Grim reports on climate change say act now or be ready for catastrophe

[honu]

Funny how so many people commenting here are intentionally oblivious to the obvious.  That last graph I posted shows stable global temperatures over the last 10,000 years, right?  But comments still make whatever claims to the contrary serve whatever desired belief, that it has already been warming, or cooling, or whatever else.

 

I get it that the subject is unfamiliar, and that different graphs of different time-frames seem to be showing completely different patterns.  They are.  The ones showing a cycle of fluctuation over 100,000 years indicate we are due for another ice age.  The problem is that adding carbon dioxide to the atmosphere has thrown off normal cycles; we're not on that cycle now. 

 

We can choose to believe people studying climate science and accept that the near-consensus interpretation of observed new patterns will hold, that the Earth is about to warm faster than we've ever experienced, and has been doing that for the last few decades at a rate that's accelerating.  Or else people can believe whatever else they want to believe, based on next to nothing.  Like Donald Trump people commenting here seem to put a lot of faith in their own intuition. 

 

Here's a graph showing a correlation between carbon dioxide and temperature; you can refer to conventional climate science perspective related to what to make of it or else read into it whatever you want:

 

 

[mogandave]

Looking at the graph, is the current temperature -10 C or am I reading it wrong?

[honu]

I think I took that to be some sort of long term global average, not as a temperature that it would be on average if everyone were to walk outside, but as an averaged global temperature range over some time-frame with 0 set as the middle.  That's just a guess.

 

One tends to see graphs of different time-frames explained in different ways depending on people trying to make one of two separate conclusions; the sky is falling, or there is no global warming.  It's my understanding that the sky really is falling this time.  That's not based on being liberally inclined, at least as I see it.  I started researching climate change related to doing an ethics paper more than a decade ago (I'm older than that implies; it's a long story).

 

Since saying what people don't want to hear at length is a personal interest I'll tell that story.  I wanted to find out if the "save the rain forest" types had any argument to make, or if it was just hippies being hippies.  As I kept researching the theme shifted; it turned out that the evidence for climate change was so compelling and so easy to follow that the ethical issue was with the current Bush administration censoring government coverage of it.  They had sanitized websites of any current status.  I didn't make a big deal of that in the paper; I wrote an off-topic summary of what I could piece together about climate change (called global warming back then).  That was just before Al Gore made a stink about it.

 

The situation is a good bit clearer now due to further study and working from more than a decade more data.  The models are still just projections but at least there are better models now.  Climate researchers are consistent in their assessment of what climate change is, why it is, and the general range of expectation.  When people say that some researchers think something else they're talking about people paid to have the opposite opinion, as occurred with the opposing view saying that lead wasn't poisoning people in the 20th century.  Of course it was.  And of course climate change will be a disaster for humanity within this century, quite likely the worst event in human history, making WW 2 look like a bar fight in comparison.

[mauGR1]

Quite ironically, the most vocal (and verbose) global warming alarmists, seem to be the biggest producers of WMD.

[honu]

I see that as a separate problem.  The US as a country produces more weapons than any other, and the official US position right now is climate change denial.

 

The two don't seem to connect to me, but wasting the US's economic potential on making individuals tied to arms production even more wealthy is a separate huge problem.  If the US had cut military spending in half over the past 20 years and had put those same resources into renewable energy research humanity would be much closer to carbon dioxide output neutral now. 

 

Of course nothing remotely like that was ever going to happen because oil interests are too influential.

[canuckamuck]

On 11/8/2018 at 10:31 AM, honu said:

Funny how so many people commenting here are intentionally oblivious to the obvious.  That last graph I posted shows stable global temperatures over the last 10,000 years, right?  But comments still make whatever claims to the contrary serve whatever desired belief, that it has already been warming, or cooling, or whatever else.

 

I get it that the subject is unfamiliar, and that different graphs of different time-frames seem to be showing completely different patterns.  They are.  The ones showing a cycle of fluctuation over 100,000 years indicate we are due for another ice age.  The problem is that adding carbon dioxide to the atmosphere has thrown off normal cycles; we're not on that cycle now. 

 

We can choose to believe people studying climate science and accept that the near-consensus interpretation of observed new patterns will hold, that the Earth is about to warm faster than we've ever experienced, and has been doing that for the last few decades at a rate that's accelerating.  Or else people can believe whatever else they want to believe, based on next to nothing.  Like Donald Trump people commenting here seem to put a lot of faith in their own intuition. 

