Lois & Clark Forums Forums General Discussion Off Topic Global Warming (or not)

Hey guys, I ran across a fascinating video on YouTube, and I thought I'd share the link:

The Great Global Warming Swindle

It's over an hour long but doesn't feel that way when you're watching it; it's a very well-done documentary, which I believe was aired in Great Britain. They've got meteorologists and environmental scientists -- not to mention the co-founder of Green Peace, who quit in disgust.

I thought it was fascinating. Did you know that more than half of the warming in this century occurred *before* 1940? And from the 40's to the 70's, global temperatures were falling... enough to prompt a flurry of scary headlines (from, of course, a consensus of scientists) about Global Cooling and the coming Ice Age (I'm *just* barely old enough that I remember that). In the 80's temps started trending upward again, which is where the Global Warming hysteria started.

Anyway, overall it made sense to me. You'll have to judge for yourselves. Anyone who's sat through "An Inconvenient Truth" probably ought to see this, too, just to bolster their understanding of the issues.

PJ

In a related comment Frankj's IMAO Question of the Day asks what Global Warming would taste like.

It's pretty funny.

EX: It would be fizzy from all the carbon dioxide.

Posted by: spacemonkey on March 15, 2007 10:47 AM

And, if you take the time to watch that, you may also wish to take the time to read This article/FAQ , which should take about 5 minutes.

Well I went and spent five minutes and then, being the skeptic I am, went and found another internet site that has more links than wikipedia that totally debunk everything again

http://www.skepticism.net/faq/environment/global_warming/

However, knowing that this will just lead to a continual linkage pile up, let me just say, nothing will ever change anybody's minds, and the absolute truth is, FrankJ's site is freaking funny so that's why I posted his link in the first place.

mmmmm....global warming goodness....

Yeah, it was shown on C4 and has pretty much been discredited since. Both sides are still arguing over who has the most valid science and the believers have pretty much done as good a job of debunking much of the 'facts' in this documentary as the non-believers have with Gore's AIT.

TJ is right - I think if you're predisposed to believe in GW then you'll think Gore has the Truth. If you're predisposed to not believe in GW, you'll believe the 'experts' in this documentary.

For myself, I don't find much of value in any documentary that only advances one point of view and which is partisan in one direction or the other. I don't believe anyone can form a truly valid opinion either way unless they listen to both sides of the argument, (as Pam notes) take both with an extreme pinch of salt, do their own research into the various 'facts' presented and then make up their minds on where their own opinion falls.

LabRat

You're right, Rat; there have been claims and counter-claims (documentaries and debunkings) thick on the ground, and it's really hard for us regular joes to sort it all out. One hopes the truth will get out sooner or later.

Speaking of which, there was an article in the New York Times (a notoriously liberal/leftist paper, for those who don't know) last week highlighting some scientific criticisms of Al Gore's famous movie. Apparently, even some global warming believers think Al's piled it on a bit too thick.

(I got to the article just fine, so I don't *think* it's restricted access; if it is, you can always check with "bugmenot.com" to get a fake login )

The thing that amuses me the most is the "Al Gore Effect" :

The list of examples just keeps getting longer . I'm not trying to claim that this proves anything, but some of us find it really hilarious

PJ

You say that like it's a bad thing .

Just trying to forestall anyone who'd think they were biased

PJ

My grandmother watches Fox News every morning while reading the New York Times. Maybe she thinks that gives her a balanced perspective or something.

Check this out. Global Warming Awareness Walk in a winter snow storm


BWAHAHAHAHA!!! God loves to make fools of people that think they know what's going on (read that in Proverbs) He's gonna make whatever weather He wants and there nuttin' us piddly little humans can do about it.

Since I like to read scientific articles and scientific magazines fairly regularly, I have to say that the overwhelming majority view of scientists seems to be that global warming is real, and that it is caused at least partly by humanity.

There are other causes for climate change, too. The most important of these is variations in the energy output of the Sun. It is easy to think that the Sun shines steadily and unchangingly at all times, but it doesn't. For example, it is well known that the 17th and 18th centuries were unusually cold in Europe, and probably in most of the Northern hemisphere. The period is known as The Little Ice Age. Astronomical observations of the Sun from that time show that the Sun had very few sunspots at that time. It has been established that the more sunspots the Sun has, the more active it it, and the more energy it puts out. In other words, the Sun was in fact a little colder in the 17th and 18th century than it is now, which affected the climate of the Earth.

However, the last, oh, twenty years or so has seen the Earth grow steadily warmer. Is that because the Sun is getting hotter? It might be, and if so, that is clearly going to affect the climate of the Earth. Does that mean we can happily release all sorts of known greenhouse gases into the Earth's atmosphere with impunity? Can we say that if the Sun is doing most of the additional warming of the Earth, then we don't have to worry about the part we play ourselves? Can we say that what we are doing to the Earth, such as changing the composition of the atmosphere, isn't affecting the temperature of the Earth?

I don't think we can. I want to point out, too, that to the best of the understanding of astronomers, the Sun is going to grow slowly but inexorably warmer (that is to say, it is going to release ever more energy) as it grows older. In other words, the long term effect of the Sun on the Earth is going to make it progressively hotter. Does that mean that we ourselves should be careful so that we don't add to any general climate changing trend? Yes, in my opinon, we should.

Ann

My problem with the word "consensus" is that it doesn't lend itself to science. If we had a consensus that pi was 3.1415887, that wouldn't make it true.

The fact is that the Earth has gone through both cooling and warming cycles in the past, quite independently of human activities. The Little Climactic Optimum occurred around 1000 A.D., and it was warmer then than it is now -- and there wasn't enough human population of the Earth at the time to have any effect on the climate at all. As a matter of fact, there is now global warming on other planets in the Solar System as well -- Mars, and even Pluto, and I hardly think we can blame humanity for that. Every time a volcano erupts, it spews more CO2 into the atmosphere than all the cars on the planet. When Krakatoa blew itself to bits in the 1800s it blasted a tremendous amount of CO2 and dust into the atmosphere, and temperatures around the Earth were cooler for a few years afterwards, while the sunsets were more spectacular.

I'm not saying that the theory of global warming has no merit. I'm saying that there are so many variables that we simply don't know enough to form a meaningful conclusion yet. We don't hear much of it from the media because they've bought into the idea of global warming, but the fact is that there are a good number of very reputable scientists who disagree with it. So I, for one, am not going to go running off half-cocked while we don't know what we're talking about. We need to study the climate a lot more thoroughly before we do anything drastic. After all, considering that we *don't* know what we're doing, we could as easily make the wrong choice as the right one.

And there's also this to think about. There is a greater climactic cycle as well -- the ice age that occurs about every 100,000 years, and lasts about 90,000 years. We've had about 12,000 years of temperate climate since the end of the last ice age. Going by geological evidence, we could be headed for an ice age soon.

See what I mean? When you don't know enough about it, you can find statistics that can "prove" anything you want. Besides, it's a known fact that as soon as politics gets mixed with science, the science immediately becomes unreliable. Remember the theory of acquired characteristics being inherited? They were pushing that one because a powerful leader wanted them to. That still didn't make it true.

I prefer to wait a little while until we are a little more sure of our facts. Jumping the gun could do a lot more harm than good.

Nan

I'm not sure I agree with this.

As one goes up the ranks of the sciences (or any institutional discipline) regardless of what the underlying "fact" may be consensus seems to be what moves the masses. A theory gets validated not only because it is "proven" to be a fact, but rather because a large number of scientists with good reputations give it the thumbs up (and we like to think that they do it after extensive testing, but we're all human and the idea that science is devoid of politics from the get-go is really naive, those dudes want awards and tenure just as much as any other person).

I'm not implying that if those dudes say we can fly, we will. That's too crude. My point is that the validation of "fact" has more to do with consensus than most people think and that it goes without saying that this means that even science is always political one way or another. So unless you're out there measuring for yourself, getting the "facts" without any add ons or skew is impossible and even if you do, it still needs consensus to fly and be important to anyone but you. So yes, consensus is much more significant than people give it credit for.

Phew.

alcyone

I'm pretty well in line with Lab; I think we are going to believe whatever we've already been exposed to. Me, I listen to the worries of global warming a lot more than the counter-arguments people make against it. Does it mean I'm going to play my guitar in the forest and protest a hundred things at Capitol Hill? No. I think more importantly, it means I'll be a little more Earth-conscious, regardless of the effect that has on the rising temperatures. Who's going to throw a fit if I become a little more environmentally-friendly?

JD

Can we agree on the following...?

1. We are affecting our environment through various forms of pollution.

2. We have become dependent on, and are rapidly using up, finite resources such as fossil fuels.

3. In the long run, we'd probably be better off doing less of both.

To me, that's the important stuff. Whether Item 1 includes global warming or just other, more easily provable, things (case in point: the lovely central NJ groundwater, or the huge ozone hole now affecting millions of people in the Southern Hemisphere) is beside the point. Most of the things that they say contribute to global warming (massive burning of fossil fuels, slashing and burning acres and acres of rainforest to raise massive herds of cattle, etc) have other negative effects.

Why waste all this time and energy debating whether or not the smog that we're continually releasing into the atmosphere is affecting our climate, when I think most of us can agree that we'd rather not be breathing it?

Hear, hear, Paul!

Thanks, Darcy.

Came back because I thought of a couple of different ways to put it.

It's good to know things like just how much lead constitutes a toxic dose, how it gets absorbed into the body, how much is used in certain types of bullets, etc., but aren't there better things to worry about when you've shot yourself in the foot, you're bleeding, and there's a chance of infection?

As has been pointed out, it's not like we have a spare planet if we screw this one up. How are things going to look 50 years from now?

Option 1: "New data is in. Oops, we were wrong about global climate change. Guess we all started on those healthier lifestyles for nothing. Our bad."

Option 2: "New data is in. Oops, we were wrong about global climate change. Turns out we're doomed, after all, and now it's too late to do anything. Our bad."

Some things just seem more important than politics, or even than being proven right.

This is such a serious topic and I fear , at times, our media has handled it in both a superficial and sensational way.

Ann and Nan make very valid points - the issue isn't a simple one, involving just one variable. But because some of the actions we might urge our governments to take could have a very drastic impact on the basic lives of ordinary people, although not on multi-millionaries, of course, it's important for us to be both well-informed and thoughtful about *all* the variable involved.

Yet Paul has a good point - we can't ignore our individual contributions to the problem. So do what we can individually - and that should include Mr. Gore's moving out of that huge carbon emission mansion.

Here in Canada we've been engaging in several months of national (a loaded word in Canada btw) of simplistic self- flagellation, in the naive belief that we can stop global warming.
Yet Canada accounts for only 2% of global carbon emissions.
If we were to revert to the lifestyles of 200 years ago we still would make only a microscopic difference.

