Global Warming

[Gerald Lively]

A person wrote to me about Global Warming; he said some scientist faked some data in an e-mail and therefore concluded that global warming is a fraud.

This makes me wonder why Global Warming deniers talk about everything but the climate.  Consider this:  global warming and air pollution are very nearly the same thing.  The control of either is the same.  But that comes with a cost.

There is no reason for the general public to deny a cleaning of the air we breathe,  so the right-wing looks elsewhere; industry. 

It is popular among the right-wing to talk anti-regulation, and in the face of mounting facts, an anti-intellectualism arises since that is easier to speak of than dealing with a complexity of facts.  That is the crux of the climate debate.  Do not let us talk about the polluted air, the melting polar ice-caps, the dying species or the canary that died in the mine shaft because we will all be dead by the time this reaches the crisis stage.

gerald









EDITED:  Thread moved to proper section: "Off-topic" - jbeany, Moderator

[Gerald Lively]

Oops! I Posted this in the wrong pew.  I must be getting old.  Now what?

[MooseMom]

Don't worry...I'm sure a mod will come along and move it.

Just seems to me that even if you deny that global warming is taking place, you should still be frugal with the planet's natural resources.  To want to conserve the earth that God made, including the creatures that He created, is the right thing to do.  I am assuming you are referring back to Rick Santorum's comments about radical environmentalism and how we are supposed to have dominion over the Earth?  I don't understand how God would not want us to preserve his Creation as best as we could.  Perhaps God has a reason to allow the extinction of some species, but that is His domain, and I don't believe for a moment that He approves of Man's degradation and destruction of Nature.

I don't consider myself a deeply religious person, but even I can see how God would not be best pleased.  I truly don't understand what Santorum is on about, but it feels greedy and blasphemous.

[cassandra]

Hi I do believe in climate change, but I don't believe that humans can do something about that. I do believe that it is about time that 'us humans' have to realise that our environment is a living thing which is 'our home'. And ones home needs to be healthy, so 'us humans' should try to keep/make it so. You may call me negative, but I doubt if regulation would work. Regulation for the amount of toxins, poisons etc hasn't stopped that from happening. Agreements about the amount of trees that are being chopped don't seem to be in accordance with reality. O O, I'm heading for a depression here.

[EfrainCase]

 To want to conserve the earth that God made.

[Rerun]

To want to conserve the earth that God made.

Okay, I don't want to be mean here but this is only your second post and it makes NO SENSE!  Go introduce yourself like you are suppose to!      AND Read the rules!

Rerun, Moderator   

[paul.karen]

There were emails that were proven to be fraudulent.  Made to look like certain people wanted them to look.

My point on alarmist global warming comes from history s little reading and my own thoughts.  It is all to easy to just agree with what others say also somewhat of a copout imo. 
If u read it does that make it true?

Let's revisit history just a little.  Ever hear of a little thing called the ice age?  Well that killed off many species of animals.  Ice a mile thick everywhere.
One question.  There were but a few thousand people and NO INDUSTRIES yet the ice melted over time true or false?   Ok got that out of the way Phewwwww. So that wasn't due to man right, the great thaw that is.
Ques what the earth is still thawing?   Just a thought.  Not good enough for you?
In school did u ever read of the mini ice age?  No ok it happened just a few hundred years ago.  Yup mother earth started to freeze up again during the renasaunce.  Cattle died crops failed hundreds of thousands off people died.  Hell it snowed in NYC in august.  Look up the year without a summer ny.  Then the earth decided to warm up again.
Not due to man it is the earth going through its cycle.

My point and mine alone.  I'm sure many will say that fool doesn't have a clue.  That's fine.  But half of u don't even know what causes the temp to come and go.  Where it what generates our climate. 

So the question to b answers is why did the ice from the ice age melt?  Was it nature or man made?

I do feel humans NOW are helping in changing the earth.  But in the grand scheme of things we are but a fraction minimal at best in changing the path of climate.

[jbeany]

They've stopped calling it simply global warming.  It's really global climate change, since not all areas are getting warming - and not all the effects involve heat.

Not that you can tell that where I'm at.  The fish are dying of heat stroke in the local lakes here in Michigan.

