.
I don't think we can ignore this part of the puzzle, even though you are right that it might reduce incentives to limit carbon emissions. But, do you at this point think that limiting carbon emissions globally will work?
We need other ideas, I fear - and we should research them now that we still have a rather relaxed political landscape.
Oh boy. Yikes.
ReplyDelete1) Countries like China and India don't have to pay under Koyto and in fact has special exclusions written for them.
2) The UN with a vast majority of countries every year tries to get wealth transfers from the 'rich' countries. Just because some countries pass this doesn't mean its science.
3) Canada just announced they are leaving Koyto.
4) Even the European countries have not meat their CO2 targets. So what good is it if they agree but don't reach their targets?
5) Climate science is either science or its not science. Can't claim it to be science without it then falling under the long established rules for science.
6) 1% in 10,000 years? Do you know that:
6a) From 1930 to 1950 the world already increased by 1.2 degrees according to the IPCC
6b) Climate change in the past was fast, for example the entire Sahara desert was formed in 100-300 years from a grasslands
7) So are we warming or cooling? Here is an important point that all of you must face but refuse to answer. See it depends. What is your staring point? If you say 1850 (recent low of cooling period) then we are warming. If you said 1935 then we are even or slightly cooling. If you said last ice age we are cooling. If you said medeval warm period then we are cooling.
7a) Warming or cooling means NOTHING without a starting point and you MUST question why the AGW proponets pick the date that they do.
8) CO2 absorbption is logrithmic in that it hits a saturation point where more CO2 means NOTHING. This is basic physics and you cna't change this fact. The more CO2 you add after hitting the saturation point will result in absolutly ZERO increases in temperature. Look it up.
8a) Unless you can show that point 8 is wrong (which is impossible and I can link hundreds of sites to back me up) that means additional CO2 does not result in more warming.
8b) Since 2000 CO2 levels contributed by man has increased 3 fold. yet temperatures have at best slightly warmed, and many studies say they have dropped. If CO2 causes warming why dididn't a 3 fold increase in manmade CO2 cause a bigger temperature change?
8c) IPCC scientists have tried to answer 8b by claiming that oceans have trapped the heat. No proof of this. But here is the important point. Their so called scientific models 9no better than Sim-World IMO) did not have this mechanism. So that means the computer models were flawed by their own admission.
9) None of the computer models can account or explain the past accurately. if they can't explain the past how can we count on them to explain the future.
10) Even Nils fell to the low point of saying that if you agree you must be (fill in the blank). in other words do not debate facts but instead call names.
11) The computer models used realy on just over 5000 different parameters for the models to track. Yet no one knows if 5000 is the correct number. there may be 6000 parameters. And of the 5000 over half are based on estimates. These numbers are reported by IPCC and not right wing propaganda.
12) There have been two recent email dumps from the so called climate scientists. Here is just one quote from Professor Thorne: "I also think the science is being manipulated to put a political spin on it which for all our sakes might not be too clever in the long run." Does that sound like good science or consensus to you?
I can easily add many more points. Now feel free to try and explain any of these. But keep away from calling names and try to debate facts.
In recent email dump Mann sent an email to Jones that said:
ReplyDelete“The trick may be to decide on the main message and use that to guide what’s included and what is left out.”
Now does that sound like honest scientists or someone with an agenda? And if you don't know who Michael Mann or Phil jones are then you shouldn't even be part of this debate, but instead reading and educating yourself on the topic.
You need to focus on one point, Goodmongo. Otherwise it is not possible to have a good discussion in a blog's comment section.
ReplyDeleteIf you list a hundred points your opponents are just tempted to take your weakest point and that is not even in your interest.
I'm going to do just that when I tell you that scientists are humans with interests. Are political parties unelectable for you if they think how to influence the voters?
Without context the 'what is left out' could, by the way, mean anything. It doesn't make those scientists look like angels, agreed. But it's far from proof that they are corrupt manipulators who are payed by a few big corporations.
And even if they are. There is good evidence that the planet is warming (everybody agrees?).
I don't care about the causes. As a global community we should spend some thought on how this might continue and what we should do if it becomes dangerous.
Nils, agree to limiting to one point. So here it is.
