We have 10 years to save the Planet from Global Warming?
Ted Balaker and Sam Staley, coauthors of “The Road More Traveled: Why the Congestion Crisis Matters More Than You Think, and What We Can Do About It”, have written what will be a very controversial piece in the Washington Post. The long and short of it, is the premise that increased wealth is the reason for increased individual automobile driving and that there are many myths about suburbanization and the automobiles relation to Global Warming. The five myths are discussed at the end of the post.
Today is a particularly good day to discuss this as the American automobile is now “Public Enemy Number One” to the newly formed “Global Warming Coalition against the Automobile”. Can you stop Global Warming by walking? We will see.
“Global Cool” launched in London and LA today is a brand new worldwide movement of celebrities, musicians, politicians and business leaders who will use their vast scientific knowledge to tell you how to live. Energy conversation is a magnificent idea and is something I do personally and believe in but you know the material has hit the fan when the rock stars and actors form another “We are the World” group of human micromanagement.
The idea that the planet has only ten years to stop Global Warming is being repeated so often that it is approaching the critical mass of universal acceptance. Never mind that no scientific proof exist to prove this. Also never mind that the people who will preach from the high alter of Global Warming understand nothing about science. Again we will suffer through another assault of “Social Democracy” and junk science. Yes the planet is warming. But is it the sun or humans that are causing Global Warming? Only actors and musicians Josh Hartnett, Leonardo Di Caprio, Orlando Bloom, KT Tunstall, Pink, The Killers, and Razorlight know the truth. And they will tell you how to live.
How long will it take for “Global Cool” to reveal its real agenda?
The Washington Post article by Ted Balaker and Sam Staley discusses 5 Myths About Suburbia and Our Car-Happy Culture:
1.Americans are addicted to driving.
Some claim that Europeans have developed an enlightened alternative. Americans return from London and Paris and tell their friends that everyone gets around by transit. But tourists tend to confine themselves to the central cities. Europeans may enjoy top-notch transit and endure gasoline that costs $5 per gallon, but in fact they don’t drive much less than we do. In the United States, automobiles account for about 88 percent of travel. In Europe, the figure is about 78 percent. And Europeans are gaining on us.
2.Public transit can reduce traffic congestion.
Like auto use, suburbanization is driven by wealth. Workers once left the fields to find better lives in the cities. Today more and more have decided that they can do so in the suburbs. Indeed, commuters are now increasingly likely to travel from one suburb to another or embark upon “reverse” commutes (from the city to the suburbs). Also, most American commuters (52 percent) do not go directly to and from work but stop along the way to pick up kids, drop off dry cleaning, buy a latte or complete some other errand.
3.We can cut air pollution only if we stop driving.
Air quality has been improving for a long time. More stringent regulations and better technology have allowed us to achieve what was previously unthinkable: driving more and getting cleaner. Since 1970, driving — total vehicle miles traveled — has increased 155 percent, and yet the EPA reports a dramatic decrease in every major pollutant it measures. Although driving is increasing by 1 to 3 percent each year, average vehicle emissions are dropping about 10 percent annually. Pollution will wane even more as motorists continue to replace older, dirtier cars with newer, cleaner models.
4.We’re paving over America.
How much of the United States is developed? Twenty-five percent? Fifty? Seventy-five? How about 5.4 percent? That’s the Census Bureau’s figure. And even much of that is not exactly crowded: The bureau says that an area is “developed” when it has 30 or more people per square mile.
But most people do live in developed areas, so it’s easy to get the impression that humans have trampled nature. One need only take a cross-country flight and look down, however, to realize that our nation is mostly open space. And there are signs that Mother Nature is gaining ground. After furious tree chopping during America’s early years, forests have made a comeback. The U.S. Forest Service notes that the “total area of forests has been fairly stable since about 1920.” Agricultural innovations have a lot to do with this. Farmers can raise more on less land.
5.We can’t deal with global warming unless we stop driving.
What should be done about global warming? The Kyoto Protocol seeks to get the world to agree to burn less fossil fuel and emit less carbon dioxide, and much of that involves driving less. But even disregarding the treaty’s economic costs, Kyoto’s environmental impact would be slight. Tom M.L. Wigley, chief scientist at the U.S. Center for Atmospheric Research, calculates that even if every nation met its obligation to reduce greenhouse gas, the Earth would be only .07 degrees centigrade cooler by 2050.
January 30th, 2007 at 1:26 pm
From Global Cool’s website:
Ok, how about we just ask all of them to hold their collective breath until the CO2 levels go down?
January 30th, 2007 at 1:30 pm
Ok, how about we just ask all of them to hold their collective breath until the CO2 levels go down?
That’s cold Bob.
January 30th, 2007 at 3:38 pm
So … when ten years go by, and we are all doomed, will they STFU and go away?
January 30th, 2007 at 3:38 pm
It’s a shame that science is so politicized, whether it’s biology and anthropology, medical research, or climate science.
The reality is that the scientific debate about anthropogenic climate change is essentially over; it IS happening.
The public policy debate, however, is far from settled. What we have to do and how fast we have to do it remains to be seen.
A good link about the politization (politicising?) of climate science was posted on http://www.realclimate.org the other day.
http://bostonreview.net/BR32.1/emanuel.html
January 30th, 2007 at 3:44 pm
Yeah, the idea that “most of the country is developed” might seem reasonably to people who never leave the city, or who live in the giant East Coast Sprawl (or Los Angeles).
Me, I drive from Oregon to Arizona and back every year, and let me tell you – there’s a whole lot of Nothing Much out there, still.
Sebastian: No, not so much. Global warming (ie climate change) is happening, undoubtedly. The anthropogenic part, that’s very much under debate.
(Or at least significant anthropogenesis; I suppose technically any effect any humans have counts as “anthropogenic climate change”, but at some point quantity becomes quality. If the magnitude is indistinguishable from noise, there’s no policy effect at all and it becomes worse than useless to talk about anthropogenic climate change.)
January 30th, 2007 at 4:23 pm
Its funny, I had somebody on my blog arguing that we should let the Idahoans kill the large majority of the wolves in their state, because there’s no more wild America left and that the lower 48 is entirely developed. Must be people who’ve never been on an airplane flying from say…Baltimore to San Francisco that think that sort of nonsense. I agree there.
But from a purely scientific standpoint, I’m afraid you’re talking with 1999′s talking points. The relevant scientific community (climatologists) are all but uniform in their conclusion that anthropogenic global warming is happening. Sure there are doubting thomases, just as there are doubters of evolution and the validity of stem cell research.
But of the peer reviewed climatological research published in the last five years or so, there’s been nothing that contradicts the basic premise that we are in point of fact warming the earth, and there’s been near unanimity that we are from the scientists who actually study climatology.
Is there philosophical and political debate? Sure–but the human hand in climate change is accepted by all but a few luddites in the relevant scientific community. Big difference.
January 30th, 2007 at 4:27 pm
Wow, point #3 is disingenuous to the point of absurdity. They talk about how cars are getting “cleaner” and how there’s “less pollution,” and both are true, but pollutions doesn’t exacerbate global warming. And, in fact, evidence suggests that particulate pollution of the kind given off by cars can actually mitigate the effects of global warming somewhat (although there are other compelling health reasons to reduce such pollution aggressively). The elephant in the room here is CO2, which they conveniently fail to mention here. They also conveniently fail to mention that CO2 is not tracked by the EPA as a “pollutant.” So how the reduction in pollution is relevant to global warming the way they seem to be implying is a mystery to me. The subject at hand is supposed to be global warming, not air quality.
Anybody who was honest about the issue would recognize this and address it directly. That they do not do so is an indictment against their motives, if not their integrity.
January 30th, 2007 at 4:28 pm
In case the article is a bit long or dense, here’s the punchline from the Kerry Emmanuel link I posted above:
The bottom line: sure, there are doubters, just as there are in every other field of science. But most climatologists agree that without human activity factored in, you can’t explain the climate patterns we’ve seen in the last century or so at all.
January 30th, 2007 at 4:29 pm
I think I remember hearing that “we have ten years to save the oceans”, but that was, oh, about ten years ago.
January 30th, 2007 at 4:39 pm
Tgirsch,
My understanding is that automotive emissions are less than 6% of all CO2 emissions; I’m firmly in the “climate scientists probably know what they’re talking about” camp, but I’m not aware of any of them who think the answer is “quit driving.”
There are plenty of ways to reduce emissions without taking everyone’s cars away. In fact, taking all the cars away probably wouldn’t have a meaningful impact.
So yeah, I’d take that sort of thing with a grain of salt.
January 30th, 2007 at 4:44 pm
I think I remember hearing that “we have ten years to save the oceans”, but that was, oh, about ten years ago.
That was Ted Danson. The Chief Scientist on “Cheers”. Also known as “Mayday Malone”.
Global Warming is real. The cause has a definitive consensus as being caused by man. That is not however scientific fact.
The question is what do we do.
Global Warming is Moveon.org 2.0. Will that help anything?
Will rockstars and actors help anything?
India and China will have more effect on climate if Global Warming is man made since they are just beginning the suburban expansion and mass use of the automobile.
Do you think the solutions for Global Warming will be equal? Or will they be biased against the economic security of America? Will it be a sliding scale where the most prosperous nations will have the greatest cost while emerging nations such as India and China can pollute at will?