 

Here's a graph showing a correlation between carbon dioxide and temperature; you can refer to conventional climate science perspective related to what to make of it or else read into it whatever you want:

 

 

Well that graph blows the whole CO2 causing destructive warming claim. CO2 is on a runaway and temperature is near the bottom.

[DrTuner]

54 minutes ago, canuckamuck said:

Well that graph blows the whole CO2 causing destructive warming claim. CO2 is on a runaway and temperature is near the bottom.

It's missing a part of the plot, but even then to me it looks like temp went up first and CO2 followed. The CO2->Temp causality is something I find suspect.

[mogoso]

On 9/17/2018 at 9:48 AM, SoilSpoil said:

Or the biggest polluter per capita, the US.

Check the stats. The US has continuously lowered it's pollutants for many years. How many other countries can say the same. I looked at this page www.ourworldindata.org/air-pollution and despite it's somewhat bias report, what it really shows at the botton graphs and data it's particulate matter which is the big killer. The impression they want you to take from above it's the US as the big bad guy but I submit it isn't so much CO2 gases killing folks it's common dust and particulates in smoke which are the problem, not so much the west who are siupposed to be the culprits. What this really is about is shaking down the west in particular the US for a wealth transfer to other countries. That's what a UN official said about it's use of environmental issues to destroy capitalism.

[balo]

They talk about it will be yet another cold winter up in Scandinavia. So its getting colder up north during the winters. But could be the sun spots , no activity on the sun like it used to be .

[VincentRJ]

Try reading the following. It's an alternative point of view based on quantum mechanics. When people are genuinely interested in the subject, and do there own research, my advice is to consider all points of view.

Don't ignore a site because it's considered by some to be anti-AGW. I'm skeptical, but I examine both sides of the argument and form my own opinion based upon rationality and common sense.

 

https://principia-scientific.org/quantum-mechanics-and-raman-spectroscopy-refute-greenhouse-theory/

[mogandave]

Try reading the following. It's an alternative point of view based on quantum mechanics. When people are genuinely interested in the subject, and do there own research, my advice is to consider all points of view.
Don't ignore a site because it's considered by some to be anti-AGW. I'm skeptical, but I examine both sides of the argument and form my own opinion based upon rationality and common sense.
 
https://principia-scientific.org/quantum-mechanics-and-raman-spectroscopy-refute-greenhouse-theory/

No executive summary?

[DrTuner]

49 minutes ago, mogandave said:

No executive summary?

 

I think it says oxygen is a greenhouse gas, so we should take it away from the air. 

[mogandave]

I think it says oxygen is a greenhouse gas, so we should take it away from the air. 

I’m doing my part...

[DrTuner]

1 hour ago, mogandave said:

I’m doing my part...

 

I believe the trick is never to exhale. Don't want to put out any CO2, right?

[monkfish]

imagine trying to get countries like china and india to sacrifice some of their own interest for all our greater good; good luck with that

Lets stop the prejudice if you read the whole article you will find India has one of the lowest Co2 emission rates.

[mogandave]

Lets stop the prejudice if you read the whole article you will find India has one of the lowest Co2 emission rates.

Per capita

[VincentRJ]

The essential point, about which 'alarmists' seem to be in a state of denial, is that the causes and influences of climate change are so complex and chaotic, and involve such long time spans of several decades before any meaningful trend can be observed, that it's impossible to apply the rigorous methodology of science which requires repeated experimentation under controlled conditions which accurately simulate or represent the actual and real situation that is being investigated.

 

All the benefits of modern science, such as automobiles, planes, televisions, rockets that can land on the moon, and so on, are reliable devices because they can be tested and developed under the most rigorous of controlled conditions, in labs or simulated environments. The consequences of something going wrong, or not working as expected, can be observed in a relatively short time.

 

The climate change situation does not lend itself to such experimentation. We cannot accurately simulate the world's atmosphere and oceans, and the sun as a heat source, then observe the effects of increasing the very tiny percentages of CO2 in the atmosphere.

 

The most obvious analogy which highlights this problem can be found in the medical and health industries, with regard to the long-term effects of drugs, health supplements, and certain types of food.
There is little doubt about the short-term effects of certain drugs and medication, such as antibiotics, which have been designed, under repeated, controlled experimentation, to cure certain illnesses relatively quickly.

 

However, when the expected effects occur over a relatively long period of a few decades, and the results can be influenced by a huge variety of factors within an individual's lifestyle, such as diet, exercise, general behaviour, genetic tendencies, and so on, then uncertainty must prevail.

 

So it is with the role of anthropogenic emissions of CO2. To claim with certainty that minuscule increases in atmospheric CO2 levels, from the burning of fossil fuels, is the main cause of the current warming, is simply non-scientific, or poor science at best.