ReplyDeleteI think everyone agrees taht climate changes. No one I know doesn't disagree with this. So here is the question. Is climate really increasing in temperature or decreasing?
And my answer is that it depends on your staring point. If you pick 1850 (a very cold time period) then temperature has increased from about .7 degress to as much as 1.3 degrees according to the IPCC.
But if you pick 1935 temperature has been steady to colling by .1 degrees.
So my question is why pick 1850? Is is because this year supports the warming side and coinsides with the little ice age? Why doesn't any of the proponents question 1850 as a starting point?
Why not pick 1300 as a starting point? Maybe because this medeval warm period would result in cooling when compared to that time period.
The point is that to determine if something is warmer or colder must rely on a starting or comparrison point. Isn't it just peachy that 1850 which coincides to the ending of the little ice age is used?
I don't think it matters much with what we compare the temperature.
ReplyDeleteThere may be some merit to your 1850 argument. It looks like the kind of thing climate scientists would use to give their arguments more weight. But I'd expect this.
To me, the important question seems to be where temperature will be in 50, 100 or 500 years and what the consequence might be?
I don't care so much about with which temp we compare the current temp - even though that might be important for the global negotiations.
You can't look at trends in temperature without considering the underlying reasons for them. When we look at the contribution of greenhouse gases to global warming, what we are trying to find is the contribution that these make to increasing the worlds temperature independent of other transient factors: Nils's possible solution to global warming, which essentially amounts to creating a smoke screen in order to prevent the sun from warming the earth is no accidental discovery - it's precisely what we were doing through the late 19th (Sherlock's London fog) and 20th century. Surely one doesn't need to itemise the risks involved in intentionally resorting to such a strategy in the future.
ReplyDeletere "Only in the church do people believe to know something." - Mathematicians may believe they are addressing the true Platonic ideals and not the shadows where the physical sciences must toil.
ReplyDeleteI do not recall any recent Kyoto signatories and very recently a G7 member decided to withdraw from the protocol. I think that an overlooked point is that it doesn't matter much what should be done iif there is not a significant political chance that it will happen.
What should be done is an interesting question. But what is the best of the feasible outcomes is perhaps at least as important question. E.g.,solutions that involve the US, Canada, China, India et al might be more useful.
Nils, here is the reason the proponets need to show a temperature increase. See without it they can't blame humans for any warming that they say will happen.
ReplyDeleteAnd if we started with no past and claimed that there would be warming in 100 years most people would say "OK let's wait and see how it goes".
That would hurt their desire to raise funds. Remember that big business isn't the only players with billions to throw around. Universities compete for funds and departments within universities compete with each other, not to mention wealth transfers between countries. If AGW all of a sudden disappeared what do you think would happen to these budgets and jobs in that field?
So in order to gain more money they must create a panic now and not 100 years from now.
I'm all for science and would support funding for climate science. I believe in science. But I don't believe in politicised science that costs me money or that impacts my lifestyle without it being proven.
I live in Illinois (USA) a pretty rotten state. It recently passed a 67% increase in taxes, you know to get the rich to pay their fair share. Only this is what happened. The big rich companies threatened to move out of the state. So they got tax breaks that basically offset the tax increase for them. So we in the middle get no tax break but stuck with the 67% increase. So yes I'm very cynical about things that cost me more money because Gore etl. will get exempt and us in the middle get squeezed.
@Roq, the fact that different trends had different causes is the point that I'm making. If a trend in the past was due to factor A then that means there are multiple factors that could be the cause of a trend.
ReplyDeleteAlso we need to understand the science of trends. is this warming a trend that is contained within a larger cooling trend. Look at the stock market for perfect examples of trends.
Let's say for argument sake that the warming since 1970 was 100% due to humans. Now this warming trend needs to be viewed in the context of its parent trend. If the parent trend was also warming then this exaggerates the parent trend. However, if the parent trend is actually a cooling one then this doesn't impact it because the parent trend will take over and cooling will result.
Very little of this is even mentioned by the IPCC or climate scientists. Even more reason to stop, and proceed with caution and not spend trillions of dollars without knowing what the heck you are spending those dollars on.
