NationStates Jolt Archive

*burps*

Study: Earth hottest in 400 years (http://www.cnn.com/2006/TECH/science/06/22/global.warming.ap/index.html)
Panel says humans responsible for much of the warming

Thursday, June 22, 2006; Posted: 11:10 a.m. EDT (15:10 GMT)


WASHINGTON (AP) -- The Earth is the hottest it has been in at least 400 years, probably even longer.

The National Academy of Sciences, reaching that conclusion in a broad review of scientific work requested by Congress, reported Thursday that the "recent warmth is unprecedented for at least the last 400 years and potentially the last several millennia."
http://i.a.cnn.net/cnn/2006/TECH/science/06/22/global.warming.ap/vt1.polarbear.ap.jpg
A panel of top climate scientists told lawmakers that the Earth is running a fever and that "human activities are responsible for much of the recent warming." Their 155-page report said average global surface temperatures in the Northern Hemisphere rose about 1 degree during the 20th century.

The report was requested in November by the chairman of the House Science Committee, Rep. Sherwood Boehlert, R-New York, to address naysayers who question whether global warming is a major threat.

Last year, when the House Energy and Commerce Committee chairman, Rep. Joe Barton, R-Texas, launched an investigation of three climate scientists, Boehlert said Barton should try to learn from scientists, not intimidate them.

The Bush administration also has maintained that the threat is not severe enough to warrant new pollution controls that the White House says would have cost 5 million Americans their jobs.

Climate scientists Michael Mann, Raymond Bradley and Malcolm Hughes had concluded the Northern Hemisphere was the warmest it has been in 2,000 years. Their research was known as the "hockey-stick" graphic because it compared the sharp curve of the hockey blade to the recent uptick in temperatures and the stick's long shaft to centuries of previous climate stability.

The National Academy scientists concluded that the Mann-Bradley-Hughes research from the late 1990s was "likely" to be true, said John "Mike" Wallace, an atmospheric sciences professor at the University of Washington and a panel member. The conclusions from the '90s research "are very close to being right" and are supported by even more recent data, Wallace said.

The panel looked at how other scientists reconstructed the Earth's temperatures going back thousands of years, before there was data from modern scientific instruments.

For all but the most recent 150 years, the academy scientists relied on "proxy" evidence from tree rings, corals, glaciers and ice cores, cave deposits, ocean and lake sediments, boreholes and other sources. They also examined indirect records such as paintings of glaciers in the Alps.

Combining that information gave the panel "a high level of confidence that the last few decades of the 20th century were warmer than any comparable period in the last 400 years," the academy said.

Overall, the panel agreed that the warming in the last few decades of the 20th century was unprecedented over the last 1,000 years, though relatively warm conditions persisted around the year 1000, followed by a "Little Ice Age" from about 1500 to 1850.

The scientists said they had less confidence in the evidence of temperatures before 1600. But they considered it reliable enough to conclude there were sharp spikes in carbon dioxide and methane, the two major "greenhouse" gases blamed for trapping heat in the atmosphere, beginning in the 20th century, after remaining fairly level for 12,000 years.

Between 1 A.D. and 1850, volcanic eruptions and solar fluctuations were the main causes of changes in greenhouse gas levels. But those temperature changes "were much less pronounced than the warming due to greenhouse gas" levels by pollution since the mid-19th century, it said.

The National Academy of Sciences is a private organization chartered by Congress to advise the government of scientific matters.

Maybe we should get the A/C looked at.

Maybe we should get the A/C looked at.
Mine seems fine...

http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,192544,00.html

http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,192544,00.html
Oh boy! "News"! :rolleyes:

It's not so much as I don't believe "Global Warming" exists- I just don't believe it is mine, your's, nor anyone's fault. It is the natural result of earth climate patterns over millions of years. Cycles.

Besides, these "Scientists" everybody keeps pointing to have very little if any knowledge on the subject. Climatologists are the ones you should be asking about this. They'll tell you it's the result of the cycles that the Earth's atmosphere goes through over long periods of time. The Experts see no reason to worry, nor place blame. I see no reason to either.

It's not so much as I don't believe "Global Warming" exists- I just don't believe it is mine, your's, nor anyone's fault. It is the natural result of earth climate patterns over millions of years. Cycles.

Besides, these "Scientists" everybody keeps pointing to have very little if any knowledge on the subject. Climatologists are the ones you should be asking about this. They'll tell you it's the result of the cycles that the Earth's atmosphere goes through over long periods of time. The Experts see no reason to worry, nor place blame. I see no reason to either.
That' bullshit. Climatologists widely agree that human activity is what is causing the Earth to warm. For example, the ones I posted in the story.

Wait!

Shrub CO, the Repubs, and their apologists say there is no global warming!

I am confused.

Here's an entire website and many articles made by climatologists- and THEIR skepticism-

http://www.oism.org/news/s49p628.htm

That' bullshit. Climatologists widely agree that human activity is what is causing the Earth to warm. For example, the ones I posted in the story.

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/f/f8/Ice_Age_Temperature.png

Looks pretty cyclical to me. :p

It's not so much as I don't believe "Global Warming" exists- I just don't believe it is mine, your's, nor anyone's fault. It is the natural result of earth climate patterns over millions of years. Cycles.

So spending the last 100 years or so burning as much oil and coal as possible is just part of the natural cycle?

Neat!

So spending the last 100 years or so burning as much oil and coal as possible is just part of the natural cycle?

Neat!
So... in 100 years we can repeat this, eh?

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/f/f8/Ice_Age_Temperature.png

Looks pretty cyclical to me. :p
Funny how the left hand side of that graph, the part that reflects now, seems like it might be breaking that cycle. Also, you might want to consider the fact that humans don't operate on geologic time frames. We operate on decades, not tens of thousands of years.

All I know is that every year, it gets hotter here. Christ...it was 103 yesterday!

So spending the last 100 years or so burning as much oil and coal as possible is just part of the natural cycle?

Neat!

I think it's pretty arrogant to think that human beings are capable of breaking it. :p

I think it's pretty arrogant to think that human beings are capable of breaking it. :p

Oh I dunno ... I'm pretty good at breakin' stuff.

So spending the last 100 years or so burning as much oil and coal as possible is just part of the natural cycle?

Neat!

As I said, and as many others (Climatologists included), our "Horrendous use of the automobile" has very little effect, if any, over long term changes in the climate. The earth has been warming up ever since the Ice Ages, and any climatologist will tell you it was hotter when the dinosaurs were around than it is now, and was hotter than it will be for a long time- few thousand/million years or so...

I'm not panicked. I'm living my life, and I'm not going to stop driving a car anytime soon.

We operate on decades, not tens of thousands of years.

Exactly. I doubt mankind's ability to break that cycle. We're really not that important.

Exactly. I doubt mankind's ability to break that cycle. We're really not that important.

In the big scheme in the goings on of this earth's entire existence- nope- we've only been here less than a minute- if earth's life were 24 hours. We haven't been around enough to do too much in the long run.

Exactly. I doubt mankind's ability to break that cycle. We're really not that important.
It doesn't matter whether we can "break the cycle" over the next 5,000 years. What matters is whether our activities can disrupt climate in the short term, the next few decades or centuries. Who cares if we can't destroy life on Earth? What matters is if we can cause severe disruptions to global climate, and all of our activities that rely on it, in the short term.

In the big scheme in the goings on of this earth's entire existence- nope- we've only been here less than a minute- if earth's life were 24 hours. We haven't been around enough to do too much in the long run.

We don't need to do much in the geographical long run to screw up the planet. If we could only flood half the world's surface for 1000 years, which with your attitude seems not unlikely, we'll have serious problems.

It doesn't matter whether we can "break the cycle" over the next 5,000 years. What matters is whether our activities can disrupt climate in the short term, the next few decades or centuries. Who cares if we can't destroy life on Earth? What matters is if we can cause severe disruptions to global climate, and all of our activities that rely on it, in the short term.

There have been only a few times where mankind has had a lasting impact (even on the short term side) on the environment- The Roman Empire's reign, and the Industrial Age. Other than that- we can't do much to Mother Earth- she's too resilient.

i'm so tired of hearing the 'the earth heats up in cycles argument'....funnily enough, no-one outside of America ever uses it. perhaps this is ebcause we are aware there is a genuine problem, and that our governments are able to sign documentation that, while may cost the country, will improve the planet.

conversely, America cannot sign the kyoto agreement simply because it goes against their laws for the president to sign ANYTHING that would cost their economy... so the earth may be dying, but you keep your fortunes...

because of this little known piece of economic policy, the country then spends it's time denying the problem...easy to do when the majority of its citizens don't take an interest in the rest of the world...apart from when they're ''liberating'' parts of it.

if we consider the original argument, the earth has had cycles...they have been caused by external influence...such as space debris coliding, killing off the dinosaurs and equating a nuclear winter; however, in the last 400 years we've burned off more fossil fuel than all the time prior to the increase in industry, if every action has an equal and opposite reaction, isn't it time people realised there will be consequences?


it saddens me when people beleive the propoganda of their own country, and use websites which ar fabricated to promote it- i mean on the internet it's not at all possible to lie is it?!

We don't need to do much in the geographical long run to screw up the planet. If we could only flood half the world's surface for 1000 years, which with your attitude seems not unlikely, we'll have serious problems.

There's not a whole bunch we can do that's really going to hurt us as far as the weather goes. We just get acid rain and smog. But New York isn't going to be inundated, if that's what you're after.

Green house gases are only one of many reasons the average temperature of the Earth changes over time, and human activity is only one part of the green house gas emisison worldwide. While I agree a cleaner energy source needs to be found and implimented, there is no great apocylase on the horizon. Just the acidification of our ecosystems and decline of biodiversity, which should be reason enough.

Marine microbial life releases approximatly 40% of all cardon dioxide, geothermal processes constitute about 20% of methane and CO2 release. Terrestrial microbial life play a small role. Herbivores release around 15% I think, but you could argue that is largely due to human activities like cattle breeding. (I think termites are are 5% alone). I have seen human activity being estimated anywhere from 10-30% of green house emissions. Including herbivores, it is probably around 20%, at least this would be my guess.

While this definitely has an impact, if all human activities that released carbon were ceased today (including farting), the Earth would continue to warm, just at a slower rate. Since the last ice age, approx. 10.000 years ago, the Earth has been warming. If we are going to survive as a human race we better be ready to handle warming and ice ages, because they are going to happen as they have hundreds of times in history.

And this is not even bringing up the debate on solar activity and its effects on global temperature.

There have been only a few times where mankind has had a lasting impact (even on the short term side) on the environment- The Roman Empire's reign, and the Industrial Age. Other than that- we can't do much to Mother Earth- she's too resilient.
You're right. The Romans destroyed their environment and their civilization crumbled as a result. Same thing can be said for a few different civilizations. The Industrial age has impacted the Earth in ways never before seen. How will our civilization fair? Again, it makes no difference to me whether their are still humans around 1,000 years from now. I want to know what happens if the sea level rises a foot and a half over the next 30 years whether much of New York will be around in 2050.

i'm so tired of hearing the 'the earth heats up in cycles argument'....funnily enough, no-one outside of America ever uses it. perhaps this is ebcause we are aware there is a genuine problem, and that our governments are able to sign documentation that, while may cost the country, will improve the planet.

conversely, America cannot sign the kyoto agreement simply because it goes against their laws for the president to sign ANYTHING that would cost their economy... so the earth may be dying, but you keep your fortunes...

because of this little known piece of economic policy, the country then spends it's time denying the problem...easy to do when the majority of its citizens don't take an interest in the rest of the world...apart from when they're ''liberating'' parts of it.

if we consider the original argument, the earth has had cycles...they have been caused by external influence...such as space debris coliding, killing off the dinosaurs and equating a nuclear winter; however, in the last 400 years we've burned off more fossil fuel than all the time prior to the increase in industry, if every action has an equal and opposite reaction, isn't it time people realised there will be consequences?


it saddens me when people beleive the propoganda of their own country, and use websites which ar fabricated to promote it- i mean on the internet it's not at all possible to lie is it?!


And it's not at all possible that YOU'RE wrong either? Maybe you've been fed propaganda and fabrication.

Do not insult other peoples intellect. I look at the same sun, moon, and sky as you do. I review the same articles, the same "information". I don't arive to the same conclusion as you. I don't swallow just cause some says to. I question every bit as much as any skeptic. So quit mitchin' and boanin'.

Throughout the history of the world, in every stretch of 400 years, one of them will be the hottest.

Throughout the history of the world, in every stretch of 400 years, one of them will be the hottest.

Exactly. :)

And it's not at all possible that YOU'RE wrong either? Maybe you've been fed propaganda and fabrication.

Do not insult other peoples intellect. I look at the same sun, moon, and sky as you do. I review the same articles, the same "information". I don't arive to the same conclusion as you. So quit mitchin' and boanin'.


i'm not insulting your intellect, just your selction of information. how can you be fed propaganda when most countries outside of the US are reading from the same page- non governmental financed enquiries all turing up the same results. again, i won't insult your interllect, just what would appear to be your overwhelming ignorance.

I don't buy the anthropogenic global warming argument because its proponents seem unwilling to show me their complete data.

Al Gore's film, for example, made a bunch of apples to oranges comparisons, and left big gaps in his datasets.

I'm not saying that the global warming alarmists are wrong. I'm saying that they don't seem interested in convincing rational people, and that makes me highly suspicious of their motives.

if we consider the original argument, the earth has had cycles...they have been caused by external influence...such as space debris coliding, killing off the dinosaurs and equating a nuclear winter; however, in the last 400 years we've burned off more fossil fuel than all the time prior to the increase in industry, if every action has an equal and opposite reaction, isn't it time people realised there will be consequences?


It is, and always has been, completely in the hands of the microorganisms.

http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,192544,00.html

And here's a fine rebuttal of JunkScience.com and Steven Milloy.

http://info-pollution.com/milloy.htm

http://www.realclimate.org/index.php?p=220

http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Steven_Milloy

http://www.motherjones.com/news/feature/2005/05/some_like_it_hot.html

Setting aside any questions about Milloy’s journalistic ethics, on a purely scientific level, his attack on the ACIA was comically inept. Citing a single graph from a 146-page overview of a 1,200-plus- page, fully referenced report, Milloy claimed that the document “pretty much debunks itself” because high Arctic temperatures “around 1940” suggest that the current temperature spike could be chalked up to natural variability. “In order to take that position,” counters Harvard biological oceanographer James McCarthy, a lead author of the report, “you have to refute what are hundreds of scientific papers that reconstruct various pieces of this climate puzzle.”

http://www.answers.com/topic/steven-milloy

http://www.ourstolenfuture.org/Myths/2002-0120avery.htm

http://laweekly.blogs.com/judith_lewis/2006/01/why_wont_fox_du.html






Let's see if you can specifically rebut the rubuttals (I've never seen a Global Warming skeptic get past the first round before, so you might be the first!)

It is, and always has been, completely in the hands of the microorganisms.


you made a good point, but you forget that the influence on man on anything to do with other creatures (ie fishing) has substantial effects on the population of the microrganisms... by fishing as extensively as we do for instance, some food chains go unchecked...thus more microrganisms

so there's room for you and me to both be right my friend.

You're right. The Romans destroyed their environment and their civilization crumbled as a result. Same thing can be said for a few different civilizations. The Industrial age has impacted the Earth in ways never before seen. How will our civilization fair? Again, it makes no difference to me whether their are still humans around 1,000 years from now. I want to know what happens if the sea level rises a foot and a half over the next 30 years whether much of New York will be around in 2050.

New York isn't going to "sink into the sea". I'm more concerned about where I'm going to be in 5, 10, 20 years- not about what some alarmist THINKS is going to happen. I want hardcore proof- not just evidence, not just theories, not just "We think" or even "We 99.9999...% Think" or even "WE're damn sure".

I don't live near the coast anyway.

Point blank- I don't care. I don't see a threat, so I'm not worried. Nobody has show you right, or me right. So this whole "GLOBAL WARMING" thing is a ridiculous waste of time.

I don't buy the anthropogenic global warming argument because its proponents seem unwilling to show me their complete data.

Al Gore's film, for example, made a bunch of apples to oranges comparisons, and left big gaps in his datasets.

I'm not saying that the global warming alarmists are wrong. I'm saying that they don't seem interested in convincing rational people, and that makes me highly suspicious of their motives.


Llewdor, the data is abundantly available and, unlike the skeptics, tends to be exhaustive, peer-reviewed and fully referenced.

i'm not insulting your intellect, just your selction of information. how can you be fed propaganda when most countries outside of the US are reading from the same page- non governmental financed enquiries all turing up the same results. again, i won't insult your interllect, just what would appear to be your overwhelming ignorance.

Again- I've seen the same case- from both sides- as you have. I don't see anything wrong. If I did, I don't see how we can do anything to correct it.

