I don't know about global warming, because we've had two lousy summers, and we seem to be having something of a mini ice age in the UK at present, with temperatures well below normal.
I've just thawed out after a bike ride, only a 25 miler, but I could hardly stand up when I got off the bike, my legs were numb from the knees down.
I thought the experts promised us Mediterranean weather and species of insects and plants moving up here. At the moment, they wouldn't survive very long, unless of course they're polar varieties.
I see triple gold medalist Chris Hoy is getting a knighthood for his efforts. I don't have a problem with that, he probably deserves it. However, a measly MBE for Nicole Cooke - come off it Gordon, she deserves at least a CBE, if not a damehood. I've complained to the Guardian, but they tend to ignore my letters.
Angharad wedi'i rhewi.
Comments
Counter-Intuitive, But...
...well, it's complicated.
The UK, Iceland and parts of Western Europe are beneficiaries of something called the Gulf Stream, a surface current of warm water that flows from the Gulf of Mexico to the Arctic, evaporating, cooling and getting more saline, sinking and flowing back. Without the sinking bit, it wouldn't flow back, and hence it wouldn't flow up, either. Warm winds follow the warm water, keeping England and parts of Europe way the hell warmer than they'd be just based on their latitude. I mean, London is on the same latitude as Goose Bay, Labrador, and the Bering Sea.
Anyway, as the Earth warms, and the polar caps melt, one theory has it that more fresh water pours into that part of the Northern Atlantic where the Gulf Stream current would normally sink, diluting the surface water and making it lighter, screwing up the current.
The weather system that the Earth has is based on all the magical heat-carrying and other properties of water, a delicate balance of vapor pressure at altitude, reflectiveness of ice, and so on. As you jack even small additional amounts of energy into this machine, thunderheads get higher, hurricanes get wider, continental wind patterns lengthen or shorten their average course before they circle back and ocean currents change. While the average temperature of the whole planet might only rise a couple of degrees, the long-established currents and patterns can shift dramatically.
I'm still waiting for the mudslides in the Sahara, though.
IPCC - Gulf Stream flaws
The IPCC's theories about the Gulf Stream are built upon quicksand, as is much of the IPCC report. The Gulf Stream is part of the Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation (also called the "Ocean Conveyor"). This is a complex set of currents, with surface level currents starting at Alaska. continuing through the Indian Ocean, where they are strengthened, and rounding the Cape, going via the Sargasso Sea to North Western Europe. In return, deep level currents originate in the North Atlantic, and "reverse" this flow (some differences in route exist, with the deep currents taking a detour round Australia & NZ).
The surface water picks up heat from solar radiation, especially in the Sargasso sea, and passes heat to the wind over it, and then to the land. In the North Atlantic, the direction of current aligns with the direction of the prevailing winds, and so more heat gets transferred to the wind.
As Pippa says, there is a theory that increased melt-water would interfere with the mechanics of this system. We must now consider the evidence that is produced to support this theory. The evidence that is used is a series of measurements of the Gulf stream flow. This series apparently shows a 30% decrease in the volume of water transported by the Gulf Stream over the course of 50 years. However, when you investigate this series, it consists of FIVE, repeat FIVE data points. Surely, basing a theory on five measurements taken over 50 years (and not even at regular intervals or at the same time of year) is not a scientific theory, but religious faith?
However, there are true believers, and they consider a curve drawn through five points measured at inconsistent times sufficient to predict doom and gloom. Last year, for the first time ever, a detailed set of measurements was taken. ( BBC summary of their conclusions http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/6946735.stm ) What was found was that during the course of a single year the circulation varies by a factor of eight - within a single year! So any attempt to create a curve from the five inconsistent data points has no scientific justification. We know that intra-seasonal variation is sufficiently large to mask any long term effects. Come back in 50 years time, when you've got some rigorous data to justify your religion guys!
But we can't dismiss the IPCC theory yet. The true believers rely on the theory that increased melt-water will mess up the salinity. So far, no actual measurements even begin to approach the necessary reduction in salinity levels. So, for the true believer's faith to be justified, we must melt the Greenland ice cap.
We're told, by anyone the media allow to speak, that the ice cap is melting. We are also told that, even at current temperatures, it will continue to melt. So what temperature does it take to melt the ice cap? Ice cores have been taken from Greenland and Antarctica, and show both ice caps to be at least 400,000 years old ( Scientific American summary http://www.sciam/com//article.cfm?=proof-on-ice-southern-gre... ) However, during this period, other data has been used to state that the earth was 5-8 degrees warmer. So it appears that the Greenland Ica cap will remain substantially intact until well after any "global warming" takes place.