Roq, let me ask you a question. Do you think the that humanity would be better off spending a trillion dollars on climate or would humanity be better served if that trillion dollars were spent on cleaner drinking water and fighting diseases? Unfortunately you can't have both because money is a limited resource after all.
@Roq: I agree that my one proposal to decrease temperatures is drastic and desperate. But maybe there are less dangerous ways? My amateurish opinion is that this should be researched. If only as an insurance.
ReplyDelete@Hagu: Maybe those in the dirt are more heroic than those in the ivory tower ;). Otherwise, I agree with your comment.
@Goodmongo: I agree that there are some business interests is "proving" that something must be done about global warming. But then, there's also big business interest in "proving" that nothing must be done. And last I checked e.g. the oil industry isn't exactly short on cash. Oh - they also get massive subsidies in the US even though they are highly profitable. Your president wanted to stop these subsidies some months ago. Someone in congress must have stopped him - probably the Democrats :)
67% tax increase ? woah. ... in like last year you payed 30% and this year you payed 50,1% overall ? Otherwise, yeah, US seem to be pretty rotten when it comes to big business <-> politics. Occupy and Tea Party agree on this, I think.
Back on topic, unfortunately we can't do the actual science on the blog. Which brings me back to the fact that if the world stands against 50% of the US, I trust the world. If I were to go through Freiburg on the search for a single person who doesn't believe that climate change is a long term problem I could search for a very, very long time. Add that I just don't see how you can create a conspiracy where the European Union pays billions to other countries for nothing.
Yes, I can't be certain. But in combination with understanding the basic greenhouse effect (which isn't disputed by anyone?) it is what convinces me, personally, that there's some kind of problem with global warming.
@Nils here are some more quotes taken from the latest email dump.
ReplyDelete"Mike, The Figure you sent is very deceptive [...] there have been a number of dishonest presentations of model results by individual authors and by IPCC"
"Observations do not show rising temperatures throughout the tropical troposphere unless you accept one single study and approach and discount a wealth of others."
"I also think the science is being manipulated to put a political spin on it which for all our sakes might not be too clever in the long run."
"It seems that a few people have a very strong say, and no matter how much talking goes on beforehand, the big decisions are made at the eleventh hour by a select core group."
"What kind of circulation change could lock Europe into deadly summer heat waves like that of last summer? That’s the sort of thing we need to think about."
All of these (and many others) were written by people within the climate science business. Doesn't that just reek of the tobacco industry and their internal emails?
And yet you put your faith in them without question?
Off topic - The tax breaks are known as oil depletion allowances and only oil companies with actual oil wells get them. This is akin to depreciation where they are allowed to expense (thus reducing taxable income). They do not get money from the government, but instead lower the amount they pay in.
BTW Exxon Mobile from 2005 to 2010 earned 66.6 billion before taxes and paid 21.6 billion in state and federal taxes. So you can argue that maybe they should pay more but you can't argue that they didn't pay something. BTW all solar and wind compaines in the US from 2005 through 2010 paid ZERO in taxes and got over 6 billion of government funds, none of which has been paid back to date. So where is the corporate welfare really at?
I didn't even get to the fact that on our planet, even at quadruple the current levels, CO2 would still be an insignificant trace gas with weak greenhouse properties. Earth's temperature is a function of interaction between solar radiation and water, with some highly variable input from earth's geology and it's internal heat. Water vapor make up nearly all of the total of earth's greenhouse gasses and water also has several feedback effects, both positive and negative. Water is a powerful greenhouse gas and in extreme abundance, and water also regulated the earth's reflectivity. Water also absorbs huge amounts of energy simply changing states, cooling the surface, and releases it in the atmosphere to be radiated out into space.
ReplyDeleteIt's is absolutely ludicrous to suggest that the weak trace gas CO2 could be over riding all that and having any impact at all on earth's climate. The idea would require that CO2 released by man is different from the natural background CO2, that it has magical properties. So I refer to it as the Magic CO2 religion.
The proponents treat it as fanatic cults treat their faith. They offer no evidence and relentlessly attack those who demand it. They have their priests who always have their hands out. The IPCC and their followers are not interested in science. Their method is religious in nature, identical to the creationists and homeopathics, and psychics and faith healers. They start with a supernatural conclusion from which they can profit and look for and invent "evidence" to support it, and do what they can to squelch dissent.