New York isn't going to "sink into the sea". I'm more concerned about where I'm going to be in 5, 10, 20 years- not about what some alarmist THINKS is going to happen. I want hardcore proof- not just evidence, not just theories, not just "We think" or even "We 99.9999...% Think" or even "WE're damn sure".

I don't live near the coast anyway.

Point blank- I don't care. I don't see a threat, so I'm not worried. Nobody has show you right, or me right. So this whole "GLOBAL WARMING" thing is a ridiculous waste of time.



but isn't you're whole ''i don't care'' attitude just being ignorant?...what about your children, and their children..and their children? they'll have to live with our mistakes. the scientists could be wrong...but is it fair for them to have to deal with a worse situation because we failed to thinkabout our actions?

you can't just sit there and think for yourself, there's the rest of the world out there.

i'm not insulting your intellect, just your selction of information. how can you be fed propaganda when most countries outside of the US are reading from the same page- non governmental financed enquiries all turing up the same results. again, i won't insult your interllect, just what would appear to be your overwhelming ignorance.

Non governmental financed enquiries?

How much scientific research really gets done without government grants? Many governments (particularly European and African governments) have an interest in perpetuating the global warming story.

It is, and always has been, completely in the hands of the microorganisms.
No, that's wrong. Microorganisms remove as much carbon from the atmosphere as they put into it. They use it to build their tissues as well as respire it so their is no net increase in carbon in the atmosphere as a result of microrganism respiration. That doesn't mean that they don't put carbon into the atmosphere, just that they also take out just as much. Burning fossil fuels is open ended. It is a net addition to atmospheric carbon.

Again- I've seen the same case- from both sides- as you have. I don't see anything wrong. If I did, I don't see how we can do anything to correct it.



cut fuel emissions

use cleaner energy sources

stop over(and intensive) farming

choose salad instead of steak once in awhile

recycle...


do any of these ideas sound familiar?... even then they're only baby steps, but if everyone gave a damn for once, and we all took that step, we'd be better off for having done so.

mind you, it saddens me that the creator of green ideaology and the gaia thesis (lovelock) has actually declared recently he feels that it may be too late..

but isn't you're whole ''i don't care'' attitude just being ignorant?...what about your children, and their children..and their children? they'll have to live with our mistakes. the scientists could be wrong...but is it fair for them to have to deal with a worse situation because we failed to thinkabout our actions?

you can't just sit there and think for yourself, there's the rest of the world out there.

No. I've seen the case for "Global Warming" as alarmists would have us believe- and I don't see anything to convince me they're even close to right. I have also seen the other side- and it makes sense to me. I'm sick of people coming at me again and again with the same crap, as if saying it slower is going to help. I don't see a problem, therefore- why find a "solution".

cut fuel emissions

use cleaner energy sources

stop over(and intensive) farming

choose salad instead of steak once in awhile

recycle...


do any of these ideas sound familiar?... even then they're only baby steps, but if everyone gave a damn for once, and we all took that step, we'd be better off for having done so.

mind you, it saddens me that the creator of green ideaology and the gaia thesis (lovelock) has actually declared recently he feels that it may be too late..

The earth was warming before we even knew what oil was. I believe in doing those things- but I don't think they have any affect on "global warming". They do affect the cleanliness of the environment though.

New York isn't going to "sink into the sea".Who said it was going to sink? If the sea level rises enough much of it could be under water but that's not because it sank.



I'm more concerned about where I'm going to be in 5, 10, 20 years- not about what some alarmist THINKS is going to happen. I want hardcore proof- not just evidence, not just theories, not just "We think" or even "We 99.9999...% Think" or even "WE're damn sure".that's stupid. Anyone tells me that they're 99.9% sure of anything and I'm taking my kids' college funds to vegas. It's not often you get that much certainty about anything.

I don't live near the coast anyway.Much of what you take for granted in life comes from there, nonetheless.

Point blank- I don't care. I don't see a threat, so I'm not worried. Nobody has show you right, or me right. So this whole "GLOBAL WARMING" thing is a ridiculous waste of time.ok

No, that's wrong. Microorganisms remove as much carbon from the atmosphere as they put into it. They use it to build their tissues as well as respire it so their is no net increase in carbon in the atmosphere as a result of microrganism respiration. That doesn't mean that they don't put carbon into the atmosphere, just that they also take out just as much. Burning fossil fuels is open ended. It is a net addition to atmospheric carbon.

Marine systems produce 60 billion giga tons of CO2 per year (rounded estimates). You are right in saying that it is recycled, in fact a very large portion is, but that still only amounts to roughly 40 billion giga tons (this includes disolved carbon that settles to the ocean floors).
20 billion giga tons per year released. The heterotrophs in any marine system largely outnumber the photoautotrophs, as the later can only survive in the top 10-30 meters depending on the system. It is quite easy to measure methane and CO2 production from a given area in the ocean, then expand that to all surface area.

But you could argue that this technique is flawed I suppose.

We don't need to do much in the geographical long run to screw up the planet. If we could only flood half the world's surface for 1000 years, which with your attitude seems not unlikely, we'll have serious problems.

If we flood half the planet, the fishing industry will boom as will the boating industry, human-kind has adapted to many different changes in geological and climatical change,...

For instance, We adapted to the receding of earths ice sheets and also to the change in decreased humidity around the equator. SO WHAT?

If the world floods, significant amounts of people will die, but not enough to dent the nearly 6 BILLION still alive. It'll be like dousing your yard with water.
Most insects will survive, especially the ants. We, in short are the ants.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A26065-2004Dec25.html

Many people have the impression that there is significant scientific disagreement about global climate change. It's time to lay that misapprehension to rest. There is a scientific consensus on the fact that Earth's climate is heating up and human activities are part of the reason. We need to stop repeating nonsense about the uncertainty of global warming and start talking seriously about the right approach to address it.


The scientific consensus is clearly expressed in the reports of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). Created in 1988 by the World Meteorological Organization and the United Nations Environmental Program, the IPCC is charged with evaluating the state of climate science as a basis for informed policy action. In its most recent assessment, the IPCC states unequivocally that the consensus of scientific opinion is that Earth's climate is being affected by human activities: "Human activities . . . are modifying the concentration of atmospheric constituents . . . that absorb or scatter radiant energy. . . . [M]ost of the observed warming over the last 50 years is likely to have been due to the increase in greenhouse gas concentrations."

The IPCC is not alone in its conclusions. In recent years all major scientific bodies in the United States whose members' expertise bears directly on the matter have issued similar statements. A National Academy of Sciences report begins unequivocally: "Greenhouse gases are accumulating in Earth's atmosphere as a result of human activities, causing surface air temperatures and subsurface ocean temperatures to rise."


So it really comes down to who you want to believe. Thousands of scientists from a multitude of nations using the latest technology and rigorously backing up their assertions, or Oil Company funded lobbyists and a mere handful of scientific skeptics, or which there are fewer and fewer each day?

And no, the Earth will not end. But look up the Depression-Era dustbowl. Now imagine that happening in multiple locations around the world. Now imagine other locations flooding. We're talking displacement of populations, famine, pestilence and economic upheaval. The Earth will keep on trucking and man won't go extinct (probably.) It's just going to be a sucky time to live.

Llewdor, the data is abundantly available and, unlike the skeptics, tends to be exhaustive, peer-reviewed and fully referenced.

I can't find them.

I want comprehensive datasets covering surface temperatures, ocean temperatures, and high atmospheric temperatures. I want details of how the temperature measurements were made. I want consistent methodology over time. I want detailed worldwide datasets (for example, no measuring just the western arctic - I never hear about the thickness of the ice north of Russia). I want to examine that actual climate models they're using.

These must exist, else why would anyone be so confident in his conclusions, but I can't find them.

I don't place much stock in peer review. I'd much rather trust data than "peers".

but isn't you're whole ''i don't care'' attitude just being ignorant?...what about your children, and their children..and their children? they'll have to live with our mistakes. the scientists could be wrong...but is it fair for them to have to deal with a worse situation because we failed to thinkabout our actions?

you can't just sit there and think for yourself, there's the rest of the world out there.


Tell that to the people who induced slavery, or developed nuclear arms, or created asbestos/lead paint. Why should we care? Especially if the people who came before us didn't?

I can't find them.

I want comprehensive datasets covering surface temperatures, ocean temperatures, and high atmospheric temperatures. I want details of how the temperature measurements were made. I want consistent methodology over time. I want detailed worldwide datasets (for example, no measuring just the western arctic - I never hear about the thickness of the ice north of Russia). I want to examine that actual climate models they're using.

These must exist, else why would anyone be so confident in his conclusions, but I can't find them.

I don't place much stock in peer review. I'd much rather trust data than "peers".

Try Nasa. Try university Climatology departments. Go to RealCLimate and ACTUALLY FOLLOW THE LINKS.

Hope you enjoy reading 1,000 page reports. But seriously, if you want the raw data, you have to search and search exhaustively for it or, better yet, STUDY CLIMATOLOGY at a UNIVERSITY like the overwhelming consensus has.

Marine systems produce 60 billion giga tons of CO2 per year (rounded estimates). You are right in saying that it is recycled, in fact a very large portion is, but that still only amounts to roughly 40 billion giga tons (this includes disolved carbon that settles to the ocean floors).
20 billion giga tons per year released. The heterotrophs in any marine system largely outnumber the photoautotrophs, as the later can only survive in the top 10-30 meters depending on the system. It is quite easy to measure methane and CO2 production from a given area in the ocean, then expand that to all surface area.

But you could argue that this technique is flawed I suppose.
I'm saying that in any living system, as long as the total living biomass of the system stays constant, then any release of any chemical must also be balanced by it's absorbtion and use of the same chemical.carbon is a fundamental building block of life. It is lterally what we are made of. When any living thing expells carbon it must replace it.

http://www.realclimate.org/index.php?p=86

More on the consensus.

I quite like this graph:

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/e/e9/Carbon_Dioxide_400kyr-2.png

I get the feeling that this is more and more about the science of climate change and less about mankinds ability to adapt to it. Sadly enough, whether or not this stuff hits the fan, I'll be downstairs in my Y2K bunker eating 7 year old canned food. See you all on the flipside.

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/05/24/opinion/24easterbrook.html?ex=1306123200&en=a4de3b888f17125a&ei=5088&partner=rssnyt&emc=rss

Skeptic converted by data to believing Global Warming.

cut fuel emissions

use cleaner energy sources

stop over(and intensive) farming

choose salad instead of steak once in awhile

recycle...


do any of these ideas sound familiar?... even then they're only baby steps, but if everyone gave a damn for once, and we all took that step, we'd be better off for having done so.

mind you, it saddens me that the creator of green ideaology and the gaia thesis (lovelock) has actually declared recently he feels that it may be too late..
Are you possibly wearing Hemp cloth materials? :p

And no, the Earth will not end. But look up the Depression-Era dustbowl. Now imagine that happening in multiple locations around the world. Now imagine other locations flooding. We're talking displacement of populations, famine, pestilence and economic upheaval. The Earth will keep on trucking and man won't go extinct (probably.) It's just going to be a sucky time to live.
Exactly. I get so tired of hearing, "life has been around for four billion years. We can't kill it." or my favorite, "We have always adapted and we can adapt now." Yes, we can and we will. And the process of adapting is likely to be very hard and will probably interupt this project in civilization.

Sure there will be humans, but there were humans during the great depression, too.
http://library.ucsc.edu/exhibits/DLange.jpeg

There are humans right now in Darfur
http://www.villagevoice.com/blogs/bushbeat/archive/images/darfur-starving-girl-2004-IRIN%20Claire%20McEvoy.jpg


and in Somalia.
http://www.ucm.es/info/hcontemp/leoc/images/imagverdes/somalia.jpg
They're also adapting.

Are you possibly wearing Hemp cloth materials? :p

Are you wearing baby sealskin pants as you drive in your Hummer?

Try Nasa. Try university Climatology departments. Go to RealCLimate and ACTUALLY FOLLOW THE LINKS.

Hope you enjoy reading 1,000 page reports. But seriously, if you want the raw data, you have to search and search exhaustively for it or, better yet, STUDY CLIMATOLOGY at a UNIVERSITY like the overwhelming consensus has.

Why is the raw data so hard to find?

Why are so many laypeople so convinced by these climatologists if they haven't seen the data?

I have detailed moden (since 1850 or so) temperature data, so the earth is clearly getting warmer. I might even be willing to accept that the earth is getting warmer faster than we have evidence for it ever having done before. It's the projections I don't like. And the proposals for mitigation.

*burps*

Americans don't like to hear about that stuff because it's not a threat they can put on a t-shirt or shoot at.

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/05/24/opinion/24easterbrook.html?ex=1306123200&en=a4de3b888f17125a&ei=5088&partner=rssnyt&emc=rss

Skeptic converted by data to believing Global Warming.

He wasn't convinced by data. He was convinced by the growing consensus, which is really just argumentum ad popularum. Neat little logical fallacy, there.

Why is the raw data so hard to find?

Why are so many laypeople so convinced by these climatologists if they haven't seen the data?

I have detailed moden (since 1850 or so) temperature data, so the earth is clearly getting warmer. I might even be willing to accept that the earth is getting warmer faster than we have evidence for it ever having done before. It's the projections I don't like. And the proposals for mitigation.

Here's a question:

Weather is an incredibly chaotic system where small changes can have profound and unforseen consequences.

The exact same can be said of Economics.

So, why are people so willing to discount one set of scientists gloomy predictions and yet eat up the other side's dire predictions of the cost of mitigation?

I mean, a case could be made that a more efficient use of energy, development of new technologies, new and highly skilled/specialized manufacturing jobs, and a lowering of health problems caused by pollution might just spark the economy.

Seems to me that the anti-environmental skeptics are just choosing a gloomy prediction of their preference over another.

And honestly, I have NEVER seen a whole lot of documentation about how going greener will hurt the economy. Just a lot of scare tactics funded by Corporate thinktanks.

YOu can admit that much right? That if you are going to be skeptical of one set of predictions, one should be skeptical of all projections.

I'm saying that in any living system, as long as the total living biomass of the system stays constant, then any release of any chemical must also be balanced by it's absorbtion and use of the same chemical.carbon is a fundamental building block of life. It is lterally what we are made of. When any living thing expells carbon it must replace it.

If this were true then we would never have accumulated the necessary green house gas concentration in the atmosphere that lifes needs for survival. Oxygen, Ozone, oil(hydrocarbons) would never have been produced either. The world is not a stable equilibrium; but a dynamic, changing, unpredicable ball of mass.

Side note: We probably both agree that carbon emissions are out of hand, and that something needs to be done. We just disagree on the consequences. I honestly believe that the human contribution to global warming is exagerated, but I have also isolated microoragnisms from once diverse ecosystems that are now acidified and void of higher life near plants and factories. I think that while we are improving technology to clean these areas, and the pollution itself before it is released, measures do need to be taken to halt the creation of these contaminated and polluted areas to begin with.

He wasn't convinced by data. He was convinced by the growing consensus, which is really just argumentum ad popularum. Neat little logical fallacy, there.

Actually, argumentum ad popularum only applies to the undifferentiated masses, not to an informed consensus of experts.

So, when a mechanic tells you something is wrong with your car and you take it to another mechanic and he agrees, it's not a logical fallacy to conclude that the experts are probably right

Likewise, by your definition of argumentum ad popularum, getting a second medical opinion is not a valid way of making reasonably sure a doctor's diagnosis is correct.

Besides, he's not just blindly believing the consensus. He's trusting the EVIDENCE PRESENTED by the consensus.

Look, no one has the ability to be all-knowing. And it's egotistical to think one is smarter than everyone else. One person CANNOT POSSIBLY learn all there is to know on every topic, so one has to defer to experts sometimes.

Why is the raw data so hard to find?

Why are so many laypeople so convinced by these climatologists if they haven't seen the data?

I have detailed moden (since 1850 or so) temperature data, so the earth is clearly getting warmer. I might even be willing to accept that the earth is getting warmer faster than we have evidence for it ever having done before. It's the projections I don't like. And the proposals for mitigation.
It's not hard to find. What do you want them to do, paste it on light posts and billboards? If you want to see it it is all published. Have you seen the raw data on corn yields? Have you seen the raw data on fufion research coming out of Cal Tech? It's all there, but you can't find it on just any website. Here's a good place to start.
http://blog.sciam.com/index.php?title=achenbach_s_tempest_and_the_global_warmi&more=1&c=1&tb=1&pb=1
If you follow the links you'll get what you afe looking for.

Here's a question:

Weather is an incredibly chaotic system where small changes can have profound and unforseen consequences.

The exact same can be said of Economics.

So, why are people so willing to discount one set of scientists gloomy predictions and yet eat up the other side's dire predictions of the cost of mitigation?