But we still must try.

c.

I'm with Nan on this topic. When you don't know enough, it doesn't make sense to drastically change all of our lifestyles to prevent a "what if". This doesn't mean that we shouldn't do anything at all. I have no problems with reducing our dependencies on fossil fuels. I think Brazil had it right when they went with all ethanol. Less dependence on the Middle East or Venezuela and more dependence on our own corn farmers can't be a bad thing.

The one thing we don't want to do is go overboard. Kyoto is an example of going overboard. Analyses have shown that it could easily cripple the economy of the United States and other industrialized nations and put us into a deep depression. Sure, that's economic voodoo that can't be proven, but neither can GW with any certainty.

What is smart is to try to move towards cleaner fuels and cleaner energy. Moving at a respectable pace is also smart. We should move for the right reasons, not because of a panic scare. What is funny is that many of the advocates of moving towards clean energy and reducing carbon emissions are also the main stumbling blocks in preventing us from reaching those goals. The same ones touting "An Inconvenient Truth" are the same ones picketing nuclear power plants, keeping windmills out of their backyards, knocking out power-generating dams because they were preventing salmon from reaching their hatching grounds, fighting ethanol subsidies since they are a sellout to Big Agriculture, and imposing horrid restrictions that have caused brownouts in the state of California. They're also the same people who were scaring us in the 1970's with global cooling.

Another thing is to keep in perspective just what mankind can do. Nature is powerful. We can make quite a bit of progress only to find one volcano undoing everything we've done in our entire history. As Nan pointed out, a single volcanic eruption puts out more carbon emissions than all the cars have done since the invention of the Model T. Mount Pinatubo drastically changed the weather of southern California. Before it erupted, San Diego was a very dry city with moderate temperatures. After it erupted, the weather patterns were changed dramatically with humidity rocketing skyward until it's often around 70-80%. Fortunately I left and headed into the great Pacific Northwest.

It's also interesting that Mount Krakatoa caused a case of global cooling! Which is it? Do carbon emissions cause warming by trapping warmth on the surface or do they cause cooling by blocking sunlight from reaching the ground? I've never heard a reasonable explanation from anyone about how the same gases can be the cause of global warming and global cooling. I think the answer to that depends on your political leanings.

In reference to Al Gore's tendency to bring cold weather everywhere he goes, I find it funny that the purveyors of GW as fact say that unusually cold weather is a sign that global warming is real while at the same time saying that hotter temperatures are also a sign that global warming is real.

People laughed at Ronald Reagan when he claimed that trees and cow flatulence were huge contributors to green house gases. It turns out, he was right as we now know. It isn't just people who can affect the environment. As Nan says, there are just too many variables. We can detect warming is taking place, but there's no way our science can currently figure out what people alone are responsible for. Our science can't even agree how much warming is taking place. Every other day it seems, there's another story about an environmental scientist saying how our measurements are wrong and that either more warming or less warming is taking place.

Why is it that the coldest places on earth are also the places that warmed the most? Siberia has warmed about 4C while in the supposed hotbed of all the pollution and carbon emissions in the world, the United States, the temperatures have only increased by about 1-2C in the last century? More things to ponder. Why isn't it that the US is 10C warmer and Siberia isn't much colder since there's nothing there? That tells me that there are other causes other than humans that may be contributing. Nobody doubts that warming is taking place. What's in doubt is the cause and how much it is actually warming.

The media has arrived at the consensus that global warming is real and has been incontrovertibly proven to be real. Schools now teach the same thing. Yet it turns out that in the United States, 93% of people in the print and television media are liberals and/or Democrats and voted for Al Gore. A similar ratio occurs in academia. Coincidence? My leanings tell me to ignore the media and try to find facts for myself. I can't tell you whether GW is human-caused or a natural cycle, but until someone really does prove it one way or the other conclusively, I don't see any reason to destroy our economies and our way of life. It's wise to clean up our environment and go towards non-polluting energy even if GW were false, but trying to push huge negatively life-altering solutions on a gullible population isn't the answer.

Actually it is a bad thing. When you can't trust a paper to give you the straight story, what good is it? When their editorials don't sound any different from their front-page stories, why read them? I get a newspaper for only one reason now: store ads. Their circulation numbers and constant layoffs reflect the decline of that once great paper.

THAT'S BECAUSE IT'S OPPOSITE DAY!!!
Zombie Squirrel in: Global Warming

Um, you did notice the winking smiley after my comment? That's because I was being ironic.

I think you got something confused. It's both carbon causing 'global warming' (if you believe in it) and the cooling after the eruption of great volcanoes. But the first is carbon dioxide, and the second is made up of larger particles you'd refer to as ashes. These ashes build huge clouds, preventing sunlight from reaching the ground. And without sunlight, it gets darn cold down here.

Since we already mentioned volcanoes, we should talk about the so-called super volcanoes as well.

There are several known super volcanoes around the world. One of them, Lake Toba in Indonesia, erupted about 75,000 years ago, spewing forth about 2,800 cubic kilometers of ashes (Compare: Krakatoa: 25 km³; Mount St. Helens (last eruption): ~1.2 km³) and causing the so-called Millenial Ice Age.

Here is a list of other supervolcanoes and information on their eruptions:
Lake Taupo, New Zealand, erupted 26,500 years ago; ejecta volume: 1,170 km³

Yellowstone Caldera, Wyoming, erupted

• 2.2 million years ago; ejecta volume: ~2,500 km³
• 1.3 million years ago; ejecta volume: ???
• 640,000 years ago; ejecta volume: 1,000 km³

Valles Caldera, New Mexico, erupted

• 1.6 million years ago
• 1.2 million years ago; ejecta volume: >2400 km³ (each? together? Couldn't make sense of my source)

Long Valley, California, erupted 760,000 years ago; ejecca volume: 2,400 - 3,600 km³

La Garita Caldera, Colorado, erupted 27.8 million years ago; ejecta volume: ~5,000 km³

Oh, and some of them, namely the Yellowstone Caldera, Lake Taupo and Long Valley are still *very* active. Plus Aira, Japan which doesn't have a claim to such a 'mega-colossal' eruption - yet.

Apart from that, I have to agree with Paul: We can do nothing to preserve our environment and find out it would have been necessary, or we can do something and find out it wouldn't have been necessary. Personally, I prefer the latter.

Another thought: People interested in this topic should read Michael Crichton's 'State of Fear'. Really interesting, if a bit one-sided.

As to what we can "know" about global warming, remember that science isn't about knowing the full and perfect truth. Science is about postulating hypotheses - such as, for example, "the release of greenhouse gases into the atmosphere by the burning of fossil fuels contributes to climate change" - and then you must do your very best to test those hypotheses. For example, it is a well-known and easily established fact that a number of greenhouse gases and pollutants really are being released into the atmosphere. The atmosphere of the Earth today is different than it was, say, three hundred years ago. It is in fact different than it was one hundred years ago, too. It is also a fact that the climate of the Earth has grown steadily warmer, certainly during the last thirty years.

However, how can we know that there is a connection between these two facts? How do we know that there is a causal relationship between them? How do we know that the warmer climate of the Earth is wholly or partly casued by human activities?

In fact, it seems almost certain that the existent warming isn't caused exclusively by humans. Variations in the energy output of the Sun most certainly contribute. But if scientist believe that humans contribute to the global warming, what reasons do they have for this view?

Well, there is such a fact as the scientific understanding of what a greenhouse gas is in the first place. It is a gas whose physical and chemical properties causes it to trap some of the heat which has entered it.

By looking at our own Solar system, astronomers can witness the effects of greenhouse gases. Venus, the planet which is in many respects the one most like the Earth, has an incredibly thick atmosphere mostly made up of carbon dioxide. Scientists calculate that if Venus had an atmosphere with the same amount of greenhouse gases as the Earth, its temperature would be around 90 degrees Celsius, not enough to boil water at sea level on the Earth. However, the temperature of Venus is over 400 degrees Celsius, hot enough to melt lead, and more than four times hotter than it "ought" to be. Mars, on the other hand, has a very, very thin atmosphere, which doesn't contain huge amounts of greenhouse gases, even though it's true that the atmosphere of Mars is made up mostly of carbon dioxide. Many scientist believe that Mars was considerably warmer in the past, since there are many dry riverbeds on the red planet, bearing witness to the presence of abundant liquid water on Mars in the past. Many astronomers therefore believe that Mars' present cold climate is caused at least partly by the loss of greenhouse gases. (It should be noted, too, that some of the most gung-ho and optimistic astronomers talk about "terraforming" Mars, that is, making it Earthlike. This will require a rather drastic raising of global temperatures on Mars, but the optimists think they can achieve this by releasing a lot of greenhouse gases in the Martian atmosphere.)

We may also note that the present rise of temperatures on the Earth appears to be unusually fast. And it is happening at the same time as humanity is using up fossil fuels and releasing carbon dioxide into the atmosphere at an unprecedented rate.

In short, the amount of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere of a planet appears to affect the planet's overall temperature. Most scientists therefore believe that humanity's present fossil fuel behaviour contributes to global warming. There is, however, no such thing as absolute scientific proof of this. However, if we find the scientists' arguments reasonable, it might be a good idea to reduce our appetite for fossil fuels.

Ann

I agree with most everything you said. We have no way of knowing how much of our contributions have to do with warming the planet. We only know that it is warming. That being said, I also agree with Paul that reducing our appetite for fossil fuels can only be a good thing, if for no other reason than it is a finite resource. I would much prefer to base our energy needs on renewable resources, such as corn, nuclear (where's my Mr. Fusion!), or other sources, but that transition needs to be done smoothly without destroying our way of life as so many of the global warming alarmists want us to do. Kyoto is their effort to essentially destroy America's economy.

I do disagree about the "most scientists". I saw a study a few months back that claimed most true environmental scientists (not politicians or scientists in other fields or others who claim to be like the Center for Science and the Public Interest, who serve neither science nor the public interest) DOUBT significant human effects on global warming. There was even a paper written a few years ago disputing the alarmists, signed by 17,000 environmental scientists. Don't underestimate the effect of the media on making us believe that there is little to no dispute. According to most of the media, global warming is fact and all scientists believe it.

As I said, read 'State of Fear'! It's really interesting.

I see your point, Alcyone. But we still need to be cautious. A hundred years ago, a consensus of scientists were convinced that the universe had no beginning and that eugenics were moral. There were respected and intelligent people who defended those positions.

And you know, scientists are people, too. They've got biases and opinions just like the rest of us. So it's possible (not inevitable, but possible) for those to influence their conclusions.

Thanks for the data, Olympe. Interesting...

