Global Warming

[Holbytla]

We will be entering another ice age at some point, and I believe that whatever affect we have had will be corrected.

The problem is that the new ice age isn't around the corner just yet, and a lot can and will happen between now and then. Most of it not very nice.

[tinwë]

We have much bigger problems to deal with namely global poverty, injustice and corrupt goverments. If only a few percent of the energy that it wasted on this fallacious debate was devoted to those subjects the world would be a far better place.

One of the things that needs to be remembered is how many of the problems we are facing today are interrelated. The byproduct of fossil fuel consumption is not just greenhouse gasses and climate change. It’s also environmental pollution that leads to higher cancer rates and other health issues, the contamination of our food supply with agricultural chemicals, and other types of pollution. Then there is the economic pressures of the rising cost of non-renewable energy sources. But perhaps most important, the human species dependance on and lust for fossil fuels is directly responsible for much of the global poverty, injustice and corrupt governments you mention.

Switching to cleaner, safer, renewable energy sources can help deal with all of these problems. It’s not a panacea by any means - greed, cruelty and lust for power will always be part of the human condition, but working for something that can spread so much good around (and may prevent a little global warming in the process) is not a wasted effort, imo.

[eborr]

The pattern of glaciation/interglacial/stadial/ and interstadial is fairly consistent, even if it's measured in 10's of thousands of years. You just need to look at the historic data.

For the current batch of climate change proponents, this is just an inconvenient truth, which they would rather ignore.

We live in a world where glaciation/meliting is a constant naturally occuring process, generally governed by forces much more powerful than we can create.

And by the way, I don't don't like unecessary waste, plastic packaging or landfill sites, nor do I much like the way politicians use the excuse of global warming to further other far more insidious agenda's

[vison]

One of the worst aspects of the current situation is the acidification of the ocean. That is going to kill us all.

The oceans became very acid several times before and each occasion led to mass extinctions.

[tinwë]

Interesting:

Skeptic finds he now agrees global warming is real

While this person is not convinced about the cause, he does concede that "Greenhouse gases could have a disastrous impact on the world". I wonder if any other skeptics will pay attention.

[Ghân-buri-Ghân]

Interesting:

Skeptic finds he now agrees global warming is real

While this person is not convinced about the cause, he does concede that "Greenhouse gases could have a disastrous impact on the world". I wonder if any other skeptics will pay attention.

I believe they have. Richard Muller's colleague, Judith Curry, chair of the School of Earth and Atmospheric Sciences at the Georgia Institute of Technology, has rebutted Muller's conclusion, pointing out that there has been no global warming over the last ten years, which brings into question the link between CO2 and AGW, as CO2 has been increasing.

It seems there is still room for skeptics...

[Voronwë the Faithful]

Link? (I'm not questioning your truthfulness; I just would like to read what she has to say for myself, if possible.)

[Ghân-buri-Ghân]

Link? (I'm not questioning your truthfulness; I just would like to read what she has to say for myself, if possible.)

Of course, Voronwë. Unfortunately I can't find the original info, but here's an article in the Daily Express (not my favourite newspaper...) quoting Prof Curry.

http://www.express.co.uk/posts/view/280 ... ays-expert

When Prof Curry heard that Prof Muller was saying that the Berkeley Earth Surface Temperature (BEST) findings would put an end to climate change scepticism for good she was horrified. “This isn’t the end of scepticism,” she exclaimed.

“To say that is the biggest mistake he has made. When I saw he was saying that I just thought, ‘Oh my God.’”

Prof Muller, of Berkeley University in California, and Prof Curry, who chairs the Department Of Earth And Atmospheric Sciences at America’s Georgia Institute of Technology, were part of the BEST project that carried
out analysis of more than 1.6 billion temperature recordings collected from more than 39,000 weather stations around the world.

Prof Muller appeared on Radio 4’s Today Programme last Friday where he described how BEST’s findings showed that since the Fifties global temperatures had risen by about 1 degree Celsius, a figure which is in line with estimates from Nasa and the Met Office.

When asked whether the rate had stopped over the last 10 years he said they had not. “We see no evidence of it having slowed down,” he replied and a graph issued by the BEST project suggests a continuing and steep increase.

But this last point is one which Prof Curry has furiously rebuttted. In a serious clash of scientific experts Prof Curry has accused Prof Muller of trying to “hide the decline in rates of global warming”.

She says that BEST’s research actually shows that there has been no increase in world temperatures for 13 years.

[eborr]

Just to add to my earlier thesis, a re-examination of the evidence from a cave in Devon has revised the date of a partial homo sapiens sapiens jaw bone to 40,000 BCE, this is quite startling for two reasons, firstly this places modern man into Northern Europe alongside the Neanderthals, at least 10,000 years earlier than the next oldest find, and it also implies that modern man was in Europe during a glacial period - which also runs up against the notion that modern man came to europe following the melting of the ice. The theory which has been advanced to explain this, is that actually what occured was a very short term warming over a period of 1000 years, before the Ice came back. Guess the old neanderthals must have been buring up to many fossil fuels, over consumption of plastic bags, and being very hairy used a lot of cfc power deoderants.