I mean, a case could be made that a more efficient use of energy, development of new technologies, new and highly skilled/specialized manufacturing jobs, and a lowering of health problems caused by pollution might just spark the economy.

Seems to me that the anti-environmental skeptics are just choosing a gloomy prediction of their preference over another.

And honestly, I have NEVER seen a whole lot of documentation about how going greener will hurt the economy. Just a lot of scare tactics funded by Corporate thinktanks.

YOu can admit that much right? That if you are going to be skeptical of one set of predictions, one should be skeptical of all projections.
That's a very good point -- if you're going to be skeptical of one set of predictions, then why throw all of your support behind a set of predictions that it is possible to be equally skeptical of? I think that there is a chance that we are causing the Earth to warm, and at the risk that we don't do anything about it and in effect, cause related disasters throughout the world (such as large-scale flooding, increased storms, etc.), it only makes sense that we limit emissions that may contribute to such warming.

From an economic standpoint, it doesn't make sense that Bush wouldn't sign the Kyoto for economic reasons related to the loss of jobs. It doesn't seem to concern him that Americans lose jobs when companies transfer positions to overseas offices; he defends himself by saying that offering tax credits and other incentives to keep jobs within American boundaries would only contribute to protectionism. So, if in order to avoid protectionism Bush is willing to accept the sacrifice of American jobs, why is this situation any different? It doesn't make any sense.

For many years, in "court", when a man was accused of something- both sides would go out, round up all their friends, neighbors, family, etc... to come and say that he was right and the other was wrong. Whoever ammassed the most support was deemed right.

That's pretty much the case here, and with most everything else. What ever is popular. Whoever has more people saying he is right and the other is wrong.
Doesn't matter if Joe really did kill Bob's goat, if Joe gets more people to say he didn't kill Bob's goat than Bob can get to say he did- Joe wins-He didn't kill Bob's goat-and it will be written and remembered that way.
Doesn't matter If I'm right or you're right- whoever has more people parroting-they're the winner. It ultimately doesn't matter if Global Warming exists or not, is a problem or not. Whatever more people believe- that's what is. Reality is what we make it.

Da Vinci Code wouldn't have been as big if the Catholic Church hadn't made a fuss over it. Voting fraud only exists in the minds of the people who want it to exist. Racism exists only in the minds of racists. You live in your own reality. Doesn't matter what anybody else thinks- only what you think.

The only real victory in mankind's mind is being RIGHT. Once the other side acquieces and says "you're right", or is stumped- You win. And even if you don't "win", you still think you're "right", thus, in your own mind, you "won" and the rest be damned- they're just stupid. That is the motivation behind every debate in the history of mankind- it's all about who's "right" and who's "wrong".

So, having said that I declare victory for myself in this debate- and you may go ahead and declare yourself "winner" too. And we'll both sleep well knowing that "I showed him-so there!".

Here's a question:

Weather is an incredibly chaotic system where small changes can have profound and unforseen consequences.

The exact same can be said of Economics.

So, why are people so willing to discount one set of scientists gloomy predictions and yet eat up the other side's dire predictions of the cost of mitigation?

I mean, a case could be made that a more efficient use of energy, development of new technologies, new and highly skilled/specialized manufacturing jobs, and a lowering of health problems caused by pollution might just spark the economy.

Seems to me that the anti-environmental skeptics are just choosing a gloomy prediction of their preference over another.

And honestly, I have NEVER seen a whole lot of documentation about how going greener will hurt the economy. Just a lot of scare tactics funded by Corporate thinktanks.

YOu can admit that much right? That if you are going to be skeptical of one set of predictions, one should be skeptical of all projections.

Absolutely. I like data, and I'm unwilling to draw conclusions based on insufficient data.

On mitigation, two things strike me.

First, why don't I see more discussion of large-scale industrial solutions to reduce carbon levels. Rather than reducing emissions (which generally happens over time anyway, because emissions are inefficient), couldn't we remove carbon from the atmosphere?

Second, if there's any real uncertainty about how the climate works, the one thing we do know is that the energy comes from the sun. If we could reduce that (and we can - the technology's not that complicated), we'd solve the problem, wouldn't we?

On the economic side, there is a lot of good data suggesting that government regulation, generally, tends to slow the economy. How much? That's open for debate.

If this were true then we would never have accumulated the necessary green house gas concentration in the atmosphere that lifes needs for survival. Oxygen, Ozone, oil(hydrocarbons) would never have been produced either. The world is not a stable equilibrium; but a dynamic, changing, unpredicable ball of mass.True, but during the history of human civilization it has ben relatively stable. We have no idea what the results will be if that were to change and there is mounting evidence that we are changing it.

Side note: We probably both agree that carbon emissions are out of hand, and that something needs to be done. We just disagree on the consequences. I honestly believe that the human contribution to global warming is exagerated, but I have also isolated microoragnisms from once diverse ecosystems that are now acidified and void of higher life near plants and factories. I think that while we are improving technology to clean these areas, and the pollution itself before it is released, measures do need to be taken to halt the creation of these contaminated and polluted areas to begin with.
Kool and the gang.

Are you wearing baby sealskin pants as you drive in your Hummer?

As a matter of fact, No I very much hate any types of leather. I prefer man-made vynil, and its step-child pleather. How ever I only wear Cotton. Its the most fire-resistant fabric I know of available to the masses.

Oh and I don't drive, I ride a Huffy. Self-propelled 2 wheeled, steel-tubed with foam-rubber tires. It's a hold over from the 90's but I take care of it.

Now about my comment on the hemp clothes, I wanted to know because I'm trying to find me a set. Mine were ate by moths.

And Im not being sarcastic.

Absolutely. I like data, and I'm unwilling to draw conclusions based on insufficient data.

On mitigation, two things strike me.

First, why don't I see more discussion of large-scale industrial solutions to reduce carbon levels. Rather than reducing emissions (which generally happens over time anyway, because emissions are inefficient), couldn't we remove carbon from the atmosphere?

Because experienced has proven that tinkering with symptoms, rather than causes, can have unforseen and unfortunate results. Besides, prevention is ALWAYS cheaper than cleanup.


Second, if there's any real uncertainty about how the climate works, the one thing we do know is that the energy comes from the sun. If we could reduce that (and we can - the technology's not that complicated), we'd solve the problem, wouldn't we?


Dampening the energy we get from the sun could, again, have unforseen results and some rather obvious results (less sunlight = poorer results from agriculture.)

On the economic side, there is a lot of good data suggesting that government regulation, generally, tends to slow the economy. How much? That's open for debate.

There's also a lot of good data that holding on to old technology and being wasteful slows the economy. Much of America's industrial boom occurred because we were making items that none others could, or at least were making them more efficently. I think holding on to the petroleum-based culture is ultimately limiting, much like if the government had given subsidies to the horse and buggy industry when automobiles were introduced.

As a matter of fact, No I very much hate any types of leather. I prefer man-made vynil, and its step-child pleather. How ever I only wear Cotton. Its the most fire-resistant fabric I know of available to the masses.

Oh and I don't drive, I ride a Huffy. Self-propelled 2 wheeled, steel-tubed with foam-rubber tires. It's a hold over from the 90's but I take care of it.

Now about my comment on the hemp clothes, I wanted to know because I'm trying to find me a set. Mine were ate by moths.

And Im not being sarcastic.

(imagines moths flying away in lazy spirals as they go off in search of a discarded bag of Doritos.)

There's also a lot of good data that holding on to old technology and being wasteful slows the economy. Much of America's industrial boom occurred because we were making items that none others could, or at least were making them more efficently. I think holding on to the petroleum-based culture is ultimately limiting, much like if the government had given subsidies to the horse and buggy industry when automobiles were introduced.

Which is why business tries not to do that.

Their goal is to make as much money as they can as fast as they can for as long as they can. Inefficiency and waste works against that. The difference is that they sometimes get protected from competition through trade restrictions or regulatory barriers to entry (I believe that's the basic tenet of the film "Who Killed the Electric Car?"), which can encourage inefficiency. That's not market failure, that's government failure.

A major problem in this debate is that the so-called sceptics are actually presenting an opinion (global warming isn't our fault), and there's a lot of effort and data that's readily available to prove that these guys don't know what they're talking about.

But that's not what I want. I don't want evidence that the naysayers are making mistakes. I want data which will allow me to draw a conclusion starting from a position of complete uncertainty. I don't have that data, so I'm unwilling to draw any conclusions.

Maybe we could all trace this to the whole ideaology of putting off what needs to be done today at the expense of the next generation.

I mean we can all see what happened to the atmosphere when the decadent 80's yielded more of a substantial petro-chemical burn up than did anything of the 70's/60's. Also seeing that the American Econo-Government has fueled the desire for green house gasses by building a military based off of gas guzzlers such as the M1 Abrahms tank and its 8 miles a gallon, surely we can at least make war a step towards ecological correctness, I mean compare it to the civil wars of Europe and the Americas, it costed lives but that was it, now it cost us the very planet we live on. I mean WTF?

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/f/f8/Ice_Age_Temperature.png

Looks pretty cyclical to me. :p
Just so you know, LG, that graph has no use in this discussion, as it measures Delta T, not T.

and any climatologist will tell you it was hotter when the dinosaurs were around than it is now, and was hotter than it will be for a long time- few thousand/million years or so...

Funnily, that wasn't the case. It wasn't hotter, temperatures were just more uniform, and most of the land mass was still concentrated between the Tropic of Cancer and the Tropic of Capricorn.

Look, no one has the ability to be all-knowing. And it's egotistical to think one is smarter than everyone else. One person CANNOT POSSIBLY learn all there is to know on every topic, so one has to defer to experts sometimes.

But they're not even letting me try.

I want to take complete datasets and make them publically available in some sort of easily manipulable format. Let us play with the climate models to see how robust they are and how many assumptions they make.

But they're not even letting me try.

I want to take complete datasets and make them publically available in some sort of easily manipulable format. Let us play with the climate models to see how robust they are and how many assumptions they make.


I betcha if you sent an email requesting exactly that to the folks at RealClimate, they'd point you in the right direction.

http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,192544,00.html


I'd like to suggest a new slogan for that cable network.

"FOX News, we put the eww in 'news'."

Wait, how about the people who invent things,...


Originally Posted by Gymoor Prime
Look, no one has the ability to be all-knowing. And it's egotistical to think one is smarter than everyone else. One person CANNOT POSSIBLY learn all there is to know on every topic, so one has to defer to experts sometimes.

Isn't that why Most Scientist work in teams or brain-tanks composed of a few in every aspect of the issue? I mean you have Geologist, Archeaologist, and Paleontologist working in Utah to find different types of dead dinosaurs Albiet they're wasting government funding in my opinion, You still have groups working together to achieve a goal.
Squeeek.

Oh and yes the moths ate my Corn-flour tortilla chips as well, sadly enough though they weren't Doritos. I've a hispanic friend who taught me to make my own.

Viva la Maize!

But they're not even letting me try.

I want to take complete datasets and make them publically available in some sort of easily manipulable format. Let us play with the climate models to see how robust they are and how many assumptions they make.
http://www.metoffice.com/research/hadleycentre/models/modeltypes.html

http://www.gcrio.org/CONSEQUENCES/fall95/mod.html

http://crga.atmos.uiuc.edu/models/index.html

http://climateprediction.net/science/model-intro.php

I just did a google search for "climate models." There are pages and pages of articles discussing them and how they work. That seems pretty readily available to me. Now onto data. Google search = +"global warming" +"data sets"

http://data.giss.nasa.gov/gistemp/2005/
http://geochange.er.usgs.gov/info/holdings.html

This took me two searches. Very readily available information. Don't know why you had a hard time finding it. Maybe you didn't actually want to look. Did you expect a team of climatologists to come to yoru house? Anyhoo, you said you wanted data, surf around those pages and their links and you'll find what you're looking for. Have at it.

Why is the raw data so hard to find?

Why are so many laypeople so convinced by these climatologists if they haven't seen the data?

I have detailed moden (since 1850 or so) temperature data, so the earth is clearly getting warmer. I might even be willing to accept that the earth is getting warmer faster than we have evidence for it ever having done before. It's the projections I don't like. And the proposals for mitigation.

What I don't get is why people are so willing to remain unconvinced by climatologists and yet are so easily convinced by oil manufacturers and the politicians that they pay off.

"Politicians are experts at lying, corporate press agents are experts at lying, and climatologists are experts at the effects on and from the climate." 2 to 1 the experts say that global warming is not a problem.

I think it's pretty arrogant to think that human beings are capable of breaking it. :p

It's not that we're capable of breaking it. It's that we're capable of causing a wobble that we might not survive, or might just be disasterous for us.

People keep saying "it has been hotter and the world didn't end." That's not the point.

Life didn't end when a meteor strike followed by volcanic activity and possibly the tons of methane frozen under the sea being released. But for 90% of the species on the world, it did end.

Is global warming "no big deal" if it only destroys the Eastern Seaboard? If it only turns England into another Siberia? "their economy would grow by having a land bridge to the continent."
How about if the Malaria zone spreads a few hundred miles north and south and a few hundred feet up?
And what about all the water sources that are filled by the annual melting of mountain top glaciers that will disappear all the more quickly because of global warming.

Just because global warming won't result in a belt of fire surrounding the equator. Just life will go on and the cycle will return to normal, doesn't mean we'll be around to see it.

Who said they haven't seen DATA?

http://i36.photobucket.com/albums/e12/minatex19/robot8_311.jpg



:rolleyes: Ha ha ha

I think it's pretty arrogant to think that human beings are capable of breaking it. :p
What kind of logic is this?

I think it's pretty arrogant that humans think they can actually wipe out an entire species by hunting. That's never happened before.

*burps*
Wonder what we did 400 years ago to bump the temperature? Bovine flatulence?

Wonder what we did 400 years ago to bump the temperature? Bovine flatulence?
You know what I bet? I bet scientists who are dedicated to studying the Earth's climate never even heard of climate cycles. We should all write them a letter.

Wonder what we did 400 years ago to bump the temperature? Bovine flatulence?

NO ONE claims that EVERY temperature fluctuation is man's fault. Natural cycles do occur. The existance of natural cycles does not protect the Earth from additional influences. Natural cycles can be augmented or reduced.

For example, a warming of tropical waters during a natural lull in hurricane activity is pretty innocuous.

A warming during a natural upswing in hurricane activity, not so innocuous. Natural cycles indicate that things are already tipping in a certain direction, which means the climate might be even more vulnerable than usual to additional inputs.

What I don't get is why people are so willing to remain unconvinced by climatologists and yet are so easily convinced by oil manufacturers and the politicians that they pay off.

I deride people who are easily convinced of anything.

I don't understand why people find uncertainty so uncomfortable.

I betcha if you sent an email requesting exactly that to the folks at RealClimate, they'd point you in the right direction.

I thought of that. It took me until now to find a contact address for them.

We've heard the counterarguments of the non-alarmists on the issue, now I was wondering if anyone has or can respond to these points from the Seattle Times?

http://uspolitics.about.com/b/a/207395.htm

Seems like they've discredited all the usual arguments against the imminent global warming catastrophe.

I thought of that. It took me until now to find a contact address for them.
But you don't need to do that.

http://forums.jolt.co.uk/showpost.php?p=11215241&postcount=81

I'm following your links, too, Dan.

So far the farthest back I've seen for temperature data (all by proxy) is about 650,000 years. That's not really that far, in the grand scheme of things. I'd love to have temperature data back 100 million years so we could actually check out a vastly different climate period.

I'm following your links, too, Dan.

So far the farthest back I've seen for temperature data (all by proxy) is about 650,000 years. That's not really that far, in the grand scheme of things. I'd love to have temperature data back 100 million years so we could actually check out a vastly different climate period.

Not really a valid argument, unless you can prove that the laws of physics have changed over that span of time.

No one argues that we don't know the orbit of the planets in our solar system just because we've only had telescopes since Gallileo.

I'm following your links, too, Dan.

So far the farthest back I've seen for temperature data (all by proxy) is about 650,000 years. That's not really that far, in the grand scheme of things. I'd love to have temperature data back 100 million years so we could actually check out a vastly different climate period.
And that's how most skeptics miss the point. We've only been around for about 80,000 to 100,000 years. Agriculture has only been around for about 12,000. Civilization about 10,000 and industrial society for about 100-150 years. Who cares what happened 100 million years ago? The question is whether greenhouse gases are warming the planet and, if they are, what the consequences right now and in the near future may be. No one's saying there won't be life on earth 100 million years from now. What's important is whether we will have the kind of place we'd like to live in 50 years from now. Or 30 or 20, for that matter.

I just think the data would be interesting. Paleontologists always told me that Canada was a lot warmer then.

I'm not opposed to your global warming position, aside from being opposed to you holding one at all.