 

Those who march in protest against climate change skepticism and describe such skeptical views as denial of the science, don't appear to understand the methodology of science. It is the alarmists who are the true 'deniers'. They are in denial about the requirements of the methodology of science for certainty on any issue to prevail.

[honu]

This is a film about climate change (called global warming) made back in the 1950s.  At that time it was still just a theory, but after collecting data for another 60 years it's now a confirmed theory:

 

 

It's not a trivial, insignificant amount of carbon dioxide that has been added to the atmosphere; the amount has went from around 280 ppm (parts per million) before the industrial revolution, not long ago, to over 400 ppm now:

 

https://www.co2.earth/daily-co2

 

 

[Catoni]

3 hours ago, honu said:

This is a film about climate change (called global warming) made back in the 1950s.  At that time it was still just a theory, but after collecting data for another 60 years it's now a confirmed theory:

 

 

It's not a trivial, insignificant amount of carbon dioxide that has been added to the atmosphere; the amount has went from around 280 ppm (parts per million) before the industrial revolution, not long ago, to over 400 ppm now:

 

https://www.co2.earth/daily-co2

 

 

Getting back to perhaps a better level of CO2. We apparently got as low as 180ppm in the past. 

    Dangerous!  That’s only 30ppm from the 150ppm level. 

    Guess what would happen if we went below 150ppm?  Have you any idea?

   400 ppm is still extremely low compared to most of the past 600 million years. In that time we’ve usually been around 2000ppm or so. 

   Our greenhouse industry in my area keeps CO2 levels at 800ppm - 1300ppm depending on the crop being grown. I have to say the tomatoes and peppers are simply amazing. But they grow other veggies and flowers also. (Along with cannabis now also).

Edited November 13, 2018 by Catoni
Correction

[honu]

1 minute ago, Catoni said:

Getting back to perhaps a better level of CO2. We apparently got as low as 180ppm in the past. 

    Dangerous!  That’s only 30ppm from the 150ppm level. 

    Guess what would happen if we went below 150ppm?  Have you any idea?

   400 ppm is still extremely low compared to most of the past 600 million years. In that time we’ve usually been around 2000ppm or so. 

   Our greenhouse industry in my area keeps CO2 levels a 800ppm - 1300ppm depending on the crop being grown. I have to say the tomatoes and peppers are simply amazing. But they grow other veggies and flowers also. (Along with cannabis now also).

 

All of this is relatively irrelevant.  So what if the carbon dioxide level was higher a half a billion years ago, in the past by 1/8th the time the Earth has existed, 10 times further in the past than when the dinosaurs went extinct?  Oxygen has only existed in present levels because of ancient long-term activity of algae; but so what? 

 

Plants love carbon dioxide, it's what they ingest for biological processes, similar to us requiring oxygen.  But so what?  Some plant species will love the changes in centuries and millennia to come, when climate is so unstable that agriculture won't be possible in the current form, and sea levels change dramatically, with a lot of current cities underwater.

 

People are changing the climate by changing the level of carbon dioxide in the air; it's going to get very hot.  Current models of what's coming and all sorts of knowledge of climate cycle inputs could be better but we know that much.  Then some people want to claim the opposite is true because they feel like arm-chair quarterbacks by favoring their own intuition over science.

 

My problem with this conspiracy-theory approach to climate science is this:  it's not good that it has become so popular to embrace ignorance.  Once people get a taste for rejecting what is known they can move on from saying that maybe no one ever visited the moon, or that maybe evolution isn't right, onto thinking that maybe the earth is really flat, like a plate. 

 

From there a politician who can't tell his own ass from a hole in the ground (or close an umbrella) can tell them his opinion about issues like climate change, or contradict himself altogether, rejecting that he said what he said in public the week before, and people can accept it all as "their truth."  Stupidity becoming fashionable has went too far.

[mogandave]

This is a film about climate change (called global warming) made back in the 1950s.  At that time it was still just a theory, but after collecting data for another 60 years it's now a confirmed theory:
 
[/url]  
It's not a trivial, insignificant amount of carbon dioxide that has been added to the atmosphere; the amount has went from around 280 ppm (parts per million) before the industrial revolution, not long ago, to over 400 ppm now:
 
https://www.co2.earth/daily-co2
 
 

Yeah, great bit of science. The one guy also starred in the “Creature from the Black Lagoon, the other guy was a TV “personality” and an English professor.

Yes, we’ve gone from a theory to a “confirmed” theory.