Much of the other "theories" that comprise the IPCC report are built on equally insubstantial "facts". To give just one example, the Asian Brown cloud (caused by wood-burning stoves, burning forests, etc.) is, according to the IPCC responsible for aerosol particles that reduce the effects of global warming by 50%. Such a major impact should be backed up by measurement, shouldn't it? It wasn't - yet another example of religion defeating science. Again in 2007, someone (in this case Indian scientists) decided to actually measure the effect. It turns out that not only did the IPCC priesthood get the scale wrong, they got the sign wrong! The cloud is a warming factor, not a cooling factor. So, since the Global warming priesthood are absolutely certain that they know how much warming is occurring, there is either a MAJOR cooling factor (reducing global warming by at least two thirds) which none of the priesthood has found, OR their calculations are fundamentally wrong.
Two thumbs up
for your posting, Wyrm.
There is one item I'd like to talk about, and that's the theory that a massive influx of cold fresh water could interrupt the ocean conveyor, specifically the Gulf Stream part.
Climatologists believe that a major outbreak of Lake Agassiz in about 11000 BC drained through the Great Lakes and Saint Lawrence River into the Atlantic Ocean. This may be the cause of the Younger Dryas cold spell. Lake Agassiz at it's peak covered 440,000 sq kilometres and was formed by glacial melt water as the glaciers were retreating. For the graphically inclined, imagine a lake bigger than California located in the center of the North American continent. Then think about the biggest dam flood you can possibly imagine, multiply that by 10, and that might come close to what happened when Lake Agassiz drained itself in less than a year.
As for why the lake drained so fast, one theory is that a large comet exploded above or even into the Laurentide Ice Sheet north of the Great Lakes.
The chances of this happening again? Zero. There is no body of freshwater large enough to AND in the right place to disrupt the ocean conveyor. There is no large glacial dam holding back that non-existent body of freshwater waiting to be hit by a comet.
Actually, I'm wrong. It could happen again. At the end of the next ice age, when the glaciers are retreating and a large lake has formed in the middle of North America.... we could get hit by a comet.
Some days you're the pigeon, some days you're the statue
Think the awards are graded
Think the awards are graded to number of medals Ang, 2 golds got a CBE, 1 an MBE and 3 a knighthood.
Unless of course you drive a car in which case you can only aspire to MBE!
Maddy Bell
Madeline Anafrid Bell
Global Warming Hah!
I am not completely convinced of it either. We've just had the coldest 3 weeks since the winter of 1949-50. Oh, they all have these explanations that take a long time and are really boring.
I see weather as being pretty cyclic, and the evidence seems to support that. Now, there was a time when one could walk from England to France at low tide.
I think the only reasonably sane thing is to view this time as just another chapter in our very brief human history. If we go extinct, my worries about having the chutzpah to have a lascivious one night stand will seem minor.
These days, one can...
...walk from England to France at high tide, if one minds the trains hurtling by or has access to the service tunnel of the Chunnel. Does this mean we're at the height of a new Ice Age, as we were when we could slosh through the mud with the same result?
Inquiring minds want to know...
You're right that weather is cylic in the long term, but it's also catastrophic in the short term, and there have been catastrophes before.
Current levels of greenhouse gases are a catastrophe, since they aren't caused by changes in solar influx, meteor impacts, continental drift, or any of the usual suspects.
Positing "normality" in current global climate patterns depends heavily on knowing next to nothing about the field.
Cheers,
Puddin'
----------------
Climate is what we expect,
weather is what we get.
--- Mark Twain
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Cheers,
Puddin'
A tender heart is an asset to an editor: it helps us be ruthless in a tactful way.
--- The Chicago Manual of Style
Pretty catty.
I find your remark tactless. Because I do not choose to see this as any more catastrophic than one galaxy eating another, does not make my view any less valid than yours.
Gwen
Valid views...
Your original post described a certain ennui when faced with scientific explanations, and indeed you didn't posit much of an actual position at all, just a sort of inclination, or at least reluctance to take a position, other than maintaining the status quo.
So I didn't really see my post as a direct reply at all, but was simply prompted by it. I'm terribly sorry if you were offended, but my post had little to do with whatever your position actually might be.
It's not true that every opinion is "valid," however strongly held they may be. A psychotic may firmly believe that the saucer people are shooting blue rays from their eyes, but that doesn't mean that bystanders should duck for cover.
One notes that the most prominent global warming deniers are in the employ of major oil companies, and there are very few even of those.
Science tends to be an activity in which consensus is important, and those "scientists" who dismiss the idea of global warming caused by human activity tend to be on the fringe of the scientific community, sharing journals with Hollow Earth enthusiasts or Orgone theorists.
And if one finds science "boring," on what is one to base an opinion? The prophecies of Nostradamus? The Bible Code? Examining the patterns made by tea leaves? All of these are "legitimate" beliefs sincerely held by many, and they're probably suitable for informing the choice of baby names or the best moment to purchase a lucky dip, but not nearly so useful in a scientific context.
Scientists undertake long courses of study to become experts in their many fields, whether that field be astrophysics or the behaviour of dormice, and both publish in and subscribe to scientific journals in which the latest knowledge, or guesses at knowledge, can be shared and criticised by fellow scientists, not generally including random members of the general public.