I'm not opposed to your global warming position, aside from being opposed to you holding one at all.
:confused:

:confused:


as in... you shouldnt be at all convinced that there is anythign to global warming just because the experts that analyze the data have come to similar conclusions.

as in... you shouldnt be at all convinced that there is anythign to global warming just because the experts that analyze the data have come to similar conclusions.
I know what he meant, I just wasn't sure how to respond. :confused: By that reasoning no one should believe in anything at all that they are not directly involved with. The whole reason we have scientists and experts is so that they can study things and tell us about them so we can make informed decisions about what to believe and how to respond to circumstance. It's up to us to decide who has credibility, of course, but to decide that none of them do makes one wonder whether we should ever bother to try to learn anything at all.

What's important is whether we will have the kind of place we'd like to live in 50 years from now. Or 30 or 20, for that matter.

What if I would?

I've heard arguments that global warming would dramatically increase Canada's arable land. It's entirely possible, once I learn more about climate change, that I'll think it's a good thing.

Sure, it might kill half the people in Africa, but people I don't know die every day. I try not to get torn up about it.

I know what he meant, I just wasn't sure how to respond. :confused: By that reasoning no one should believe in anything at all that they are not directly involved with. The whole reason we have scientists and experts is so that they can study things and tell us about them so we can make informed decisions about what to believe and how to respond to circumstance. It's up to us to decide who has credibility, of course, but to decide that none of them do makes one wonder whether we should ever bother to try to learn anything at all.


science is just a bunch of hocus pocus using smoke and mirrors to gain faithful followers so they can get your money while at the same time trying to bring down industry because they are really just a bunch of nutjobs that want us to go back to living liek we are in the stoneage.

I know what he meant, I just wasn't sure how to respond. :confused: By that reasoning no one should believe in anything at all that they are not directly involved with. The whole reason we have scientists and experts is so that they can study things and tell us about them so we can make informed decisions about what to believe and how to respond to circumstance. It's up to us to decide who has credibility, of course, but to decide that none of them do makes one wonder whether we should ever bother to try to learn anything at all.

The problem is that there are a lot of frightfully stupid people out there who are unwilling to accept that someone might just be smarter than them. They'll argue physics with Stephen Hawking.

Sure, listening to experts can sometimes cause problems. But more often than not, ignoring them is the greater danger.

science is just a bunch of hocus pocus using smoke and mirrors to gain faithful followers so they can get your money while at the same time trying to bring down industry because they are really just a bunch of nutjobs that want us to go back to living liek we are in the stoneage.
It's true. They have a creed.

I know what he meant, I just wasn't sure how to respond. :confused: By that reasoning no one should believe in anything at all that they are not directly involved with. The whole reason we have scientists and experts is so that they can study things and tell us about them so we can make informed decisions about what to believe and how to respond to circumstance. It's up to us to decide who has credibility, of course, but to decide that none of them do makes one wonder whether we should ever bother to try to learn anything at all.

This global warming science seems especially opaque.

Really, what if I'm an elected official? Isn't it my job to understand the science on behalf of my constituents?

By holding an opinion, you're influencing your perception of new evidence. Humans generally overvalue evidence that reinforces their opinions, and discount contrary evidence. The best way to avoid this is to avoid drawing conclusions prematurely.

This global warming science seems especially opaque.

Really, what if I'm an elected official? Isn't it my job to understand the science on behalf of my constituents?

By holding an opinion, you're influencing your perception of new evidence. Humans generally overvalue evidence that reinforces their opinions, and discount contrary evidence. The best way to avoid this is to avoid drawing conclusions prematurely.


If you are an elected official you would most likely listen to the "experts" who the corporations that line your pockets tell you to listen to.

What if I would?

I've heard arguments that global warming would dramatically increase Canada's arable land. It's entirely possible, once I learn more about climate change, that I'll think it's a good thing.

Sure, it might kill half the people in Africa, but people I don't know die every day. I try not to get torn up about it.

More arable land in Canada + less arable land elsewhere might = Some country deciding Canada is hiding WMD.

This global warming science seems especially opaque.

Really, what if I'm an elected official? Isn't it my job to understand the science on behalf of my constituents?

By holding an opinion, you're influencing your perception of new evidence. Humans generally overvalue evidence that reinforces their opinions, and discount contrary evidence. The best way to avoid this is to avoid drawing conclusions prematurely.
What about what happened with CFCs in the 80s?

This global warming science seems especially opaque.

Really, what if I'm an elected official? Isn't it my job to understand the science on behalf of my constituents?

By holding an opinion, you're influencing your perception of new evidence. Humans generally overvalue evidence that reinforces their opinions, and discount contrary evidence. The best way to avoid this is to avoid drawing conclusions prematurely.

Wouldn't you agree that drawing a conclusion too late is at least equally as dangerous? Also, isn't prevention much cheaper than repair?

This global warming science seems especially opaque.

Really, what if I'm an elected official? Isn't it my job to understand the science on behalf of my constituents?
You keep saying that it's opaque and that data is hard to come by. It took my about 15 seconds on Google to come up with pages and pages of data from government institutions, Universities and private and public NPOs. The science behind why infrared radiation is absorbed by carbon is something that you learn in any laymen's level physics or astronomy class and is, in fact, why micrwave ovens work. Carbon absorbs infrared in exactly the same way that hydrogen absorbs micrwaves. This is all published, easy to find information. I don't see why you keep saying these scientists are being secretive. Their studies are routinely published in the top science journals and all university research is, by law, public. You don't even need to get out of your chair to find most of it.

I think maybe if you damn nerds turned off the AC and went outside you'd experiance global warming.

More arable land in Canada + less arable land elsewhere might = Some country deciding Canada is hiding WMD.

Actually those Canadians do have some shifty, beady little eyes (I know this cuz it was in a song). It's always the nice guy you never suspect that is the most dangerous one on the block. Plus I heard they hated the USA AND freedom

Because experienced has proven that tinkering with symptoms, rather than causes, can have unforseen and unfortunate results. Besides, prevention is ALWAYS cheaper than cleanup.

The CO2 is the cause. Removing it would be equivalent to not emitting it in the first place.

I don't find the precautionary principle compelling.

Actually those Canadians do have some shifty, beady little eyes (I know this cuz it was in a song). It's always the nice guy you never suspect that is the most dangerous one on the block. Plus I heard they hated the USA AND freedom

And Mounties wear red. Red = Commie.

The CO2 is the cause. Removing it would be equivalent to not emitting it in the first place.

I don't find the precautionary principle compelling.


So, you think they'll find an energy-usage free method of scrubbing CO2 on a massive scale? What kind of pollutants might that process produce? It's much less wasteful to not emit it in the first place.

You don't find the precautionary principle compelling? What's cheaper, avoiding an accident by maintaining your car or fixing your car after an accident? What's cheaper, maintaining a house or letting it fall into disrepair and then having to repair it?

More arable land in Canada + less arable land elsewhere might = Some country deciding Canada is hiding WMD.

Water and arable land will be the new petroleum of the 21st century, both for consumption and energy purposes.

What about what happened with CFCs in the 80s?

I think the CFC science was pretty clear. It was straightforward stoichiometry - anyone with a high school education could understand it.

So, you think they'll find an energy-usage free method of scrubbing CO2 on a massive scale? What kind of pollutants might that process produce? It's much less wasteful to not emit it in the first place.

You don't find the precautionary principle compelling? What's cheaper, avoiding an accident by maintaining your car or fixing your car after an accident? What's cheaper, maintaining a house or letting it fall into disrepair and then having to repair it?

If I have electricity (and nuclear power's pretty clean), I can make hydrogen, and then use that hydrogen to convert CO2 to methane. Methane has all sorts of uses. Expensive? Sure, but more expensive than other options? I don't know that.

Because the precautionary principle relies on people overestimating the odds of bad things happening. Unless you can show me cause & effect, or at least give me some sort of universal maxim describing when to apply the precautionary principle (because taken to its logical extreme it prevents basically all activity for fear that something might go wrong), it's not informative.

If you are an elected official you would most likely listen to the "experts" who the corporations that line your pockets tell you to listen to.

I'm in Canada. Corporate donations are illegal.

I think the CFC science was pretty clear. It was straightforward stoichiometry - anyone with a high school education could understand it.
"Critics and skeptics--primarily industry spokespeople and scientists from conservative think tanks--immediately attacked the theory. Despite the fact that Molina and Rowland's theory had wide support in the scientific community, a handful of skeptics, their voices greatly amplified by the public relations machines of powerful corporations and politicians sympathetic to them, succeeded in delaying imposition of controls on CFCs for many years. However, the stunning discovery of the Antarctic ozone hole in 1985 proved the skeptics wrong. Human-generated CFCs were indeed destroying Earth's protective ozone layer. In fact, the ozone depletion was far worse than Molina and Roland had predicted. No one had imagined that ozone depletions like the 50% losses being observed by 1987 over Antarctica were possible so soon. Despite the continued opposition of many of the skeptics, the Montreal Protocol, an international agreement to phase out ozone-destroying chemicals, was hurriedly approved in 1987 to address the threat."

http://www.wunderground.com/education/ozone_skeptics.asp


The majority of the people against Climate Change are funded by the industries which would suffer most. Where information comes from is as important as what the information actually means. I was already slanted towards believing Global Warming was happening but didn't really understand it. I don't have a firm grasp of science. But I can manage to see where information comes from and who is funding that research.

I also try to be a person who can say he's wrong if proven wrong.

Wow...

Prime example that people need to shut the fuck up and be a bit more 'mature' with things.

our planet does heat up in cycles... no one can dispute that and good thing that it does, otherwise the northern hemisphere would be always covered in snow. the problem is that we may be aggravating the natural cycle. by cutting down forests we're breaking up the water cycle. areas that lost large chunks of forest will miss on rain, since the most of the water that should be absorbed by trees and be 'transpired' back to the atmosphere will just run-off to oceans or infiltrate in the land. higher emissions do trap heat and so are the oceans trapping more than they have been.

on the other hand, there are others those who suspect that human global warming may actually be counter-acting the very beginning of a new ice-age, based on measurements of dimming sunlight and the weakening of the atlantic conveyor belt (it's happening, it's not science fiction anymore). some argue this may explain extremes in temperatures and freak weather. last week, in portugal, in summer, we had a hail storm. hail in summer in portugal??? not in the last 30 years... not that i can remember....

whatever the case is, it's not good and the bottom line is that no scientist or climatologist can guarantee you anything. climatology is still a very young science. the internal mechanisms of weather are poorly understood. the extra planetary factors that may influence weather are mostly ignored (since modern man likes to think that gigantic planets and stars around our planet have no effect on us *sigh*).

we're currently living in an interglacial period which has been going on for thousands of years. if you look at the graph below and accross the horizontal line at 0ºC, you'll realise that this interglacial period is already lasting longer than the previous three, while CO2 levels have never been so high (look at that red line climbing!). nobody knows what causes these shifts.

http://www.daviesand.com/Choices/Precautionary_Planning/New_Data/IceCores1.gif

what is mental is that no government seems to be preparing emergency plans. it's business as usual, cutting down more forests, polluting water. if an ice age does kick in or temperatures keep on rising, global crops will fail. put it this way... either way, our environment is falling apart. if we're lucky, none of us here will suffer major consequences. still, i would say "think twice before having a child". the day we fall, we'll fall flat on our faces and we'll be eating the "the bread that the devil baked", and the devil is you, me and everyone else who lives like nothing will ever happen to us.

according to politicians and their favourite scientists, nothing seems to have an effect on life on Earth these days. the planets and our sun haven't, emissions haven't, pole shifts haven't, a weakening magnetic field hasn't, the ice melting hasn't... we seem to be protected by a magic shield, probably cast by Gandalf just before the end of Lord of the Rings 3. no need to worry about anything to prevent or plan ahead what we'll do in case of a major environmental crisis.... don't worry, humanity will live happily ever after even after killing the last fish and cutting down the last tree... technology will always find a way out... no?

I just think the data would be interesting. Paleontologists always told me that Canada was a lot warmer then.

100 million years ago, Canada was hundreds, if not thousands, of miles south of where it is today.

"Critics and skeptics--primarily industry spokespeople and scientists from conservative think tanks--immediately attacked the theory. Despite the fact that Molina and Rowland's theory had wide support in the scientific community, a handful of skeptics, their voices greatly amplified by the public relations machines of powerful corporations and politicians sympathetic to them, succeeded in delaying imposition of controls on CFCs for many years. However, the stunning discovery of the Antarctic ozone hole in 1985 proved the skeptics wrong. Human-generated CFCs were indeed destroying Earth's protective ozone layer. In fact, the ozone depletion was far worse than Molina and Roland had predicted. No one had imagined that ozone depletions like the 50% losses being observed by 1987 over Antarctica were possible so soon. Despite the continued opposition of many of the skeptics, the Montreal Protocol, an international agreement to phase out ozone-destroying chemicals, was hurriedly approved in 1987 to address the threat."

http://www.wunderground.com/education/ozone_skeptics.asp


The majority of the people against Climate Change are funded by the industries which would suffer most. Where information comes from is as important as what the information actually means. I was already slanted towards believing Global Warming was happening but didn't really understand it. I don't have a firm grasp of science. But I can manage to see where information comes from and who is funding that research.

Of courtse they attacked it. Just like with climate change, the industries on one end of the debate has a financial interest in the outcome. That is not a reason to believe that having a financial interest in the outcome is a guarantee of bad science.

As I said, the CFC science was pretty simple, and anyone with a high school education should have been able to figure it out. The companies (correctly) figured that most people aren't that smart and tried to convince them anyway.

Similarly, the companies on one end of the climate change debate have a financial interest in the outcome of the debate, just as some environmental groups, poorer countries, and other companies (alternative energy, mostly) have a financial interest in the outcome going the other direction.

Look, almost everyone has an ulterior motive all of the time. To correctly analyze any data, that needs to be ignored.

100 million years ago, Canada was hundreds, if not thousands, of miles south of where it is today.

I don't think that's relevant. It was a livable climate at a higher temperature.

I don't think that's relevant. It was a livable climate at a higher temperature.
Humans weren't around then. Plus, it is relevant, as you implied that since it had a higher temperature then, this temperature increase was natural. I pointed out that it had a higher temperature then for the same reason as Mexico has a higher temperature than New York. In addition, global temperatures were not higher at the time. The lowest temperatures were hotter than the lowest temperatures today, but the highest temperatures were cooler than the lowest temperatures today.

Of courtse they attacked it. Just like with climate change, the industries on one end of the debate has a financial interest in the outcome. That is not a reason to believe that having a financial interest in the outcome is a guarantee of bad science.

As I said, the CFC science was pretty simple, and anyone with a high school education should have been able to figure it out. The companies (correctly) figured that most people aren't that smart and tried to convince them anyway.

Similarly, the companies on one end of the climate change debate have a financial interest in the outcome of the debate, just as some environmental groups, poorer countries, and other companies (alternative energy, mostly) have a financial interest in the outcome going the other direction.

Look, almost everyone has an ulterior motive all of the time. To correctly analyze any data, that needs to be ignored.



I don't think that's relevant. It was a livable climate at a higher temperature.
Then where is the science that actually goes against man caused Climate Change that is not funded by the industries? Because I have a hard time finding that.

And it is a guarantee of bad science when you approach a problem with the idea that you need it to fit the solution you've come up with before hand.

Humans weren't around then. Plus, it is relevant, as you implied that since it had a higher temperature then, this temperature increase was natural. I pointed out that it had a higher temperature then for the same reason as Mexico has a higher temperature than New York. In addition, global temperatures were not higher at the time. The lowest temperatures were hotter than the lowest temperatures today, but the highest temperatures were cooler than the lowest temperatures today.

I implied nothing of the sort. Dan asked if we'd have a world in which we wanted to live in 50 years, and I asserted that it's entirely possible that some people might welcome the changes.

I don't make implications. I don't actually think it's possible to imply things.

Then where is the science that actually goes against man caused Climate Change that is not funded by the industries? Because I have a hard time finding that.

And I suppose you have a detailed analysis of the funding for every piece of research you've ever read.

And it is a guarantee of bad science when you approach a problem with the idea that you need it to fit the solution you've come up with before hand.

I'll agree with that. But since you don't always know who's funding what, the trick is to evaluate the science without any regard for its source.

The source of the funding only matters if you're going to accept the findings on faith, and I'm on record that we should never do that. You should trust only people you have reason to trust, and that should be a pretty short list.

And I suppose you have a detailed analysis of the funding for every piece of research you've ever read.



I'll agree with that. But since you don't always know who's funding what, the trick is to evaluate the science without any regard for its source.

The source of the funding only matters if you're going to accept the findings on faith, and I'm on record that we should never do that. You should trust only people you have reason to trust, and that should be a pretty short list.
Actually, yeah. I usually do consider the source.

What reasons should I have for not trusting someone such as Tim Flannery? Because it's pretty clear to me that I shouldn't trust ads on television saying CO2 is good for me when its funded by oil companies.