I have to call it for today so you guys will get a break.
These are pseudo-facts, Goodmongo. Please don't spam. Taking sentences out of context I could probably prove the Mother Teresa was a Nazi.
ReplyDeleteAnd even if the scientists had intended to manipulate the public, that still wouldn't be a convincing argument. I vote for parties who include terrible individuals all the time. Such things are normal.
@goodmondo
ReplyDeleteOK good post. We know and climate scientists know that the earth's climate is due to many disparate factors and that's why it's so complex to model.
The point about greenhouse gases though is that if you take their effects in isolation they seem to be contributing a very large net increase on the warming side of the equation. In the past that may have been masked by other factors, such as pollutants that act in the opposite direction, but we can not guarantee that such will be the case in the future and furthermore those other pollutants will often have environmental effects that are equally costly & undesirable - such as acid rain. Our task is not just to control global warming, in isolation, but to control the negative impact that we have on the planet through the entire cocktail of chemicals that we throw up into the atmosphere along with massive effects we exert on the world's ecosystems. It's really incredibly risky to adopt a laissez faire attitude that anything goes until we have 100% proof of it's negative impact. That smacks of environmental suicide.
And to answer your last question, I'm well aware of the plight of people in the third world and, in particular, fully supportive of the UKs aid budget. We must be compassionate to those who are alive *now*. However, I do believe that we should be directing our efforts mainly in the direction of initiatives that are sustainable in the long term. Otherwise, the problems we have now will escalate even further out of control given the increasing world population.
As for me, i don't "believe" in Global Warming.
ReplyDeleteNor do i think it happening would be the end of the world. Problem, yes. But one that can be solved as it comes, since most catastrophic scenarios don't seem to be confirmed so far. Global cooling/Ice Age would be much more troublesome, especially not man-made version of it.
And i enjoy occasionally looking at proclaimed "doom" problems and then check alternative interpretations. What pops up on "X is wrong"/"X is fraud" etc. If you check many things like that, it's a wonder our civilization survives with so many things maintained "religiously" rather then knowing inherent limitations of used methods, and which data or situation will make method used harmful, wrong, or pointless. Regardless of "alternative view" being right or wrong.
As for "politicians being tricked" - honest mistakes are possible, dishonest tricking is not necessary. Confirmation bias is strong even for scientists, and they aren't always immune to peer pressure either once certain theory gets accepted by authorities for any reason - usually reasons far removed from "scientific consensus" - and then it becomes self-referential truth. Politicians maintain it because scientists say so, and scientists maintain it because they get money from politicians that way, or because they don't want to disrupt "status quo". Eventually "everyone knows it", but not many can tell how that conclusion was actually reached, or how claimed true theory can be falsified or confirmed... and then when some data finally doesn't confirm it, it takes ages to uproot "consensus".
Problem inherent with a way we transfer our knowledge, really.
You can look at warming threat like this - there are strategies to prepare for warming, regardless of it being man-made or natural. It would take resources, but you can mitigate some of effects, though, inevitably, some things will be lost, some countries devastated by climate changes, and some places previously fine will become slowly uninhabitable. Civilization will survive - something like supervulcano eruption would be much more dangerous.
ReplyDeleteOr you can gamble on theory that warming is man-made AND can be stopped by limiting industrial CO2 output, then try to reach world consensus on prevention strategies, implementations, payouts, inspections, limits, etc.
Given those two choices, which one you would prefer to be used? As for me, i'd take second option ONLY if situation wouldn't be anywhere close to dire in my lifetime. :)
"solar and wind compaines in the US from 2005 through 2010 paid ZERO in taxes"
ReplyDeleteI'm not aware if the above comment is accurate, but regardless of your views of global warming, investment in developing renewable energy sources has got to be a good thing.
Unless you believe oil will last forever?
"As for me, i don't "believe" in Global Warming."
ReplyDeleteWell that's nice. Maybe it will go away if none of us believe in it, like Tinkerbell.
As for oil, there is enough oil to last hundreds of years and more... but not all of that oil is feasible to be used in the same way oil is used now. Some chemical productions might be still profitable, but "cars for everyone" may become prohibitively expensive.