Well, the trouble with that is opportunity costs. (It's Saturday night. Your parents want you to do something with them. Your friends want you to do something else with them. You can't be in two places at one time, so you have to choose. Well, you weigh the pros and cons, and then decide which you'd rather do -- but my point is, in choosing one to do, you're choosing another *not* to do, and there are consequences to that.)

It's all very well to talk about "doing something" but we have to look at the costs as well as the benefits. One of the things that bothers me is that "environmentalists" are advocating policies that keep developing countries from developing. There's a reason we use fossil fuels -- they're very cost-effective. Banning (or drastically restricting) them would economically cripple the developed world and devastate the poor countries. Is it moral to harm billions of people now, just in case it makes a difference, later?

PJ
...speaking of Mars, there's global warming there, too. Must be all our polluting space craft ruining the neighborhood...

That was my point exactly, so that "but" sounds to me like a misreading of my post. I'm not saying one thing or another about global warming. I'm basically saying that total objectivity or a science that lacks politics are both naive assumptions that are there so people can sleep better at night.

Any defense of something on the basis that it is an "fact" draws the eyebrow of skepticism from me, either way.

I know that for a "fact" , so once more I'm hoping you're not directing it at me. That's why I mentioned awards and tenure, and also there's the whole issue of funding. Whoever funds you be it government or the corporate sector demands results. I live with a scientist, trust me, not all the data you get is as is. Everything in life is drenched with politics.

Other than that abstract thought, I really don't want to jump into this debate in full. I'm aware that my own politics shine enough as it is and that really, I'm not about to get my opinion changed or change someone else's.

Enjoy guys,
alcyone

Indeed, Pam, there is global warming on Mars. And it isn't caused by our space craft, no. The overwhelmingly likely explanation is variations in the activity of the Sun. For all of this, Mars is still very, very cold.

I am one of those who firmly believe in the majority view of scientists that the Earth is about four and a half billion years old (give or take a couple of hundred million years). I also believe that life on Earth is around three billion years old (this, too, is a consensus belief among scientists). Furthermore, I believe that life has kept on existing here more or less continuously since it first appeared here. If that is true, then life has existed continuously on the Earth for three billion years.

Now, practically all scientists believe that all life on Earth requires liquid water. People, do you realize what that means? If life has existed on the Earth continuously for three billion years, and this life has continuously required liquid water, that means that the temperature on the Earth has varied by less than a hundred degrees Celsius for three billion years! It has varied by less than the temperature span between which water freezes and water boils!

Doesn't this sound incredible to you? Okay. Then think of this. Astronomers study millions of stars in the sky, and they are particularly interested in stars in clusters. The overall properties of a cluster give a very good indication of that cluster's age. By studying many clusters of different ages, astronomers have reached a rather firm conclusion that stars steadily grow brighter as they grow older (up until a certain point where they die, of course). The fact that the stars grow brighter shows that they put out steadily more energy into space.

Now, because of this observation that stars grow brighter as they age, astronomers have concluded that the Sun is 20-30% brighter now than it was when life first appeared on the Earth, three billion years ago. In other words, the Sun puts out 20-30% more energy now than it did when life first appeared on the Earth. For all of that, the temperature of the Earth has remained virtually unchanged for these three billion years!!!

To make you see the situation more clearly, let's talk about the temperature of the Earth in degrees Kelvin, since the Kelvin temperature scale starts at absolute zero (that is, at the coldest possible temperature in the universe). Now, ice melts (or water freezes, if you want) at 273 degrees Kelvin. When life first appeared on the Earth, the overall temperature of the Earth can't have been much lower than that. During the twentieth century, when the Sun had grown 20-30% brighter, the overall temperature of the Earth was about 288 degrees Kelvin (15 degrees Celsius). This means that while the Sun grew 20-30% brighter, the temperature of the Earth rose by, at most, a little more than 5%. And that is assuming that the overall temperature of the Earth really was very close to the freezing point of water, 273 degrees Kelvin, three billion years ago. If the temperature back then was higher, the temperature increase since then has been even smaller.

So, people, this appears to be the situation. The temperature of the Earth has remained absolutely incredibly constant for three billion years. There are various reasons for this, the most important one being that when the Earth first formed, it was actually molten. It has slowly cooled ever since it formed. And for three billion years, the gradual cooling of the Earth has been almost perfectly balanced by the increased energy output of the Sun.

A colleague of mine, a man with relatively conservative political views, was recently quite shaken by a TV program he had seen about global warming. In this program, a scientist claimed that during the latest ice age, Earth had apparently only been two degrees colder than it is now. Two degrees! And this was enough to plunge the Earth into an ice age! According to other scientists in the same program, if the current global warming trend continues unchecked for a hundred years, the Earth will become four degrees warmer than it is now. Four degrees! If a temperature drop of two degrees could plunge the Earth into an ice age, what will a temperature increase of four degrees do to this Earth?

My point is that the Earth has been dancing on a knife-edge of a temperature balance for three billion years. Sooner or later we are going to fall down from this wonderful thin line of perfection. Unfortunately we can't look into the future, and we don't know all the facts about the Earth's total energy and temperature budget. But personally, I believe in two things. Greenhouse gases in the atmosphere increase the temperature of a planet. And the Sun is growing progressively brighter, putting out more and more energy into space. The gradual changing of the Sun is enough to guarantee that we are going to see global warming in the future. If we burn fossil fuels at an unprecedented rate and give the Earth an entirely new source of greenhouse gases - that which is coming out of our man-made chimneys and exhaust pipes - then the global warming which is inevitable in the long run anyway could conceivably come that much sooner.

Ann

Good thing God is there to keep things regulated, isn't it?

I prefer to think of it as a good thing God set up such an incredible self-regulating system More or less constant temperature for 3 billion years is no small feat of engineering. However, that's a whole 'nother discussion, and I'd really rather not do it in here.

PJ

OH MY GOD, WE'RE ALL GOING TO DIE!

Notice I don't say when.

I've been ignoring the news on this for the most part. I agree with many of the points here (look! a consensus!). Goodness only knows what effect we have on the overall temperature, but we are on an unstable rock. The molten core continues to burn, the sun will fluctuate, and California may fall into the Pacific. We're just little ants trying to find our way back to our hills. (forgive my prose, it's slightly past my bedtime)

One thing I do agree with is that we're burning up our natural resources faster than we can replenish them. I'm just hoping my little bit of recycling is doing its part to help out. And I hope we can find an alternative to some of our finite resources soon. (I want my Mr. Fusion, too! And my flying car, dang it!)

At the same time, it would be stupid not to learn from our past mistakes. Regardless of whether global warming is the fault of us humans or not, toxic emissions harm our planet and us in other ways: acid rain, diseases etc. So focusing on renewable energy sources even in developing countries seems more "moral" to me, because it takes into consideration sustainability--after all, fossil fuels are running out.

Not planning ahead is stupid, just like insisting on "staying the course" when it turns out you've screwed up .

Just today, there was an article posted on a site called Spaceflightnow about climate change, where the Earth is compared with Venus and Mars. According to that article, Venus and Mars were originally fairly Earthlike, but later on they suffered climate catastrophes.

The article stresses that Venus has suffered a runaway greenhouse effect. This happened after its atmosphere slowly changed until it reached a point of no return. Since there are no people on Venus polluting its atmosphere, most of the atmospheric change of our sister planet was driven by the steady brightening of the Sun. (The rest of the atmospheric change of Venus may have been caused by heavy volcanism on this planet.)

The article quotes David Grinspoon, one of the scientists working on the Venus Express mission, who says that the changing atmosphere of the Earth, too, may reach a point of no return, after which there will be a runaway greenhouse effect on our planet. Scientists do not yet know how close we are to such a point of no return.

Here is a link to the article:
Climate Catastrophes in the Solar System

Ann

OMG! THOSE SELFISH PEOPLE ON VENUS, DESTROYING THEIR PLANET! What was wrong with them, didn't they realize the consequences of their next hundred years????

Oh yeah, there WERE NO people on Venus. It just changed...all by itself. Because of the sun I bet.

Seriously, there is NOTHING, not a damn thing we can do to change the what is going to happen to this planet. When human beings can get over themselves and figure that we are all in God's hands, then we can stop wasting our time worrying about stupid stuff.

One of the big things this "global warming" farce has become is a money venture, and that's all that's driving it right now. There's lots of cash to be made of those "carbon offsets" and it's not gonna be believable until we see the money stop flowing.

You know, I had this long and rather sarcastic response all typed out, but then I figured why bother. If you'll excuse me, I'll just go bash my head against a wall, now.

You are right that there is nothing we can do to stop the Sun from eventually frying the Earth. However, we probably can do something to prevent the hastening of the demise of life on Earth. Earth can really be compared with a living organism. There is nothing you can do to prevent a living organism from dying eventually, but you don't need to treat it badly and make it develop bad habits so that it dies sooner.

Those of you who believe that we don't have to take care of the Earth because God will do it for us might want to consider these words from Genesis:

From a cosmic perspective, the Earth is truly a garden of Eden. The catastrophic failures of planets like Venus and Mars prove how difficult it is to come up with a perfect planet like the Earth. So if we think of the Earth as the garden of Eden, which is not unreasonable, then maybe we should also think that God put us here because he wanted us to keep and preserve the Eden he has given us. At least, when we knowingly change the composition of the Earth's atmosphere, we probably shouldn't tell ourselves that God will magically remove the extra greenhouses gases that we dump in the air.



Ann

Sorry TOC, but your quote doesn't hold up.

''Sorry. No results found for "The LORD God took the man and put him in the garden of Eden to till it and keep it. " in Keyword Search.''

Got that on Bible Gateway. 'Course I only checked the New International Version, the New King James Version and the New American Standard version, so I would be curious to know where you got that one, 'specially since I know Adam didn't have any tilling to do until after he and Eve tried to make themselves equal to God.

I also got this:
Love the LORD your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength.
Deuteronomy 6:4-6

See the problem with people so focused on earth worship, they forget where they come from, they forget where their attention should be aimed.

With all the waste spent on the farce that is global warming, wouldn't be surprised at all to see the sun come rushin' at us one day, especially during a "burning man" festival, because there's one thing I've learned in my 37 years is that God's got an ironical sense o' humor. (Ya'll 'scuse my Firefly speak, been marathoning all morning)

That's all I got to say on this. Ya'll enjoy your discussion

I quoted my own English-language Bible, which is The Holy Bible, The New Revised Standard Version with Apocrypha, Black Letter Edition, Thomas Nelson Publishers, Nashville, copyright 1989 by the Division of Christian Education of the National Council of the Churches of Christ in the United States of America.

As for chapter and verse, the quote is Genesis 2:15.

Ann

Oh, National Council of Churches? That explains it. They haven't been Christian for a long time...