It is time for a serious “hippie check”. Make sure we understand what the cost is and that it is equal to all nations. If you thought Nafta and Cafta hurt this country you haven’t seen anything yet. This is serious business. Let’s make sure we really know what is true and don’t get sucked into a UN contract that will wreck the American economy.
You know this is political when the real extremists begin to indoctrinate children.
January 30th, 2007 at 4:52 pm
Uhmmm…serious question: what the heck do you think “scientific fact” is, anyway? Your statement is entirely self contradictory.
What we know to be true, from a scientific point of view, is the consensus agreement of the relevant scientific community after a qualified peer review of the empirical data available.
In other words…we know that evolution, gravitational theory, general relativity, the germ theory of disease, etc. are scientifically supportable because a great, overwhelming majority of the relevant scientific communities for each field have a consensus agreement that those notions are correct.
The same is true for anthropogenic global warming–an overwhelming majority of the relevant scientific community agrees on the consensus view that human activity is warming the planet.
How much and how fast and what needs be done will continue to be an issue, but the scientific debate over whether it’s happening is over.
It’s pretty telling really, the doubters five years ago were arguing that it wasn’t happening at all. Now they’re admitting that it is, but trying to argue we’re not causing it. I wonder what the fall back position is from there? Probably the idea that yeah, we’re causing it, but it’s a good thing. Whatever works, I guess.
I understand why there’s a natural revulsion to the idea–we’ve all been sold the idea that acceptance of global warming means you have to give up your car.
But as I said above, no climate scientist I know of is saying that at all.
January 30th, 2007 at 5:03 pm
In other words…we know that evolution, gravitational theory, general relativity, the germ theory of disease, etc. are scientifically supportable because a great, overwhelming majority of the relevant scientific communities for each field have a consensus agreement that those notions are correct.
The same is true for anthropogenic global warming–an overwhelming majority of the relevant scientific community agrees on the consensus view that human activity is warming the planet.
Apples and oranges. General relatively doesn’t work for subatomic particles. Gravity doesn’t work for subatomic particles. We learn more about germ theory every year. As I mentioned it was just a few years ago we learned ulcers could be caused by viruses.
Science isn’t approximate. Theory is approximate. We do not know to an complete certainly that Global Warming is caused by human beings and their behavior. It is theory, consensus, it is not fact. If it were you could show an equation for weather. We understand less about weather than we do about particle physics.
January 30th, 2007 at 5:08 pm
Dammit, every time I look away for a few minutes, #9 gets all global warming on us. I’m just sittin’ this one out.
January 30th, 2007 at 5:12 pm
Oy, where to start.
First, if you wanted to be taken seriously, don’t suggest that it’s the sun that causes global warming. If you aren’t going to be honest enough to admit the scientific consensus and especially if you aren’t going to be honest enough to acknowledge that the “sun” hypothesis is deader than Denis Miller’s career, then I will be forced to laugh at you. Like so: Ha.
Second, your link around the ten years comment goes to an article that quotes someone who isn’t actually a global warming scientist or activist saying that. To be charitable, that article doesn’t say the same thing your sentence does.
Third, point by point:
1) They don’t provide a single source for these assertions. They don’t define their terms. Is travel the number of trips? If so, then they are lying with numbers. What matters isn’t the number of trips but the CO2 released, and that is a function of distance amd MPG. And, hey, look, the US uses 464.0 gallons of gasoline per capita, the EU is about 5 times more efficient than that. So, what does that tell us? That the Europeans are better at fuel consumption and that, most likely, they don’t — contrary to the assertion here, drives as many miles as people in the US do. And even if their assertions meant what they seem to want them to mean, how would Europe getting addicted to automobiles let the US off the hook for its behavior? By their reasoning, no pot smoker has every broken the law, because crack users are just as bad!
2)I’m sorry, was this non sequiter supposed to be an argument? They start off telling us that it’s a myth that mass transit reduces traffic congestion and then talk about the fact that people live in suburbs. Wait, for my next trick, I will prove that Peyton Manning is the most over-rated professional QB by talking about the goaltending of the Chicago Blackhawks! This one is so dumb it’s actually insulting.
3)See tgirsch’s work. One has to wonder, though, now that we are more than half way through their little list, if anyone else is noticing that is appears to be largely misdirection and “arguments” unrelated to the question of global warming?
4)First, notice that these guys are talking about population density, not amount of landmass covered in non-natural features. Apples are not oranges. Second, what has this to do with the question of whether sprawl is taking place because it hasn’t swallowed the whole country. And note, also, that they pretend that farmland is somehow the same as wilderness.
5) No one says that, you know. This is an argument made of straw. we cannot deal with global warming without reducing the amount of gasoline used, but that is not the same as stopping driving. Just to make this point even more hacktacular, it appears that they have disproved their own point. They appear to admit that if Kyoto was fully implemented, the earth would be cooler than today. And I bet you can guess what means, boys and girls: why yes, the dreaded Kyoto would have actually stopped human beings from making the global warming situation even worse. wow, what a terrible, terrible failure that Kyoto would be. I don’t know what’s worse – -that they thought people would buy this crap or that people actually did buy this crap.
Do I seem harsh? Well, good. This is little list is immoral bullshit and the people who produced should be ashamed of themselves. Global warming is real and is going to have real consequences. People are going to suffer and die if things aren’t done to fix or alleviate the problem. Yet these libertarian wankers want to pretend that externalities don’t exist.
January 30th, 2007 at 5:27 pm
Dammit, every time I look away for a few minutes, #9 gets all global warming on us. I’m just sittin’ this one out.
And I thought you hated hippies even more than I did. Even got Kevin to come out with “libertarian wankers”. Not bad in a days work.
But you have to admit this is just wrong:
http://www.cnsnews.com/ViewCulture.asp?Page=/Culture/archive/200701/CUL20070130b.html
January 30th, 2007 at 5:32 pm
Sebastian-PGP:
I wonder what the fall back position is from there? Probably the idea that yeah, we’re causing it, but it’s a good thing. Whatever works, I guess.
You mean you haven’t seen it yet? I’ve already seen some people claim that it’s already too late to do anything about it, so there’s no reason to bother. At some point, they’ll be right about that. (Hopefully that point won’t come any time soon.) And they’ll of course continue to exhibit cognitive dissonance in their contribution to the problem getting to that point.
Kevin:
Yet these libertarian wankers want to pretend that externalities don’t exist.
You know, you could apply that sentence to literally every subject libertarians ever address, and it would be wholly valid. In fact, that’s probably the core problem with libertarianism in general: it has to pretend that externalities don’t exist, despite the fact that they, you now, actually do.
January 30th, 2007 at 5:43 pm
Even got Kevin to come out with “libertarian wankers”.
Count your blessings. I could have explained how libertarians are best represented by the trekkies in the “bad kirk at the convetion” SNL skit …
January 30th, 2007 at 5:52 pm
Freudian slip or just a typo Kevin?
January 30th, 2007 at 6:11 pm
It doesn’t have to hold for subatomic particles to be generally accepted by physicists as correct. Much like global warming theory, you can adjust the understanding of it as you learn more. Nobody really thinks that general relativity isn’t correct simply because it’s had to be revised and updated as our understanding of the universe gets better. Anymore than anyone thinks gravitational theory is wrong as we learn more about dark matter, or biology has it all wrong as we learn more about speciation and evolution.
In any event, you’re missing the point here: the point is quite simply that we know that gravitational theory, germ theory, atomic theory, evolutionary theory etc are correct because they represent the consensus views of the relevant scientific communities in those fields. The same is true for anthropogenic global warming (AGW here on out).
I politely suggest you look up what “Theory” with a capital T means. It’s not about approximation, it’s about examing the available data and coming up with the best possible explanation via consensus that the data suggests.
That’s a meaningless generalization type statement. There are all sorts of approximations and best guesses that go into coming to a consensus view in all sorts of scientific endeavors.
We do know that you can’t explain observed climate trends without human activity being factored in. The overwhelming majority of climate scientists simply disagree with you here. You’re welcome to think that if you like, heck you can think the moon is green cheese for all I care.
I’m simply pointing out that the consensus view of scientists who study this for a living is that yes, we do know that human activity is contributing to the warming of our planet to some degree. There’s certainly a spirited debate as to just how large that extent is, but the body of climate scientists who agree that AGW is happening approaches the consensus acceptance of evolution, gravitational theory, etc.
January 30th, 2007 at 6:17 pm
ARRRGH
No, no, typo! Typo! damn, someone clean that up please
January 30th, 2007 at 6:54 pm
Sebastian,
I do practice conversation. But because I feel it is the right thing to do. I am wary of the .gov getting involved in mandatory conversation as that will probably soon translate to new taxes or regulations that will not change Global Warming one bit but will increase the size and weight of the Federal bureaucracy.
I wish every American would try compact fluorescent bulbs. I have and they work great. It is the easiest thing you can do about Global Warming and they save money. Walmart and Home-Depot have a large supply.
Have you heard of the plankton-sulfur cycle theory? Not many people have.
http://www.nsf.gov/news/news_summ.jsp?cntn_id=108105
October 26, 2006
Scientists have discovered a bacterial “switch gene” in two groups of microscopic plankton common in the oceans. The gene helps determine whether certain marine plankton convert a sulfur compound to one that rises into the atmosphere, where it can affect the earth’s temperature, or remain in the sea, where it can be used as a nutrient.