ReplyDeleteGood thing is, it might solve many pollution problems! Less exhaust gases for everyone! More walking - better health overall! Rise of public transport, and/or telecommuting :)
Always a bright side to any change :)
Western countries - and especially the US - need to become independent from oil imports.
ReplyDeleteRight now the US had to help the Saudis suppress their population if they rebelled - simply because they need the oil. They already do it by massively exporting weapons there. Germany helps, too. It's a complete disaster - in every aspect.
Lower oil prices are also very important for Russia - although that is difficult to see. The higher the oil and gas prices the more corruption there will be. The Ressource Curse is at full swing there already ;(
If CO2 is really going to kill us, then it's the level that will get us, not the emissions. After all, it's the level that causes the greenhouse effect, not the emissions directly.
ReplyDeleteWhat would it take to reduce the level of CO2 in the atmosphere? The Kyoto target of 1990-level emissions would be a drop in the bucket. Even a 50% reduction would not do the trick. It would just delay our doom. No, we would need to go to nearly zero emissions. Otherwise the level of CO2 will keep creeping up and eventually kill us.
Is anyone seriously contemplating the kind of severe emissions reductions that would be necessary? I think not. If there's a real problem here, the solution has very little to do with emissions reductions.
Ohken, my guess would be that the CO2 doesn't stay in the atmosphere for forever. Some of it is absorbed by the land and the sea over time. Thus if we e.g. stopped emitting CO2 the level would sink.
ReplyDeleteWhile Russia depends a lot on oil (and linked to it, gas) price to balance budget (and all those extra spending we do lately to delay pension reform and to rise our military power), our exports slowly become much more diverse then before. And we managed fine when price was lower - and with about same level of corruption really, just with less money going around.
ReplyDeleteThough rise of oil price overshadows a lot of non-oil diversity, it exists, and is not negligible. Our export balance at the moment looks like 1/3 crude oil, 1/3 "all oil products" + gas, and 1/3 everything else. Not too bad, and it will get better when oil price drops... if ever.
Oh well, got to take money while it lasts.
Global Warming, (a better name is climate change), is the new religion because people have to have something to believe in. It's like the Y2K bug only many times larger.
ReplyDeleteThe amusing thing is, is that climate change is undoubtedly true: the earth's climate has never been static. Ireland produced wine in the 13th century, look at how many Roman towns now lie 20 meters underwater, etc.
What is amazing is the conceit that humans have caused the latest changes. It is the ultimate human ego trip that wants to have control over everything: we caused the climate change so we can stop it!
The reality is very different. Instead of spending insane amounts of money attempting to stop the earth's climate from changing we would be much better served spending that same amount of money discovering the best ways to adapt to the changing climate.
But people treat this topic as religion, and thus good debate goes out the window. People who challenge the status quo are known as climate change "deniers" and compared to Nazis. Which is why many knowledgeable people refrain from the debate. What is the point when it's taken on the scope of religion. And we all know how easy it is to change someone's mind on that subject.
Well, at least if we grow old enough, we will all find out whether and to what extend we have been right/wrong ;)
ReplyDeleteThis is assuming that there won't be any significant success in negotiating treaties.
The smog in LA (etc) didn't happen on its own. Poisoned lakes, rivers, aquifers, etc, didn't happen on its own. Poor air quality in and around power plants and factories didn't happen on their own. This kind of thing doesn't happen on its own.
ReplyDeleteThe warming of the Earth itself is mostly immaterial to the actual pollutive effects we know are going on - fixing the latter will help solve the former anyway.
So while I agree with the Green movement in principal, I think it's a mistake to focus on Global Warming precisely for the reasons Goodmongo and Noisyrogue bring up. In effect, the Green movement is tying itself to an extremely "weak" argument that can be easily dismissed in an armchair climatologist way by the very people that they need to convince.
It's easy to argue against Global Warming, facts or no facts. It's much harder to argue downwind from some of these factories and power plants. Fix those plants for the health benefits, demand better fuel efficiency for oil independence, and you have done everything Green wants to happen without the "Agenda."
"spending that same amount of money discovering the best ways to adapt to the changing climate."