I don't think we're ever going to sort out how much of the change is man-made and how much is a natural cycle.  I don't think it matters.  We are changing our environment, and not in a good way.  We need to do what we can to slow down the damage.  If it is partly a natural change, then the increased speed that comes from human causes is going to make it that much harder to survive.

For those idiot politicians claiming we're having no effect and we can't change what effect we're having (typical political logic), I've got 3 little letters.  DDT.  With DDT - no eagles.  Without DDT - eagles.   We acknowledged the problem and moved to fix it.  Why is that so much harder to do these days?

[MooseMom]

It is true that in the Middle Ages, there was a devasting "mini ice age" in Europe that lasted at least three years.  I'd be very interested to know, though, if this was a world wide phenomenon.

The current climate change is affecting the entire planet.  I remember years ago hearing that the real effect of "global warming" would not necessarily be rising temps over the entire planet but, instead, would be more extremes in weather.  That is certainly come to pass!

The fact that NASA satellites have detected massive and RAPID surface ice melt in Greenland simply has to make you wonder if there isn't something to this global warming/climate change narrative.  I find this to be quite worrying.  I'm not sure what more evidence is needed to convince us that something bad is happening...

http://www.nasa.gov/topics/earth/features/greenland-melt.html

I don't understand why so many people are resistant to the possibility that human activity has a hand in this accelerating climate change.  Is it because corporate interests don't want to have to change how they operate?  Are we just too lazy and unimaginative to examine our own behaviour and come up with ways to live "cleaner" lives?  Or do we just not want to have to spend the money?

[SugarBear]

This is a huge and controversial topic so I have no clue why I am adding my two cents, but here I go. 

My first point would be whether or not we are having global warming and why has yet to be establish with 100% accuracy.  Many believe it is due to man's greedy use of resources and its lack of care for its surrounding.  While others believe it is due to the increase in solar flares over the last few decades.  Both theories have their supporters in the scientific community and both have data backing their positions.

Personally I believe it is a combination of the two, with solar flares being the major culprit.  I say this because weather has only been accurately record for the past few centuries.  Whether you believe in evolution, where hundreds of millions of years have past; or creationism where tens of thousand years have past.  To compare either time line with just a couple of centuries of data is like saying one drop of water is the same as all of the drops of water in the entire world.  There is not enough data available to say what is a normal weather pattern for the Earth.

[Gerald Lively]

The corn crop died.
The cattle are hungry.
A lot of ice in Greenland just melted.
My garden is drooping.
Same in the Antarctic.
It is raining like Hell in China.
Last Winter it didn't get cold enough to kill the insects off.
La Nina died.
El Nino is developing.
This Summer has been the hottest on record (US).
KY Jelly evaporates too fast.

What Global Warming?

[MooseMom]

This is a huge and controversial topic so I have no clue why I am adding my two cents, but here I go. 

Well, I'm really glad for your two cents!

You're right.  We have very little information about the grand scheme of the Earth's climate over the past million years!  But even if it is established that this pattern of such extreme climatic conditions seen all over the world has been even partially caused by man, I still think it makes sense to use our resources wisely and to take care of the planet for the sake of our children and their children.  We know a lot about the damage than can be caused by pollution and evironmental poisons, and to be fair, we have come a very long way since the 70's when we'd see rivers on fire in the US.  But we can't stop now, and we have to encourage developing nations to balance their growth with good stewardship of the environment.

The notion that we don't know for sure if man is causing climate change should spur us to be more CAREFUL, not more careless, precisely because we DON'T know for sure.  I think that's the basic philosophical difference we see between the believers and the skeptic.

Hm....I think that was about 3 cents!  LOL!

[Willis]

DDT.  With DDT - no eagles.  Without DDT - eagles.   We acknowledged the problem and moved to fix it.  Why is that so much harder to do these days?

The millions upon milllions who have died from tropical diseases like malaria since the DDT ban may not be so sympathetic toward the eagles. Simply changing the way DDT was used would have saved the birds and kept DDT cheaply available for those parts of the world that really need it. We Americans are sometimes so focused on the little things without considering the unintended consequences of our actions.

 

[Willis]

I don't understand why so many people are resistant to the possibility that human activity has a hand in this accelerating climate change.  Is it because corporate interests don't want to have to change how they operate?  Are we just too lazy and unimaginative to examine our own behaviour and come up with ways to live "cleaner" lives?  Or do we just not want to have to spend the money?