We're not all scientists but when I see one person say one thing, another agree with that and a third use that to say something else, I'd say the first is pretty trustworthy.

What reasons should I have for not trusting someone such as Tim Flannery? Because it's pretty clear to me that I shouldn't trust ads on television saying CO2 is good for me when its funded by oil companies.

Because you don't know Tim Flannery, and you don't know who might be funding him. You don't know what his motives are. At least with the oil companies their motives are pretty clear.

You should start from a default position of trusting no one at all, and then only trust people as they earn your trust. This should generally include only people you actually know.

You should never trust anyone you've only seen on TV.

Actually, yeah. I usually do consider the source.

What reasons should I have for not trusting someone such as Tim Flannery? Because it's pretty clear to me that I shouldn't trust ads on television saying CO2 is good for me when its funded by oil companies.

We're not all scientists but when I see one person say one thing, another agree with that and a third use that to say something else, I'd say the first is pretty trustworthy.
I've got a bit of reading to do, to catch up. My apologies ....
DM - the archives help here?

Because you don't know Tim Flannery, and you don't know who might be funding him. You don't know what his motives are. At least with the oil companies their motives are pretty clear.

You should start from a default position of trusting no one at all, and then only trust people as they earn your trust. This should generally include only people you actually know.

You should never trust anyone you've only seen on TV.
I've read his book. I do know a lot about Global Warming, more than the average person, though I just can't keep up on the science aspects of it. Much of what he was saying was written from personal experience and he is respected enough that Australia is actually changing their stance on Climate Change when he made it clear to the government that it would effect their huge tourism industry.

Some of the other things about him which give him credit:
Dr Tim Flannery is one of Australia's best-known scientists as well as being one of our best-selling writers. His views are often provocative, both intellectually and socially.

Tim is the Principal Research scientist at the Australian Museum in Sydney. He started out, though, doing a degree in English. After graduating, he found a temporary job at the Museum of Victoria in their Vertebrate Paleontology department. This led him to a second degree in Earth Sciences, and from there to a doctorate with the Zoology department at UNSW.

He is renowned academically for his research into the mammals of Melanesia, publishing several acclaimed books on the subject…but he's best known by the broad public as the author of The Future Eaters, one of the best-selling non-fiction books in Australia and New Zealand. That book won a shelf-load of prizes, including the Age book of the year in 1995 and the inaugural South Australian premier's literary award in 1996. His interests aren't restricted to biology, though. Tim has also written 1788, a bestseller about the early years of British colonisation, editing and republishing contemporary accounts, and he has another such book in the pipeline.

Tim appears regularly on radio and is often called on as expert commentator on a wide range of environmental and social issues. He's made numerous television appearances and is currently shooting a television series for ABCTV based on The Future Eaters. He has written articles for a broad range of journals from literary magazines to specialist scientific journals and mass-circulation magazines.

He has recently accepted an offer to be Visiting Chair of Australian Studies at Harvard University in 1998.
http://www.abc.net.au/science/slab/flannery/biog.htm

Some of his notable contributions to science have included:

Description of 29 new kangaroo species, including the oldest known fossilised species;
Involvement in the discovery of many fossilised dinosaurs and Cretaceous species in Australia;
Description and taxonomy of a huge variety of Melanesian species in New Guinea.

In 2005 Flannery was recognised as the Australian Humanist of the Year by the Council of Australian Humanist Societies.

Sir David Attenborough is quoted as saying "Tim Flannery is in the league of the all-time great explorers like Dr. David Livingstone."
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tim_Flannery

You can listen to him yourself, here: http://www.twis.org/audio/2006/04/04/

I kinda trust that guy.

I've got a bit of reading to do, to catch up. My apologies ....
DM - the archives help here?
Definitely.

It very much appears to be a natural trend that has been going on for 400,000 years and there is nothing we can do about it.

It very much appears to be a natural trend that has been going on for 400,000 years and there is nothing we can do about it.

It very much appears that you are illiterate.

Go back and read the thread. The skeptics have been rebutted with hard data and THERE HAVE BEEN NO REBUTTALS of the rebuttals that similarly contain hard data. Go ahead. Read up.

The overwhelming consensus of scientist who specialize in a RELEVANT field is that global warming is real. There are indeed natural cycles. Those cycles are being influenced by man.

All NEW evidence, backed up by deeper core samples, better satellite imagery, better dating techniques and more powerful computers supports anthropogenic climate change.

It's very simple. Let's say "A" represents a person who supports the theory of climate change. "B" represents a skeptic.

A: Here's the evidence for anthropogenic climate change.

B: Brings up natural cycles (high school level climatology,) cow farts, water vapor etc.. References JunkScience.com.

A: Points out the errors in B's case. Supports it with data from a myriad of sources, many of which completely debunk JunkScience's claims. Provides raw data when requested.

B: Brings up natural cycles (high school level climatology,) cow farts, water vapor etc.. References JunkScience.com.

Get the picture?

I kinda trust that guy.

That little biography makes him sound like a bit of a leftist, but that's beside the point.

I don't care how persuasive the man might sound; I wouldn't trust him until I trusted his math, and I haven't seen his math.

Definitely.
M'kay - for quick ref -

http://forums.jolt.co.uk/showthread.php?t=481034&highlight=Straughn
http://forums.jolt.co.uk/showthread.php?t=477838&highlight=Straughn
http://forums.jolt.co.uk/showthread.php?t=474040&highlight=Straughn
http://forums.jolt.co.uk/showthread.php?t=473488&highlight=Straughn
http://forums.jolt.co.uk/showthread.php?t=471807&highlight=Straughn
http://forums.jolt.co.uk/showthread.php?t=479252&highlight=Straughn
http://forums.jolt.co.uk/showthread.php?t=484779&highlight=Straughn

--

BTW - catch the sig? ;)

It very much appears that you are illiterate.

Go back and read the thread. The skeptics have been rebutted with hard data and THERE HAVE BEEN NO REBUTTALS of the rebuttals that similarly contain hard data. Go ahead. Read up.

The overwhelming consensus of scientist who specialize in a RELEVANT field is that global warming is real. There are indeed natural cycles. Those cycles are being influenced by man.

All NEW evidence, backed up by deeper core samples, better satellite imagery, better dating techniques and more powerful computers supports anthropogenic climate change.
did you see the graph

All NEW evidence, backed up by deeper core samples, better satellite imagery, better dating techniques and more powerful computers supports anthropogenic climate change.

About that satellite imagery.

Since about 1998, it's been known that the global warming climate models predicted stratoshperic cooling. Now, the new satellite measurements actually report stratospheric cooling, but for about 7 years our best data said the stratosphere was warming, not cooling. And yet global warming activists seemed unwilling to even address this contradictory data. We measured it specifically to test their models, and the data said the models were wrong. And yet the models kept getting used as evidence.

That the data turned out to be faulty is immaterial. You can't just ignore data like that.

Oh, and this thread has contained very little in the way of hard data. There's been a lot of reference to hard data, but it's not actually here. You're overstating your supposed victory.

I don't think this thread should have convinced anyone of anything yet.

did you see the graph

The pirate one?

did you see the graph
What, you mean the graph that didn't even use variable that were applicable to the situation?

the one that shows temprature varaiation
http://www.daviesand.com/Choices/Precautionary_Planning/New_Data/IceCores1.gif

the one that shows temprature varaiation
http://www.daviesand.com/Choices/Precautionary_Planning/New_Data/IceCores1.gif
Ah, that one. It supports Gymoor's position, by the way.

About that satellite imagery.

Since about 1998, it's been known that the global warming climate models predicted stratoshperic cooling. Now, the new satellite measurements actually report stratospheric cooling, but for about 7 years our best data said the stratosphere was warming, not cooling. And yet global warming activists seemed unwilling to even address this contradictory data. We measured it specifically to test their models, and the data said the models were wrong. And yet the models kept getting used as evidence.

That the data turned out to be faulty is immaterial. You can't just ignore data like that.

Source? I hadn't heard that before.

Oh, and this thread has contained very little in the way of hard data.

Read it again. Most of the links have links to data sources and hard data sources were provided after you requested them.

There's been a lot of reference to hard data, but it's not actually here. You're overstating your supposed victory.

Sometimes you might have to click your mouse more than once. Pay special attention to when you see something that looks like this ----> [5]

I don't think this thread should have convinced anyone of anything yet.

No one is ever convinced of anything online, even though it's the largest and most accessible source of information ever invented.

I think it's pretty arrogant to think that human beings are capable of breaking it. :p
I'm sure that's the same thinking that kept everyone from worrying about nuclear weapons and their consequences ... we'd never break the bond.
We'd never break the sound barrier.

EDIT: Also, per your post ... it's pretty arrogant for one species on one planet with no real extraterrestrial experience to speak of, and NO CONFIRMED INTERACTION WITH DEITIES, to think they have the angle of nature and intent of the ENTIRE UNIVERSE.
But lo and behold, we're indeed on the bad end of that nasty blade, and it's funny how closely that arrogant blade is the same held by the ones purporting human lack of consequence to its environment ... and ... wait for it ... how much work they put into attempting to control everyone else. And the corporate money ties behind it, for which i owe Desperate Measures and Gymoor Prime an extreme kudos for providing in the past and perhaps on this thread.

Through appointments and authors.

Weird thing is ... i picked up some older stuff from my other harddrive today for some reason ... maybe this is it ...
HURRICANES INTENSIFYING WITH CLIMATE CHANGE, THREE STUDIES WARN
Ten years ago, most hurricane researchers were skeptical of claims that
global warming would trigger an increase in hurricane activity.
Now some are changing their minds.
Three studies over the past year make the case that while the number of
hurricanes is not increasing, the strongest ones are more intense -- and
that this is just the pattern we should expect to see as the world warms.
``I think there are much more than cyclic and natural effects going on,''
said Kevin Trenberth, head of the climate analysis section at the National
Center for Atmospheric Research in Boulder, Colo., commenting on the
studies.
``I think there is a global warming connection,'' he said. ``It may be
modest at the moment, but it's likely to grow over time.''
Hurricanes feed on heat -- drawing it up out of the ocean, funneling it up
into the atmosphere and releasing it to space. The warmer the air above the
ocean, the more water vapor it can hold. The vapor is sucked up into the
spiral and eventually released as rain. ``Together these things feed back
and intensify the storm,'' Trenberth said.
Not everyone thinks global warming is a factor.
Hurricane activity in the North Atlantic Ocean naturally waxes and wanes
about every 30 years. It's been on an upswing since 1995, triggered not by
global warming but by routine changes in the temperature and saltiness of
the ocean, according to William Gray and Philip Klotzbach of Colorado State
University.
Based on those natural cycles and on the record of past hurricanes, they
forecast in August that the current hurricane season would be one of the
most active on record. They said the chance that a major hurricane would
wallop the Gulf Coast was nearly 50 percent greater than the historical
average.
Greenhouse effect
With Hurricanes Rita and Katrina hammering the Gulf within a month, that
forecast would appear to be coming true.
No one would suggest that either of these hurricanes, or any other
particular storm, was the direct result of global warming.
But recent studies suggest that global warming may be a factor.
Last fall, Thomas Knutson of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric
Administration and Robert Tuleya of Old Dominion University described
computer simulations of what the world might look like if carbon dioxide
released by human activity continues to build up in the atmosphere for the
next 80 years. The gas traps heat against the surface in a phenomenon known
as the greenhouse effect.
In this warmer world, they found a modest but significant increase in the
intensity of hurricanes.
``It's a long-term trend, not something that shows up from one year to the
next,'' said J. David Neelin of the University of California-Los Angeles,
who was not involved in the NOAA study. ``So any evidence for that, you
would expect it to basically emerge slowly. There's not going to be any
sudden smoking gun.''
In August, hurricane researcher Kerry Emanuel of the Massachusetts Institute
of Technology reported in the journal Nature that the amount of sheer power
unleashed by hurricanes has gone up in lockstep with the warming of the sea
surface since the mid-1970s.
Worse storms
And this month, a group led by Peter Webster of the Georgia Institute of
Technology reported the results of a study that tracked hurricane activity
over the entire globe for the past 35 years.
They found that while the total number of hurricanes remained steady, the
number of Category 4 and 5 storms -- the most intense ones, with winds of
more than 131 mph -- nearly doubled, from 10 per year in 1970 to 18 per year
since 1990.
At the same time, the surface temperatures of the world's tropical oceans,
where hurricanes are spawned, rose 0.5 to 1 degree Fahrenheit, and the air
above them also warmed by a degree.
Webster said he and his colleagues didn't think they'd find a link between
warmer sea temperatures and hurricane activity.
``We were rather skeptical about the impact of global warming, and we wanted
to check some of the statements made by earlier papers,'' he said.
Skeptic surprised
After all, he said, the up-and-down cycle of hurricane activity in the North
Atlantic is well-known, and ``my thoughts were that we were going to find
that other oceans were dominated by their natural cycles.'' But they were
not, Webster said.
Hugh Willoughby, a senior scientist at Florida International University's
International Hurricane Research Center, said Webster and his colleagues are
``the best people in the field. They're very mainstream, they're careful --
all the things you want.'' In a field where opinions can be highly
politicized, ``these folks are above all that,'' he said, and that makes
their results convincing.
Steps to Limit Global-Warming Gas
By ANDREW C. REVKIN
Published: September 28, 2005
Capturing and storing the carbon dioxide generated by power plants and
factories could play an important role in limiting global warming caused by
humans, says an international climate research group associated with the
United Nations.
In a new report the group, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change,
says doing so could cut the cost of stabilizing carbon dioxide
concentrations in the atmosphere as much as 30 percent compared with other
options, like switching to cleaner technologies.
Altogether, sequestering carbon dioxide could eventually account for
slightly more than half of what is needed to prevent dangerous
concentrations in the atmosphere, says the report, which was released on
Monday and is online at www.ipcc.ch.
But the report cautions that while the method is cheaper than others, it
would significantly raise the cost of electricity for many years. For that
reason, several authors and United Nations officials said, it is unlikely
that the technique will be adopted voluntarily by industries in wealthy
countries.
"First there has to be a policy in place to provide the incentive" to adopt
such technologies, said Bert Metz, a Dutch environmental official who was
the lead author of the report.
Carbon dioxide is the main heat-trapping smokestack and tailpipe emission
linked by scientists to a prolonged global warming trend.
The report says the most promising methods for capturing and storing the gas
are those already in use in Canada, Norway and Algeria, where some
industries inject it into wells.
But many power plants are not situated over rock layers that can serve as a
long-term repository for the gas. In such instances, the carbon dioxide
would have to be piped or transported, raising the cost.
The report also said there were many unanswered questions about how much gas
might be stored.
"A lot of people, including myself, would like to think you can do
everything with renewables and energy efficiency, with photovoltaic panels
and wind turbines and more sensible urban planning and so on," said one
author, Kenneth Caldeira, a staff scientist at the Carnegie Institution's
Department of Global Ecology at Stanford University. "The reality of it is
that the energy in fossil fuels is too attractive and cheap right now to
give
them up completely."
Scientists feeling heat of global warming
By Jim Erickson, Rocky Mountain News
September 27, 2005
BROOMFIELD - Global climate change is "probably the most important
environmental issue facing the world," the Bush administration's point man
on the hot-button topic said Monday.
"We know that humans are influencing the climate. There's no question about
that," said James Mahoney, director of the U.S. Climate Change Science
Program.
"The real questions are: by how much, how reversible is it and what are the
best means to reduce the human impacts on the climate?" Mahoney said during
a meeting of about 400 atmospheric researchers at the Omni Interlocken
Resort.
The Bush administration has been lambasted by climate researchers for
failing to endorse the Kyoto Protocol or to otherwise play a leadership role
in addressing climate change.
The planet has warmed about 1 degree Fahrenheit over the past century. Most
climate scientists agree that receding mountain glaciers, declining global
snow cover, thinning summer sea ice thickness in the Arctic, and rising sea
levels are environmental indicators of a warming world.
The Kyoto Protocol, which calls on 35 industrialized countries to rein in
emissions of carbon dioxide and other heat-trapping gases, was ratified by
140 nations and went into effect in February.
"The United States has a really deep problem with credibility right now,"
said David Victor of the Center for Environmental Science and Policy in
Stanford, Calif.
"We have no credible emission policy at the federal level," Victor said on
opening day of the International Carbon Dioxide Conference.
Other researchers agreed, despite Mahoney's assurances that the U.S.
government "is doing a great deal" to combat global warming.
"It's pretty much a certainty that big changes will happen, so we should be
slowing down our CO2 emissions," said Susan Trumbore, a bio-geochemist at
the University of California, Irvine.
Mahoney said the U.S. government spends nearly $2 billion a year on climate
change research and another $3 billion annually to promote new energy
technologies.
"Not signing Kyoto doesn't mean that this government isn't doing anything,"
said Mahoney, who later amended his description of climate change to say
it's "one of" the world's most important environmental issues.
Each year, global combustion of coal, oil, natural gas and wood emits nearly
7 billion tons of carbon, in the form of carbon dioxide, into the air.
The Earth's oceans, trees, plants and soils absorb about half of that
carbon.
The rest remains in the air, contributing to the 36 percent increase in
atmospheric carbon dioxide levels since pre-industrial times.
Carbon dioxide levels are higher now than at any time in the past 450,000
years, Mahoney said. If the levels of carbon dioxide and other heat-trapping
gases continue to rise as projected, the planet could warm another 2.5 to
10.4 degrees Fahrenheit by 2100, according to the Intergovernmental Panel on
Climate Change.
The consequences could include a greater frequency of extreme weather
events, such as Katrina-intensity hurricanes, said Ken Caldeira of the
Carnegie Institution.
One of the "persistent myths" about climate change is that the problem "will
disappear on its own," said Jae Edmonds of the Pacific Northwest National
Laboratory.
Conventional wisdom says the world's supply of easily accessible oil and
natural gas will be exhausted in a couple of decades.
After that, prices for those fuels will skyrocket, and other energy sources
will replace them.
It would appear the problem would be solved.
But that scenario ignores the world's abundant coal supply, Edmonds said.
Coal can be burned as a solid or converted into liquid and gaseous fuels.
In addition, higher prices for petroleum-based fuels and natural gas will
spur the development of new technologies to reach and extract
less-accessible deposits.
So, Edmonds said, waiting for the system to run out of fossil fuels won't be
a solution.