ReplyDeleteGood idea - Some measures we might take:
- We could attach hot air balloons to all the islands that sunk in order to try to refloat them.
- Store the DNA of all the species that we are wiping out - we may be able to clone them later on, a la Dinosaur Park.
- We should build large aqueducts to transport the flash floodwater from Europe to Africa and Asia, which will be largely desert.
- We can use the Tsunamis to power those bobbing duck things to give us more electricity!
- We should use the bleach from all the dead coral in the great barrier reef to wash our cloths.
@Roq
ReplyDeleteIf you're trying to convince people of your viewpoint, responding to people with nothing other than sarcasm does not help you. All it achieves is to make it look like you don't have an argument and strengthens the position of those you're arguing with.
"So my question is why pick 1850? Is is because this year supports the warming side and coinsides with the little ice age? Why doesn't any of the proponents question 1850 as a starting point?"
ReplyDeleteThe reason they pick 1850 is because that is when records began.
It is not some kind of nefarious trick they are playing, humans started recording temperature in a scientific way on this date.
Every temperature graph that you see that dates to before 1850 consists of "infered" global temperatures. IE temperatures that we "think" was there based on geological evidence etc.
Trying to label the 1850 date as a deliberate act of manipulation really does hurt your argument in my opinion.
Going point-by-point isn't very efficient way of discussion, but it's fun, so let's go with that! :)
ReplyDelete- We could attach hot air balloons to all the islands that sunk in order to try to refloat them.
Do you know how many islands will be sunk that way, and how fast? If it's 50 years "from fine to underwater", going with nature preservation enthusiasts and preserving things worth saving "manually" might be perfectly feasible. If those islands are small enough we can add a few meters of soil with a fraction of effort needed for "world control" too.
- Store the DNA of all the species that we are wiping out - we may be able to clone them later on, a la Dinosaur Park.
Species get wiped out all the time, both in man-made and natural disasters. Some species are quite "specialized" to their environment (and thus prime candidates for extinction on any changes), others can adapt to wide range of possibilities.
- We should build large aqueducts to transport the flash floodwater from Europe to Africa and Asia, which will be largely desert.
Again, expected time-frames are required here. Tens of years? Hundreds of years? Where will deserts appear and how fast they will grow? How about current deserts, will they get bigger or smaller?
For example, looking at Sahara article in Wikipedia, it gets greener nowdays due to higher rainfall - rainfall you'd expect to increase in case of global warming.
- We can use the Tsunamis to power those bobbing duck things to give us more electricity!
Now here you're getting silly. Tsunamis come from earthquakes, you cannot honestly connect them to global warming!
- We should use the bleach from all the dead coral in the great barrier reef to wash our cloths.
Corals die all the time - that's how coral reefs grow, in fact, by new coral polyps growing on top of dead ones.
Please refrain from this style of commenting, Roq, Shalcker. It really doesn't lead anywhere.
ReplyDelete@Shalcker
ReplyDelete--- Do you know how many islands will be sunk that way, and how fast? If it's 50 years "from fine to underwater", going with nature preservation enthusiasts and preserving things worth saving "manually" might be perfectly feasible. If those islands are small enough we can add a few meters of soil with a fraction of effort needed for "world control" too. ---
It's something that's already happening. Of course people who like to deny the impact of climate change will have any number of other reasons, but the most likely culprit is climate change. The idea that you could shore up all these islands is a bit nutty - that wouldn't be economically feasible and would be an environmental & ecological disaster in it's own right even were it possible.
--- "Species get wiped out all the time, both in man-made and natural disasters. Some species are quite "specialized" to their environment (and thus prime candidates for extinction on any changes), others can adapt to wide range of possibilities." ---
You're committing the naturalistic fallacy here - i.e. because something can happen in nature then it's de facto OK. For instance, its probably quite natural for whole solar systems to get wiped out by supernova explosions - but its not something that most people would want to happen to the earth.
--- Again, expected time-frames are required here. Tens of years? Hundreds of years? Where will deserts appear and how fast they will grow? How about current deserts, will they get bigger or smaller? ---
Again, this is something that is likely already happening. For example: "Global circulation models predict a 1.7-2.1oC rise in Ethiopia’s mean temperature by 2050. This could cause food insecurity, outbreak of diseases such as malaria, dengue fever, cholera and dysentery, malnutrition, land degradation and damage to infrastructure."