In the field of medicine, the dangers of amateur opinions are so apparent that it's illegal to practice medicine without a license, even if one is absolutely sure, based on the teachings of one's grandmother, for example, that an appendectomy the only reasonable cure for headache, and one happens to have a penknife handy.
Amateur opinions are no less irrelevant in most scientific fields, but typically not illegal, because the dangers of off-the-cuff opinions about astrophysics aren't clear, there having been few fatalities resulting from misconstruing the exact sequence of events comprising the CNO cycle that drives nuclear fusion in main sequence stars.
Dormice, on the other hand, have been involved in near-fatal incidents, at least in story, so should probably be left to experts.
Cheers,
Puddin'
----------------
Science is facts; just as houses are made of stone, so is science made of facts; but a pile of stones is not a house, and a collection of facts is not necessarily science.
--- Jules Henri Poincaré
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Cheers,
Puddin'
A tender heart is an asset to an editor: it helps us be ruthless in a tactful way.
--- The Chicago Manual of Style
Just one thing
In our increasingly-politicized world of science, it's naive to think that the scientists who support the Doomsday Global Warming Theory don't have an agenda behind their pronouncements. So for the researchers in the field, you can either publicly espouse the party line, Global Warming is here and it's bad, or you can have your research grants cut off. It may very well be that the only place a researcher/scientist who opposes the Global Warming theory can get a job is with the oil/gas/energy companies.
KJT
Sir Charles Panther
"Life is not measured by the breaths you take, but by the moments that take your breath away.”
George Carlin
Can't disagree more
The science is sound ... the earth can only absorb so much of an in-balance of chemicals pumped into it. It is a simple case of chemical equilibrium, pure and simple, albeit on a global scale.
So far the current administration has been the one to politicize it so that if you want to work in government - EPA - you have to keep your mouth shut about global warning. The Bush administration has been known to censor science in order to satisfy the self-same oil and gas industry. Soon that will not be true anymore I am thankful for that. Furthermore, even if there is some doubt to the theory, do you want to chance your children experiencing the chaos that will come from global warming one day ?
And finally, how does this 'hidden agenda' benefit those who support the Theory of Evo ... errr Global Warming ? You have not posited how that benefit might be ? What, you think that one day we will get a DVD offer on the telly for 'Tree Huggers Gone Wild', the story behind the wild left wingers who subverted those poor helpless billion dollar oil and gas industry with all their powerful lobbyists ?
Kim
"Equilibrium"
The first article of faith for the global warming religion, repeated as a mantra whenever another part of their faith has been discredited. This statement is regularly rolled out, and combined with a statement that CO2 is a greenhouse gas, followed by an arbitrary "QED" while closing the mind to further argument.
The fallacy of this article faith is that a planetary system is NOT a pure and simple environment. It contains a fundamental flaw in the over-simplification of a system with billions of variables into a single equation. Even the IPCC report recognises other factors affect the climate (even if the IPCC gets the signs wrong - see my comment on the Asian Brown Cloud).
For example, an increase in high-level cloud has been observed in recent years. High level cloud increases the Earth's albedo, while not increasing the greenhouse effect, thus being a cooling factor. If this is an effect of global temperature, of global CO2 (or Methane) level, or any other factor that may impact on global temperature, then you haven't got an equilibrium, you've got a complex equation, including lags and inertia. Given the complexity and interrelationships between gasses, water temperature, clouds, and the thermal inertia of the ice-caps and deep oceans, the one thing we can be certain is that there is NOT an equilibrium (and never has been) and it is NOT a simple relationship.
Phrasing
The chemicals already are part of the earth. The only things getting pumped into it are meteors. I'm not sure what you mean here.
Part of the earth...
You're absolutely right, the Carbon currently being released into the atmosphere is a part of the earth, but the key fact is that it was, until now, sequestered, far away from any interaction with the world of men.
As I'm sure you've heard, the three most important things are location, location, location.
The original atmosphere of this planet was probably Hydrogen and Helium, but that was quickly stripped away by the solar wind and replaced, over time, with an atmosphere consisting mostly of Nitrogen and Carbon Dioxide. This atmosphere was quite stable over geologic time, until life arose and started producing Oxygen. Bacteria, and later plants, can metabolise carbon dioxide and emit oxygen as a by-product. They still do.
Eventually, Oxygen levels rose to the point that animal life arose in the oceans, and the animals of the oceans developed a new trick, producing Calcium Carbonate, the primary non-living structural component of diatoms and clams, and those shells fell to the bottom of the seas, where they were buried, further reducing the level of Carbon Dioxide, and increasing the level of Oxygen, to the point that the continental surface became habitable because of the Ozone Shield, which serves to reduce the level of ionising radiation reaching the surface of the Earth, and more bacteria and plants colonised the land.