“This new gene offers a powerful tool to study the question of how these plankton are involved with sulfur exchange between the ocean and atmosphere,” said Mary Ann Moran, marine microbial ecologist at the University of Georgia. Moran and her colleagues published their findings in the Oct. 26, 2006, issue of the journal Science.
Much of the sulfur in the atmosphere comes from the surface of oceans, from a compound called dimethlysulfide, or DMS. Marine plankton control how much sulfur rises into the atmosphere by converting a compound called DMSP, or dimethylsulfoniopropionate, to DMS or to sulfur compounds that are not climatically active. Moran and her team discovered a gene that controls whether or not these sea drifters create DMS that rises into the air.
It would be awful if Global Warming turned out to be something that was a freak occurrence of nature. There would be no way to use it as a political weapon.
Can you imagine the embarrassment if Global Warming is caused by sulfur plankton farts?
The problem is you don’t know what you don’t know. All scientist understand this.
January 30th, 2007 at 7:23 pm
The reality is, as I noted by linking and quoting Prof. Emmanuel’s excellent column, that GW is caused by all sorts of things. The question becomes whether you can identify trends that fall outside the norm, and whether you can explain them via various explanations. As Kevin notes, much of the so called debunking of AGW has itself been shown to be nonsensical (the solar flares debacle, among others).
Scientists studying climate largely agree that it’s pretty darn hard to explain the observed climate trends of the last century or so without invoking human activities. Sure we don’t know what we don’t know, but what we do know is pretty damning for the AGW deniers, and the holdouts are really grasping at straws at this point.
I myself love the internal combustion engine and certainly wish it wasn’t the case that AGW is a reality; but unlike most AGW deniers, I look past what would be convenient for me, put my fears and emotions aside, and don’t grasp at constantly thinning straws. AGW is a reality, and the sooner we quit pretending that there’s any real scientific debate left, the sooner we can get on with dealing with it and deciding the best course of action. Pretending it’s not real is an elephant hanging off a cliff from a blade of grass; it’d be one thing if it were all that outlandish an idea, but the science behind what warms and cools the planet is well understood and not really subject to much debate. Why is it so hard to accept that CO2 plays a role in the mean temperature of the planet, and that more CO2 means a warmer planet, and that because we’re adding more CO2, the planet is getting warmer?
It ain’t like scientists are trying to tell you that American Idol is good TV or that Danny DeVito is really six-foot-five.
January 30th, 2007 at 8:13 pm
Oh, where to start. Let’s see:
1. Yes, the earth appears to be getting warmer, and yes, CO2 concentrations are rising, and yes, this is likely due to human activity.
But on a practical note, most people have a hard time believing that climatologists can accurately predict what’s going to happen 100 years from now when most weathermen can’t consistently produce an accurate 7-day forecast. A little more humility from the Global Warming crowd is in order.
2. The idea that Kyoto would lead to cooling is laughable, since even if it were completely and faithfully implemented the atmospheric CO2 concentration and mean global temperatures would still increase, just not as much as predicted.
Indeed, the idea that we could even decrease the temperature of the earth by reducing CO2 emissions without massively disrupting our economy is silly; given our current technologies that’s simply not possible. Kyoto advocates remind me of Star Trek geeks in the sense that the latter fervently believe that interstellar travel is possible. It might indeed be possible, but not under any laws of physics that we know of at this time, and certainly not with any technology that we currently possess.
Similarly, the climate is so complex, the scale so vast, that persons who glibly suggest that we can “stop” Global Warming by installing a few fluorescent bulbs or by driving hybrid cars should be viewed as idealistic dreamers (which, incidentally, is what they are). Kinda like the Marxists who believed they could change human nature.
3. Just because I don’t believe in the Great Apocalypse of Global Warming it doesn’t mean I don’t recognize the value of energy conservation or pollution prevention. It seems that many Global Warming advocates believe that unless you join the “We’re All Gonna Die, and It’s George Bush’s Fault!” cult you are a heretic, or in the new vernacular, a “denier”.
It is disconcerting to see some GW Believers advocating decertification of scientists who don’t accept the Party Line, or sympathetic politicians threatening companies that support an alternative point of view. If Global Warming Believers wish to convince other people to agree with them, they need to stop calling them “stupid” or “evil” or “oil company stooges”.
In short, the Global Warming Believers are their own worst enemies. Eventually, I predict people will get tired of the alarmist rhetoric and snotty, condescending attitudes and tune them out completely. In fact, their increasing stridency suggests it’s already happening.
January 30th, 2007 at 8:57 pm
I wonder then why the Hockey Stick was debunked? By debunked I mean that they can prove only the last 400 years was colder than it is today, not 1000 years as was quoted in the IPCC. 400 years ago was the little ice age, so yes it was colder. All the predictions are based on models that cannot predict even past climate cycles.
The model predictions now cannot guess/predict what the climate is doing right now. So isn’t basing the future of the earth on what they say about the future just a little strange?
What is the biggest green house gas? If you said CO2 you are wrong. It is Water Vapor.
The question isn’t is the earth getting warmer, it is should we do something about it and if so at what cost? Should we strangle our economy at the alter of CO2 in an attempt to lower the temp a 10th to 100th a degree?
What IF humans can do nothing about GW? Should we spend all our money on more expensive fuel and electricity because of emmision caps or should we use that money adapt to the changing conditions?
Do tell how it has been proved that humans are at fault when during part of last century while CO2 was increasing that the temp thend went down for a few decades?
30 years ago it was Global Cooling and we were urged greatly to dump soot on the polar ice caps to absorb heat. Good thing we “learned” that it was not cooling but warming and that if we would have followed the scientists advice we would be much worse off than anyone could imagine.
THEORY is the best guess, it does not mean it is correct. When all your funding is linked to how sure you are and how dire the consiquences… it makes many people sure of things that should not be. Spending billions and trillions of dollars on the guesswork of a computer that cannot even get todays climate right is more risk than I am willing to take.
January 30th, 2007 at 9:09 pm
I wont even go into the fact that the peer reviewed journals are read and not tested by the same people that are receiving the funding for more GW research.
IPCC assesment that is comming out Feb 2nd is the policy makers brief. The actual facts they are based on will not be released for 3 months later. Why would you release a summary to be acted on by the government and leave the facts that they are supposedly based on to be released 3 months after that? To give the deniers something to look forward to or so that you make sure laws are passed before the deniers can see the evidence and prove it incorrect?
Last thing, Galileo was a denier of that whole earth being the center of the universe. There are plenty others that went against the consensus and were proved to be correct, so frankly consensus is just a group of people that agree with you, it does not mean you are correct.
January 30th, 2007 at 9:12 pm
When I was a kid in elementary school in the early 1960s, we were being taught to live in perpetual fear of the coming ice age, brought on by human land clearing activities– logging, farming, strip mining, et al, increasing the reflectivity of the Earth’s surface.
Of course in this enlightened age, no one remembers that the same far Left crowd that was scaring kids back then is today scaring kids over Global Warming.
Same story, different verse, a little bit louder, a little bit worse. The vilan in the story is always Capitalism, and the Hero, of course, is always Socialism.
January 30th, 2007 at 10:00 pm
What we really need to deal with global warming are building-size lithium hydroxide canisters to absorb all the CO2 in the atmosphere. Then we would need a way to wring them out when they get saturated. We could then store the CO2 in these little metal cylinders. (I have lots of empty metal cylinders to spare…) Then we can recycle the CO2 by using the cylinders in our pellet guns!
Sorry, I don’t really mean to sound this glib about a serious problem. And I hesitate to make this connection because I don’t want to give any grabbers any ideas.
Personally (and admittedly without much hard science to back me up) I feel that it’s a combination of the natural temperature cycle augmented by human actions. When I was a kid the story in the media was about the coming ice age. Now it’s global warming. I think the swings may be getting worse, but in thirty years we’ll be back to the big chill. Toss in things like el nino and things get really weird. Clearly humans are having an effect on the environment and almost always not for the good. But the last thing we need are rock stars telling us how we should live our lives. They are doing such a marvelous job of running their own…
January 30th, 2007 at 10:01 pm
sorry guys, I do not believe for one minute that this planet gives a good fucoldglobally warmed dead(because I drowned form the melting polar ice caps) hands.
January 30th, 2007 at 10:02 pm
sorry guys, I do not believe for one minute that this planet gives a good fuck what we are doing to it. I read somewhere that one volcanic eruption puts out more greenhouse gas than the US does in a year. I am too lazy to look it up. I also laugh my a$$ off when somebody tries to tell me what happened 650,000 years ago or what might happen in two hundred years. I mean really, give me a break. It is all a big guess and those who spend money on “research” get the results they paid for. For the time being I will be concerned about my personal economy/environment and leave all the “we are all gonna die/the sky is falling” crap to the chicken littles out there. I will keep going to the range and burning cordite.
I wonder how much “global warming” is produced by my weekly range trips? I know some of those barrels get pretty hot. Holy Sh!t, I just made global warming a 2A issue. You can have my greenhouse gas producing bullet hose when you pry it from my globally warmed dead(because I drowned form the melting polar ice caps) hands.