PJ

Hmm. My version (KJ version) says "dress it and keep it." And now I canNOT get a picture of the earth in a frilly dress out of my head.

edit: Post Deleted because it was probably the wiser course. But damn hard!

CC- a Christian member of the National Council of Churches. I'm just sayin'...

Yeah, CC's probably got the right idea. I've managed to avoid this thread for a long time. Some attitudes, you just can't productively argue with. Which can get upsetting if you're in the wrong mood. Which makes it even harder to have a productive debate. But still...

Whatever happened to "God helps those who help themselves?"

Remember, we're also talking about the same god who, having seen that humanity was doing a poor job of following his directives, decided to flush the world and start over.

Just because it's in his power to fix things doesn't mean that he's going to fix things in a way that's beneficial to us. Especially if we're the problem in the first place.

If we were set on Earth to be its caretakers (and I think there's a further verse in Genesis about that), maybe we should look to doing a better job of it.

Many of those measures would actually save us money and trouble, in the long run. Reducing our consumption (heating, electricity, water, gasoline, etc.) lowers our bills while also reducing our wastefulness, emissions, etc. Cleaner burning factories require less maintenance.

Pollution makes messes that need to be cleaned up in one way or another. When it's not cleaned up, it impacts our health, raising costs both financial and humanitarian.

What we need is for people to look beyond their immediate wants and needs. Be a little less lazy now. Require a little less in the way of instant gratification. You can still be selfish, just be selfish in the long term.

If we all live cleaner, healthier, more responsible lifestyles, we'll all be better off. Why is that such a difficult thing to ask for? Why does it have to be politicized?

We're making a mess. We're burning through resources faster than they can be replaced. We're making ourselves sicker by making the world around us more toxic. I don't think anyone can reasonably argue against that. Those are facts. But it seems like any call to change any of those tendencies is met with scorn, politics, and complaint, and I can't see a good reason for it.

Paul

... And seeing as how things have gotten not only politicized but into religion as well...

Time for me to put on my Forum Moderator Hat. (It looks a lot like my regular hat, but less colorful and without the beanie copter.)

Nothing too bad. Just an official reminder to keep things friendly and civil, to respect the beliefs of others, to refrain from giving insult, and to try, as best we can, to avoid taking offense. Remember that posting while angry or upset rarely results in anything productive, that opposing opinions can be valid ones, and all that jazz.

In short: play nice.

Of course, we've waded through much pricklier subjects than this and managed to part on good terms, but a friendly reminder rarely hurts.

Thanks for helping to keep our little playground a fun and safe place to hang around.

Paul

OT Forum Moderator

I'm bringing this back up because of this interesting addendum which appeared on the BBC news website this morning:

LabRat

Penn and Teller's Bull@*%& is airing their show on "climate change" this Thursday on Showtime, 10 PM eastern/9 central. There is a language warning, Penn gets REALLY impatient with folks who make up stuff like this for money.

An update from the UK Independent on the complaints against "Swidle" --

This is a column by the director of the film, going into more detail about the complaints, rebuttals, and media reactions.

PJ

According to New Scientist the US Government's US Climate Change Science Program has just admitted that human actity was "responsible for the rapid warming of the 20th century."

As a geographer, whose feet have been planted in several aspects of the global warming/cooling studies (in particular glaciology and volcanology) as well as the whole carbon credits stuff, I can't help but laugh.

There will always be 2 sides to this debate, and as someone said earlier, more often than not the most politicised side of the debate is seen. Scientist base things on facts... politics do not... and having worked for a government... I can tell you that the science is often overlooked or "prettied up" for the political swing of a topic (much to the annoyance of those of us who come up with the real statistics and data).

Can we do our part to help by recycling and conserving... sure... why not...

It comes down to not the facts, but what you as an individual feel you have to do to believe you are making a difference (or not) in this world... global warming (manmade, godmade or otherwise) has little to do with it.

I recycle(d... they don't seem to have much of a concept of recycling in China...) because of the idea of less waste and the belief of re-use.. not because the ozone is burning off, or the planet is getting too warm, or we are heading for another ice age... or anything like that.

Huge shelves of ice break off near the North and South Pole, almost certainly due to global warming. I found this link where you can read about the latest ice shelf breaking off. According to the article, the ice loss in the Arctic region has increased sharply this summer.

You can also see a number of videos of ice shelves breaking loose in the Arctic as well as the Antarctic regions.

Ann

That's amazingly funny because this satellite photo of the arctic circle shows there is more ice there now than there was last year at the same time.


You can read all about it HERE . It has this awesomely common sense little snippet... There is also an article HERE about how there's been no globals smarming...er I mean, warming since 1998.

And then there's the ever trusty Farmer\'s Almanac , though I'm sure they're just saying this winter is going to be colder than ever to focus on the cost of gas...not like they have an agenda or anything

TEEEEEEJ

PS: and here's a reply for those who would say the ice caps are GROWING because of climate change...
<snicker> I'm sure if we all just suicide ourselves the planet would be "saved", but I admonish the alarmists, if this is your twisted reasoning...YOU FIRST!

That's very interesting. Clearly there has been a substantial growth of the Arctic ice since last year.

However, when I looked up the article you referred to, TEEEJ, I came across a link which said this:

The article that discussed the ice coverage in the Arctic rejected the graph from NSIDC. However, the article didn't dispute the claim that last year's ice coverage represented a record low.

In other words, it appears that last year's Arctic ice coverage was at a record minimum. Yes, the ice coverage has grown since last year, but from a very low level.

Anyway, the ice coverage has clearly grown. Is it possible that we are actually seeing a bit of global cooling here? Yes, it is possible, and if so there is a probable reason for it, namely the current sunspot cycle. There seems to be a definite correlation between the number of sunspots on the Sun and the temperature on the Earth: the more sunspots there are, the more active is the Sun, the more energy it releases, and the warmer it gets on the Earth. During the 17th century there appears to have been extremely few sunspots, and during that time it was particularly cold in at least parts of the world.

And right now the Sun seems to be almost completely devoid of sunspots.

So it is possible that the Sun is entering a quieter, less active phase, which could indeed result in some degree of global cooling. On the other hand, that global cooling could well be offset by an ever-increasing release of greenhouse gases into the atmosphere. And the next time the Sun becomes really active again, the combination of a more active Sun and record amounts of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere could result in even faster global warming.

The Sun does what it does, and what it does has nothing to do with humanity. But the increase of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere has so much to do with us. Both the changing of the Earth's atmosphere and humanity's responsibility for it are facts.

The site that TEEEJ referred us to, Alex Jones Prison Planet, called carbon dioxide an 'evil life-giving gas that we exhale'. Thereby this site implied that human breathing is the main source of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere. It is certainly true that oxygen-breathing organisms exhale carbon dioxide, and green plants use that carbon dioxide along with water and sunlight to make nutrients for themselves and more oxygen for us. But the increase of the carbon dioxide in the atmosphere is mostly due to humanity's burning of fossil fuels. Add to that that trees are being cut down in record number globally, which could potentially lead to lower oxygen levels in the Earth's atmosphere.

If we run out of oxygen I can only hope that Prison Planet is right, and that carbon dioxide will prove just as life-giving and good to breathe as oxygen.



Planet Venus. Its thick swirling atmosphere is chock full of carbon dioxide. Venus ought to be teeming with life, no?

Ann

*sigh* <shakes head>

FACTS BASED ON WHAT??? Seriously, I see this generalization you've made here, but you have nothing, absolutely nothing substantial, nothing any unagenda-ed, nonbiased, consensus of "scientists" has suggested that proves people have anything to do with the freaking weather. Lemme 'splain in simple how it works. The earth spins in orbit, the wind blows, clouds form and make rain, and the sun stays out in the center of the galaxy heating things up and all of it does those things as they were designed to do and THAT'S IT. If the earth is as old as evolutionists believe then the 150+ years of technology we've had going on won't make a firking blip on this rock's radar, and that being the case, it'll be around LOOOOONG after you and I are gone. Just think about it like that; it'll save on all the self blame and paranoid hand wringing.

Actually, there is approximately 13% more Arctic ice this year than at the same time last year, and since we have now passed the part of the year when the ice melts, and are progressing back toward the winter months, there is no chance that the ice at the North Pole is going to disappear this year. The average temperature of the Earth increased approximately half a degree C during the '90s but the warming curve went flat in 1998. Two years ago it began to drop, and in the last year there has been a sharper drop than there has been in a century -- enough to wipe out all the warming of the last decade.

Earth's climate goes through cycles, as anyone can see who bothers to look it up -- which I made a point of doing some time ago.

A great many reputable scientists are now raising a lot of doubt about AGW, and many are flat-out stating that it is a massive hoax, and citing evidence. That certainly should be enough to at least raise some questions and inspire a lot more research before we start legislating measures that can and will cause a great deal of harm to our way of life.

Nan

PS: During the Maunder and Dalton minimums, sunspots virtually disappeared. In the last year, sunspots have become more and more infrequent, and when they have appeared they were more sun specks than sunspots. This last August was the first completely spotless month since 1913 -- and 4 days into September there are still no sunspots. A tiny near-spot appeared in August, but it didn't really form a spot -- more of a protospot, and it was gone so fast that it wasn't even assigned a number.

If the activity level of the sun causes warming and cooling of the Earth, which it must, at least to some extent, it will be interesting to see what the temperature does in the next few years. Most likely this is just a long solar minimum. A drastic period of cooling wouldn't do us any more good than a long period of heating, and I'm not much for disaster scenarios, in any case.

To get a look at a picture of today's sun, go here: http://www.spaceweather.com/

Actually I have been redirected to some almost substantial proof that humans, at least one in particular, has had a substantial effect on the weather. It seems that everplace al gore visits immediately goes into a cooling trend (heh, God and His sense of humor), so here's a proposal....

Let's take algore and put him in a giant catapult, Wile E Coyote size catapult, and SHOOT him into the atmosphere. What I'm thinking will happen is that when he gets up there, he can talk about light bulbs and trees and stuff, ask for more money, and the atmosphere will FREEZE SOLID. With a thick coating of ice around it, the earth will be instantly cooler. Now we're gonna need money to get this plan to action, so anyone who's interested in shooting al gore into space, PM me and I'll get you an address where you can send donations.


TEEEEEJ

Lol, Teeej; that sounds like a good idea to me. At the very least it would eliminate a huge source of greenhouse gases.

Nan

Let me show you some facts:







[img]http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2361/2501927384_2dfe6277fe.jpg?v=0[/img]



chimney smoke

Is humanity changing the composition of the atmosphere? Yes, we are.

Ann

I'm sorry, Ann, but think of this analogy. If the atmosphere were a 100 story building, the amount of CO2 that humanity contributes to it would be about the level of the linoleum on the first floor.