As these creatures died, they too were buried, their bodies carrying off still more Carbon (in various forms -- as we are carbon-based lifeforms all). These buried deposits eventually turned into limestone and petroleum, and there they stayed for the most part.
This sequestration of Carbon, continuing over hundreds of millions of years, and a corresponding increase in the availability of free Oxygen, eventually made it possible for animal life to emerge, cockroaches, crocodiles, cows, and us.
Lucky us, hitching a ride on the backs of the bacteria and then plants, but with valuable assistance from the Earth itself, "kindly" burying *immense* amounts of toxic poisons, to wit, Carbon, and Carbon Dioxide, under miles of rock and mud.
These processes are fully reversible.
For the past few hundred years, and at an accelerating pace, we've been unburying those poisons and making them available to all, which is good for plants and bacteria, but not so good for cockroaches, crocodiles, cows, and us, anything that breathes with lungs or gills, which are uniformly dependent on Oxygen and a completely different and unique biological process.
In the long run, it doesn't matter whether you "believe" in global warming or not, because we all believe in oxygen.
There are already vast areas of the oceans devoid of breathing life, "Dead Zones" they're called, but the only experience we've had recently with an excess of Carbon Dioxide is near volcanoes and certain volcanic lakes, which release Carbon Dioxide into the atmosphere from time to time in large quantities, to the detriment (death, actually) of all animal life in the immediate vicinity.
There are vast areas at the bottoms of our oceans where Gigatonnes of sequestered Methane (another form of Carbon) lie in wait, a rise in ocean tempertures of another degree or so will release most of it. Happy days for bacteria and plants, not so good for us.
The first to stop breathing will be the very young, the very old, and those with diminished lung capacity because of smoking (Thank God, at least, for that) or occupational hazard, but we will, eventually, all of us succumb, leaving the world free of us until bacteria and plants can set up the Earth for another round of animals, with another set of players, at least some of whom may be either stupider than we humans (and therefore safe from global suicide), or smarter (and therefore capable of seeing beyond the ends of our noses and/or the pages of Magic Books).
Cheers,
Puddin'
-------------------
Traffic is very heavy at the moment,
so if you are thinking of leaving now,
you'd better set off a few minutes earlier.
--- Anonymous newsreader
I heartily recommend the web site of George Monbiot for many illuminating and accessible essays on this subject:
http://www.monbiot.com/
Alternatively, you might like this:
http://www.deathonline.net/
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Cheers,
Puddin'
A tender heart is an asset to an editor: it helps us be ruthless in a tactful way.
--- The Chicago Manual of Style
A thing called Occam's Razor
How likely is it that only scientists who work for people who will benefit if global warming is discredited are the ones to attempt to discredit global warming? As someone else has pointed out, the Bush administration has been much more open to such disagreement with the consensus and yet, there are very few reputable scientists (I don't know of any) who accept the view that global warming is merely climate variation and has nothing to do with burning fossil fuels and other human activities.
My degree is in math but I took a lot of science courses. When I look at the work of scientists who are warning about global warming mostly I see them starting from the hypothesis that global warming is false -- and then proving it isn't by examining evidence on both sides of the issue and weighing that evidence. When I look at the work of the scientists working for the oil companies, I see them also start out assuming global warming is false and then bring in only evidence on that side. I don't see them working with the full set of data, nor do I see them weighing factors. They seem to simply count them, any evidence at all that GW is not true is just as good as any evidence that it is. That's not science, that's PR.
You could prove that melamine contamination in milk is good for babies with exactly the same technique.
Global warming is real, though it may prove to be less catastrophic than some believe it will be. The science is complicated and the order of magnitude of the changes involved is not certain. The system has both negative and positive feedback and human activity promotes both greenhouse gases and dust which have opposite effects on climate. And there's actually a technological solution to Global Warming available. Let's hope we don't have to use it.
It's called Nuclear Winter.
Hugs,
Erin
= Give everyone the benefit of the doubt because certainty is a fragile thing that can be shattered by one overlooked fact.
= Give everyone the benefit of the doubt because certainty is a fragile thing that can be shattered by one overlooked fact.
>> Nuclear Winter...
There's actually an alternative available, proposed by Paul Crutzen, the guy who won a Nobel Prize in 1995 for his work on the the developing "hole" in the Antarctic ozone layer. He proposes injecting massive quantities of sulfates into the upper atmosphere (at enormous expense, of course) to increase the planetary albedo in rough simulation of nuclear winter without the radioactivity and massive culling of the human population that would entail.
The best way of doing this, of course, would be for us all to get our little acts together and cut emissions, but Dr. Crutzen doesn't see much hope of that, given our track record thus far, and offers this as a possible backup plan, albeit a plan containing the possibility of unforeseen side effects that might conceivably be harmful.
On the plus side, it would give us something to do with all those big guns on battleships, as we could spend years and years firing off those massive shells into the air, where they would theoretically explode and release the sulphur into the upper atmosphere, Guy Fawkes Night every day for years and years and years.