January 30th, 2007 at 11:16 pm
No, just less stupidity from the anti-GW crowd, quite frankly. Nothing personal, but your statement reflects a serious lack of understanding of the issues involved. You’re conflating WEATHER and CLIMATE. The fact that forecasting meterological events beyond 7 days is difficult is irrelevant to the study of CLIMATE, which is something altogether different than WEATHER.
Perhaps you were just illustrating why some people have a hard time accepting AGW? In that case, point taken, but quite simply anyone who uses the old “but the weatherman can’t even get next week right” canard is misinformed.
It’s like saying biologists can’t be right about evolution because anthropologists don’t know everything there is to know, or physicists can’t be right about F=ma because chemists make mistakes. Apples and watermelons. Day to day weather and climate study are completely separate disciplines. If I could change one thing about this debate, it would be to get people to quit confusing climate and weather. Seriously.
Making that mistake is like wearing a big sign on your forehead that says “I know next to nothing about climatology, but I’m going to pontificate about it anyway.”
January 30th, 2007 at 11:41 pm
Another AGW denier myth.
The hockey stick has not been debunked at all. See here:
http://www.realclimate.org/index.php?p=11
and here:
http://www.realclimate.org/index.php?p=121
Rush Limbaugh and Sean Hannity might think it’s debunked, but that’s kinda like Jessica Simpson insisting that Oppenheimer and Fermi weren’t all that bright. Read what actual climatologists have to say about the subject before you assume anything is “debunked.”
Sorry to go backwards, but to address Holly:
Who the heck are you talking about? I’m not aware of any climatologists who think this is the answer. It seems that part and parcel of the AGW denier strategy is to try to get everyone to focus on some weird dude who thinks lightbulbs and Priuses are the answer. No reputable climate scientist thinks this, nor does the fact that some uninformed weirdo somewhere thinks this change the actual fact that WE ARE WARMING THE PLANET.
See the difference?
Your condescension here belies the weakness of your point. The reality is that we’re not “believers”, we’re people who simply accept that, much as it’s foolish to deny what biologists and cosmologists and immunologists tell us, it’s equally foolish to pretend that what climatologists tell us isn’t true just because we wish it were so. I’m not aware of any reputable climate scientists calling for anyone to be “decertified”. Unless you can document that claim, I politely suggest you retract it.
The plain reality is that climate scientists who accept the veracity of the AGW position are an overwhelming majority of their field. What non scientists say about the dolts and boobs who choose to pretend otherwise does nothing to diminish the strength of their consensus, no matter how much you wish it were so.
Anyway, back to Gunstar:
Nice try Clyde, but we all already knew that.
Here’s the knife in the heart for your argument, though: we’re NOT adding more water vapor from under the earth’s surface on a daily basis. We ARE adding more CO2 thanks to fossil fuels.
If you need help understanding why that makes a difference and why the “water vapor is the biggest GHG” argument is bullshit and why climate scientists everywhere laugh when people try to make that argument, we’ll spell it out for you, but it’s pretty straightforward.
Hint: the problem with fossil fuels is that you’re introducing CO2 to the atmosphere from under the earth…
See the debunking of your hockey stick nonsense I provided. 2005 was the hotest year on record, and 2006 will probably eclipse it. The overwhelming trend since the beginning of the industrial revolution is toward a hotter climate.
I’m sure you are a very nice person who pets dogs, reads to schoolchildren, pays his taxes, and mows his lawn.
But you are DANGEROUSLY misinformed. No reputable climate scientist has ever argued that we’re making the earth cooler. The “they used to say it was global cooling” myth has been debunked so repeatedly that I’m surprised you philistines still try to trot it out. Embarrassing really. Repeat: scientists were NOT ever telling us that we were bringing about an ice age, not thirty years ago, nor anytime since or before.
See here: http://www.realclimate.org/index.php?p=94
An embarrassingly facile and nonsensical comparison. Galileo’s opponents weren’t SCIENTISTS who arrived a SCIENTIFIC consensus. The people whose “consensus” he rebuffed were religious nuts and anti-science luddites who had a vested political interest in silencing him. They were NOT people who arrived at a peer reviewed scientific consensus.
The more accurate analogy here would be that Galileo is like today’s climatologists, and the AGW deniers are people with a religious conviction that contradicts what science is actually telling us.
Lyle: You seem to have bought into the same nonsense. See above about the debunking of the “science used to tell us the earth was getting cooler.” That myth has been debunked as often as the “its all the sun’s fault” nonsense.
January 31st, 2007 at 12:43 am
[...] The traffic whore in me is noticing that you seem to be able to get a lot of attention by denying global warming. So I’ll offer a bit of my perspective. I work in a business where we attempt to model very complex systems. We don’t do it very well, but it’s enough that billions of dollars are chasing after ideas which look really good when presented to outsiders who don’t know science as well. Climate is a very complex system, and a lot of the claims that climatologists make do not pass the smell test as far as I’m concerned. I will remain very skeptical of many claims regarding global warming. [...]
January 31st, 2007 at 2:00 am
Whoa. Stop right there. Consensus is scientific fact? When the Hell did that happen? I seem to remember Galileo had some trouble with consensus. Turned out consensus was wrong. Pasteur, Lister, Einstein, Teller, Jenner, and many many more were condemned by consensus. l
I love it, someone accuses others of being luddites or dishonest because consensus is scientific fact. Give me a break. Scientific fact is scientific fact. Consensus is a management technique and it isn’t even a good one. But I suppose it works when the same people that told us life would end on Earth as we know it, (by consensus) due to the coming Ice Age, return to the trough for more money for the opposite scientific consensus.
Do the two line chart of earth’s temp and the sun’s output. Startlingly similar. Unlike every other model the “consenters” use to prove their theory (by consensus)) is correct.
January 31st, 2007 at 7:02 am
All right Sebastian, where to begin?
First of all, your insults, while chuckle inducing, are quite ‘cut and paste’ common. Quit trying to bring teh funny and try and read your own words.
I’ll start with this quote
Emphasis, yours.
And that will be the part I’d first like to focus on.
In the entirety of the infinite galaxy, there is one thing, and one thing only, that warms our planet. Do you know what that one thing might be? Why yes, it is the big bright thing in the middle of our solar system commonly called “The Sun”.
This point goes to you as well, Kevin. Take note. The sun has been shown to fluctuate in it’s intensity and that those fluctuations have effects on our planet. This is scientific fact, not just “consensus”. I’m laughing at you first, Kevin. Ha!
Short of nuclear explosions, we could not warn our entire planet one iota of a degree by ourselves. We are absolutely not “warming the planet”. We are contributing approximately 5.5% of the yearly CO2 that joins the upper atmosphere, and that, combined with the other 94.5% of the CO2 created by the earth itself, with the power of the sun and a process commonly known as “The Greenhouse Effect”, helps warm the planet. And you yourself even admit that CO2 is not the main contributor to The Greenhouse Effect.
You do know how a greenhouse works, don’t you, Sebastian? It uses part of the Theory of Radiant Energy.
The largest polluter of the planet is… The Planet Earth itself. Nothing and no one comes anywhere close to the numbers of pollutants the planet puts into its own biosphere. With all of the contributing agents combined (water vapor, CO2, sulfur, etc), the human species in all of its activities puts out less than .030% of the pollutants going into our atmosphere.
Let me put that another way: Even if we stopped everything tomorrow and reverted back to a 1st Century style of existence, 99.97% of the pollutants currently entering our atmosphere would still be entering our atmosphere.
Surely we could destroy the planet’s biosphere many times over with our nuclear weaponry; but just with everyone driving to work and to pick up the kids and creating energy so that they can cook food and make hot water and type on their computer boxes; never in 1000 years.
Even the links you supplied show you to be a guy who’ll believe anything that is told to him as I’m not quite sure that you understand or have even read them. Take your link to the “debunking” of the 1970’s Ice Age scare. In that link, “William” tells us that because the articles quoted scientists but were not in “peer-reviewed journals” that the stories do not count as “fact”.
To bring back your point about Galileo, some of these stories had been attempted to be posted in such “journals” but were denied because of the “scientific consensus” at the time not believing that they had the knowledge to predict changes in the climate. So your “debunking link” doesn’t so much as debunk the idea of scientists writing about a coming ice age, but just kind of disregards it out of hand to serve the writer’s own purposes.
Speaking of serving their own purposes, none of the writers at the links you provided, or the proprietors of the site itself, is willing to divulge exactly where they get their funding from, which is pretty damn hypocritical if I am supposed to not believe some guy who has taken money from an oil company for precisely that reason.
Another point which I have trouble believing is that in less than 20 years (the mid 90′s, when this whole “Global Warming” insanity started) the “scientific consensus” switched 180 degrees in their belief that now they do have the knowledge they said they didn’t have in 1976.
And lastly, maybe the words were too big, but take a read of this sentence in your “Ice Age Debunking” link:
Wait a minute! What was that that I just read? Is this guy telling me that the earth has unpredictable periods of warming and cooling, both long term and short term, and has had them for millions of years?!? Millions of years that humans have not even existed on the earth?!?
Your own links shoot down your entire idea, Sebastian. Other than theories (notice the lower case “t” on the word “theory”) based on short-range data, you have absolutely no proof that humans have any effect on the planet’s climate. You can click your heels together as many times as you want, but “Scientific consensus” is not “scientific fact”. Worse than that, you have no proof that any plan that anyone has come up with could stop the planet from warming.