[mogandave]

Looks like the whole picture was about an hour, be fun to see the whore thing...

[mogandave]

Well, the whole picture is available on YouTube, definitely worth a look.

I particularly liked where they were quoting scripture and talking about controlling the weather.

[VincentRJ]

18 hours ago, honu said:

It's not a trivial, insignificant amount of carbon dioxide that has been added to the atmosphere; the amount has went from around 280 ppm (parts per million) before the industrial revolution, not long ago, to over 400 ppm now.

 

If carbon dioxide were a poison like Arsenic, for example, then an increase from 280 parts per million to 400 parts per million, which represents an increase of 0.012% of the total volume of the atmosphere, would not be trivial or insignificant, regarding human health.

 

However, CO2 is the opposite of a poison. It's essential for all life. Using Vitamin C as an analogy might be more relevant. A minimum amount of Vitamin C is essential to prevent scurvy, but taking more than the minimum recommended dosage has additional health benefits. 

 

Likewise, a minimum amount of CO2 in the atmosphere is essential for plant survival, but adding more than the minimum amount allows plants, and therefore animal life, to flourish.

 

The most recent glaciation period, often known simply as the “Ice Age,” reached peak cold conditions about 21,000 to 18,000 years ago, when CO2 levels were very low, around 180 ppm. The warming became significant about 11,700 years ago, which is around the time of the first signs of human civilizations that archaeology has discovered.

 

One of the very first civilizations, that we know of, was Göbekli Tepe, situated in what is currently Turkey. A while later, around 10,000 years ago, the Indus Valley civilization began, situated around the borders of Pakistan and India.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Göbekli_Tepe

 

It used to be assumed that the Neanderthals became extinct as a result of the superior fighting skills of Homo Sapiens Sapiens who wiped them out. However it is now believed that they became extinct because they were unable to adapt to the extreme cold weather at the peak of the last Ice Age.

 

Adaption is the key. Spending trillions of dollars trying to reduce the levels of a gas which is essential for all life, doesn't seem very sensible to me. That money would be better spent building flood mitigation dams, long water pipes to transport water from where it is plentiful to where it is scarce, strengthening the homes of people who live in areas subject to hurricanes, and cleaning up the environment (that is, reducing emissions of toxic chemicals, particulate carbon in the atmosphere, plastic bags, and so on.)

Edited November 14, 2018 by VincentRJ

[Tweedle dee]

What was that song ?? Oh yeh !  Fly me to the moon ????

Edited November 14, 2018 by Tweedle dee

[honu]

Climate scientists believe that carbon dioxide moderates climate, particularly global temperatures, and that carefully observed trends in both rising are tightly linked. 

 

But barstool philosophers don't necessarily accept that, based on their own intuition.  I'm not so worried about guys who are drunk at lunch time spouting deep wisdom, framed with catchy intros like "and let me tell you one more thing buddy...," but when national leaders get in on using intuition and poor reason to make national policy decisions there's a problem.  About half of all Americans don't believe climate change will affect them, per polling this year:

 

https://www.theverge.com/2018/3/29/17173166/climate-change-perception-gallup-poll-politics-psychology

 

More people than ever before had their homes destroyed by hurricanes related to climate change, or in wildfires related to droughts related to climate change.  It's well summarized in this quote from that article, tied to reference sources cited there:

 

Extreme weather events — like wildfires and hurricanes — are also becoming more extreme. These changes are consistent with a warming world, scientists say. That sort of makes sense: though the Gallup poll found that while only 64 percent of Americans think that global warming is caused by human activities, 97 percent of climate scientists believe that.

[mogandave]

Climate scientists believe that carbon dioxide moderates climate, particularly global temperatures, and that carefully observed trends in both rising are tightly linked. 
 
But barstool philosophers don't necessarily accept that, based on their own intuition.  I'm not so worried about guys who are drunk at lunch time spouting deep wisdom, framed with catchy intros like "and let me tell you one more thing buddy...," but when national leaders get in on using intuition and poor reason to make national policy decisions there's a problem.  About half of all Americans don't believe climate change will affect them, per polling this year:
 
https://www.theverge.com/2018/3/29/17173166/climate-change-perception-gallup-poll-politics-psychology
 
More people than ever before had their homes destroyed by hurricanes related to climate change, or in wildfires related to droughts related to climate change.  It's well summarized in this quote from that article, tied to reference sources cited there:
 
Extreme weather events — like wildfires and hurricanes — are also becoming more extreme. These changes are consistent with a warming world, scientists say. That sort of makes sense: though the Gallup poll found that while only 64 percent of Americans think that global warming is caused by human activities, 97 percent of climate scientists believe that.