Alternatively, we could create a fleet of weather balloons to carry up the dust, which could be painted in bright colours to create a festive atmosphere whilst trying to save our collective arses, and all that sulphur would be good for the roses. Such a deal.
Play bloody hell with the finish on automobiles and such, what with the acid rain and all, and probably destroy the pine forests in northern latitudes, but they're being destroyed in any case, as hardwoods invade their historic range. Ah, well. Easy come, easy go, that's what I say.
If all else fails, I'm sure the bacterial mats covering the oceans will make a lovely sheen on the waters at sunset. Too bad we won't be around to see it.
Cheers,
Puddin'
---------------
This is the way the world ends
This is the way the world ends
This is the way the world ends
Not with a bang but a whimper.
--- T.S. Eliot, The Hollow Men
====================
T.S. Eliot - The Hollow Men
-----------
Mistah Kurtz -- he dead.
A penny for the Old Guy
I
We are the hollow men
We are the stuffed men
Leaning together
Headpiece filled with straw. Alas!
Our dried voices, when
We whisper together
Are quiet and meaningless
As wind in dry grass
Or rats' feet over broken glass
In our dry cellar
Shape without form, shade without colour,
Paralysed force, gesture without motion;
Those who have crossed
With direct eyes, to death's other Kingdom
Remember us -- if at all -- not as lost
Violent souls, but only
As the hollow men
The stuffed men.
II
Eyes I dare not meet in dreams
In death's dream kingdom
These do not appear:
There, the eyes are
Sunlight on a broken column
There, is a tree swinging
And voices are
In the wind's singing
More distant and more solemn
Than a fading star.
Let me be no nearer
In death's dream kingdom
Let me also wear
Such deliberate disguises
Rat's coat, crowskin, crossed staves
In a field
Behaving as the wind behaves
No nearer --
Not that final meeting
In the twilight kingdom
III
This is the dead land
This is cactus land
Here the stone images
Are raised, here they receive
The supplication of a dead man's hand
Under the twinkle of a fading star.
Is it like this
In death's other kingdom
Waking alone
At the hour when we are
Trembling with tenderness
Lips that would kiss
Form prayers to broken stone.
IV
The eyes are not here
There are no eyes here
In this valley of dying stars
In this hollow valley
This broken jaw of our lost kingdoms
In this last of meeting places
We grope together
And avoid speech
Gathered on this beach of the tumid river
Sightless, unless
The eyes reappear
As the perpetual star
Multifoliate rose
Of death's twilight kingdom
The hope only
Of empty men.
V
Here we go round the prickly pear
Prickly pear prickly pear
Here we go round the prickly pear
At five o'clock in the morning.
Between the idea
And the reality
Between the motion
And the act
Falls the Shadow
For Thine is the Kingdom
Between the conception
And the creation
Between the emotion
And the response
Falls the Shadow
Life is very long
Between the desire
And the spasm
Between the potency
And the existence
Between the essence
And the descent
Falls the Shadow
For Thine is the Kingdom
For Thine is
Life is
For Thine is the
This is the way the world ends
This is the way the world ends
This is the way the world ends
Not with a bang but a whimper.
-
Cheers,
Puddin'
A tender heart is an asset to an editor: it helps us be ruthless in a tactful way.
--- The Chicago Manual of Style
Grant Money?!?
Surely you jest, Karen. There has been far, far more money available to "scientists" willing to shill for the fossil carbon fuel industry in order to "disprove" or at least muddy up the issue long enough to bank a few more years of record profits.
Where is all this pro- "global warming agenda" grant money supposedly coming from? The Bush Administration's Department of Energy? Not likely. Some impoverished sea-level island nation? How? Some hippie food commune? Who?
As for supposedly "natural cycles", that's not what's happening, either. Once upon a time, the Earth had a very different environment, one not hospitable to the current biosphere at all. To get from there to here, bacteria and other forces had to remove a lot of carbon from the environment, and sequester it outside of the biosphere. Coal, oil, shale, peat and limestone were all formed by earlier ecologies living under a paleoatmosphere. Huge amounts of carbon were tied up not only in fossil fuels but in rock formed after the initial creation of our planet, rocks such as limestone. Today, besides burning fossil fuel and releasing that carbon back into a biosphere that has no place to put it and no mechanism to sequester it anymore, we're also burning limestone, driving out the carbon dioxide to make portland cement. Every bit of portland cement on this planet was made the same way. The more we build, the more carbon we release into the atmosphere.
The atmosphere and the biosphere aren't things that change right away, either. Think of it as a chain reaction. Once you touch it off, you can't stop it. The danger of global warming isn't that the Earth has warmed two degrees centigrade, it's that the reason for the change is something we can't stop. There's no way to remove that stuff from the atmosphere. It's only recently added, relatively speaking, and it's going to continue to change things until something removes it again. Like mankind dying off and ceasing to use anything containing carbon so that all the plants and trees and small creatures pile up again unmolested for a hundred million years, thereby sequestering the carbon in their husks and carcasses out of the reach of the atmosphere.