I love the outdoors and our wilderness areas and do think we should be good conservationists when possible. But I also think there's plenty of ways to exploit our own natural resources in a responsible way without resorting to outright bans and other delaying tactics. Unless someone lives in a cave they are using resources. It always seems people are in favor of limiting everyone ELSE'S choice of lifestyle except for their own. (That last was just a generic rant and not directed at you, MooseMom.  )

I'd also like to know concerning this "global client change" thing...what exactly is the correct temperature? And where should it be measured? How many people realize that thousands of climate stations in the U.S. that used to be in rural areas or in the middle of empty plots are now surround by buildings and asphalt in many cases. Also, during the 80s and 90s literally thousands of weather stations in the former USSR were abandoned--a large percentage of which were near the arctic circle. Does anyone suppose that a few degrees of extra urban warmth here and fewer cold-weather stations reporting there may have led to a statistical anomaly?

For anyone interested in the SCIENCE and the TRUTH here's a place to start http://wattsupwiththat.com/2011/05/11/the-long-awaited-surfacestations-paper/

 

[MooseMom]

I love the outdoors and our wilderness areas and do think we should be good conservationists when possible. But I also think there's plenty of ways to exploit our own natural resources in a responsible way without resorting to outright bans and other delaying tactics. Unless someone lives in a cave they are using resources. It always seems people are in favor of limiting everyone ELSE'S choice of lifestyle except for their own. (That last was just a generic rant and not directed at you, MooseMom.  )

I generally agree with this.  This limiting everyone else's choices is what makes it so difficult to encourage developing countries to safeguard the  environment.  It's hypocritical of the West to lecture China and India in this regard, but I'd still like them do what they can to limit pollution because eventually, it will affect us all.

And I agree that there are ways to use our natural resources in a responsible way, but too many people/corporations don't care about discovering these "more responsible ways".

[Bill Peckham]

The right temperature/climate is one that stays within historic norms.

I think the science is straight forward and supported by a broad consensus - as CO2 is added to the atmosphere the temperature will increase. And as the temperature increases, local climates, the climates we experience will change in ways outside of historic experience. Now what has been the change since the industrial age, the age of coal, began? I don't know, but I don't have to know to look at the numbers and see that there is going to be a problem.

Look at where China and India are going in terms of electricity through coal. The US is decreasing it's carbon output but any gains we see from switching to fracked natural gas will be dwarfed by carbon released by the 80% of the world's population that live outside the already developed nations.

I think we have to talk about purposely removing carbon from the atmosphere.

[Gerald Lively]

My house is in the wilderness.
Among the trees.
Then came the drought that lasted four years.
Then a lighning storm where we never have them.
The dry trees caught fire.
My house burnt down.
I said, "Aw heck!"
George W. Bush crashed the economy in Sept 2008.
Just as I was starting to rebuild.
I said, "Aw heck!"
It cost a ton of money to rebuild.
Insurance people are buttheads.
The financial market went boom.
I lost 40% of my equity.
All because of a drought.
With some help from GWB.
Global Warming?
I turned down the air conditioner.
It is real, Folks.

[Willis]

The right temperature/climate is one that stays within historic norms.

So which norm? That of the Medieval Warm Period (c. 950 to 1250) or the Little Ice Age (c. 1350-1850)? Or maybe let's go back even more (granted this chart goes back farther than "historic" times).

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paleoclimatology


 




 

[jbeany]

I'd also like to know concerning this "global client change" thing...what exactly is the correct temperature? And where should it be measured? How many people realize that thousands of climate stations in the U.S. that used to be in rural areas or in the middle of empty plots are now surround by buildings and asphalt in many cases. Also, during the 80s and 90s literally thousands of weather stations in the former USSR were abandoned--a large percentage of which were near the arctic circle. Does anyone suppose that a few degrees of extra urban warmth here and fewer cold-weather stations reporting there may have led to a statistical anomaly?

 

Our written records are not our only data source.  Ice cores, tree rings, etc can show us what historic temps and water levels were.