If you want to look at large amounts of CO2 dumped into the atmosphere, look at natural sources, such as volcanoes. Even that CO2 amounts to a tiny fraction of our atmosphere. One of the most significant greenhouse gases, one that really does make an actual difference in temperature, is water vapor, and I doubt that you would want to get rid of that, since without water Earth really would be more like Venus.

One of the glaring variations from the computer projections of AGW is the absence of the "hot spot" that was predicted. A marker of AGW was supposed to be a large mass of hot air above the tropic regions -- one which meteorologists who are looking for such signs are completely unable to find. I have a copy of a graph that was in a recent report on the heating curve of the Earth. It had three possible heating projections from the IPCC report, all rising, one projection of committed warming that would take place if the CO2 in the atmosphere remained constant (which remained more or less level) and two showing actual readings -- one from ground based meteorological instruments, and the other from satellite based instruments, both of which were taken since the original IPCC computer projections. Both the graph lines showing the actual readings revealed a drop in temperatures.

Clearly there is something going on that we don't completely understand, and that is enough to tell us that we had better learn more than we know right now before we do more harm than good.

Nan

When I was a child, this painting by George Seurat, Bathing at Asnières, fascinated me. It looked idyllic. But I wondered at the chimneys spewing dark smoke in the background. Seurat's painting is from 1883-84. It may serve as a reminder that humanity has been releasing industrial smoke and other noxious fumes into the atmosphere for a very long time. However, now we are doing it at an ever-increasing rate, and there are just more and more of us humans doing the polluting.

Frankly, I find it totally baffling that some people can say that we are not affecting the atmosphere, when the evidence that we are doing so is right before our eyes.

Ann

The thing is that the "evidence" isn't. There is circumstantial evidence, but there are plenty of other possible explanations for that as well. I prefer to weigh the evidence, rather than panic, and just because a number of scientists, many of whom have no credentials in climate science, and many of whom are looking at large financial grants to study the problem, say it is so doesn't mean it is. There are a lot of climate scientists who disagree -- they just aren't given as much publicity as the others, because disasters generate more excitement in the media. There's the old saying, "If it bleeds, it leads."

There are plenty of experts with opposing views and a lot of evidence that AGW is at best a misreading of evidence, and at worst a hoax for people with incentives of financial and/or political gain. (Just take a look at Al Gore, for instance. He's become a multi-millionaire because of his crusade, and he doesn't even try to follow the tenets that he lays down for the rest of us.)

With the temperature of the Earth currently dropping, there is enough doubt in my mind that I'm not ready to surrender my freedom to a bunch of bureaucrats in the name of combating Global Warming.

In any case, this argument is fruitless. No one is going to be convinced, and what finally happens some years down the line will tell us who was right. I don't believe we are in any immediate danger from the greenhouse effect, and I suspect that, with more evidence coming out daily, we will soon know for sure, and then we can take action -- if any is really needed.

Nan

PS: By the way, the solar trend continues. There are no sunspots on the sun today.

Do you seriously call it "circumstantial evidence" that we are affecting the atmosphere when we know that millions of man-made contraptions are releasing smoke inte the atmosphere every day? And when we know, to boot, that there are just more and more cars, more and more factories, and very many airplanes releasing various gases into the atmosphere every day?

Is that circumstantial evidence?

Nan, I can't believe that you are saying that. Or at least, I can't believe that you truly think that all this smoke and gas that man-made things release simply disappear from the atmosphere without a trace. And to be very, very frank, I can't take you seriously if you really tell me that you believe that.

As for global warming, I don't know enough about it to say anything definite about it one way or another, although, yes, I believe that humanity and the way we are affecting the atmosphere has something to do with the general increase in temperature that we have seen worldwide for the last decades. I believe it, but I don't know it.

I know, however, that humanity is affecting the Earth's atmosphere. That isn't hard to know. We can discuss how much we are affecting it. However, we don't know how much we can affect it before we create a runaway effect.

Saying that we aren't affecting the Earth's atmosphere is like being caught on camera stealing things in a store and denying that you have stolen anything at all when the police confront you with the evidence. And saying that it doesn't matter that we release things into the atmosphere because our contribution is so small anyway is like saying that shoplifting shouldn't be regarded as a crime at all, since the value of what the shoplifters usually steal is so ridiculously low compared with the net worth of what those stores often make anyway.

Ann

The Earth's natural systems deal with huge amounts of CO2 dumped into the atmosphere by natural sources every day. It can certainly handle the relatively tiny amount that humanity contributes--and although it may seem huge to us, to the systems that nature brings to bear it is tiny. A single eruption by Pinatubo blew more CO2 into the atmosphere than humanity has contributed since the beginning of the Industrial Revolution. Ditto for Mt. St Helens, back in the '80s. Do you know what happened to the global average temperature following those eruptions? The sunsets got more spectacular and the average global temperature dropped for two or three years afterwards. Nature handled it. Do you really believe that CO2 produced by Man is somehow fundamentally different from the CO2 spewed out by volcanoes, in such a manner than Mother Nature somehow can't deal with it? I promise you, the chemical composition is identical.

Humanity's CO2 contribution is minuscule compared to natural sources. If you want to look at a greenhouse gas that actually does increase temperature, look at water vapor -- there's tons of it in the atmosphere, and it does cause the atmosphere to warm. But you can't get rid of water vapor -- we'd die without it -- just as we'd die without CO2. Without CO2 the plants die and we need plants to produce more 02, which we breathe. It's a closed system, and all the parts are necessary for it to work. That's one of the things that worries me about the drive to scavenge CO2 from the atmosphere. If we jump into this, not knowing what we are doing, we could conceivably cause a lot of damage.

The jury is still out. I don't care what a bunch of scientists with big government research grants dangling in front of them say. If you can accuse the scientists who disagree of financial incentive, I can do the same to those who say that AGW is real. They aren't above financial influence either.

The truth is, all the facts aren't in yet. There have been periods in the past where the CO2 level was high and the temperature was much lower than today. Similarly, there have been periods where the temperature was high and the CO2 level was low. We need to figure out what is really going on before we jump in with both feet and discover too late that we've screwed up and have caused more trouble than we started with.

Nan

It sounds to me as if you are saying cold periods on the Earth have sometimes been accompanied by, or even caused by, a rise in the CO2 level in the atmosphere, and that, similarly, a drop in the CO2 level has sometimes led to warmer weather. I must confess that I know nothing about that. So would you mind telling me where you found these facts?

What I know for sure is that the Earth only has trace elements of CO2 in its atmosphere. This is in sharp contrast to Mars and Venus, whose atmospheres are completely dominated by CO2. The atmosphere of Venus is very thick, and the one on Mars is very thin, but both are completely dominated by CO2. The fact that the Earth's atmosphere is so different must be significant.

It is certain that the Earth has not always had the kind of atmosphere it has now, though. For example, it took a long time until there was a significant amount of oxygen in the atmosphere. Arnost Rusek, my colleague, insists that the first significant amount of free oxygen in the atmosphere was made by the first photosynthesizing organisms. Arnost, a teacher of natural sciences, says that these first oxygen-making organisms were different from today's green plants, and he also says that they all became extinct because they couldn't deal with the waste product, the oxygen, that they had made themselves! Arnost claims that these oxygen-makers were fine for a long time as the oxygen level in the atmosphere rose. But then the oxygen reached a critical level, and all these pioneer photosynthesizers just died.

(Please note that these oxygen-makers changed the Earth's atmosphere by releasing a lot of their own major waste product, oxygen, into the air. Could humanity similarly be on its way to poisoning itself with its own major waste products, CO2, soot, methane, sulphur dioxide, nitrogen dioxide and other chemicals?)

As for the CO2, there can't really have been less of it, proportionally speaking, in the Earth's early atmosphere than there was and is in the atmospheres of Mars and Venus. Arnost says that the terrestrial CO2 reacted with all kinds of minerals and became part of the Earth's crust rather than becoming a significant constituent of its atmosphere. And this happened early in the Earth's history, according to Arnost.

The temperature of the Earth has certainly gone up and down, and there have been many ice ages. There are a number of possible reasons for these forbiddingly long cold snaps: the Sun may be a variable star with regular periods of long severe inactivity, leading to millennia of freezing on the Earth. Alternatively, the Earth itself may have some sort of periodicity that we don't understand, perhaps related to plate tectonics and volcanism. Also, the Sun-Earth system may be variable when it comes to the shape and size of the Earth's orbit around the Sun or the inclination of the Earth's axis in relation to the Sun.

I once read an article in Scientific American, which claimed that the Earth had been completely covered by ice during the coldest of the ice ages. This was the so called 'Snowball Earth'. The snowball melted when a large number of volcanoes erupted, releasing a significant amount of CO2 into the atmosphere and creating an increased greenhouse effect, raising the temperature and melting the ice.

Anyway, Nan. Please note that you contradict yourself when you make these two contrasting claims:

Here you say that humanity's contribution of CO2 to the atmosphere is insignificant, and therefore, by implication, it is not harmful.

...and yet later you say that if we make an effort to dump less CO2 into the atmosphere, then we could conceivably cause a lot of damage. You realize, of course, that we could only lower our man-made (and according to you, insignificant) production of CO2, whereas we are completely helpless to do anything about the CO2 that is released by natural processes such as volcanoes.

By the way, it wasn't the CO2 from Mount St Helen that caused the spectacular sunsets and the drop in global temperature. It was instead the soot from the eruption that led to those effects.

I find it amazing that you are so averse to the idea of trying to fight man-made pollution here on Earth, Nan. Surely the fact that the Earth is inevitably going to do some polluting of its own doesn't make it okay for us to be so careless with the only world within at least four light-years that humanity could possibly survive on?

Ann

Several years ago, I watched a news report of a meeting between Arab and Israeli leaders who each made statements to each other (and to the news media) which were not direct responses to the statement or statements just made by the other party. One of the news commentators called it a "dialogue of the deaf." And that's what this thread looks like to me.

Ann, I have not read anyone in this thread who has said that reducing pollution is a bad idea. Yet that's what you seem to read when someone writes that reversing global warming and reducing CO2 in the atmosphere isn't necessarily required for humanity's long-term survival. CO2 isn't a pollutant in our atmosphere, it's a necessary component. The atmospheres of Venus and Mars aren't like that of Earth, and probably never were, due to differences in water levels and distance from the sun and lesser gravity and different amounts of heavy minerals and so forth. Comparing them to Earth isn't valid and simply clouds the discussion.

This page is a brief index of sites which claim to refute the central claims of the dangers of global warming. The authors of the various texts claim to be qualified to speak on the subject, so we probably should at least read what they have to say.

And while I haven't done so, any of us could find a similar site which lists various articles from equally qualified people taking the opposite viewpoint.