Apologies for oversimplification, but I just didn't want to get into carbon dioxide and methane trapped in cold sea water that will be released when it warms, etc.
>> Methane trapped in cold sea water...
I love that part... We could set the bubbling methane fountains alight and turn our whole planet into a gigantic Crêpe Suzette.
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Cheers,
Puddin'
A tender heart is an asset to an editor: it helps us be ruthless in a tactful way.
--- The Chicago Manual of Style
Goodness!
Look at where this has gone, after a few throwaway lines telling everyone I got cold feet riding my bike - my bit to minimise my carbon footprint.
Angharad (Blushing)
Angharad
Giggle
Testosterone poisoning is a bigger problem than Global Warming.
Perhaps
...they're actually the same problem?
Would women have despoiled this planet on the same scale? Food for thought.
It's actually quite funny
Really, reading what some of the others have posted has given me quite a chuckle. One which I needed after todays snowstorm. Where I live we've just had a warm front blow through. It raised the temperature to a high of +26'F. And that, of course, meant lots of snow. I was sitting here watching the snow blow outside the window. We're supposed to get 10" of the stuff, but the wind was blowing so hard it's mostly kept my driveway clean. Thank the spirits!!!
Anyhow, back to the discussion. My belief is that climate always changes, but believing mankind is responsible for or is even a major contributor to global warming is demonstrably wrong. And the IPCC is lying. Why would they lie? Two reasons. What every bureaucrat dreams of... money and control.
As for the fallacy of "every denier scientist is in the employ of the major energy companies!", sorry, not true. In fact, not even close to being true. Here's a sample...
“I am a skeptic…Global warming has become a new religion.†- Nobel Prize Winner for Physics, Ivar Giaever.
“Since I am no longer affiliated with any organization nor receiving any funding, I can speak quite frankly….As a scientist I remain skeptical. “The main basis of the claim that man’s release of greenhouse gases is the cause of the warming is based almost entirely upon climate models. We all know the frailty of models concerning the air-surface system†- Atmospheric Scientist Dr. Joanne Simpson, the first woman in the world to receive a PhD in meteorology, and formerly of NASA, who has authored more than 190 studies and has been called “among the most preeminent scientists of the last 100 years.â€
Warming fears are the “worst scientific scandal in the history…When people come to know what the truth is, they will feel deceived by science and scientists.†- UN IPCC Japanese Scientist Dr. Kiminori Itoh, an award-winning PhD environmental physical chemist
“The IPCC has actually become a closed circuit; it doesn’t listen to others. It doesn’t have open minds… I am really amazed that the Nobel Peace Prize has been given on scientifically incorrect conclusions by people who are not geologists,†- Indian geologist Dr. Arun D. Ahluwalia at Punjab University and a board member of the UN-supported International Year of the Planet
For more info, check out
http://www.globalwarminghoax.com/e107_files/downloads/senate...
Some days you're the pigeon, some days you're the statue
Anthropogenic GW
I swore that I'd stay out of this but....
Arguments about AGW can go on and on, yet one simple fact remains:
Global Warming has not panned out. A cooling climate, as predicted by the sunspot theory advocates in direct opposition to the supposed "experts," has been been proven accurate -- yet again. The science is on their side, not the increasingly desperate AGW advocates, whose predictors have consistently been wrong.
Fortunately, we don't have to debate this, as no government is willing to undertake any AGW measures to meet Kyoto's successor, much less the already failed Kyoto targets. We can all kick back and watch the climate go one way or the other. In a couple of decades, we'll all know who the true scientists were.
One small correction, if I may:
The consensus is overwhelming in the scientific community that AGW is NOT a serious problem. 31,000 scientists reject 'global warming' agenda
If science is to be decided on the number of advocates for a theory, a ridiculous thing to do, but a reason that the AGW advocates cite constantly, then the AGW people, now that they know the overwhelming number of scientists refute AGW, must, logically, change their minds.
Aardvark
"Happiness is when what you think, what you say, and what you do are in harmony."
Mahatma Gandhi
"Happiness is when what you think, what you say, and what you do are in harmony."
Mahatma Gandhi
Arguments
The internet is wonderful. I suggest that everyone who cares use Google and other such tools to research the conflicting claims on this subject. And research the organizations making the claims, it can be enlightening.
Hugs,
Erin
= Give everyone the benefit of the doubt because certainty is a fragile thing that can be shattered by one overlooked fact.
= Give everyone the benefit of the doubt because certainty is a fragile thing that can be shattered by one overlooked fact.
Arguments
Agreed.
Aardvark
"Happiness is when what you think, what you say, and what you do are in harmony."
Mahatma Gandhi
"Happiness is when what you think, what you say, and what you do are in harmony."