[Poppylicious]

I don't know enough about climate change to say anything, although I am inclined to agree with the idea that it's a natural phenomenon and man is simply speeding the process up (but only a tad, like seconds rather than months when it's all put into persepective of age of the world).  I live in an area of England called the Fens and much of it is below sea level, with the general consensus being that the area will eventually flood in many places as sea levels rise.  So I was doing a bit of reading (you know, I'd like to know how long before my town becomes a coastal one and I can let my spare room out as a B&B) and found this and thought I'd share it simply because the Timeline shows we have gone through the warming climate and melting glaciers malarkey before ...

http://www.greatfen.org.uk/about/history/fens

 

[paul.karen]

 Lmfao had to bring bush into it.
Agenda after agenda so simple.

Hell even OBOMA doesn't want to inherit the freakshow mess he made.

But back on track why did the iceage start melting?
And who said it has stopped.  Should be easy to answer since global alarmists have the answers for everyone,  dare disagree and we know what happens.

[SugarBear]

Some might find this theory by the guys from Freakonomics interesting.

Sulphur dioxide: the quick fix for global warming

A large chunk of Superfreakonomics is given over to what Levitt and Dubner present as a simple, cheap alternative to all this depressing futility. They profile Nathan Myhrvold, the former chief technology officer of Microsoft, whose company, Intellectual Ventures, is exploring the possibility of pumping large quantities of sulphur dioxide into the Earth's stratosphere through an 18-mile-long hose, held up by helium balloons, at an initial cost of around $20m. The chemical would reflect some of the sun's rays back into space, cooling the planet, exactly as happened following the massive 1991 eruption of Mount Pinatubo, in the Philippines. The primary objection to this plan, as with other "geoengineering" schemes, is that there's no predicting the unknown negative effects of meddling in such a complex natural system. And it's strange, given how much is made in both Freakonomics books of the law of unintended consequences, that they don't mention this in the context of Myhrvold's plan. Still, it's hard to object to the authors' argument that this kind of potential solution should have more profile, among politicians and in the media, than it currently does.

It certainly feels wrong to deal with pollution by polluting even more. But what, Levitt and Dubner would ask, is the hard, empirical basis for that feeling? Isn't it just more emotionalism, more wishful thinking? "When you read the actual scientists' reasoning for how this could work, and might need to work," says Dubner, "it's really hard not to come to the conclusion that it's idiotic to discount it. Not to say that it's a slam-dunk to do it, but idiotic to discount it entirely."

"It's just common sense," Levitt says, with the faint exasperation of a man who sees the world in the harsh light of data, and can't quite understand why everyone else does not. "Much of economics is just common sense. What's so surprising is that it is so rarely actually applied in daily life."

[Hober Mallow]

I love the outdoors and our wilderness areas and do think we should be good conservationists when possible. But I also think there's plenty of ways to exploit our own natural resources in a responsible way without resorting to outright bans and other delaying tactics. Unless someone lives in a cave they are using resources. It always seems people are in favor of limiting everyone ELSE'S choice of lifestyle except for their own.

We should always defer to freedom. My neighbor should be allowed to do whatever he wants -- so long as it doesn't hurt me. Destroying my environment does hurt me.

I'd also like to know concerning this "global client change" thing...what exactly is the correct temperature?

One which would allow the continuance of human life would be preferable. One which doesn't result in mass migrations from the coasts would be even better.

And where should it be measured? How many people realize that thousands of climate stations in the U.S. that used to be in rural areas or in the middle of empty plots are now surround by buildings and asphalt in many cases. Also, during the 80s and 90s literally thousands of weather stations in the former USSR were abandoned--a large percentage of which were near the arctic circle. Does anyone suppose that a few degrees of extra urban warmth here and fewer cold-weather stations reporting there may have led to a statistical anomaly?

Weather and climate aren't the same thing.

You're asking a question with an easily available answer if you'd read up on what climate scientists are saying.

[Rerun]

I really haven't heard anything about Sandy being the result of Global Warming.  I did hear the last time this happened was something like 1820.  No planes, trains or automobiles then.......

[Hober Mallow]

I really haven't heard anything about Sandy being the result of Global Warming.

There are tons of articles about climate change and Sandy, although it's kind of misleading to say one bit of weather is "caused" by climate change. Stormy weather happens all the time, but it's made worse by climate change.

No shilly shallying. No caveats. "There is 100 percent certainty that sea level rise made this worse," says sea level expert Ben Strauss. "Period."

http://www.motherjones.com/kevin-drum/2012/11/climate-change-didnt-cause-hurricane-sandy-it-sure-made-it-worse