-
so the stuff i posted on the other thread ....

and next
...

Because i live in Alaska, i get to see some of the consequences FIRSTHAND.
Here's a smattering of issues that have come up in the past year or two regarding circumstances that can quite easily be reviewed by otherwise-skeptics.

*ahem*
Arctic ice meltdown continues rapid pace
RECORD: This year's pack receded farthest since satellite monitoring began.

By DOUG O'HARRA
Anchorage Daily News

Published: September 29, 2005
Last Modified: September 29, 2005 at 06:42 AM

Arctic sea ice has melted back farther this year than in 25 years of
satellite monitoring, marking the fourth consecutive summer with "a stunning
reduction" in the polar pack north of Alaska, Asia and Europe, according to
scientists at the National Snow and Ice Data Center and NASA.


Combined with record or near record declines since 2002, the ice appears to
be slipping into a long-term meltdown that may be slowly accelerating as the
summer sun pumps more and more heat into the green-dark surface of the sea.

If the sea ice continues to shrink at the same rate, the summertime Arctic
could be completely ice-free well before the end of this century, the
scientists said.

While many factors contribute to the ice loss -- warm water creeping north
from the Bering Sea and Atlantic Ocean, changes in air circulation, thinning
floes that don't rebound in winter -- overall warming across the Arctic
appears to be a growing influence.

"The sea ice cover seems to be rapidly changing and the best explanation for
this is rising temperatures," said climate researcher Mark Serezze, a senior
scientist at the snow and ice center. "My view is it's getting increasingly
difficult to argue against the notion that what we're seeing is a greenhouse
gas effect taking hold."

Shrinking ice may be the most dramatic consequence of widespread climate
change in the Arctic that includes melting glaciers and disintegrating
permafrost. The loss of ice could disrupt Native subsistence life, expose
coastal communities to devastating storms and erosion, and threaten the
existence of marine mammals like polar bears. Until recent years, the ice
melted in summer then rebounded during the long, dark Arctic winter. But
during the past four seasons, something has changed.

The refreezing of ice during the 2004-05 winter season produced the smallest
recovery ever measured by satellites, with nine of the past 10 months
setting new records for low ice cover, the scientists said.

During the five days centered on Sept. 21 -- the general period when sea ice
reaches an annual minimum and starts refreezing -- the ice pack covered only
2.05 million acres. That left hundreds of miles of mostly open water off
northwest Alaska and Far Eastern Russia and appeared to beat the previous
record of open Arctic water set in 2002. The pack also is smaller than
previous low-ice periods of the 1930s and 1940s, the scientists said in
their release.

Comparing the average extent of September coverage since 1979 to last week's
observations, it's as though an area the size of Texas had melted away.

"Considering the record low amounts of sea ice this year leading up to the
month of September, 2005 will almost certainly surpass 2002 as the lowest
amount of ice cover in more than a century," said Julienne Stroeve, a
scientist at the data center, in a statement.

The trend has been moving faster. Between 1979 and 2001, sea ice cover
retreated 6.5 percent per decade. By this summer, the rate had leapt to
about 8 percent.

"That means, come autumn and winter, it's harder to grow sea ice back in
again," Serreze said. "It's not that you had one really low year. It's four
in a row now. At least part of what we're seeing is a greenhouse gas signal,
and it's starting to kick in."

The results are consistent with predictions made last year by the Arctic
Climate Impact Assessment and match what scientists would expect from more
water soaking up ever more solar heat instead of white ice and snow
reflecting it back, several Alaska researchers said.

"Basically, you're dimming down the Arctic," said ice researcher Hajo
Eicken, an associate professor of geophysics at the University of Alaska
Fairbanks Geophysical Institute. "If you remove that ice, then you start
heating the water by as much as a factor of 10 or more. And, as a result,
you expect that the ice doesn't fully recover and it just keeps inching
back."

"You don't have to be a rocket scientist to interpret this picture," said
Lawson Brigham, Alaska office director for the U.S. Arctic Research
Commission in Anchorage and a former captain of a U.S. Coast Guard
icebreaker. "With the sunlight for 24 hours in the summer and all that dark
(ocean) area, it's just like you painted your house a dark color. It's going
to warm it even more."

One mystery in the situation is that researchers don't have a good way to
measure the total volume of ice in the Arctic, what Serreze called the "Holy
Grail" of sea ice science. But a clear harbinger of thinning ice occurred
this season, when a record nine ships reached the North Pole, including the
first vessel that was not specifically an icebreaker, said Brigham, who in
1994 captained the first U.S. icebreaker across the pole from the Bering to
the Atlantic.

This summer, the passage along the Arctic coast of Russia between Europe and
the Bering Strait remained ice free between Aug. 15 and Sept. 28, the
scientists said. The Northwest Passage through Canada, the fabled route of
Arctic lore, opened up except for one 60-mile-long stretch.

Though shrinking ice might sound like an immediate boon to transportation,
actual conditions could become more complex and difficult, Eicken said. Ice
floes can blow into open areas fast, making navigation especially
treacherous.

"You can't say, you can just take a whole bunch of barges up there and
you'll never see sea ice," he said. "That ice may move a heck of a lot
faster than it would have before, and it may be present throughout the
summer."

Still, of the 61 ships to ever visit the North Pole, 17 traveled there in
the past two years, Brigham said. Two of the seven ships ever to cross the
ice pack from ocean to ocean made the transit in 2005.

"The numbers aren't huge, but I think that one can correlate the retreating
sea ice and changing ice conditions with the increasing number of ships,"
Brigham said. "So, here at the beginning of the century, I would say you
can, if you've got the right kind of boat, routinely go to the North Pole.
Pretty amazing, huh?"
------
On thinning ice
Alaska glaciers making biggest contribution to sea level change

By Doug O'Harra
Anchorage Daily News

Published: July 19, 2002
Last Modified: October 11, 2002 at 01:42 PM


Alaska's glaciers have been shrinking even faster than scientists thought,
producing more meltwater over the past half-century than any other icy
region on Earth.


The findings arose from a 10-year study by a team of Fairbanks
glaciologists, who figured out a way to apply modern laser technology to the
white-knuckle savvy of Alaska glacier flying.

The meltdown doubled during the late 1990s and has flooded the ocean with
enough runoff to raise global sea level as much as 0.27 millimeters per
year, about one-hundredth of an inch, five scientists with the University of
Alaska Fairbanks Geophysical Institute reported today in the prestigious
journal Science.

If that sounds tiny, consider this: Spread over all the world's seas, this
runoff amounts to about 8 percent of the recent rise in sea level. It is
enough water to flood the Anchorage Bowl 630 feet deep every year.

That's more than twice the water flushing from the giant Greenland ice
sheet, which is many times larger than Alaska's combined ice, said
glaciologist Keith Echelmeyer, the study's lead scientist and glacier pilot.

"Alaska's glaciers are very active," Echelmeyer said. "They are providing
the single largest glacier-related contribution to sea level change that has
yet been measured."

All this melting has complex causes, global warming among them, Echelmeyer
added. But the evidence is clear.

"What's happened in the last 100 years is huge compared to anything that's
happened in the past 10 centuries."

UAF scientists Echelmeyer, Anthony Arendt, William Harrison, Craig Lingle
and Virginia Valentine described in Science how they used a laser altimeter
from Echelmeyer's ski plane to document dramatic changes in 67 glaciers.

Over five decades, these 12 tidewater, five lake and 50 landlocked glaciers
got an average of 20 inches thinner each year. By applying the same rate to
all Alaska glaciers, the scientists figured Alaska was dumping enough water
to raise worldwide sea levels about 0.14 millimeters per year.

Between 1999 and 2001, the team remeasured 28 glaciers and found that they
were melting even faster. They were thinning by an average of almost 6 feet
per year, almost doubling the amount of water flushing into the sea.

With extraordinary winter snowfall and summer melt, glaciers bordering the
Gulf of Alaska in the Chugach and St. Elias and Coast ranges made the
largest contributions, the authors wrote. About 75 percent of the meltwater
came from just five glaciers: Columbia in Prince William Sound, Malaspina
and Bering along the Gulf coast, LeConte near Petersburg and Kaskawulsh near
Kluane in Canada's Yukon territory.

Seeing the changes from the air was spectacular, Echelmeyer said.

The Columbia had retreated miles, filling a vast fjord with a jumble of
cockeyed bergs. Over 44 years, the glacier's terminus thinned by almost
1,000 feet, then thinned another 490 feet during the past five years, they
wrote. During recent years, it shrank in height by about 25 feet per year
throughout its length while dumping more than 1.8 trillion gallons into
Columbia Bay.

Other tidewater glaciers have peeled back to reveal new landscapes. "Now
there are islands of rock 200 feet high that were never mapped," he said.

The more familiar glaciers in the study included Exit Glacier near Seward,
Worthington near Valdez, and the Tazlina, which spills north from the
Chugach Mountains and is visible from the Glenn Highway.

The findings suggest that scientists may be underestimating how much sea
levels will keep rising.

Mark Meier and Mark Dyurgerov, from the University of Colorado Institute of
Arctic and Alpine Research, wrote in an essay that accompanied the article:
"More than 100 million people live within one meter of mean sea level, and
the problem is especially serious for low-lying small island nations."

The Alaska study had its origins in the early 1990s, when Echelmeyer,
Harrison and other glaciologists at the Geophysical Institute became
frustrated with time-consuming methods for figuring out changes in glacier
mass. Only four Alaska glaciers had been monitored long term.

Advances in laser surveying technology and global positioning system
instruments suggested to Echelmeyer that it might be possible to measure
glaciers from the air, covering many locations in a short time.

NASA had such technology, but it required an airplane too large to maneuver
through Alaska's narrow glacial valleys.

"It was very important that we could fly down the valley and land and take
measurements," Echelmeyer said. "And we didn't have NASA's budget."

Working with glaciologists, Alaska surveyors and technicians at the
Geophysical Institute, Echelmeyer and Harrison mounted a laser altimeter in
the belly of his 1947 Piper PA-12. Using a GPS unit to record location and a
gyroscope to track the plane's angle, the team began testing the method on
Gulkana Glacier in the Alaska Range.

"There was a lot of trial and error to get the accuracy that we needed,"
Echelmeyer said.

The polished technique involved maneuvering to the top of the glacier, then
flying down its center at speeds of up to 120 mph.

Over the next decade, the team flew 102 glaciers and re-profiled about 50,
often landing for more measurements.

"We got stuck more than a few times," Echelmeyer said. On a trip to Harding
Icefield in 1995, he and his assistants were snowed in for eight days,
getting a vivid lesson in Alaska glacier production.

"The plane got totally buried, and the tent poles broke," he said. "We
didn't have anywhere near eight days' worth of food. . . . In the end, we
had to dig out the plane and dig out a ramp to take off."

Not all glaciers shrank or retreated. Taku Glacier near Juneau has expanded,
while other tongues fed by Juneau Icefield have shrunk, Echelmeyer said.

Hubbard Glacier, now pushing a dam across Russell Fiord near Yakutat, had
also increased a little in volume, though not enough to explain its current
advance, Echelmeyer said.

Complicating the picture, the scientists found that retreating glaciers
didn't always lose volume, while advancing glaciers didn't always get
thicker.

The next step for the scientists will be to complete calculations on the
glaciers -- such as the Knik near Palmer -- that have been measured but not
yet analyzed, Echelmeyer said. Then he and his team want to tackle the
causes behind the meltdown.

"We have not yet figured out whether it's due to climate warming or, say,
less snowfall," he said.
---
Permafrost is warming

By DOUG O'HARRA
Anchorage Daily News

Published: August 14, 2005
Last Modified: August 14, 2005 at 10:17 AM

FAIRBANKS -- Interior Alaska's permafrost has warmed in some places to the
highest level since the ice age ended 10,000 years ago, its temperature now
within a degree or two of thawing.


Earth frozen since woolly mammoths and bison wandered Interior steppes has
been turning to mush. Lakes have been shrinking. Trees are stressed.
Prehistoric ice has melted underground, leaving voids that collapse into
sinkholes.

Largely concentrated where people have disturbed the surface, such damage
can be expensive, even heartbreaking. It's happening now in Fairbanks:
Toppled spruce, roller-coaster bike trails, rippled pavement, homes and
buildings that sag into ruin. And the meltdown is spreading in wild areas:
sinkholes, dying trees, eroding lakes.

These collapses bode ill: They are omens of what scientists fear will happen
on a large scale across the Arctic if water and air continue to warm as fast
as climate models predict.

"So far, we have only some local places where permafrost is thawing
naturally," said expert Vladimir Romanovksy, a Russian-born geophysicist at
the Geophysical Institute of the University of Alaska Fairbanks.

"But we are very, very close to this point when it (all) starts to thaw."

After record high temperatures during the summer of 2004 and last winter's
deep insulating snow, Romanovsky said he expects Interior permafrost will
again be significantly warmer than normal this year -- still closer to
melting.

The Geophysical Institute and Romanovsky maintain the world's most extensive
network of permafrost "observatories" -- basically thermometers sunk deep
into the frozen earth, many along the trans-Alaska oil pipeline. What they
report is disconcerting.

Permafrost is shrinking: warming on the bottom from the Earth's natural
heat, warming on the top because of air temperature and deep snows.

It's like holding an ice cream sandwich in your hand on a sunny day. While
the icy center stays hard, it shrinks as the top and bottom both melt.

"Our permafrost is still stable, even though it is very, very warm,"
Romanovsky said. "But the moment it starts to thaw, we will be able to say
we are the warmest we have been the last 100,000 years."

For a glimpse of that future, look no farther than the hills north of
Fairbanks, near where Romanovsky lives with his wife and two of his three
sons.

In a meadow on his mother-in-law's property, weird six-foot-deep channels
and holes crisscross the ground, trenches and bomb pits from what amounts to
thermal warfare.

A small hole opened up in the sod a few years ago, curving down into the
earth like some gopher den. This spring, his sons and other children playing
near the house discovered the bottom had fallen out. The cavity was now
large enough to bury a person. No one has crawled down to see where it ends.

Romanovksy discourages his sons playing in the field. "It is not safe," he
said.

Maybe 100 yards away, other sinkholes have formed along the shoulder of
Goldstream Road, the main travel route for residents of the rural valley.
Romanovksy took photos of his sons by one hole in 2001 and matched them to
another set taken this spring. In the successive snapshots, the boys grow
taller, the hole grows deeper.

The newest chasm -- maybe 10 feet across -- had been filled with gravel by
highway crews. But only a few weeks later, concentric cracks circled a
depression. It looked like a bull's eye.

As it does every summer, the hole was collapsing again.


'FROZEN DIRT' NOW GLAMOROUS

Romanovsky is part of a small army of scientists investigating Arctic
climate change. He teaches UAF college students, conducts research with the
International Arctic Research Center and hopes to expand ground frost
monitoring to other parts of the world with a grant from the National
Science Foundation.

Since emigrating from Moscow in 1990, Romanovksy has found that Fairbanks
offers a kind of paradise for a family man/permafrost scientist -- a
middle-class paycheck in a small town surrounded by frozen ground.

Now 51 and a naturalized U.S. citizen, he still has a bulldog build from his
days as a hockey defenseman for Moscow State University. He has two Ph.D.s,
with training in mathematics, geology and the physics of how frozen dirt
sheds heat.