Mahatma Gandhi
I agree and must disagree, great termite ingestor
Let me put it in a way that my classic conservative side – IE minimal government except to keep a fair *paying field*, or to run/regulate things in limited cases of natural monopoly –IE roads and schools -- and for a reasonable national defense -- can agree with my tendency to support more liberal social causes IE civil rights, keeping religion out of politics, fighting poverty and the like..
I agree with you to the extent any hypothesis/theory/whatever in science may have a bandwagon effect for good or ill.
Several things must be kept in mind about global warming. One climate and weather are not the same … one is short run, years, decades even a century or more but climate is long run.
Another point is, between modern measures of CO2 plus other gases that help retain heat in the atmosphere, methane is a biggie for example, and *fossil* records in gas bubbles in ice cores from ancient glaciers, the rise in CO2 and other such gases since the beginnings of the industrial age gases is unprecedented and I’m talking 100,000 plus years. Huge changes in a short time span along with major changes inn the Earth’s albedo – it’s reflectivity, snow is more reflective than plants or soil for instance – may destabilize the weather patterns as we know them and even alter climate. Plus very rapid shifts in rainfall, plant and snow cover will play havoc with our already strained forests, grasslands, oceans and farmlands.
Look at it this way, do YOU want to be part of a World wide experiment where we are uncertain of the outcome BUT we could end up making our lives as we know them far more difficult or even impossible? Would you willingly bungee jump with bungees no one knows are reliable or not?
Science is a back and forth, publish and revue/rebut field. I don’t like it when any group withhold legitimate points of view in favor of it’s own and sadly the current administration in Washington did this, not that previous ones didn't. President Lyndon Johnson had dissenters/doubters about the Gulf of Tonkin the day after the incident but they were ignored, thus THAT mess. Best guess is the destroyer heard it’s own high-speed propeller sounds as torpedoes in that shallow sea.
In any case, what I want to know is when can we plant Bananas as street trees up here? I’ll accept date and coconut palms as an alternative.
John inn Wauwatosa
John in Wauwatosa
Mmm
Another point is, between modern measures of CO2 plus other gases that help retain heat in the atmosphere, methane is a biggie for example, and *fossil* records in gas bubbles in ice cores from ancient glaciers, the rise in CO2 and other such gases since the beginnings of the industrial age gases is unprecedented and I’m talking 100,000 plus years.
Being one who believes in the Constitution and moans at its destruction has nothing to do with whether or not I believe in catastrophic AGW. We all want clean air, and if we're destroying the environment then it goes without saying that we should stop it. If what you said about CO2 were true, then it would give anyone pause, however, there HAVE been higher Co2 levels -- much higher -- in times past. If you're referring to "evidence" from Al Gore's fraudulent film, then you should know that he cherry picked his core samples. Core samples that showed higher levels of CO2, of which there were many, were deliberately left unmentioned to create the impression you have. A British judge took note of this and other BS in this Academy Award winning "Documentary," and determined that it was unsuitable for showing in British classrooms. Fact.
Let's discard their "solution" for global warming, which inevitably includes a loss of sovereignty and an enormous transfer of of wealth from the US. Let's forget that Kyoto's year of 1990 was carefully chosen to benefit Europe, which was, overall, at its polluting peak at the time, and penalize the US for having a fairly decent record of cleaning up the air and poor environment of the 70's. Let's forget that the US has more trees now than a hundred years ago, for which they receive no credit, for that would defeat the whole purpose of Kyoto, and is a net CO2 sink, not an emitter (at least as of 2000 -- haven't seen figures for later). Let's forget all that and assume, for the moment, that the AGW folks' motives are pure as snow the Huskies haven't peed on yet.
Right. I may write fantasy, but I don't live in one.
The fact is, when one lies, misrepresents, and obfuscates, it's not science, it's an agenda, and not a pretty one.
Man-made CO2 as a global warming "contributor" is a tiny percentage of CO2 in the atmosphere, and CO2 is a tiny part of so-called global warming gasses. Furthermore, the temperature rises and THEN the CO2 rises, not the reverse, as the AGW folks like to pretend. The fact is that they don't have a clue as to the effect of CO2 in the atmosphere, and certainly are no authority on climate change, as virtually all of their predictions have been wrong, an astonishing record of incompetence.
It's really amazing the lengths they go to to protect their theory.
The Medieval Warming period, when the Earth was somewhere between 3-7 degrees F hotter than it is today and man-made CO2 emissions were much less, is ignored, as it totally destroys the theory that man-made CO2 is the cause for global warming. The little ice age that followed, when Londoners used to walk on the frozen Thames, and the Delaware River that Washington crossed to fight the Hessians, which was REALLY broken up with ice flows as the famous picture indicates, is similarly ignored.
Doing a reverse Plato here:
The Student: "Master, what is your answer to the Medieval Warming period?"
Master AGW: "Oh, that was just in the Northern Hemisphere, likely just Europe. It means nothing."