[Voronwë the Faithful]

Thanks, Ghân. Interesting. I guess Prof Muller just drank different kool aid than Prof. Curry did.

[Griffon64]

eborr - nah. There could have been a period of increased solar activity, for instance. But it is just silly to say because modern pollutants were absent then, it follows that their presence now cannot possibly have an effect on global temperatures. Carbon is just one way to warm up the atmosphere, but I don't know that it is the only way.

Research is ongoing, and new information changes pictures and theories. This is nothing new.

PS: I thought it was old hat that modern man and the Neanderthals living alongside each other for a while?

[Primula Baggins]

I recently read that people of northern European ancestry have up to 4% Neanderthal genes. In other words, they didn't just live side by side, they interbred.

It's true that there are plenty of natural sources of warming that have caused immense climate change in the past. They aren't operating now as far as anyone can measure. Some, such as massive supervolcano eruptions, would be difficult to miss. Others, such as insolation, are more subtle but easy to measure.

[Ghân-buri-Ghân]

Research is ongoing, and new information changes pictures and theories. This is nothing new.

This is, I believe, the crux of the matter. Ongoing research can support or destroy received wisdom. What I find uncomfortable about the AGW Climate Change Zealots (copyright pending...) is their absolutism; they brook no argument. Their certainty about cause and effect is, in my opinion, dangerous and unscientific. For example, post 1998, there was a 'cooling', or 'flat' period. AGW advocates stated that it would require at least ten years for this to be statistically significant. 13 years later, they now say that it requires 17 years... I find such pronouncements shoddy, and symptomatic of a science that has become almost ideological in nature.

AGW may very well be true, but...

[anthriel]

I've always had a hard time with this thread, because answering the poll tends to encourage an absolute viewpoint.

The three choices are:

The earth is not, on the whole, warming
The earth is warming, but the causes are natural
The earth is warming due to human activity

How about a fourth choice:

The earth may well be warming, and the causes may well be natural and part of normal environmental cycles, but some of the changes may also be due, in some part, to humans and their activities; it seems reasonable to assume that the pollutants we produce have some effect on the earth and our atmosphere, and we need to be thoughtful about how negatively we may be impacting our world?

Or is that too long?

[Ghân-buri-Ghân]

I've always had a hard time with this thread, because answering the poll tends to encourage an absolute viewpoint.

The three choices are:

The earth is not, on the whole, warming
The earth is warming, but the causes are natural
The earth is warming due to human activity

How about a fourth choice:

The earth may well be warming, and the causes may well be natural and part of normal environmental cycles, but some of the changes may also be due, in some part, to humans and their activities; it seems reasonable to assume that the pollutants we produce have some effect on the earth and our atmosphere, and we need to be thoughtful about how negatively we may be impacting our world?

Or is that too long?

I had a very similar problem, anthriel, which precluded my voting in the poll. And, yes, that is way too long an option!

However, I think an option of:

The Earth appears to be warming, and this is due to a combination of natural cycles and human influence

would be supportable. At least, by me...

[anthriel]

Okay. How about:

The Earth appears to be warming, and this is possibly due to a combination of natural cycles and human influence

I am the Queen of Waffling.

[Holbytla]

Totally agree. Even if we are producing no lasting effects, there is no rhyme or reason to allow corporations and people to uncontrollably pollute the atmosphere.

Heck if the atmosphere were a river, nobody would stand by and watch someone dump a glowing 55 gallon drum of radioactive toxins into it. Why is this any different?

The driving force behind all of this is the almighty dollar and how being responsible affects the bottom line.

Nobody is asking for cows not to pass gas. Nobody is saying you can't burn wood or use hairspray.

Sane people are saying that we need to be more aware of our surroundings and stop behaving foolishly, carelessly and callously.

All despite the fact that the earth is going through its natural cycles.

[Ghân-buri-Ghân]

Okay. How about:

The Earth appears to be warming, and this is possibly due to a combination of natural cycles and human influence

I am the Queen of Waffling.

The perfect possibly!

Addendum

And I agree totally with Holbytla. Even if AGW would turn out to be a phantasm, that shouldn't give a green light to polluters. In fact, I believe this fixation with AGW, and Carbon Dioxide emissions specifically, have contributed to missed opportunities. so much focus is on total emissions of CO2 that not only do polluters work the system (carbon trading), but a plethora of equivalently serious polluting actions are sidelined.

Big business offsets, and, ultimately, we all choke...

[Voronwë the Faithful]

I largely agree with that, Ghân.

[Frelga]

Okay. How about:

The Earth appears to be warming, and this is possibly due to a combination of natural cycles and human influence

I am the Queen of Waffling.

And I am the Countess of Quibbling

I would say: the Earth appears to be warming, and this may be caused or amplified by human activity.

To me the conclusion is that we seem to be in a hole and the first thing we need to do is stop digging!