Sebastian, you are a member of what I like to call “The Global Warming Death Cult”: A group of narcissists who believe that the daily meanderings of an animal species has the power to doom an entire planet.
A laughable idea, when one thinks about it for longer than it takes to fire up an emotion.
This cult refuses to believe that they are insignificant, and it is the most extreme form of narcissism this planet has ever seen.
Not to mention, the most dangerous.
January 31st, 2007 at 8:13 am
Well done Phil, Gunstar1, Captain Holly, and Standard Mischief. Thoroughly fisked.
Some other news. In Cali, lawmakers gone wild. They want to ban incandescent lightbulbs to save the planet. I guess that is better than taxing them?
Meanwhile across the pond in the lala land of merry old England, you guessed it, the first tax on Global Warming. Don’t say I didn’t tell you. Happy Sebastian?
LONDON (AP) – Residents of a suburban London district will soon pay annual parking fees based on how much carbon dioxide their cars emit, penalizing owners of gas guzzlers.
Richmond council west of the capital agreed on Monday to levy a sliding scale of charges based on emissions, meaning the biggest polluters will pay 300 pounds (almost C$700) a year for the privilege of parking outside their homes.
The charges, which will come into force in May, have sparked debate among environmental groups claiming victory against road pollution and car owners alleging unfair treatment.
“Climate change is the defining issue of our age – it is clear that we must all change our behaviour to combat its effects,” said Serge Lourie, leader of Richmond Council. “For our council this is just the first step in a long process that will see us bring forward policies to move our borough and council to lower carbon emissions.”
Nine other councils, including that of central London, have expressed an interest in similar plans, Lourie said.
Cars with smaller engine sizes will receive a 50-per-cent discount on the current $230 cost of a parking permit. Cars with larger engines will have to pay higher prices.
January 31st, 2007 at 8:40 am
Sebastian, is this religious? You want me to accept Global Warming. I said I did. You want me to accept man is the cause. Then prove the mechanism. Before “progressives” tax us for our sins, first find out what the sins are.
Is it the automobile, coal fired power plants, or sulfur plankton farts? Taxing plankton farts will be difficult. Plankton hate taxes.
You may have missed where I wrote that I do on an individual basis all I can reasonably do to conserve. Is that not enough?
You won’t feel right about this until people worship at the alter will you?
No, you can’t make me convert to a false religion. Global Warming is more politics than science. IF Global Warming was a science then why was last seasons hurricane cycle so soft? Ah, weather is not climate. That is one hell of a way to have your cake and eat it too. So basically the same scientists that cannot predict the weather can predict the climate? This religion needs some work.
January 31st, 2007 at 9:54 am
Go back and read. The consensus those guys were fighting was NOT scientific consensus arrived at by scientific method and peer review.
If the crux of your argument is that AGW scientists are wrong because they’re the consensus view much the way The CATHOLIC CHURCH was a consensus view, you’re in deep shit. I don’t think there’s a nice way to put it; you’re simply engaging in sophistry.
As for the sun thing, already debunked. Repeatedly. Get over it.
Simply not true. What climate scientist actually believes this? Even the deniers like Lindzen and Singer don’t believe this nonsense; they simply believe that we haven’t added all that much CO2 yet.
Here’s a little “teh funny” for you: apparently reading comp isn’t your forte is it? As I’ve already noted, the fact that CO2 isn’t the “main contributor” (whatever that is, certainly not a climatology term) to GW is perfectly and wonderfully IRRELEVANT.
We’re not adding more water vapor to the atmosphere. We are adding more CO2 from underneath the earth.
Catching on? Good.
I feel like I’m trying to teach calculus to fifth grade gym class.
AGW Theory doesn’t require it to be so that the planet doesn’t warm and cool on its own, never has, never will.
Your strawman fails–climate science exists because studying the natural permutations of climate behavior is a worthwhile endeavor in and of itself. The reality is the study of climate has made it clear that the swings in temperature we’re seeing are sudden and violent, and unprecedented. This isn’t the earth warming a degree or three over 10,000 or 100,000 years. This is the earth warming a degree or three over 100 years.
The problem people like you have is that it’s quite difficult to understand things that happen over a time period so much vastly longer than our own lifespans.
But your facile misunderstandings of the links I’ve provided notwithstanding, I do find it curious you think that links to work published by climatologists debunks their own positions.
If it were true that the work of climatologists was so weak, so obviously not supportable, so easily debunked…why have even the Big Oil companies come to accept AGW as reality? Why is is that no climate scientist is out there winning a Nobel Prize for himself–or at the very least, some self respect and admiration for shifting the course of scientific endeavor–by publishing peer reviewable work that indicates we’re not adding enough CO2 to change the planet’s climate?
If it’s so easy to show that that’s the case, that we’d have to add way, way more CO2 than we actually have to the planet’s atmosphere to actually warm the planet, why haven’t Lindzen and Gray and Singer published any peer reviewable science that indicates that’s the case? Why are they sticking to unfettered opinion hurling from the relative safety of OpEd pages? Why don’t they show their work?
The silence is deafening.
Which brings me to #9′s nonsense about this being a religion, and me wanting to see you worship at the altar.
Once again, I’ve already dealt that bullshit a death-blow: I’ve made it quite clear I don’t care whether you accept it as the truth or reality or not. I’m simply pointing out that much the same as evolution deniers and other such anti-science philistines, you’ve chosen to position yourself such that the vast majority of the relevant scientific community disagrees with you.
Like I said, I don’t care if you think the universe is made of cooking oil and rain drops fall because green goblins in the clouds kick them loose and the sun is carried across the sky by a chariot. You can think whatever the hell you like.
But the plain reality is that the overwhelming body of scientific work on the subject supports my position and not yours.
If you care to ignore that, fine. But don’t misrepresent the facts of the case here.
January 31st, 2007 at 10:56 am
The silence is deafening.
Are you referring to the sulfur-plankton cycle Sebastian? Neither you nor http://www.realclimate.org have any thing to say about this.
Why is that? Because a natural event would interfere with the cult of hate of all things combustible?
Phytoplankton carry out almost half of Earth’s photosynthesis even though they represent less than 1 percent of the planet’s biomass. Think that might be important?
http://www.nsf.gov/news/news_summ.jsp?cntn_id=108105
http://www.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/summary/314/5799/607
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2005/02/050213130304.htm
January 31st, 2007 at 11:12 am
“Well done Phil, Gunstar1, Captain Holly, and Standard Mischief. Thoroughly fisked”
You keep using that word. I do not think that word means what you think it means …
“In the entirety of the infinite galaxy, there is one thing, and one thing only, that warms our planet. Do you know what that one thing might be? Why yes, it is the big bright thing in the middle of our solar system commonly called “The Sun”.
This point goes to you as well, Kevin. Take note. The sun has been shown to fluctuate in its intensity and that those fluctuations have effects on our planet. This is scientific fact, not just “consensus”. I’m laughing at you first, Kevin. Ha!”
Man, that’s just, umm, dumb. Seriously, seriously dumb. While the Sun is the ultimate source of heat, NO ONE disputes that the atmosphere effects how much heat is reflected/retained. I cannot even imagine anyone commenting on anything related to Earth, the atmosphere, or climate who, like you, doesn’t understand this simple fact. I would laugh at you, but I would feel bad picking on someone so woefully uninformed. I am not trying to be insulting, honestly, but if you don’t understand something so basic, you really, really need to go back and educate yourself some more. Right now, you are literally embarrassing yourself.
For what its worth – -and I am afraid, with you, it won’t be worth much – here is what scientists think about your “sun theory”:
I will leave the rest of it to Sebastian-PGP but please, for your own sake, go off and learn the basics before you humiliate yourself again.
January 31st, 2007 at 11:23 am
Sorry Sebastian, but the “overwhelming body” claim is a crock. You have no idea 1. How many climatologists there are, and 2. How many pieces there are in the “body of work”. Ergo, you cannot make that claim. You have been told that claim by someone else and you believe it because you want to.
Again, and I might point out that Reading Comp isn’t your strong suit either, since I never suggested we were, humans are not the only ones adding CO2 from under the earth. The planet is the main contributor of CO2, via volcanos, both on land and underwater. Ruptures in the earths surface put out more CO2 and other GHG than we could dream of.
Your belief that our addition of .030% of all CO2 being released into the atmsphere is what is putting the biosphere over the edge is statistically ludicrous and only an idiot would make that claim. You are making said claim, so I must accept that you are an idiot.
Btw, “Main Contributor to GHE” refers to water vapor, which I never stated was being made by humans. Wipe the fecal matter from your eyes and try reading that again.
Also “Contributor, Contribue, Contribution” are scientific terms, if you care to use your noggin for a second. You can play ignorant all day long, but it just makes you look actually ignorant.
There is no such thing as a “Global Warming Denier” in the real world. There are “People Who Believe in Human Caused Global Warming” (aka Global Warming Cult Members) and sane people, normally called “People who believe the planet’s climate runs in cycles of warmer and cooler”. Your use of propaganda phrasing to make yourself look to be the more reasonable is just another misdirection technique, since you and your fellow cult members are anything but reasonable.