The confused Student: "Uh, is there any evidence to support that (astounding!) conclusion?"
Master AGW, gazing sternly down at his deficient Student: "We know this is so because I am right. If I am right, then it must be that way. Simple logic!"
Unfortunately for Master AGW, two studies have been done, one in Peru and one, ironically, in Kyoto. Both have shown that the Medieval Warming extended to those lands, as well. Really, by this time, it should be case closed for AGW, as the current crop of AGW folks interpret it, but I'll continue because I want to.
The Student: "Master, your temperatures from 1980 to today include readings from the cities and countryside. The countryside figures show less than half the temperature increase of the cities. How can this be?"
Master AGW: "Foolish Student, this is because the wind patterns have changed due to climate change. Hot winds find the cities, where the trees are ignored." (Yes, this is the actual, paraphrased, stated reason!)
The Student: "Could it not be because as the cities grow, the thermometers have more asphalt and concrete around them? And what of those now found over grills and outside air conditioning vents?"
Master AGW, angrily: "You think too much and ask too many questions. I forbid you access to the thermometer locations." (Which is exactly what the "scientists" did to those investigating the temperature descrepancies! So much for peer review!)
You say, what if they are right? What if the increasingly shrill warnings are true? Can we take the chance?
I say, looking over their record of lies, distortions, and obfuscations, that these AGW "authorities" remind me, not of honest but misguided prophets of doom, but of rainmakers demanding money to end a drought. They prey on your belief to benefit themselves.
The whole argument is likely moot, anyway. The global economy is is trouble, and no government is (or was, frankly) willing to destroy their own economy for a pie-in-the-sky theory that has never held water. It was fun for a while blaming the US and Bush (who, to his eternal discredit, IS an AGW advocate, not a non-believer as some seem to think!) for all the world's problems, but the AGW ride basically ended when the US refused to cough up the cash, Obama was elected, and the temperatures have gotten stubbornly colder.
The obvious solution we should all be able to agree on is to go nuclear. Clean air, no CO2: we can all be happy.
Aardvark
"Happiness is when what you think, what you say, and what you do are in harmony."
Mahatma Gandhi
"Happiness is when what you think, what you say, and what you do are in harmony."
Mahatma Gandhi
I hate to say it,
but my feet were cold again today!
Angharad :)
Angharad
You should have gone for a walk.
Like we did. The 'Autumn Tints' section of the bike club sensibly decided that a gentle 8 mile stroll was a better way both to start the new year and to keep tootsies nice and warm :) I find it difficult to get motivated to go cycling in freezing fog when it's no longer part of my commuting needs. In any case it's a well known fact it's women who have cold feet and cold bums. I can verify this from my own extensive research of my SO's and my habit of 40 years to eschew troubling the manufacturers of nightwear with purchases :) ie our nightwear is limited to wrist watches.
There is overwhelming evidence for climate change. Perhaps there is less for its causes and it may not be due to mankind's profligacy with fossil fuels or the increasing appetite for meat from methane generators. However, if the deniers are wrong, the consequences for humans and other animals are dire; if the IPCC is wrong, all we get is a more efficient use of limited energy resources and more innovation for renewable energy techniques. Perhaps the current recession is a good time to think again. I really don't understand why business isn't seizing the opportunities to make money by researching, making and selling products either to minimise energy consumption/wastage or to generate renewable energy from tide, wind or sun.
btw on the portland cement front there was a report in the Guardian about a new type of cement which generates less carbon dioxide and may even absorb it http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2008/dec/31/cement-car...
Geoff
Hyperbolic quasi-religous laguage
Like "deniers" is one of the many reasons I am sceptical about the global warming cults.
When we see other cult-like symptoms, such as hypocritical cult leaders (Al Gore flying around the world in a private jet to promote reduced production of CO2 comes to mind!) and jetting off to Bali to hold their church convocations (If they really believed what they preach, they would have held their meeting in Amsterdam or Berlin. That way large numbers of the participants could have used the European rail network to get to the conference - far more carbon efficient. But I'm sure that a beach in Bali is far more carbon-efficient than a beach on the Baltic or North Sea coasts!)
However, the telling point is when assertions of faith ("overwhelming evidence") are trivially disprovable, but challenges to the faith are ignored or howled down.
I'm afraid that I rate most of the IPCC report as only slightly more scientifically credible than "Intelligent design".
BTW, if you believe in the current cult, aren't you glad that the world didn't follow the instructions of the previous cult leaders? Back in the mid 70's, environmentalists sent a letter to the President of the US, urging him to cover Greenland and Northern Canada with soot to reduce the Earth's albedo and stave off the impending ice age. And given this track record, what value do you place on today's nostrums?
Melting the River
When I was in Fairbanks, during my Army sentence, someone used to cover the river in the vicinity of the city with coal ashes to get it to melt without jamming, so it did not flood. I have no idea if it worked, or not.
Gwen