I wonder what people would have said in the 1850's had such a furor been made of the warming trend which began then and has continued until this day. Or the cooling trend which began in earnest around 1270 AD and froze out the Viking settlements in Greenland and destroyed the vineyards of southern England. Or 1816, the "year without a summer," when New England farms froze under June blizzards and food crops failed throughout Europe due to the 1815 eruption of the Indonesian volcano Tamboro.

Earth's weather is changeable. Earth's climate is also changeable. Temperatures have fluctuated for thousands of years, but this is the first time humans have been specifically blamed for it. I do not deny that humanity has had an impact on our weather, but I remain skeptical that we are dooming ourselves.

How many of you remember the famous "hockey stick" temperature graph in the 2001 report from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change? Here's just one site which pronounces it dead. Of course, there are others which support the hockey stick conclusions, but the graph's absence from the same organization's most recent report on global warming (which still supports the human-induced warming position) makes me doubt its validity. Yet there are many in the media who still refer to this graph and present it as fact.

Is the earth getting warmer? It has been, but not for the past few years. Is the climate changing? Could be. For example, the southeastern US has been in the grip of a pronounced drought for several years. The central US (Texas, Oklahoma, and Kansas) had a similar drought broken in 2007 with record rainfall, and central Oklahoma has just completed the wettest August on record. The water tables in all three states, which were way below normal at the end of 2006, are at or above optimum levels now.

But these data points by themselves aren't evidence of anything except recent plenteous rainfall. They're anecdotes. Pictures of smoke or exhaust or even pollution aren't evidence, either, unless you're building a case for the violation of some local pollution ordinance. There is no consensus among scientists over the cause, effect, speed, or result of higher temperatures. Who knows, maybe the temperature will rise enough to enlarge the sub-tropical croplands around the world and enable us to feed the hungry. Maybe the warmer temperatures will stimulate the growth of food algae in the ocean and enable the sea-dwelling animals to flourish all up and down the food chain. And maybe we'll all die gasping for oxygen.

My point is that we don't know. And the counter-measures which have been proposed either won't solve the "problem" because they aren't effective enough or they won't help because they would bankrupt every country in the world. And I know that no one will change his or her mind as a result of reading this post - or even as a result of reading this entire thread. I only hope we can keep the discussion civil and reasonable.

I am quite aware that it was the soot from the eruptions that caused the brilliant sunsets, but regardless of that, the volcanoes pumped out a lot of CO2, which caused no global warming at all. And I am not contradicting myself in my concern about what may happen if we jump the gun and start trying to remove the CO2 from the atmosphere. A lot of the damage to which I am referring is the economic damage, and by extension the damage to the Earth that will ensue. In the Third World nations, the environmental damage is far more severe than in any of the free countries that exist. The Soviet Union and China, for instance, have the most poisoned environments that you can imagine. If we clamp the controls on the free countries that it will take to enforce the extreme reductions in CO2 that are planned, my country, and other free countries can expect similar problems because of the damage to the economies that will follow. You can't take good care of the environment without money. You can't afford it. So that, right there, refutes your contention that I am against fighting pollution, Ann. I am actually worried that pollution will increase if the measures that have been proposed are actually put into effect -- along with the destruction of my country's economy.

I repeat, Man's contribution of CO2 to the atmosphere is insignificant. But the attempts to remove it can cause incredible damage, and I don't want to see that happen.

Now, I am well aware that this post isn't going to convince you, so I am not going to visit this thread again. I've stated my position and I don't feel the need to rehash it.

Nan

A clean environment is a good thing. Okay? Let's make that clear. I'm pretty sure everyone on this thread agrees to that.

However, since one can't have everything, that good has to be balanced against other good things.

I think, though, that it's a luxury good. When people have to worry about starving to death, they don't give a flying flip about pollution. If the only way to heat my house in winter also pollutes the atmosphere, well, I'm not going to volunteer to freeze just to get marginally cleaner air. However, I'll gladly switch *if* something better comes along -- nuclear power, perhaps. But those are incredibly expensive to build -- you have to get to the point where there's enough money available to do it. Richer countries are cleaner countries -- Europe & the US are much cleaner than China, for example.

The reason oil is so pervasive as an energy source is that it's one of the cheapest and easiest things available. Other sources of power may be feasible later, but right now, they are simply more expensive, and large parts of the world can't afford them. Forcing everyone to switch "within ten years" sucks money right out of, well, the whole economy.

So, given that, I have to wonder... does it really make sense to force economic changes that bankrupt everyone on the planet?

Especially given that the long term consequences of any course of action are *not* currently known and may not be knowable at all.

For instance, ethanol. It's less efficient than gasoline, but it's better for the environment, so we use it. The corn to produce it, though, is diverted from other uses -- like feeding the hungry. I think we all saw that last year; there were riots over higher food prices. Nobody in Congress set out to starve people, of course, yet that's what their actions led to.

So let me make a final point about CO2. And let me make it from an astronomical point of view.

Please look at this graph:



This graph shows how stars of different masses will evolve over time when it comes to luminosity and temperature. Please note that luminosity has to do with total energy output. The more luminous a star is, the more energy it releases.

The graph shows the evolutionary tracks of stars of different masses. The lowest track shows the evolution of a star like the Sun.

The solid diagonal line represent the zero age main sequence. The zero age main sequence is when the hydrogen in the core of the very young star has become compressed and hot enough to spontaneously start hydrogen fusion. To put it simpler, that is when the star gets access to its internal fuel and gets its stellar engine going.

The slashed diagonal line represents what happens when the star has used up the hydrogen in its core. At this point, the star has no more hydrogen fuel in its "core tank". After that, the star's luminosity and temperature will evolve dramatically, as you can see from the evolutionary tracks to the right of the dashed diagonal line.

I want you to note three things about the evolution of the Sun. First, of course, that the Sun is going to grow dramatically brighter when it has used up the hydrogen in its core. It is going to swell to a red giant, and it might possibly grow large enough to engulf the Earth. As you can understand, life on Earth will not be able to survive that.

The second thing I want you to note is that the main sequence - the distance between the solid and the dashed diagonal lines - seems so incredibly short for a star like the Sun. That, however, is not true at all. The Sun is going to spend about 90% of its lifetime on the main sequence and only about 10% as a red giant. In other words, it is going to remain more or less the way it is now for hundreds of millions of years, maybe for a few billion more
years.

Note that I said more or less the same.

Look at the graph again. You can see that the Sun's is going to be brighter when it leaves the main sequence than it was when it first entered it.

In short, the Sun is going to grow slowly but steadily brighter during 90% of its lifetime. It has grown slowly and steadily brighter while humanity wasn't around, and it will grow slowly and steadily even brighter from this point onwards.

I'm not saying that the Sun may not have periods of lower activity, the way it seemingly does right now, when it has no sunspots at all. But the overall trend is toward a higher luminosity and a greater energy output. Consider this graph, which, I must point out, has nothing to do with the Sun at all:



In this graph there are short-term peaks and dips, as well as longer-term hills and depressions. The overall trend, however, is that this graph is pointing upwards. And so it is with the Sun. We know that the Sun is mildly variable and cyclical, but there is an overall trend of an ever-increasing energy output.

This is an image of a famous young cluster, the Pleiades:



All the stars in this cluster were born together about a hundred million years ago. Compare that with the age of the Sun, which is 4.5 billion years. The Sun is 45 times older than the Pleiades.

Astronomers have found many stars which resemble our own Sun in the Pleiades. They look like faint dots in the picture above, insignificant compared with the short-lived bright blue giants which dominate the cluster.

The stars which resemble the Sun can be easily identified by their "spectral lines" (I won't even try to explain that here), which show that their temperature is the same as the Sun's. However, given the distance to the Pleiades, 400 lightyears, astronomers can see that the sunlike stars in the Pleiades are 20-30% fainter than the Sun.

The Sun is 45 times older than the Pleiades. The sunlike stars in the Pleaides are 20-30% fainter than the Sun. But it is probable that the Sun was about as bright, or faint, as its counterparts in the Pleiades when the Sun itself was only a hundred million years old.

The Sun is growing brighter. Slowly but inexorably.

Now maybe you are saying that if the Sun had been that faint in its youth, then the Earth would have been frozen solid and there could have been no life on Earth for a very long time. But in fact, biologists and geologists claim to have found evidence for microbial life on Earth three billion years ago.

The reason for that appears to be that the Earth itself was hotter in its youth than it is today. Back then it had more internal heat and more heat-generating radioactive elements than it does today. The low energy levels from the young Sun were made up for by the heat leaking out of the young Earth's red-hot core. In those days the Earth needed as much internal heat and atmospheric insulation as it could get. Today the situation is different.

Imagine that you lived not too far from a big fire, which for some reason couldn't be put out (and you wouldn't want it to be put it out) and also it couldn't be really contained. It was bound to spread, slowly but inexorably. And for whatever reason, you couldn't move farther away from it.

Would you tell your kids that it was okay to play with gasoline around your house?

Would you tell your neighbours that it was okay to release flammable gases into the air close to your house?

Would you tell them it was okay to release flammable gases into the air close to the fire?

The Sun is like that fire that can't be put out and can't be contained. The CO2 that humanity releases into the atmosphere is like the flammable gases that those people released close to the fire close to their house.

I agree that there is no simple solution to the problems of global pollution, global deforestation, increasing global drought, increasingly severe hurricanes, and the ever-increasingly rapid extinction of huge numbers of plant and animal species.

You can take three approaches to this situation. You can say that there is no real problem, of if there is, it is too costly to do anything about it. Therefore we must go on releasing flammable gases into the air close to a fire just like before.

Or you can say that those who talk about the problem are the real problem, and people like Al Gore should be jettisoned into the Sun.

Or you can decide that you are going to get together and pool your resources and do whatever you can to deal with the problem.

As you can imagine, I'm for the idea of getting together and trying to do something real and serious about the problem.

There is only so much we are going to be able to do. We can't stop the Sun from getting inexorably brighter.

But we can buy ourselves and other lifeforms on this Earth some time.

Ann

Here's my issue with that statement; the "powers that be" are trying not to allow me that decision. They're trying to FORCE this plan on me. That is, rather than trust me to use MY resources(that is the money I earn with my time spent working), there are folks who have decided that they know better than I do how to spend MY MONEY.

One thing about all this "pooling your resources" is that SOMEBODY always wants to be in charge, and all too often(per history on human nature) these guys want a cut for all their hard work of "being in charge" and then they end up doing whatever the hell they want with this luxury while the those of us forced to "contribute" to these "projects" are expected to keep contributing.

You have these folks with all these "good intentions" that get together and say what we should do, but what they never really disclose is that they are going to be in charge of how they go about accomplishing these goals and how they are going to take my hard earned time and cash toward these "good intentions".

mr algore, with his $30,000 a month electricity bill mansion, and his private jet to concerts and speeches, and his airconditioned houseboat has already proven his pretentiousness to me. There is no way, with a hypocrite like HIM leading the pack, I will EVER agree to freely give to anything he proposes and I will fight tooth and nail to avoid giving to anything he proposes.