Also, saying “Even the deniers like Lindzen and Singer don’t believe this nonsense; they simply believe that we haven’t added all that much CO2 yet.” is another misdirection you really seem to like to use. They don’t believe that we have added enough CO2 because they don’t believe we can add that much CO2 in our day to day lives. Which is, of course, the sane view.
So tell me, Sebastian, with over 100 years of adding CO2 and other GHGs into the atmosphere, where is it all at? The earth is a really big place, and the spheres that surround it being even larger, but surely, if we are just dumping and dumping and dumping loads and loads and loads of earth murdering fumes into “The System”, why haven’t we all died already from it coming back down?
Does the earth recycle it and put it somewhere we don’t know about? If so, what is it’s turnaround time and limit? Is there a big rug near the South Pole that it all gets swept under?
Or does it all just pop out of the hole in the ozone like when you shake a can of Coke and then open it? Maybe we should keep that damn thing open?
Sure, we had acid rain there for a while, but we both know that didn’t take care of it all.
Praytell, oh wise-ass one, where does it all go?
January 31st, 2007 at 12:02 pm
I’ve noticed one significant change in the GW dogma here: “The global mean temperature is now greater than at any time in at least the past 500 to 1,000 years.” This is the first time I’ve seen this statement with the italiciized words inserted. It makes a huge difference, because to any student of European history it’s quite clear that across this continent as well as in Greenland, 1500 AD was cooler than 1000 AD, and 1600 was even cooler. IF it’s actually warmer now than the Maunder Optimum of about 1,000 years ago (and this certainly doesn’t seem true from England to Greenland), that’s much more significant than finding that we’re still climbing out of the Little Ice Age. If there’s either random or cyclical variation, by cherry-picking the starting point you can prove darn near any trend you want…
At any rate, IF the Earth is warming unduly, and IF human emissions are the main cause of it, then Kyoto doesn’t mean a thing. NO change the western world could make short of switching every power or heat user that can connect to the grid to nuclear power will come close to matching the increased CO2 emissions from China – and even if the enviromentalists switched position on nuclear power today, Congress made it possible to license new plants overnight instead of being in court for decades, and construction started tomorrow, we’d be less than halfway there in 10 years. (It’s not just plant construction; to substitute electric heat for fuel-burning furnaces, they’ve got to beef up the power grid to carry much more power, replace all the furnaces in homes and office buildings, and devise new processes in many industries.)
So, IF “we’ve only got 10 years” is anything but a hysterical overstatement, there’s only one thing to do.
Nuke China. (Carefully, so as not to cause too much “nuclear winter” effect.)
January 31st, 2007 at 12:28 pm
Okay Global Warming cult, let’s say you are 100% right, Global Warming is caused by man and we have ten years to save planet Earth.
What do we do?
January 31st, 2007 at 12:39 pm
Wrong. Very, embarrassingly, ridiculously wrong. Your first post sounded actually pretty well thought out, but that’s just a turd dude.
I don’t have to know how many climatologists there are any more than I have to know how many biologists there are to know that evolution theory is correct.
The reality is quite simple: regardless of how many biologists there are, of the biologists who publish work on evolution, all but the scantest minority, just a wee fraction, agree that evolution is largely correct. The same is true for AGW theory. Regardless of how many climatologists there, of the work in climatology that’s produced, NOT A SINGLE piece of peer reviewed work has been published that refutes or disputes the basic premise of AGW theory.
That’s not what science tells us.
http://www.agu.org/pubs/crossref/2001/2000JD000189.shtml
http://www.giss.nasa.gov/research/briefs/shindell_07/
http://volcanoes.usgs.gov/Hazards/What/VolGas/volgas.html
Geezus! You can’t even get the basic science right. Humans release about 150 times as much CO2 as volcanoes do.
You have no credibility on the science of the issue, why should we pay any credence to your arguments at all, anyway?
Actually, since the IR began, we’ve increased CO2 levels to their highest level at any time in the last few hundred thousand years, and increased them by about 35% in the last 100 years. Climate scientists tell us that’s enough to be significant, whereas you insist it isn’t. They’ve produced peer reviewed, published works that indicate that our additions are in fact a serious concern. Where’s your study and empirical data that indicates it’s not?
Let’s see…a bunch of scientists who publish their work and have it reviewed by other scientists, or some dude named Phil who gets the basic facts of the matter wrong….a bunch of scientists who publish their work and have it reviewed by other scientists, or some dude named Phil who gets the basic facts of the matter wrong….
Yeah, that’s a tough call. RIIIIIIIIIIGHT.
Quit embarrassing yourself.
January 31st, 2007 at 5:27 pm
Sebastian,
Kevin,
Have you both declared “No Mas” on the sulfur-plankton cycle? What should I take your silence as a form of? Despair or defeat?
Likewise neither of you will answer the question of how to solve Global Warming. So is the purpose to be a Chicken Little warning system? What should be done? Or have your sources not filled you in on that?
Update:
Yet Kevin does share some thoughts with the Lean Left folks.
January 31st, 2007 at 10:19 pm
Some good stuff from Matt over on Volunteer Voters.
Matt was kind enough to help Sean Braisted with some information.
Sean, nobody seems to get your back on this one.
Seems that England might be in for some cold weather.
Britain faces big chill as ocean current slows
Jonathan Leake, Science Editor
CLIMATE change researchers have detected the first signs of a slowdown in the Gulf Stream — the mighty ocean current that keeps Britain and Europe from freezing.
They have found that one of the “engines” driving the Gulf Stream — the sinking of supercooled water in the Greenland Sea — has weakened to less than a quarter of its former strength.
The weakening, apparently caused by global warming, could herald big changes in the current over the next few years or decades. Paradoxically, it could lead to Britain and northwestern and Europe undergoing a sharp drop in temperatures.
Such a change has long been predicted by scientists but the new research is among the first to show clear experimental evidence of the phenomenon.
Also:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/climate/impact/gulf_stream.shtml
February 1st, 2007 at 1:59 am
I really hate it when someone says nobody else knows anything because I have made up my mind.
The heating and cooling cycle of solar wind and radiation has not been proven false, in fact, it has proven, remarkably accurate as a marker for the past we can prove. Not one theory of man caused global warming can do this and none have.
Global warming is a fact, thank God. Or else the Atlantic might still be frozen shore to shore as far south as Spain. It has been proven that that has been the case. It has always been proven and recorded that Greenland was at one time actually green and settled for farming. That was before one of the smaller ice ages. Scientists and historians have actual proof of that.
The point being that all of this occurred before man could do much more than keep a fire in his cave. No power plants, no cars, no factories, no airplanes, no much of anything. All this can be markered by the output of the sun. Though not unquestionable proof, it has yet to indicate a condition that has not occurred. All that is on record.
None, not one, no not one, not even a little one theory of man caused global warming can correlate to what we know to be fact.
So, for all you arrogant “carers” that are so much more sensitive and responsible than I, what do you do for your next trick that doesn’t work? If one accepts that my position is flawed, how does one explain its accuracy regarding the past while believing the inaccuracy of correlation to what we know as fact based on your theories of man caused global warming?
I could take you a lot more seriously if there was some intersection between your theory and history.. You know, like the theory I believe to be the most correct has in innumerable quantity.
February 1st, 2007 at 2:03 am
I am far more concerned about our propensity to poison the earth than I am about our ability to overheat it.
February 1st, 2007 at 5:45 am
I’m not aware of any body of research that indicates that plankton farts have displaces anthropogenic factors re: GW. Certainly nothing in the links you provided even begins to suggest that from what I can see.
It’s funny really, people try to arge that things like volcanoes and plankton are actually what causes GW…then when I point out that we humans release way more GHGs than anything else on the planet, I’m supposed to believe that humans don’t warm the planet? So the 120mil tons of volcanic CO2 released every year warms the planet, but the 20 BILLION tons we release doesn’t?
Gimme a friggen break.
Go ahead and actually read the links you provided, dude; for example, the Science Mag link (funny you should use them, they’re the magazine that did the study that showed of the 950 or so GW related peer reviewed studies released in the last ten years…not ONE suggested AGW isn’t really happening
) you provided includes the following passage:
IOW, whatever effects planton farts might be having re: sulfur aerosols, we’re having a lot more.
That supposed to be a compelling argument? What the hell? If you drive us off a cliff, and I’m in the backseat on the way down pointing out that we’re about to have an unfortunate rendezvous with the scenery below…is the fact that I can’t fix the problem of gravity itself an indication that we’re not plummeting to the earth?
Of course not. Even if it were the case that I can’t singlehandedly solve every dilemma that AGW presents, that doesn’t mean it’s not happening.
In any event, I think the solution is technology. Cleaner energy technology, more creative research into better, less GHG intensive energy resources, etc. Part of the problem is that you anti-GW types seem to think that people like me (people who merely accept that AGW represents reality, as it’s what the qualified scientists in the field tell us is happening) want you to give up your car, eat oatmeal and berries, and live in a cave, so you thus have to fight us tooth and nail and grasp at every possible straw that gives you the glimmer of hope that maybe just maybe all those pesky scientists are wrong.
That’s hardly the case. I don’t want you to give up your car. I don’t want you to live in a cave. I do want you to realize that both as individuals and collectively, the people of this planet ought to stop and pause a bit, and think about technological solutions to the problem for a while. Prevention certainly beats treatment.