--- "Now here you're getting silly. Tsunamis come from earthquakes, you cannot honestly connect them to global warming!" ---
"Writing in New Scientist magazine, Bill McGuire, professor of geological hazards at University College in London, said: "All over the world evidence is stacking up that changes in global climate can and do affect the frequencies of earthquakes, volcanic eruptions and catastrophic sea-floor landslides [all of which cause tsunamis.. ed]. Not only has this happened several times throughout Earth's history, the evidence suggests it is happening again.""
--- Corals die all the time - that's how coral reefs grow, in fact, by new coral polyps growing on top of dead ones. ---
"Rising carbon emissions might kill off the ocean's coral reefs by 2050, scientists warn in today's edition of the journal Science."....
@Nils These are pseudo-facts, Goodmongo. Please don't spam. Taking sentences out of context
ReplyDeleteFirst off thesse are NOT out of context. They are sometimes the entire email that was sent. Therefore, they are not spam.
@Bernard I'm not aware if the above comment is accurate, but regardless of your views of global warming, investment in developing renewable energy sources has got to be a good thing.
Unless you believe oil will last forever?
Research is one thing. Subsidizing company through crony capitalism is just plain wrong. For example Obama issued an executive order forcing the Navy to purchase biofuels for $16 per gallon instead of using the normal JP5 fuel that costs $4 per gallon. The company selling the biofuels was a major contributor to his campaign. This wastes US tax dollars, might be unsafe to use and doesn't get us anywhere.
@Nils Western countries - and especially the US - need to become independent from oil imports.
And the problem here in the US is that the progressives kill every effort to do that by stopping exploraion and drilling in the US, off its shores (yet China drills off Florida while the US can't). Or they block the Keystone XL pipeline that would bring oil from Canada into the US. Canada will sell that oil. Choice is to US or China.
@Everyone, I'm not saying global warming isn't going on. I'm sayint AGW (that man is causing the vast majority of any climate change) is what is wrong. Natural variable so easily outweigh man 's impact. Take for example one single volcano. It can spew into the atmosphere more 'greennhouse gasses' or more particulates in oneeruption then all of mankinds activities over a 5 year period.
Physics also shows that a 1% change in the suns radiative output would have a major impact on the Earth. The Earth itself has a tilt, orbit, nutation (change in tilt every 18 years), Chandler Wobble and is not always the same distance from the sun. this combined with various sunspot activity causes a change int he amout of energy hitting hte Earth from the sun. Now add in the various ocen currents and heat transfers. What I'm saying is that there are massive complex influences on the climate that far exceed mankinds impact.
@Remi The reason they pick 1850 is because that is when records began.
No it is not some magical year that all of a sudden records began at. There are numerous types of mechanisms including tree ring, ice cores, mud cores etc. And why 1850 and not 1849 or 1851? I know the official answer is based on the Royal Navy taking surface temperatures from around the world. But they were doing that since the mid 1700's. Good science needs to question the base asumption and starting at 1850 is a base assumption.
Finally, here are some more quotes not taken out of context and the speakers have verified their statements.
Emma Brindal, Friends of the Earth, 2007 UN climate conference:
"A climate change response must have at its heart a redistribution of wealth and resources”
---
Ottmar Edenhofer, co-chair IPCC WG III (and a lead author)
"First of all, developed countries have basically expropriated the atmosphere of the world community. But one must say clearly that we redistribute de facto the world's wealth by climate policy. Obviously, the owners of coal and oil will not be enthusiastic about this. One has to free oneself from the illusion that international climate policy is environmental policy. This has almost nothing to do with environmental policy anymore, with problems such as deforestation or the ozone hole."
This goes to motive of people behind AGW. This motive is not science based. Now you might fully agree with this goal and thats fine. My point in showing this is that it is not based purely on science.
That was a nice discussion. But before it get's out of hand I'm going to assume the community manager's role now :)
ReplyDeleteThanks for all your opinions and in 50 years we will all be smarter.