As far as buying us time on earth, tomorrow is NEVER guaranteed. We could be hit by a meteor any minute now and all that panic and hand-wringing about saving the planet(snort) will have been a complete waste of MY resources, regardless of whatever graphs and heavenly photos have been presented. I'd rather have the free choice, right now, to do what I want with the time and money I have, thanks anyway.

TEEEEEEJ

Wow, Ann. Beautiful pictures. Talk about your big picture view -- you must spend lots of time looking for those things.

"Coming together to do something" -- that sounds great, in a big picture sort of way, but, see, the details matter. A lot. Do *what* specifically? And can we talk about the options calmly and realistically, weighing the science and economic and social effects before taking action? Can we have an honest assessment of *all* the world's problems (AIDS, poverty, women's rights, etc), and decide where our money and efforts would do the most good? Without it being dominated and distorted by politics? So far, apparently not.

And it would help a bunch if the people screaming loudest about the crisis started living as if it was true. (I loved the climate conference in Bali, with hundreds of people from around the world travelling in their private jets... :rolleyes: I mean, c'mon!) If they're not practicing what they preach (and by "they" I don't mean "you"), if the leaders and activists don't act like they believe there's a problem, then it really looks like they're just trying to use this as a means of gaining political power and telling other people what to do. Or at least the satisfaction of feeling morally superior to those who don't fall in line.

PJ

Shouldn't we conclusively figure out if we're actually having global warming first before doing something about it? What if the last ten years are the trend and we're now in a cooling period, such as we were in the 60's and mid-70's when the left had their global cooling hysteria?

It seems silly to combat a problem that people don't agree even exists. What if in the name of fighting global warming, we precipitate a worsening of global cooling? That's no better for our planet than global warming. Granted I love cold weather.

To me, trying to solve a problem that hasn't been agreed upon is dangerous and may exacerbate the opposite problem since evidence of the last ten years points more to a cooling trend.

Ann, correct me if I'm wrong but are you proposing that we enact solutions to the problem of the sun potentially warming in the next few hundred million years (or up to five billion years since our sun is middle-aged) as it transitions from a yellow sun to a red star? Otherwise, I'm not sure why it's part of this discussion. To combat the sun and its enormous forces would require technology that simply doesn't exist. I propose that we wait a hundred million years or so until our science is up to the task.

Imagine that! The sun causes global warming!

As Terry says, nobody's arguing against a clean planet. I would encourage people to recycle, not drive as much as they can (you should be rooting for $4/gallon gas or 13 kronor/liter gas in Sweden and higher), and do their part. But to impose "solutions" such as Kyoto, which would only serve to bankrupt the United States, is simply too draconian. There's a reason our Senate voted against it 99-0.

P.S. 13 kronor/liter in Swedish crowns is about $8.50/gallon, which is what I saw it for when I was there two weeks ago.

I'm sorry, but I can't help but laugh at this thread.

People have an opinion on either one side or the other, and seem to be able to try and preach about their side until they are blue in the face. It's funny.

But it comes down to the individual and what they feel they have to do, or not do, about it in the end.

You can walk to work/school, never catch a plane again, plant 100 trees, recycle, compost and "reduce your carbon footprint"... you do it for you... not because the end of the world is nigh, or some politician tells you to. You do it because you feel you want to make a difference to yourself.

Some of the emerging countries are big polluters... they are really only coming to the front with their industrial economy now... not unlike other countries did in the 40's, 50's and 60's... probably with as much (and possibly more) pollution back then. And trust me.. when the wind blows a certain direction, Hong Kong gets smothered in the pollutant smog from Shenzen in China... soooo.... I see it pretty regularly (but it's not contributing to global warming yet... just Hong Kong warming ).

However, if you believe humans are the reason for global warming, then you shouldn't be pointing the finger at countries who are polluting at the moment. Perhaps you need to look back at what occurred 40 years ago... global warming is a gradual process.

The earth has been cycling through global warming and ice ages for a long time. I wish I had brought some of my climatology
books with me.. they do make for interesting reading... and as to 'how do they know what historic climate was like'... arctic and antarctic ice core samples are full of an invaluable wealth of historical climatological information. The earth leaves little signs everywhere to let you know what's happened to it... but I digress.. sorry... that's the geographer in me.

The debate of climate change is not dis-similar to the evolution vs creation stuff... people get so passionate...

Believe what you want to believe, listen (or don't listen) to what you want to. That's the beauty of the world we live in today. There is a freedom for choice, opinion and voice.

That's the way it should be.

It's just that when some people are convinced it's a crisis, they think they have the moral right to coerce the rest of us... for our own good, of course :rolleyes:

Didn't NZ get hit with lots of fines under Kyoto? No disrespect to New Zealand but they've surely never been a major source of pollution...

PJ

Last night I noticed that Roger had posted to this thread, so I checked it out to see what he had to say.

Uh, Ann -- are you actually serious? Now, I admit that my astronomy knowledge may be a little out of date. I took a basic astronomy course at Solano Community College in the 80s, but I can't believe that the information was that far off.

When I studied astronomy, the estimate was that the Sun is about 8 billion years old, and that it is about half way through its lifespan. Even if that has changed somewhat, the changes in the Sun that you are talking about won't become significant for millions of years, at least, and maybe not for a few billion. How in Heaven's name is something that we do or don't do *now* going to make any difference at all?

Taking drastic, panicky steps now, over AGW, which we aren't even sure is happening and which we aren't even sure how to tackle without making things a lot worse, seems a bit premature, don't you think?

Nan

PS: And now I really *am* through, because I think everything has pretty much been said. May I add that making wild accusations about people objecting to keeping the planet clean, when you know very well that isn't what was being said, is bound to cause some anger. While I trust that I am adult enough not to take such accusations personally, I must admit to a tiny bit of annoyance at the way you twisted what I said just to make a point. I am not a professional debater, and I may not always phrase things correctly, but I think you knew very well what I meant.

Well, since I have been interested in astronomy since the early seventies, I know that an absolutely huge body of astronomical knowledge has been added since the eighties. Today the consensus is that the Sun is 4.5 billion years old. Exactly how far it has to go before it becomes a red giant is less certain - or more exactly, astronomers are less sure of it - but the general consensus is that we are certainly talking much, much longer than humanity can realistically expect to survive. In short, we don't have to worry about what happens when the Sun becoms a red giant, because we won't be around by that time. Or rather, if we have actually managed to survive that long, chances are that we have learnt to live sensibly in a way that uses up a minimum of resources. Not only that, but if we have survived that long, we will probably know how to look for and move to another planet where we can survive.

Anyway, most astronomers still believe that the Sun is about mid-way through its main sequence existence. But even if the Sun won't actually turn into a red giant for a very long time, it will still get brighter and more energetic long before it takes that final plunge into red gianthood.

This is what Wikipedia says about the coming brightening of the Sun, although other sources claim that a solar brightening has been going on since the Sun was born:

The brightening of the Sun

This is what Wikipedia says about the Sun in general. You may note what it says about the Sun's age:

My point is that since we orbit a life-giving star which, however, is bound to get ever more uncomfortably bright, we shouldn't add greenhouse gases to our atmosphere. It's a bad idea to buy extra heaters for your house if you know that a heat wave is coming. Particularly if you don't know how to turn those heaters off.

Exactly. We have to pay a lot of tax for our gas, and the government uses that tax money to, among other things, pay for a lot of public transportation. I'm fine with that. But I'm not trying to tell other countries what to do, and I'm certainly not trying to tell other people how much money they should have to pay for gas in their own countries. Bottom line, that's none of my business. More precisely, it's not up to me to decide. And precisely because I am one of the many Swedes who use public transportation and get by without a car, I don't feel qualified to discuss what the price of gas should be.

Also, for the record, even though I don't have a car I'm no Ms. Goody Two Shoes when it comes to being environment friendly. I waste and live frivolously like most people do. I don't have the right to tell others how they should live. All I'm saying that every last one of us is dependent on the Earth for our survival, and what we do to the Earth has consequences, and I hope that everyone will be interested in the question of how we treat our world.

Ann

Just some interesting information on global temperatures.

UAH Globally Averaged Satellite-Based Temperature of the Lower Atmosphere (Jan 1070 - June 2008)

Scroll down to Global Temperature Trends

Roy W. Spencer: Global Warming and Nature\'s Thermostat

quote: "Didn't NZ get hit with lots of fines under Kyoto? No disrespect to New Zealand but they've surely never been a major source of pollution..."

Yeah... it's all the methane our agriculture releases into the atmosphere.. did you know there are 22 sheep to each person in New Zealand? and I'm sure I have a few cows as well. (and yes... I can laugh about the fact people like to tease New Zealand about it's sheep count).

Seriously though, I thought I would look up what the idiots in government in New Zealand have been up to (since I am only there once or twice a year), and what-do-you-know... they've generated a potential 4.2 billion deficit (or $1000 per New Zealander) by committing to the Kyoto Protocol.
The irony is, New Zealand is a green nation, and I'm not just talking about all those lush green paddocks of grass.
The main power sources in New Zealand are hydrothermal (water). The country has a strong emphasis on forestry and protecting the natural environment, mountains, forests & waters (which in turn helps scoop a great venue for movie locations). Recycling has been a concept I've been used to since I was in high school in the 80's. Because of the number of highly endangered species there (caused by the introduction of humans and mammals), environmental awareness has always played a major part of society in New Zealand. Asking for a styrofoam anything in New Zealand is like asking to have your armed chopped off... biiiig nono. And did I mention New Zealand has a no nuclear policy, which has meant US naval ships haven't been allowed into NZ waters since around 1985 because they don't disclose the nuclear nature of their vessels. New Zealand was also the first country to give women the right to vote (not that that's relevant to the global warming issue... but I figured a bit of trivia to show the openness of the country was worthwhile).
The hole in the ozone layer fluctuations over Antarctica have been of extreme interest to New Zealand for some years now as not only can it effect agriculture, but also cause health issues (such as increased rates of melanoma).

So to me, it seems silly that the government of the day would be willing to sign a protocol without knowing (because who can actually know the costs) what impact it will have or even researching the ramifications to the New Zealand environment (let alone the economy).
It just shows you now much politicians base their judgement on facts *yeah right*.

I've not been reading the thread - sorry . Basically, because I know what my opinion is and I don't have that much interest in debating it.

But I thought this was an interesting sidebar when I heard it on the news today.

The activists claimed that although their actions were technically unlawful - criminal damage - that climate change is even more criminally damaging to the country and so their actions were justified for the greater good. Apparently, the jury agreed with them:

Source: BBC News Website

LabRat

Yes, I heard about that. Surely you don't see this as a good thing??