We always see the results of the “studies”, but we never seem to see the methodology or the data.

I will concede that 97% of the Climatologists that get funding from government agree, what surprises me is that there are 3% that do not.

I still have not seen anywhere:
1. Credentials required to be considered a Climatologist.
2. List of the Climatologists that participated in the survey.
3. What organizations fund the individual Climatologists surveyed.
4. Specifically what each Climatologist is receiving funding to prove.
5. What organization complemented the survey of Climatologists, and how they are funded.
6. How the survey of Climatologists was funded.

I think these are very basic questions that should be answered before the survey should be assumed credible.

Do you agree?


Did you watch “The Unchained Goddess” in it’s entirety or just the minute you liked to? I watched the whole thing, it on YouTube.

You should read up on both sides of California forest and water conservation issues/disputes. At the very least look compare photos of California forests 80 years ago and now.

[BritManToo]

1 hour ago, honu said:

But barstool philosophers don't necessarily accept that, based on their own intuition.  I'm not so worried about guys who are drunk at lunch time spouting deep wisdom,

But the scientists are all paid to have their (CO2 is bad) opinions, and the barstool philosophers are unpaid and therefore more likely to be unbiased.

I've noticed many commercial greenhouses enrich their atmospheres with CO2 to produce a better crop, so it can't be all bad.

Edited November 14, 2018 by BritManToo

[VincentRJ]

1 hour ago, honu said:

Climate scientists believe that carbon dioxide moderates climate, particularly global temperatures, and that carefully observed trends in both rising are tightly linked. 

 

More people than ever before had their homes destroyed by hurricanes related to climate change, or in wildfires related to droughts related to climate change.  It's well summarized in this quote from that article, tied to reference sources cited there:

 

Extreme weather events — like wildfires and hurricanes — are also becoming more extreme. These changes are consistent with a warming world, scientists say. That sort of makes sense: though the Gallup poll found that while only 64 percent of Americans think that global warming is caused by human activities, 97 percent of climate scientists believe that.

The only belief that is related to science is the belief in the validity of the scientific methodology of repeated experimentation and consistent observations, in real time, which can confirm a theory with reasonable confidence.

 

As I've mentioned before, at least twice, the Working Group 1 summary in the AR5 IPCC report, released in 2013, states quite clearly that there is 'low confidence' that extreme weather events, such as floods, droughts and hurricanes, have increased since 1950. The evidence simply isn't there, despite the increases in the number and sophistication of measuring devices during the 20th century.

 

I recently mentioned this to a retired Microbiologist I met at a talk about Confucius. His immediate reaction was, 'That doesn't mean that extreme weather events are not increasing.' I immediately realized the guy was a climate-change alarmist with a 'belief' that CO2 emissions were bad.

 

If one were to say to a devout Christian that there is no sound scientific evidence that God exists, he would likely also reply, 'That does not mean that God does not exist.' Do you see why climate-change alarmism is often described as a religion?

 

I admit there is always the possibility that some intelligent creator of the first forms of life on our planet, exists. Perhaps they were very advanced aliens in another galaxy who seeded our planet with micro-bacteria. But that's pure speculation, and not at all scientific.

 

Usually, whenever more people have their homes destroyed by a recent hurricane or flood, or bush fire, than in the past, it is because more homes have been built in those precarious areas, not because the extreme weather events were stronger.

 

But sometimes of course, past records of the severity of a particular type of storm in a particular region can occasionally be broken. That's to be expected. It's unreasonable to presume that all extreme weather events in the past, in all regions, were worse.

[Ahab]

On ‎11‎/‎12‎/‎2018 at 6:40 AM, VincentRJ said:

…. The climate change situation does not lend itself to such experimentation. We cannot accurately simulate the world's atmosphere and oceans, and the sun as a heat source, then observe the effects of increasing the very tiny percentages of CO2 in the atmosphere...…

 

...Those who march in protest against climate change skepticism and describe such skeptical views as denial of the science, don't appear to understand the methodology of science. It is the alarmists who are the true 'deniers'. They are in denial about the requirements of the methodology of science for certainty on any issue to prevail....

"We cannot accurately simulate the world's atmosphere and oceans" but somehow we are expected to believe that the climate models are spot on and accurate. How can the models be accurate if they don't even have a grasp on what the ballpark inputs to the model should be? They don't because many of them are not known, or fully understood.

 

Reminds me of the saying "Don't piss on my leg and then tell me it is raining", or in simpler terms don't B%!!S#!t me.