Permafrost experts once labored in obscurity, he said. Graduate students
were drawn to more glamorous topics, like glaciers and sea ice.

After all, he said, "permafrost is frozen dirt."

But the importance of permafrost as an indicator of climate change -- and
the realization that its thaw could alter the northern landscape and release
vast stores of greenhouse gases into the air -- has ignited huge interest.

"It's just exploded since last year," said Romanovsky, who starred in a
recent New Yorker piece on global warming. "I'm going to have to stop giving
interviews."

Permafrost degradation is only one element in a climate shift well under
way. Overall, during the last half century, the Arctic has been warming much
faster than the rest of the world. Alaska's average annual air temperature
has increased 3.3 degrees between 1949 and 2003, with some areas rising
almost twice as much, especially in winter and fall, according to the Arctic
Climate Impact Assessment published last fall.

The most obvious signs are shrinking sea ice, melting glaciers and the
thawing trend in permafrost, said Syun Akasofu, director of the Arctic
research center, in a briefing this spring with Floyd DesChamps, a staffer
of the U.S. Senate Commerce committee.

While warming is definitely happening, the causes remain unclear. Natural
climate cycles that reach back thousands of years and greenhouse gases
released by human activity both appear to be driving the warmth. But
researchers still do not know which factors contribute more, Akasofu said.

Romanovsky warns that, whatever the reason, permafrost is easing closer to
the thawing point across Interior Alaska. Will spruce forests transform into
grassland? Will roads, buildings and pipelines collapse? Will Alaskans be
forced to spend millions repairing damage?

One thing is certain, he said. "The permafrost we have was established
during the last ice age, and now it's deteriorating."


TUNNEL TO THE PAST

On Alaska's North Slope, permafrost remains up to 1,000 feet thick in some
places, underlying the landscape like an impermeable slab of bedrock that
keeps the tundra saturated by preventing meltwater from draining off into
the ground. Around Fairbanks, deteriorating permafrost has produced a
different story, an underground drama of oozing and seeping, mostly
invisible to people on the surface.

But there is a place where students and scientists can visit what remains of
the ice age: a tunnel 10 miles north of Fairbanks that bores about 360 feet
into a hillside off the Steese Highway near Fox.

Excavated in 1963-64 by U.S. Army engineers and researchers from the Cold
Regions Research and Engineering Laboratory, the tunnel extends through
ground that froze 20,000 to 40,000 years ago. The entrance emerges from the
base of a steep, forested slope on the edge of a graveled field. Rather than
a gateway to prehistory, it looks more like a weathered shack that got
half-buried in an old landslide.

Visitors don hard hats because chunks can fall from the ceiling. During a
spring tour, UAF geology professor Sarah Fowell instructed everyone to pick
up their feet to keep from stirring the prehistoric silt that coats every
surface. At the minelike portal, over the sound of refrigerator compressors,
the cold airs smells like rotting flesh, like walking into a rancid meat
locker. It's the bits and bones of prehistoric bison and mammoths, stuck in
the walls.

"Thawing 12,000-year-old mammals -- it's not a good thing," Fowell said
cheerfully. "Don't worry. You'll get used to it."

Along dusty walls stained with patches of white mold and protruding ice hang
faded signs. They point out exotic highlights: a 14,000-year-old bone here,
a clump of 30,700-year-old "fine fibrous organics" there.

Ice laces the ceiling. From a nearby wall, a pond that froze solid about
30,000 years ago bulges, buried by wind-blown silt. But let that pond melt
and a 20-foot-deep sinkhole might collapse overhead.


WHEN THE BOTTOM FALLS OUT

Things keep sinking around Fairbanks.

When UAF crews began a parking lot for a new building behind the Geophysical
Institute, Romanovsky warned them the area was undercut with voids and ice.
The parking lot went in anyway. New sinkholes emerge each spring.

Bike trails ripple like roller coaster tracks. Houses have shifted, forcing
a few people to move out or tear down. State officials blame rising
maintenance costs throughout the Interior and Copper Basin on deteriorating
permafrost and erosion, and Alaskans are already spending thousands of extra
dollars on potholes and new pavement each summer. Sometimes the damage gets
personal.

One sight Romanovsky visits every couple months is Ruth Macchione's sinking
log cabin, with its sweeping view of Goldstream Valley and a green meadow.

Macchione's husband, Peter, built the 26-by-16 structure almost 50 years ago
from birch logs cut off their homestead. Over the decades, they raised nine
children, gardened, kept cattle and staked a team of sled dogs.

But at some point, the basement's foundation began to thaw previously frozen
earth a few yards beneath the cabin's eastern wall. Bit by bit, the
Macchione family home canted two feet off plumb. Basement windows started to
submerge.

"It was getting pretty bad," Macchione said. "I had to block up everything
-- block the stove, block the table, block the refrigerator."

The cabin outlived Peter, an aircraft mechanic who died in 1987 and is
buried by the trees beyond the garden. Ruth stayed until 1999, then moved
into a new log home on concrete piers. Water in the basement convinced her.

"It was coming from beneath," she said. "All I knew is I had to get out of
there."

Romanovksy heard about Ruth's cabin a few years ago. He knocked on her door
and asked if he and other scientists could visit every now and then. They
talked for hours. She calls him a "mad Russian scientist."

Even after five years, she mourns the cabin built by Peter. She has no plans
to tear it down. Perhaps someday, she said, her sons will put it on a new
foundation. Perhaps there's a way to overcome the damage caused by the
melting underfoot.

"You just get sick after doing all that work," she said.

The cabin's collapse is just a warning for other northern people, Romanovsky
said -- of what might happen to pipelines, buildings and roads when the
Arctic's bottom gives way.
--

That little biography makes him sound like a bit of a leftist, but that's beside the point.

I don't care how persuasive the man might sound; I wouldn't trust him until I trusted his math, and I haven't seen his math.
The left has always loved kangaroos.

Here's something from a once skeptic:

"Four books eventually brought me to the flipping point. Archaeologist Brian Fagan's The Long Summer (Basic, 2004) explicates how civilization is the gift of a temporary period of mild climate. Geographer Jared Diamond's Collapse (Penguin Group, 2005) demonstrates how natural and human-caused environmental catastrophes led to the collapse of civilizations. Journalist Elizabeth Kolbert's Field Notes from a Catastrophe (Bloomsbury Publishing, 2006) is a page-turning account of her journeys around the world with environmental scientists who are documenting species extinction and climate change unmistakably linked to human action. And biologist Tim Flannery's The Weather Makers (Atlantic Monthly Press, 2006) reveals how he went from being a skeptical environmentalist to a believing activist as incontrovertible data linking the increase of carbon dioxide to global warming accumulated in the past decade.

It is a matter of the Goldilocks phenomenon. In the last ice age, CO2 levels were 180 parts per million (ppm)--too cold. Between the agricultural revolution and the industrial revolution, levels rose to 280 ppm--just right. Today levels are at 380 ppm and are projected to reach 450 to 550 by the end of the century--too warm. Like a kettle of water that transforms from liquid to steam when it changes from 99 to 100 degrees Celsius, the environment itself is about to make a CO2-driven flip.

According to Flannery, even if we reduce our carbon dioxide emissions by 70 percent by 2050, average global temperatures will increase between two and nine degrees by 2100. This rise could lead to the melting of the Greenland Ice Sheet, which the March 24 issue of Science reports is already shrinking at a rate of 224 ±41 cubic kilometers a year, double the rate measured in 1996 (Los Angeles uses one cubic kilometer of water a year). If it and the West Antarctic Ice Sheet melt, sea levels will rise five to 10 meters, displacing half a billion inhabitants.

Because of the complexity of the problem, environmental skepticism was once tenable. No longer. It is time to flip from skepticism to activism."
http://www.sciam.com/article.cfm?articleID=000B557A-71ED-146C-ADB783414B7F0000

It's a matter of time. It's not really a matter of looking at this as an interesting problem that can be discussed through the ages.

Read it again. Most of the links have links to data sources and hard data sources were provided after you requested them.

It's hard to post a link to a book.

BTW - catch the sig? ;)

What exactly did Dinaverg say?

Sorry to repost but can anyone respond to these points from the Seattle Times which allegedly counter all the usual anti-alarmist arguments?

http://uspolitics.about.com/b/a/207395.htm

...someone really should respond since this is the most current argument. It refutes the refuters.

It's hard to post a link to a book.

That is very true.

Sorry to repost but can anyone respond to these points from the Seattle Times which allegedly counter all the usual anti-alarmist arguments?

http://uspolitics.about.com/b/a/207395.htm

...someone really should respond since this is the most current argument. It refutes the refuters.
I wouldn't want to be the person that had to answer to those points.

Also look at this:
Why are we still debating climate change? How soon will we hit peak oil supply? When politics mix with science, what is being brewed? At the Environmental Wars conference, speakers from the left & the right, from the lab & the field, from industry & advocacy, met to continue the debate about whether human activity is actually changing the climate of the planet.

Organized by the Skeptics Society and running from June 2–4, 2006, the conference hosted scientists, writers, environmentalists, and thinkers from all points along the spectrum of the environmental debate at the California Institute of Technology.

The conference was a great success! There has been a lot of lively discussion happening in various independent blogs across the internet. Read about the conference in Pasadena Weekly, read conference summaries and listen to podcast interviews with our speakers at a couple independent blogs:
http://www.environmentalwars.org/

"I saw Al Gore give the speech he presents in the movie live, and it was powerful. It was the single finest summation of the evidence for global warming I have ever heard," said Shermer in an exclusive backstage interview at the conference. "The amount of evidence he presents and the extent to which he explains it is just too much to deny, and it's time to stop being skeptical and start acting on it."
http://www.pasadenaweekly.com/article.php?id=3514&IssueNum=23

Also note: Michael Shermer is the publisher of Skeptic magazine.

... the Executive Director of the Skeptics Society, and a monthly columnist for Scientific American. He is the author of Why Darwin Matters: Evolution and the Case Against Intelligent Design, Science Friction: Where the Known Meets the Unknown, The Science of Good and Evil, In Darwin’s Shadow: The Life and Science of Alfred Russel Wallace, The Borderlands of Science, Denying History, How We Believe: Science, Skepticism, and the Search for God, and Why People Believe Weird Things.

I think Michael Shermer is my new hero.

(Cue corporate attack machine bringing up that in 1978, Shermer once got $.13 too much change at his local gorcery store, didn't notice until he got home, and NEVER RETURNED THE MONEY.)

I think Michael Shermer is my new hero.

(Cue corporate attack machine bringing up that in 1978, Shermer once got $.13 too much change at his local gorcery store, didn't notice until he got home, and NEVER RETURNED THE MONEY.)
I heard he used the .13 to help pay for an abortion.

What exactly did Dinaverg say?
Good question. He felt like taggin' me through that whole thread ...
i don't actually remember, but that was a keeper.
It's on one of those links, but i don't feel like lookin' it up at the moment ... perhaps how under certain thermal circumstances, CO2 can exhibit different atmospheric characteristics.

Good question. He felt like taggin' me through that whole thread ...
i don't actually remember, but that was a keeper.
It's on one of those links, but i don't feel like lookin' it up at the moment ... perhaps how under certain thermal circumstances, CO2 can exhibit different atmospheric characteristics.
God.

God.
erm ... Satan?

It seems to me that every time a Global warming thread pops up people start arguing about the cause. Why give a sh*t about the cause?
From that National Academy of Science report it looks like if we caused it its too late to stop the ball rolling for us or the next few generations.
If its natural oscilation we can't affect then we also can't stop it.
Either way no reason to point fingers, just figure out how bad is it going to get and how can we cope.
Few people left seem to say nothing is happening but lots are arguing as to cause. I say F*ck the cause I want to know about the effect!

It seems to me that every time a Global warming thread pops up people start arguing about the cause. Why give a sh*t about the cause?
From that National Academy of Science report it looks like if we caused it its too late to stop the ball rolling for us or the next few generations.
If its natural oscilation we can't affect then we also can't stop it.
Either way no reason to point fingers, just figure out how bad is it going to get and how can we cope.
Few people left seem to say nothing is happening but lots are arguing as to cause. I say F*ck the cause I want to know about the effect!
It will only get worse if we don't do something about it.

I've got a few other happiness-oriented posts in the future, here in a few. Gotta make a run to town ...

As I said, the CFC science was pretty simple, and anyone with a high school education should have been able to figure it out. The companies (correctly) figured that most people aren't that smart and tried to convince them anyway.

Well, to put it plainly, CFCs destroying the ozone caught nearly everyone by surprise. No one expected CFCs to act as much as they did in destroying ozone. Turns out that rain droplets make perfect reaction areas for the reactions that take place between CFCs and ozone. No one expected a massive ozone hole to show up (theorhetical data suggested a slight drop over decades), but many scientists moved ahead in a cautious step towards slowly phasing out CFCs even before the massive drop was found. It was one of the few times when governments actually reacted to a threat when it was found, and didn't dicker about it forever.

Well, to put it plainly, CFCs destroying the ozone caught nearly everyone by surprise. No one expected CFCs to act as much as they did in destroying ozone. Turns out that rain droplets make perfect reaction areas for the reactions that take place between CFCs and ozone. No one expected a massive ozone hole to show up (theorhetical data suggested a slight drop over decades), but many scientists moved ahead in a cautious step towards slowly phasing out CFCs even before the massive drop was found. It was one of the few times when governments actually reacted to a threat when it was found, and didn't dicker about it forever.
Good to know we learned our lesson.

Wait...

Why is the raw data so hard to find?

Why are so many laypeople so convinced by these climatologists if they haven't seen the data?


Because they are trained professionals, its their job. Who is the time anyway.

I would take the climatology science concenses over a politicians or journalists opinion . Heck, I would even take the climatologists expert knowledge on the subject over... a group of generally uninformed teenagers discussing the topic on the internet..but thats just me.

I wouldn't want to be the person that had to answer to those points.

I wouldn't hold my breath. Climate Change skeptics are still asking rudimentary, climatology 101 questions that have been answered time and time and time again.

Because, you know, experts who have dedicated their lives to the subject have never thought to test to see if these were purely natural cycles...

I can't find them.

I want comprehensive datasets covering surface temperatures, ocean temperatures, and high atmospheric temperatures. I want details of how the temperature measurements were made. I want consistent methodology over time. I want detailed worldwide datasets (for example, no measuring just the western arctic - I never hear about the thickness of the ice north of Russia). I want to examine that actual climate models they're using.

These must exist, else why would anyone be so confident in his conclusions, but I can't find them.

I don't place much stock in peer review. I'd much rather trust data than "peers".
Ahh..the final refuge for the 'skeptic'.
Makes such outrageous demands on his opposition they can't be met, and then uses this failure as reason why his opponents are wrong.

Why, yes. We all have the hundreds of thousands of pages of raw data sitting round here. It was sent out to everybody. Didn't you get yours?

I think the CFC science was pretty clear. It was straightforward stoichiometry - anyone with a high school education could understand it.
Okay, how about this, then.

Lesson 1.

Every element has a pair in the electromagnetic spectrum. The way it works is that the smallest elements absord the smallest waves, the next smallest absorb the next smalles, etc...

Hydrogen, for example, is the smallest, most abundant element in the universe. The smallest waves are microwaves, which is why they are called "micro"waves. In a microwave oven, the hydrogen in your food absorbs the microwaves and heat up as a result and then spred that heat throughout your food. This is the reason microwave relays only work line of sight. There is too much hydrogen in the atmosphere for microwaves to travel long distances so they can't be shot out of the atmosphere, bounced off a satalite and fed back throu the atmosphere to the ground.

Lesson 2.
The Earth is not actually heated the way most people think. The sun doesn't heat our atmosphere directly, at least not teh part we live in. Most of the sun's energy is absorbed before it gets down here in exactly the way I described above, i.e. different elements filter out the different wavelengths of electromagnetic radiation. By the time it strikes the ground most of what's left is visible light along with some ultraviolet and a bit of infrared. The visible light is absorbed by the ground and the ground heats up as a result and thn heats the part of the atmosphere that we live in from the ground up. Part of this heat is derived by the ground radiating infrared radiation as a result of being heated up. This infrared is absorbed by carbon based molecules, the most abundant of which is CO2, because carbon absorbs infrared the same way hydrogen absorbs microwaves. Therefore, the more CO2 you have in the atmosphere, the more infrared is absorbed and the more heat you trap.

That's not opaque, it's easy to understand.

Ahh..the final refuge for the 'skeptic'.
Makes such outrageous demands on his opposition they can't be met, and then uses this failure as reason why his opponents are wrong.

I never claimed they were wrong. I claimed that we have no reason to believe that they're right.

Absence of evidence is not evidence of absence. You've incorrectly assumed that on an important issue like this I have to hold an opinion one way or the other. But that's simply untrue. No one ever has to hold an opinion. I don't understand why people are so uncomfortable with uncertainty.