As for the UK, it does seem paradoxical, but AGW actually seems to indicate that certain parts of the world will actually get colder even as the planetary mean temp rises. Europe falls in that category–if you look at a globe, it’s on about the same latitude as Maine. They’re way north of most of us, but the Gulf Stream keeps them toasty. Most AGW models I’ve read about indicate that’s a real possibility that a disruption of the GS is a possibility.
Climate really is a global concern.
February 1st, 2007 at 6:48 am
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Suspended_Particulate_Matter#Sulphate_aerosol
Interestingly enough, poking around on the sulfur issue, it appears climate models actually predict that sulfate aerosols are a net cooling effect.
In any event, the sulfur cycle referenced in the plankton example represents a cycle–they spit it out, and then plants absorb it and the rest settles back into the ocean, and the cycle repeats.
Volcanoes and human activity add more. Different animals. In any event, it doesn’t seem many climatologists are particularly warm to the idea that AGW is actually sulfur farts for a good reason–sulfur isn’t what’s warming us up.
February 1st, 2007 at 4:31 pm
I’m not a big fan of keeping a dead thread going, but Sebastian’s slavish devotion to Mann’s Hockey Stick needs to be addressed. Quoth he:
Uh, yes, it has. And so he doesn’t accuse me of recycling Rush Limbaugh, here’s the exact quote from last year’s National Research Council’s executive summary of global warming research:
(Page 4, emphasis added)
In other words, the NRC panel of scientists looked at Mann’s data, said “Yeah, that could happen”, and then said in polite scientific language that he’s full of crap.
Everyone should go and read the whole thing. The report is alot less apocalyptic and alot more uncertain about the reality and effects of Global Warming. Quite an eye-opening experience.
February 1st, 2007 at 8:10 pm
Nice selective emphasis.
Let’s look at the parts Holly hopes you’ll ignore.
Actually sweetcheeks, that’s the Hockey Stick. Nice try though.
You need to go here http://www.realclimate.org/index.php?p=11 , as I suggested earlier, and read number three and four on their mythbusting list.
Essentially, multiple independent studies have confirmed that it is indeed true that the last few decades of the 20th C were the warmest on record for the last millenium. They’re kind enough to provide the links if you care to read them (which I rather doubt, since it doesn’t support your foregone conclusion that AGW can’t possibly be happening). The Hockey Stick is, in point of fact, largely correct.
Same question to you: you AGW deniers all agree that volcanoes warm the earth…if they’re warming the earth, how is it that the 150 times more CO2 we’re adding isn’t?
Until you can answer that question, you’re just spittin in the wind.
February 1st, 2007 at 8:19 pm
You can also go here: http://www.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/summary/312/5782/1854?rss=1
Sayeth the NRC:
I have read their findings, and their conclusion clearly was that the Mann team’s conclusion that warming in the last few decades of the 20th century was unprecedented over the last thousand years was sound.
February 2nd, 2007 at 4:25 am
Are you still here blowing hot air, Sebastian? I’m going to stop being gentle here, because you obviously need to get a life. I’ll deal with the inaccuracies in your previous comment in a moment, but first I’d like to tell you why you and your “scientific consensus” are wrong.
We’ll start with the glacial ice caps: They are thickening in the Antarctic. Earlier in this century it was reported that they were melting. Now the data say that they weren’t melting at the rate previously thought then and that they are currently actually getting larger. Why is this? Why is it that the ice caps in the southern hemisphere, the area which was getting warmer throughout the 19th and 20th Centuries, are now showing signs of growing?
Is the whole world getting warmer, hence the phrase “Global Warming”, or is it just certain spots? I mean, the ice sheets on Greenland are melting. They aren’t melting anywhere near as fast as your “scientific consensus” cohorts previously claimed, but they are melting. Why is it such a worry that Greenland (which was named Greenland when it was first discovered hundreds of years ago because it was not covered with ice then) has melting ice? If history has shown that this particular patch of land fluctuates between frozen and unfrozen, why should we suppose that it is our fault? Also, since the melting has slowed down, why isn’t anyone trying to figure out where it will eventually stop?
You can’t answer those questions. In fact, none of your “scientific consensus” cohorts call tell anyone why this is happening. The best answer they have is “The Antarctic is an anomaly, but trust us, everything else is melting and were all going to die!” End of story. Period. It might be what you call a “consensus”, but it is by no means “scientific”.
Only reasonable scientists, some who agree with your cult’s theories, and some who do not, give us an honest answer: That the earth has its own cycle of warming and cooling and that they have no means of predicting these at this time.
Which leads me to re-ask the question in my second comment which you avoided: In 1976 the “scientific consensus” was that they didn’t have the means of determining climate change. What happened in the approximately decade and a half between 1976 and 1990, when the “scientific consensus” suddenly decided that they DID have the ability to do so?
Sure, computer technology advanced, but universities in 1976 had machines that could run climate models, otherwise the people who wrote about the “impending ice age” theory wouldn’t have had the ability to forecast what they did.
What actually happened was the money for predicting catastrophic climate changes multiplied thousand-fold. When people heard “impending ice age” it scared the pants right off the people holding the purse strings.
So now we have all of these scientists, getting money by the truckload to forecast doom and gloom. If their data started to project a reverse in warming or a flat line in global temperature, do you think they’d report that? Of course they wouldn’t. They would just take it as insufficient data because to admit that would mean an end to their precious money supply.
Anyone can lie with statistics. And just as the great leftist conspiracy theory with voting machines goes, anyone can make any program spit out any answer they want it to. Excepting “anomalies” and the constantly changing numbers in incoming research data skews final program output. Oddly enough, I think that the preceding paragraphs have examples of both of those. Imagine that, money talks and the world keeps changing without our help.
Are we adding GHG to the atmosphere? Surely. Enough to create a change in our environment on a global scale? Nope.
More proof is that the Global Warming Death Cult’s Messiah, Al Gore, doesn’t even take his own information seriously enough to change his lifestyle, yet he wants me to do so. The people who belong to NGO’s that profess the urgent need to make changes to “Combat Global Warming” are no better. All burning fossil fuels while demanding everyone else stop, excepting two of the largest contributors of GHG from their world-wide treaty, and just generally filling up what ever space they can find with hot air from their blathering; all the while making unreasonable demands on other folks.
What I find most hilarious from your last comment is that you think you can compare “Global Warming Science” to evolution. Evolution is a Theory (notice the upper case ‘T’ right there), which has been tested and proven to be true. We can replicate it in a lab in under an hour on the micro-scale. The only debate is between scientists and people who want to confuse their religious beliefs and factual, proven scientific fact.
“Global Warming Science”, on the other hand is all theory (notice the lower case ‘t’ there) whose only basis in science are the numbers that are thrown at it. Everything else is guesswork and interpretation. I’ll even give you that it is an “educated guess”, but it is no more than a guess.
“GWS” has no baseline to work from. “GWS” has no way of replicating the planet’s systems on any kind of scale. You still can’t tell me where the tens of thousands of years of crap that gets put up into the atmosphere goes or what happens to it all. For all you know, the planet needs these things, which is why it puts it all up there in the first place.
“We think”, “Our studies show”, “This model contends that” are the basic statements in GW theory. However, when you factor in the anomalies, all of that gets tossed out the window and were back down to “The earth’s cycles fluctuate between warmer periods and cooler periods” again.
Since GW theory is hotly contested, with equally qualified scientists on both sides of the debate, you will need to know the total number of persons on either side of the debate to be able to claim “consensus”. Likewise, to be able to say that the majority of data/papers/theses on GW theory are on your side, you have to add them all up and divide them between the sides. Without doing so, you are making false claims.
I think it would be fairly safe to say that you have read very few papers on GW theory that you disagree with. You instead make due with listening to what others have told you. Don’t be a fool, do your research before believing in what others claim.
Oh really? Since when? 1998? 1995? 1988? Ever? And is your “basic premise” the same as mine? Is it even the same as Al Gores?
Btw, how many pieces of pro-GW theory work have been peer reviewed and then tossed as BS? If you cannot answer this, then all you have is a group of over-financed researchers that were assembled post-global warming scare who claim that they are “The Consensus”
Hell, mainstream astronomy groups are still having a difficult time deciding whether or not Pluto is still a planet. We can see it. We know it is there. It was classified as a planet for a very long time. But some anti-Planet Pluto dunderheads got into the leadership positions and have declared it “less-than-planetary”. There still isn’t a consensus. And when these guys leave their positions, Pluto may well be re-labeled a planet again.
As for your volcano links, the first one only contains the abstract and studies the taking away the effects of volcanic effects from models because they cause anomalies. Mostly because they cannot be reproduced in model simulations due to their different warming rates on different layers of the atmosphere as a whole.
The second on focuses on large scale eruptions and their effect on regional climate change (like how the year after the Mt. St. Helens eruption it to snowed in Montana on the 4th of July).
Your third one is where the numbers are actually told. Your cut/paste work is to be commended, but again, you didn’t read my statement all the way through. You mention only the CO2 numbers, but what about the other GHGs included in the report?
Hydrogen Sulfide, Hydrogen Chloride, Hydrogen Flouride, Hydrocloric acid vapor and the worst of the bunch, Sulfur Dioxide aren’t even measured. Also, where are the water vapor numbers caused by underwater volcanoes?