"Well, sure, it was criminal, but, see, we're really really sure that there's this crisis, see, and so we think destroying other people's property is, y'know, okay."

Sorry, when "criminal damage" is okay against one unpopular industry, it's only a matter of time until it's okay against others. And the definition of "unpopular" changes over time. This is a horrible precedent.

PJ

Greenpeace is an 'interesting' organisation.

I can not say I agree with their motives, or actions. They do some downright dangerous intervention methods. They don't mind endangering other peoples lives for the sake of their cause. Case in point is the metal stakes they put in trees. If a chainsaw hits one of these, there is a good chance the lumberjack (who is only an employee of a company) will end up maimed or dead.

Now I know they were the target of terrorism (I was there when it happened, I saw the boat, the damage, etc).. but ever since then they seem to have upped the ante to what they do in the name of 'environmental awareness'.

Their environmental terrorism could be compared to a small scale version of other militant terrorism organisations... and I have to wonder if they get away with this what they would stop at to get their point across 'in the name of peace'.

So now I'm wondering, if someone decided to bomb a college science lab because they use live rats for their experiments, then it's okay because the "greater good" is making sure live animals aren't used in experiments??? That's some twisted thinking on that jury.

I guess if we don't go along with the global warming religion, we'll just have to be bullied into it. I guess if they want to start hacking our bank accounts to support their agenda of "saving the earth" we should just accept it. I recall several SUV's on the left coast being damaged by a bunch of fanatics a year or so ago. But no, it's okay because they were doing it for the greater good of the planet :rolleyes:

TEEEEEJ

This is from today's USA Today (11-18-08):

Ann

this quote from TEEEJ was interesting:
They're trying to FORCE this plan on me. That is, rather than trust me to use MY resources(that is the money I earn with my time spent working), there are folks who have decided that they know better than I do how to spend MY MONEY.


Those same folks in the government decided it was a peachy keen idea to spend billions and billions of dollars on the Iraq war. I resented that waste of my resources too.

Ann said posted from USA Today about this October being the warmest recorded.

However, another article I just read said that:
The reason for the discrepancy?

Goddard Institute for Space Studies (GISS), one of four bodies responsible for monitoring global temperatures...used September's data.

(Source article)

Bethy

It could be that the USA Today article is wrong, Bethy.

But I must disagree with TEEEJ (and Joy Moony) here:

The resources we are ultimately talking about here is the Earth's resources. Really that is what it is about. Can we really use up the Earth's resources as we please and say that they are OUR resources?



Ann

I don't think we're disagreeing. Teej expressed that she didn't want her money wasted on something she disagrees with. I think that climate protection can't possibly be as expensive to the taxpayer as a war of choice (which I disagreed with). I thought that bringing the "MY $" argument into it was not a valid point.

Conservation of resources is one thing, but to impose large taxes and unfairly burden an economy to solve a non-existent problem is a bad thing.

In Oregon, the Democrats are poised to impose huge taxes on businesses here by implementing a system of trading emissions credits, all in the midst of a recession. They control all levers of government, just as they will shortly in Washington. While they say it's for fighting global warming, in reality they just want to take more money to spend since emissions aren't actually going to go down. They also want to impose considerable energy taxes on consumers. And since consumers are moving towards more efficient cars, the politicians want to mandate GPS units installed in every car so they can tax you by the mile instead of by the gallon because they'd lose revenue with more efficient cars. Where's the ACLU on this? They oppose listening in on terrorists but don't mind the government tracking everybody's car? It isn't about saving the planet. It's all about getting as much money out of us as the left can get. Follow the money.

And naturally, we also have one of the highest unemployment rates in the nation at 7.3%.

Yes, I also heard the Goddard data was badly flawed as they carried over temperatures from a previous, warmer month and assumed they would work for a colder month, which totally invalidates their conclusion. That's basically saying that the world is warmer in the summer than it is in the fall. Duh. I could have told them that without bothering to do a study. You wouldn't even have to pay $1.50 to get the paper.

Consider that temperatures have been dropping for ten years. We're actually in a period of global cooling. Does it make sense to fight global warming while the globe is cooling?

Interesting, I just found an article from the exact same USA Today paper dated September 9, 2008 that predicts the exact opposite.


Old Farmer\'s Almanac: Global Cooling May Be Underway

And more contradictory evidence for this year:


Temperature Monitors Report Widescale Global Cooling


Four Scientists: Global Warming Out, Global Cooling In


Global Cooling Gains Momentum Among Scientists


Global Cooling is Here

Another story about how the NASA data was seriously flawed:


Deja Vu All Over Again: Blogger Again Finds Error in NASA Climate Data

While this isn't about global warming, it is about treating the Earth's resources as if it was OUR resources (from USA Today, 11-19-08):

Ann

Here's another article against the prevailing global warming theories:


Global Warming Predictions are Overestimated, Suggests Study of Black Carbon

Here's the most salient point:

No one denies the climate is changing. That's like saying water is wet. The climate has always changed and will always change. The left wants us all to believe that humans are the main cause of it all and that the trend points in only one direction: warming. Of course 30 years ago these same people were warning about cities being overrun by glaciers because of global cooling. Except then it stopped cooling. Now that we're cooling again, when are we going to get all the hysteria about global cooling again?

That's the fundamental problem skeptics have. There's no proof that humans are to blame, seeing as even the left uses the sun and other factors as a caveat. Hey, it would be warming except for the sun getting in the way there. Of course we'd be an airless frozen ball of rock without the sun. But humans are more powerful somehow according to Al Gore and his disciples. Nature has always been more powerful than anything we puny humans can do short of a nuclear holocaust, and we don't even have a consensus on what that would do.

Scientists can't even agree on what direction the temperatures are taking. Is the world getting warmer or getting colder? When you can't even agree that the world is getting warmer, how in the world can we institute plans to stop whatever it is that we can't even agree is happening? As Kat's video clearly points out, don't we need actual warming to say there's global warming?

You know, I'm almost astounded that no one on this site has commented on the ongoing climate change data dumping story.

The Times of London has this on the story.

I think it's a huge deal. Being a computer programmer, I know how data can be manipulated and massaged and made to point to one conclusion or another. I'm disappointed that the scientists involved have destroyed the raw data from which they drew their conclusions.

I know, all of the raw data is still available, but not in one place. And but without knowing exactly what data the UEA was working with (which data points were used, which were discarded, which were "corrected"), there's no way to test their conclusions independently. One of the determining factors of a scientific conclusion is that the results are reproducible by others using the same beginning data and same processes. That's why the huge furor in the mid-80's over two chemists "discovering" table-top cold fusion blew over so quickly - no one could reproduce their results, and therefore their claim was determined to be unfounded.

This is a big deal to me. One person who commented on this story wrote:

Interesting analogy.

There's no doubt that the climate is changing. There's no doubt that the climate has changed before and will change again. But there are huge doubts that we humans are primarily responsible for this change. There are also huge doubts that anything we do will slow down or even reverse the change.

And even if we do affect the climate change, there are immense doubts that it would be a good thing. If we don't have a consensus on whether or not humans are causing climate change, we for doggone sure don't have any firm grasp on what might happen if we're successful at making an impact on that change.

Let's assume that humans can reverse a global warming trend. Let's further assume that we cool the planet down a bit. Now let's assume that we can't stop that cooling trend - one which we, the humans, have initiated - and the Earth enters a new period of ice ages. Don't mock. If we can reverse global warming, it's entirely possible that we won't be able to stop it on command.

Will we then warm the Earth up again? Will we just hunker down and accept an ice-locked Atlantic US east coast ten months out of the year? What about the farmers across the temperate zone who feed the entire world? What about the tropical zone ecosystems? Wouldn't they freeze to death? Would sales of fur coats in Hawaii skyrocket?

I'm not a doomsayer. And I'm not saying that those who take a human-caused global climate change position are totally wrong. I'm just saying that without the base data, the conclusions drawn from this data can't be verified or shown to be erroneous. The conclusion that the Earth is warming and that it's humankind's fault can't be tested, and that isn't science, it's speculative assertion.

The best way to find out the result of a research survey is to look whose funding it. Follow the money and you don't even need to read the survey to know the conclusion it'll draw.

With the base data all but gone it'll be difficult to find out whether the yeahsayers or the naysayers are correct, although one of those two positions would sure be a hell lotta more profitable and convenient than the other.

It's a scandal of the first order with billions of dollars at stake. Scientists who are advocating the existence of global warming have been caught destroying data and performing all sorts of illegal and unethical practices in order to push their ideology. Those illegal acts include the destruction of emails that would avoid the Freedom of Information Act plus the attempt to blacklist scientific publications that didn't agree with their ideology. Obama's chief advisor on global warming is one of the perpetrators of this fraud on the scientific community and is directly implicated in the email destruction scandal.

The most significant data that was erased was that of the history of tree rings, which supported warming all the way up to around 1960. Then this data stopped supporting any sort of warming. The inconvenient tree ring data was then erased and replaced with surface temperature data that directly contradicted the tree rings. That data is potentially unreliable depending on where these sensors are placed. Some were placed in high population density areas where temperatures are higher than in the surrounding areas. Regardless of whether that data is accurate or not, even a non-scientific person can see the fraud here. You can't report a trend using one set of data and then prove the trend is continuing by swapping in data from another source.

That's just a small sample of the information that was uncovered by the hackers.

It'll be interesting to see how this scandal plays out. It's lovely timing that it's occurring just as the Copenhagen talks are getting underway. First the US can't pass a cap and trade law. Then the Australians reject a similar program. Now the core scientists advocating man-made global warming have been caught perpetrating fraud.

The global warming "industry" -- researchers getting public grants and the politicians who support them (not to mention the businessmen *coughalgorecough* who are making a fortune in such bullcrap areas as 'carbon credits') -- may have started out in good faith but if so has totally been transformed over the years. Now it's all about money and power. Our money, their power.

Please note I'm not accusing everyone who's been alarmed about global warming, just the ones who've been cynically alarming them with skewed "science."

I've always said that it's foolish to destroy the global economy (the inevitable effect of cap'n'trade) (way to go, Aussies!) to try to mitigate some possible future harm. Now that we know how cooked the data have been, it's even less reasonable. We don't know what's going on, we don't understand all the processes and cycles and self-correcting mechanisms built into the ecosystem. Especially considering that those who study such things have been lying through their teeth about them.

Copenhagen will be a collossal joke.

Though it's not quite such delicious schadenfreude as having Mr. President travel there in order to see Chicago knocked out of Olympic contention in the first round. D'oh!

PJ

OT: Roger said, in a post from a year ago:

Ah, the good old days... how I miss them...

PJ