My concern here is that the vast majority of people have been convinced of one position on global warming, but very nearly none of them has ever seen real evidence.

And, as I said, the data I request must exist, otherwise no one would have reached these conclusions in the first place. I can't imagine why they wouldn't be freely available.

Now, according to some actual helpful people on this thread, it appears that SOME of the data I want is freely available. I'll have to spend some time going through it and converting into a format that's actually useful (again, I assert that if they really wanted to convince rational people, they'd have done this for me).

Okay, how about this, then.

Lesson 1.

Every element has a pair in the electromagnetic spectrum. The way it works is that the smallest elements absord the smallest waves, the next smallest absorb the next smalles, etc...

Hydrogen, for example, is the smallest, most abundant element in the universe. The smallest waves are microwaves, which is why they are called "micro"waves. In a microwave oven, the hydrogen in your food absorbs the microwaves and heat up as a result and then spred that heat throughout your food. This is the reason microwave relays only work line of sight. There is too much hydrogen in the atmosphere for microwaves to travel long distances so they can't be shot out of the atmosphere, bounced off a satalite and fed back throu the atmosphere to the ground.

Lesson 2.
The Earth is not actually heated the way most people think. The sun doesn't heat our atmosphere directly, at least not teh part we live in. Most of the sun's energy is absorbed before it gets down here in exactly the way I described above, i.e. different elements filter out the different wavelengths of electromagnetic radiation. By the time it strikes the ground most of what's left is visible light along with some ultraviolet and a bit of infrared. The visible light is absorbed by the ground and the ground heats up as a result and thn heats the part of the atmosphere that we live in from the ground up. Part of this heat is derived by the ground radiating infrared radiation as a result of being heated up. This infrared is absorbed by carbon based molecules, the most abundant of which is CO2, because carbon absorbs infrared the same way hydrogen absorbs microwaves. Therefore, the more CO2 you have in the atmosphere, the more infrared is absorbed and the more heat you trap.

That's not opaque, it's easy to understand.
BTW - This is also the same science behind ozone depletion. CFCs were destroying ozone. Ozone captures ultraviolet radiation the same way CO2 captures infrared. Less ozone, more ultraviolet gets through thestratosphere.

Wonder what we did 400 years ago to bump the temperature? Bovine flatulence?

I vaguely recall reading something about a strike by a small meteor centuries before that warming trend that started a cooling trend. The 400 year warming trend was just the climate reasserting itself.

That's not opaque, it's easy to understand.

It's also a gross oversimplification.

And you made a few errors in your microwave section. Microwaves are actually lower frequency (and thus bigger waves) than visible light. Ultraviolet, X-rays, and Gamma Rays are all smaller waves.

It's also a gross oversimplification.

And you made a few errors in your microwave section. Microwaves are actually lower frequency (and thus bigger waves) than visible light. Ultraviolet, X-rays, and Gamma Rays are all smaller waves.
You said that the CFC issue was easily understandable to a highschool graduate. Were you to get into the specifics of how that happens it would not be. This oversimplification is exactly the same kind of oversimplification that the average person learned about CFCs. The actual "raw data" sets and climate models weren't ever published on that issue, either. In fact, the data for global warming is far more accessible than the data for ozone depletion was simply by virtue of the fact that the internet did not exist then. People learned about ozone depletion through Time magazine and local newspapers, none of which were publishing hard, technical articles written by physicist and meteorologists. My description of how global warming works is no more simplified than what you or any other member of the general public knew about ozone depletion at the time.

That' bullshit. Climatologists widely agree that human activity is what is causing the Earth to warm. For example, the ones I posted in the story.

The government needs to start stepping in and operating major industries. It's the only way that we can expect to solve this crisis. I'm scared I might die. I hate republicans.

The government needs to start stepping in and operating major industries. It's the only way that we can expect to solve this crisis. I'm scared I might die. I hate republicans.

Government's aren't so good at reducing pollution either. The military pollutes a hell of a lot and who's going to come around and regulate them? Another branch of the government?

Something interesting I noticed, and bear and mind this is just a theory, I have no proof...
There used to be a "Global Warming Thermometer" at one of the United Nations websites showing the current progress on the implementation of the Kyoto Protocol. It's mysteriously disappeared recently. Maybe they realized that no government has done a good job of implementing it yet and the Thermometer was just becoming an embarrassment. (Especially given Tony Blair's comments on the innefectiveness of the treaty so far)

I never claimed they were wrong. I claimed that we have no reason to believe that they're right.

Absence of evidence is not evidence of absence. You've incorrectly assumed that on an important issue like this I have to hold an opinion one way or the other. But that's simply untrue. No one ever has to hold an opinion. I don't understand why people are so uncomfortable with uncertainty.

My concern here is that the vast majority of people have been convinced of one position on global warming, but very nearly none of them has ever seen real evidence.

And, as I said, the data I request must exist, otherwise no one would have reached these conclusions in the first place. I can't imagine why they wouldn't be freely available.

Now, according to some actual helpful people on this thread, it appears that SOME of the data I want is freely available. I'll have to spend some time going through it and converting into a format that's actually useful (again, I assert that if they really wanted to convince rational people, they'd have done this for me).
Rational people don't usually ask to do the science for themselves. We're not all science majors.

But have you tried Google Scholar?
This is one thing I've found:
http://www.blackwell-synergy.com/doi/full/10.1046/j.1365-2486.2001.00383.x?cookieSet=1

There are numerous scientific articles that come up and I think that you would be better suited to sort through them than I am. I used the search, "climate models."

Government's aren't so good at reducing pollution either. The military pollutes a hell of a lot and who's going to come around and regulate them? Another branch of the government?

Something interesting I noticed, and bear and mind this is just a theory, I have no proof...
There used to be a "Global Warming Thermometer" at one of the United Nations websites showing the current progress on the implementation of the Kyoto Protocol. It's mysteriously disappeared recently. Maybe they realized that no government has done a good job of implementing it yet and the Thermometer was just becoming an embarrassment. (Especially given Tony Blair's comments on the innefectiveness of the treaty so far)

Does anyone notice that the solutions to global warming all seem to be the same as what progressives and socialists want anyway? This just shows the supremacy of socialism and the evil of capitalism. If people won't accept progressivism because they are too stupid, then maybe global warming will finally help it be implemented.

used to snow every winter where i live, now it doesnt

The government needs to start stepping in and operating major industries. It's the only way that we can expect to solve this crisis. I'm scared I might die. I hate republicans.
I feel that the consumer can do more than a bureacracy.

Does anyone notice that the solutions to global warming all seem to be the same as what progressives and socialists want anyway? This just shows the supremacy of socialism and the evil of capitalism. If people won't accept progressivism because they are too stupid, then maybe global warming will finally help it be implemented.

No, I'm afraid I don't notice. Where in my post did I mention any solution to global warming similar to what socialists want? My honest opinion on the solution is in fact not far off from what you said in the latter part of your post. There is no easy solution. Governments are ineffective in reducing emissions because they cater to their corporate constituents. Corporations themselves...well, some of them are innovating for the better, but not all. And to really combat global warming we do need ALL to participate, including the people themselves. You've got to convince people to stop driving gas guzzling SUVs and stop wasting so much electricity. You've got to either reduce demand for paper and lumber or find a more efficent way of producing it so the forests stay intact and absorb the CO2. Can any one entity do that? I doubt it. That's why your little suggestion that the coming catastrophe will be the final slap in the face that wakes people up is probably true.

Given that the first 250 years of the past 400 years were a miniature ice age, and, that there was an extremely cold time during the middle of this past century, the last 400 years has been a pretty cool time in general. That it is warming up is of little surprise.

Given that the first 250 years of the past 400 years were a miniature ice age, and, that there was an extremely cold time during the middle of this past century, the last 400 years has been a pretty cool time in general. That it is warming up is of little surprise.
Are you talking about regional weather?

The government needs to start stepping in and operating major industries. It's the only way that we can expect to solve this crisis. I'm scared I might die. I hate republicans.

Right, because socialised economies have always been the best at not harming the environment.

Like the Soviet Union, or Cuba.

Have you been the Cuba? Their shoreline is disgusting from all the raw sewage they just toss into the sea.

Rational people don't usually ask to do the science for themselves. We're not all science majors.

But have you tried Google Scholar?
This is one thing I've found:
http://www.blackwell-synergy.com/doi/full/10.1046/j.1365-2486.2001.00383.x?cookieSet=1

There are numerous scientific articles that come up and I think that you would be better suited to sort through them than I am. I used the search, "climate models."

Your link doesn't work without your cookies, I'm afraid.

And I don't want to do the science. I want to review the science they've already done. I'm not suggesting I'll produce any original research.

Maybe they just do that around Guantanamo.

So what's the result of all this then? Is it better to fart and waft her heavenwards, or to light the fart negating it's gaseous nature but increasing the ambient temprature?

On a side note, do you weigh more before or after a fart. Not mass more but weigh more.

Your link doesn't work without your cookies, I'm afraid.

And I don't want to do the science. I want to review the science they've already done. I'm not suggesting I'll produce any original research.
Be a man and bite the cookie.

You said that the CFC issue was easily understandable to a highschool graduate. Were you to get into the specifics of how that happens it would not be. This oversimplification is exactly the same kind of oversimplification that the average person learned about CFCs. The actual "raw data" sets and climate models weren't ever published on that issue, either. In fact, the data for global warming is far more accessible than the data for ozone depletion was simply by virtue of the fact that the internet did not exist then. People learned about ozone depletion through Time magazine and local newspapers, none of which were publishing hard, technical articles written by physicist and meteorologists. My description of how global warming works is no more simplified than what you or any other member of the general public knew about ozone depletion at the time.

The feedback mechanisms were prety straighforward with the ozone issue, and the chemical reaction had 2 steps in it.

With the global climate, we need to take into account not just energy absorption, but also global albedo, solar brightness, and environmental adaptation.

The albedo strikes me as the most interesting bit. But that's probably because my scientific training is in astrophysics (like climatology, a field in which you can't really do experiments - we have to wait for phenomena to occur, and then measure them).

On a side note, do you weigh more before or after a fart. Not mass more but weigh more.

Before. The gasses were contained above atmospheric pressure.

Yep. Temperatures have been increasing for the last one hundred years, as well as human advancement in nearly every field. I’m not worried.

Yep. Temperatures have been increasing for the last one hundred years, as well as human advancement in nearly every field. I’m not worried.
That's wonderful. Good for you.

The feedback mechanisms were prety straighforward with the ozone issue, and the chemical reaction had 2 steps in it.

With the global climate, we need to take into account not just energy absorption, but also global albedo, solar brightness, and environmental adaptation.The only thing the public knew about the ozone layer at teh time, or even now for that matter, was that the cute little ozone molecules knitted a fuzzy little blanket for us, possibly out of lambs wool, that kept the evil ultraviolet rays out. What the public knows now about global warming is that the evil CO2 molecules are trapping the bad heat in like a green house. I fail to see a difference in the level of simplification of the issues for public consumption. Hard data on ozone depletion was very hard to come by because, at the time, you would have to visit your local university's department of meteorology to get it. The hard data on global warming, as I have demonstrated, is very easy to come by with a simple Google search. You keep saying you want to see the math, the data, learn about the climate models they use, if you're truely interested in those things then go here: www.google.com and do a search and read. Paste in search terms like this: +"global warming" +"climate models" and you'll find that information much easier than you ever would have about ozone depletion in 1987. No one is hiding it from you. They want you to read it.
(like climatology, a field in which you can't really do experiments - we have to wait for phenomena to occur, and then measure them).
Unlike astrophysics, climatology may not have that luxory.

Right, because socialised economies have always been the best at not harming the environment.

Like the Soviet Union, or Cuba.

Have you been the Cuba? Their shoreline is disgusting from all the raw sewage they just toss into the sea.

But what are the other solutions to the global warming then? If the government doesn't step in and nationalize all industries, or at least tax and regulate them very, very heavily, how else will we stop people from buying paper and driving cars?

Right, because socialised economies have always been the best at not harming the environment.

Like the Soviet Union, or Cuba.

Have you been the Cuba? Their shoreline is disgusting from all the raw sewage they just toss into the sea.
Or China.
HONG KONG, China -- A dense blanket of pollution, dubbed the "Asian Brown Cloud," is hovering over South Asia, with scientists warning it could kill millions of people in the region, and pose a global threat.

In the biggest-ever study of the phenomenon, 200 scientists warned that the cloud, estimated to be two miles (three kilometers) thick, is responsible for hundreds of thousands of deaths a year from respiratory disease.

By slashing the sunlight that reaches the ground by 10 to 15 percent, the choking smog has also altered the region's climate, cooling the ground while heating the atmosphere, scientists said on Monday. http://archives.cnn.com/2002/WORLD/asiapcf/south/08/12/asia.haze/
http://www.nasa.gov/centers/goddard/images/content/94516main_chinahze.jpg

But what are the other solutions to the global warming then? If the government doesn't step in and nationalize all industries, or at least tax and regulate them very, very heavily, how else will we stop people from buying paper and driving cars?

You're objecting to paper?

Well, I suppose from a global warming standpoint, it would be best if the trees were converted to lumber, since it's likely to last longer. In terms of carbon sequestration, the most efficient forests are tree farms.

Look, you don't need to stop people from driving cars. You need to allow them access to lower emission cars, which are largely excluded from the market by government regulation. Electric cars would serve 90% of Americans really well - why aren't any for sale? Toyota has demonstrated that people will pay more for a lower emission vehicle because its cheaper to operate. Emissions are waste, and waste is inefficient.

Or China.

I didn't mention China because there's some argument to be made that their economy is no longer that centrally planned.

I find it amusing that Americans are the ones most likely to think that Cuba's a wonderful place, simply because they're not allowed to go there and see it for themselves.

I'm buying a houseboat.:cool:

I'm buying a houseboat.:cool:


maybe we can all pitch in a buy a used battle cruiser or cruise ship - we could gather two of every ethnic identity (each person having a different and useful skill) and have a floating city!

We should all watch the Futurama episode about global warming...peace out, y'all!

But what are the other solutions to the global warming then? If the government doesn't step in and nationalize all industries, or at least tax and regulate them very, very heavily, how else will we stop people from buying paper and driving cars?

:headbang: You could treat places like iran and saudi arabia with their oil like you treat Columbia with its drugs (call it a negitive externalities policy).:cool:

maybe we can all pitch in a buy a used battle cruiser or cruise ship - we could gather two of every ethnic identity (each person having a different and useful skill) and have a floating city!

Count me in!
We could also have smaller yachts on the side of the big ship. Those'll be the suburbs! :eek:

Count me in!
We could also have smaller yachts on the side of the big ship. Those'll be the suburbs! :eek:

Is this really wise, considering that in addition to rising waters, we're going through a cycle (whether natural or natural and augmented by anthropogenic climate change,) of more energetic storm activity.

:headbang: You could treat places like iran and saudi arabia with their oil like you treat Columbia with its drugs (call it a negitive externalities policy).:cool:

That's true, we all just need to accept a reduction in our standard of living, in order to save Gaia.

Multinational corporations are KILLING Gaia. When will we start to realize it. We need to have the government step-in and make sure that corporations are paying for all the things they are destroying. I hate republicans because they are murdering Gaia.

That's true, we all just need to accept a reduction in our standard of living, in order to save Gaia.

Multinational corporations are KILLING Gaia. When will we start to realize it. We need to have the government step-in and make sure that corporations are paying for all the things they are destroying. I hate republicans because they are murdering Gaia.

I agree with you that we'll all need to sacrifice in the future if we're going to preserve our environment. We either stop living such carefree high carbon footprint lifestyles or invest in some miracle technology that reduces our emissions.

But it ain't just Republicans and multinational corporations spewing out the CO2, I hate to break it to you. We're pretty much all guilty of driving, leaving lights and TVs on when we're not using them and wasting paper, hence contributing to deforestation. That lifestyle's going to have to change.

I agree with you that we'll all need to sacrifice in the future if we're going to preserve our environment. We either stop living such carefree high carbon footprint lifestyles or invest in some miracle technology that reduces our emissions.

But it ain't just Republicans and multinational corporations spewing out the CO2, I hate to break it to you. We're pretty much all guilty of driving, leaving lights and TVs on when we're not using them and wasting paper, hence contributing to deforestation. That lifestyle's going to have to change.

Your vision sounds so sad. If we had socialism, we would all be equal AND Gaia would be preserved. I'm crying for Gaia.

You can't change the world yourself anyway.:(
You can’t even reduce carbon consumption by your own footprint (because someone else will burn it in your place).:headbang:
You need collective action :fluffle: - Global action and the willingness to back it up with teeth if required.:mp5:

I really don't think the world is going to end. I think we could irretrievably fuck ourselves up, though.