And exactly where and how do humans produce these in significant number? I know we make them somehow, somewhere; but how much? How strange that you can’t find a study that will fulfill those requirements.
Because CO2 isn’t the most harmful of the GHGs, Sebastian. You’ve said that yourself. It’s on the list, but how much CO2 equals a ton of the most harmful GHG?
So, to summarize: Sebastian and a bunch of researchers who do not have a baseline to work from, cannot replicate their work in a lab, and have to use computer models that refuse to factor in anomalies, whose entire ability to feed, cloth and house themselves, as well as maintain their pseudo celeb status relies on their ability to forecast doom and gloom to their waiting Death Cult with a messiah who, like the researchers and their NGO’s, is refusing to modify their behavior or make demands on non-1st world countries, even though said countries are currently in the Top 5 polluters (and poised to take over the top two spots)…
Versus
Hundreds of millions of years of history, which we can read, of the earth cleaning up after itself, despite numerous interstellar collisions and thousands, if not tens of thousands, of eruptions from inside it’s own core despoiling the atmospheric layers, as well as dealing with fluctuations of the amount of energy coming from its nearest star, not to mention dealing with the fact that its only satellite is getting farther and farther away from it every year.
Hmmm, let me think for a second here.
Yep, I’m going to go with history and not the self-serving junk science.
You seem like a reasonable enough fellow, with reasonable requests to try and stop whatever it is you think the human species is doing to this third rock from the sun.
However, your cohorts in the “scientific consensus”, as you call it, are not so reasonable. Living in Seattle, so near the epicenter of “Global Warming Scareville”, I am bombarded every single day, on TV, on radio, on this here interwebbie thing and with stupid near-weekly, traffic clogging demonstrations, by freaks who demand that I trade in my trucks for a vehicle with less of a “carbon footprint”, revert to a 17th Century lifestyle and just “stop killing the earth” in general.
The vast majority of the crowd on your side of the argument want everyone to stop what they’re doing until we can find a way to live on some magic pixie dust. They have no solutions, only restrictions. In addition, these restrictions are only being placed upon 1st world nations.
They demand that we shut down the hydroelectric dams that have given us cheap power for decades, they refuse to invest in clean incinerator technology and then they bitch about landfills, they are afraid of nuclear power, they won’t let the Montana Governor (who has a degree in soil science) dig up the coal that is just feet under the surface of the eastern half of his state, no new electrical grid improvements, no new roads, no free use of the wilderness areas, no on fucking everything.
And to top that all off, a large majority of them are plainly under the influence of groups whose main goal is to collapse the US Republic and bring it under the control of either an international body, a foreign power or just their own form of “democracy” (depending on the specific group).
Neither they nor their agendas can be trusted. “Global Warming Science” makes up a large portion of this agenda, once you follow the money.
“GWS” is the perfect idea to play with Liberal Guilt. We all saw the indian cry because of litter in the 70′s, and today’s “GWS” is just an expansion of that same premise, except we now have upper-class white liberals doing the crying themselves. First they hated their parents for being rich capitalists, now they hate them for destroying the planet.
You’re not going to change my mind any more than I am going to change yours. However, I have nothing to win in this debate, whereas you have an ego to keep up. When this agenda dies its hopefully swift death in the next decade, I hope that counseling will help your bouts with depression.
February 2nd, 2007 at 11:54 am
This is the energizer bunny thread it seems
February 2nd, 2007 at 1:25 pm
Phil,
Sorry. But you’re an idiot whose irrational fear that AGW means giving up his car and paying taxes is driving you to say some really stupid shit.
Your understanding of the science involved is so facile that I’m tired of explaining it to you. At this point I couldn’t care less about condescending to you: you’re not even up to date on the basic facts of the case or the science behind the debate. It’s like teaching dentistry to a third grader.
Your comments about my ego and bouts of depression are the childish nonsense of a guy who was caught being DEAD WRONG ABOUT THE VOLCANO thing and isn’t man enough to admit it. You said the following: The planet is the main contributor of CO2, via volcanos, both on land and underwater. Ruptures in the earths surface put out more CO2 and other GHG than we could dream of
That is WRONG. Just sack up and admit you were regurgitating some nonsense you heard on right wing radio and know nothing about.
The scientists have spoken. Disagree with them all you like. Promulgate your pathetic misunderstandings of their work as though they represent factual analysis all you like. I really am done trying to save people from embarrassing themselves.
I have work to do, so consider this a placeholder, but
A) You’re just wrong about the volcanic eruption thing–accept it. The fact that we spew more CO2 than volcanoes do is widely documented, and I’ve provided the relevant info. You’ve provided nothing to counter it.
B) It is important despite CO2 being less of a powerful GHG motivator because CO2 is being supplied from under the earth by our activities–the normal ebb and flow of climate is certainly effected by volcanic emissions, but only a temporary basis as sulfur aerosols and the other particulate emissions of volcanoes settle back to the earth rather quickly, whereas CO2 stays in the atmosphere more or less indefinitely by comparison. In addition to the natural ebb and flow of such things, we’re adding a LOT more CO2 and the pace at which we add it is rapidly expanding. The water vapor thing is a red herring, as explained–we’re not adding it to the atmosphere from under the ground. Net levels of the other GHGs are relatively static, whereas CO2 is gaining ground quickly. Doesn’t take a genius…
C) Your understanding of Theory vs. theory and your naked assertion that GW isn’t reliable science because it’s just guesswork is wrong. Don’t think so?
Then why haven’t the small cadre of anti-GW scientists been able to produce any papers, studies, or documentation that that’s the case? I’m not talking about editorials and letters to the editors. Why haven’t they produced collections of empirical data, observations, and experiments, and analyzed the data to show that in fact the earth isn’t warming?
Climatologists have stated in peer reviewable documents that they have the data they need. Your simple say so that they don’t isn’t compelling–if it was really the case that climate scientists are just “guessing” and don’t have the data to support the AGW position, Lindzen, Gray, Singer etc would be able to publish a paper explaining that that’s the case. They’d be able to make that argument in writing and submit it for scrutiny and public review by the likes of me and you. The fact that they can’t do that should tell you what you need to know.
You’re making a statement you’re simply not qualified to make because it’s what you WANT to believe. Either post your climatology credentials immediately, or politely STFU about it.
The IPCC report comes out today. The light is coming on, and you anti-science cockroaches are gonna be scattering.
February 2nd, 2007 at 2:05 pm
Just for giggles, on the IPCC report:
Ooops. So much for the “hockey stick has been debunked” myth.
February 2nd, 2007 at 9:03 pm
This week on three different blogs I have asked a simple question, what should be done about Global Warming?
For months on KnoxViews I have written about coal gasification, solar panels, electric cars, and compact fluorescent bulbs. Ironic since I am also accused of being an AGW (Anthropogenic — human caused — Global Warming) denier.
So far I have gotten two responses. One from Lean Left suggesting a punitive tax on carbon use. Another at Say Uncle saying we need to get away from a carbon based energy economy.
No offense, but that is pretty weak. How in any way can a tax based on carbon use make any difference?
How can any economy just up and change to a non-carbon based energy economy? Nuclear is not an option because too many people will never accept it. It also has a very long build cycle. It takes many years to bring a new nuclear power plant on line. Then of course terrorists will blow it up and some people say disposing of the nuclear waste will kill all mankind. I support nuclear but I do not see how it can be cost effective compared to other technologies.
I wrote last week that Global Warming has become a religion. This week the major conservative radio pundits hammered that theme into the ground. I guess that idea got more popular. At least in some quarters.
Tonight on ABC Television News Charlie Gibson said we have ten years to solve Global Warming but that nothing we do will matter in the next fifty years. Can anyone make sense out of that? A cry to arms but a recognition that it is hopeless in our lifetime.
I ask again, what can reasonably be done about Global Warming that will not be worse than the cure? Will anyone be willing to wreck the economy knowing that nothing we do will matter in our lifetime?
February 3rd, 2007 at 11:06 pm
Phil, I did not know you lived in Seattle. My condolences. Great place but it must be tough to co-exist with that many hippies. Great writing. I get the feeling you have been down this path before.
February 5th, 2007 at 10:43 am
Great googly-moogly, Sebastian, you’re still here. How pathetic.
BTW, your IPCC “report” is nothing of the kind. It is a brief (that stretches 20 some-odd pages). It will be the basis of the actual report which will be revealed in April or so, whenever they can get the report to match the brief. Why would they need to work that backwards if the evidence was there? And will they show us the report before the bureaucrats got it changed?
But anyway, even the bureaucrats won’t commit 100% to “Man-Made Global Warming”. What do you think the actual report says?
Also, they say that the actual report says that there is nothing humans can do to stop “Global Warming”. We’re already screwed.
Sounds to me like it is a natural cycle of the planet that man had nothing to do with and can do nothing to stop.
Sorry Sebastian, but your science is junk. Your “Scientific Consensus” is bunk and you are just wrong. Not only that, but your own evidence shows you and them to be fools and liars.
Go to hell, you egotistical, narcissistic baby. And get a life while you’re there.
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February 14th, 2007 at 1:35 pm
[...] I was wrong. I thought the whole man made Global Warming issue had been thoroughly fisked and dissected. I thought the hockey stick had been reduced to splinters. [...]