Global Warming Do You Care?

[Upcountry]

A couple of posts to this thread have mentioned the ozone hole and the fact that it has diminished in the last few years.

A decade or so ago it was determined that CFC's were a major cause of the loss of ozone over Antarctica. CFC's were gradually taken off the market, replaced with something else that may or may not be better overall. In recent years, we've seen a decrease in the ozone hole.

Please, someone, show us how it has been proven that the removal or CFC's from most applications has not had a positive effect on the ozone problem. I'm prepared to be proven wrong, but anecdotally at least it seems that this is an example of how changes to human behavior on a large scale has had a healing effect on the environment. That's what I've heard from newspapers and the "dreaded" BBC, etc.

Well, here are a couple of pros and cons:

1994: http://rous.redbarn.org/objectivism/writin...eDepletion.html

2007: http://www.epa.gov/ozone/science/sc_fact.html

Not the final word, I'm sure but interesting reading just the same.

Regarding the current global warming trend, sadly, is that regardless of any changes we make, the problem will not go away in a mere 50 years. Buckle your seat belt, we are in for a ride for the long haul.

[wilko]

ozone holes and possible causes were ID'd long before that...I seem to remember that US had CFCs removed from sprays in the late 70s/early 80s....but there was the will to do something then

[Spee]

Does the Kyoto Protocol ring a bell? It is the single defining case of governments trying to mandate extraction of money from the citizenry to "combat global warming" as if governments are more powerful than mother nature. It is nothing more than deception and arrogance, at the expense of the taxpayer.

Why hasn’t the US signed the protocol, my friend?

Because big business, etc., won’t have it. And politicians are afraid it will affect jobs, the economy. There is no political will to accept it, so they make excuses.

Well you're partly right and partly wrong.

The US has not and will never sign it because it's sole purpose is to extract money from corporations and individuals that don't "follow the party line." It has nothing to do with climate change. It has everything to do with a basic tenet of the American system, which is no taxation without representation.

The Kyoto Protocol has been in place since 1997 and "officially" took effect in 2005. Was has it accomplished? Quite frankly, it hasn't accomplished jack squat except for raising taxes and costs of doing business in every country that has ratified it.

You are exactly right when you state people think it will affect the economy, jobs, etc. Whether people choose to believe it or not, oil drives the world economy. It is the most efficient and economical energy resource. It is central to the economy of every emerging, second world and first world country. The tree huggers who want to shut off the oil faucet and use the sun and wind to power the planet have good intentions for sure, but they have no answer when presented with the fact that this kind of policy will drive the world economy backwards by centuries.

Edited November 13, 2007 by Spee

[HS Mauberley]

Right. The short-term choice is between on the one hand restricting the economy (no more iPods, burgers, weekly shopping trips to Gap, whatever) and on the other (potentially) runaway climate change, resource depletion and ecological collapse which will all culminate in (oh dear) economic and societal collapse. It’s not really much of a choice, is it? The human economy is a part of the wider world ecology connected through sources (raw material inputs into the economy) and sinks (where we deposit the waste pollutants generated by economic activity, for this thread most importantly atmospheric and oceanic deposits of CO2). The economy is utterly dependent on these sources and sinks. If the former runs dry or the latter overflows, the economy will grind to a halt. In the most straightforward, selfish terms, climate change will spell economic collapse so, in the long-term, the choice you posit is false.

[A_Traveller]

Again given the 'stick' the BBC is getting here, it's interesting to note how their website is actively putting arguments into the public domain ahead of IPCC's synthesis report and is soliciting comments. In addition the BBC has run a number of programmes re issues such as catastrophism {the tendency to create such a damming image people are disinclined to either believe or view action as futile} and climate scepticism {as in what it is and what it isn't}.

Regards

Link to IPCC As good as it gets

Link to No consensus on IPCC's level of ignorance

/edit url//

Edited November 13, 2007 by A_Traveller

[Spee]

For all those Gore devotees and true believers that man is killing the planet by excessive CO2 emissions causing spiralling out of control global warming, I urge you to consider the following and prepare some sort of rational response.

Way back when there was an era here on Earth called the Ice Age. I think it is safe to say that this era occurred is generally accepted as fact. In the Ice Age, glaciers covered most of what is now North America and Russia. By all accounts the glacial ice was on the order of kilometers thick.

The Ice Age came and went long before the introduction of large populations of men, before the industrial revolution, and before all of the modern oil-driven conveniences like trains, planes and automobiles, electricity and electrical plants, hospitals that require electricity to save lives, and all the things that all the global warming hypists want us to get rid of today to "save the planet."

What could have possibly made the Ice Age go away? What could have made all the glaciers melt? Where we once had several kilometers thick ice sheeting covering millions of acres of land, we now have the Great Plains which are so fertile as to produce a large portion of the world's grains.

Clearly, this was a massive amount of global warming that caused the glaciers to disappear, on a scale that most people would find difficult to comprehend and easily dwarfing any current climate trends of late.

Yet mankind wasn't around in any kind of numbers to cause it. There was no massive global industrialization pumping millions of tons of CO2 into the air. There were no airplanes polluting the stratosphere.

So how could this massive amount of global warming have taken place if man wasn't there to cause it?

[A_Traveller]

Re Ozone hole. The discovery of the Antarctic hole by the British Antarctic Survey in 1985 and the subsequent Montreal Protocol which was signed in 1987 and substantially amended in 1990 and 1992. It stipulated that the production and consumption of compounds that depleted ozone in the stratosphere, chlorofluorocarbons (CFCs), halons, carbon tetrachloride, and methyl chloroform, were to be phased out by 2000 {2005 for methyl chloroform}.

The hole itself was at its greatest in 2003 and has subsequently shown signs of natural repair as the products specified within the Protocol have decreased in atmospheric terms.

By the by the science which underpins this was first described by, subsequent Nobel laureates {1995}, Molina and Rowland, in 1974. Indeed, Rowland was interviewed in '84 saying 'Nothing will be done about this problem until there is further evidence that a significant loss of ozone has occurred. Unfortunately, this means that if there is a disaster in the making in the stratosphere we are probably not going to avoid it.', prophetic words given the discovery the next year.

Regards

PS I'm sure someone will argue that there is no causal nexus proven by this, but I place this data into this debate.

/edit add para By the by... //

Edited November 13, 2007 by A_Traveller

[HS Mauberley]

Quick test for you Spee. See if you can work out this analogy.

A man in England (or France or Botswana, take your pick) in the 14th century died of lung cancer. This was centuries before Marlboro man set foot in any of these countries so therefore smoking doesn’t cause cancer. QED.

Djageddit?

Really, do you see what an absurd argument you made? It’s pathetic.

And like I said, Al Gore has as much to do with climate change as Neil Armstrong has to do with the moon being made (or not) of cheese. Grow up.

[Spee]

... the choice you posit is false.

Well ... hardly. My statement is a pragmatic view of the world as it is today. Your statements indicate that you would rather live in a world where a very small group of people control a very large group of people by telling them what they can and can't do, what they can or can't buy, eat or otherwise consume. I hate to break the news, but it's been tried and it failed miserably. It's called communism, perhaps you've heard of it. Your statements, like those inherent in the Kyoto Protocol, are inherently communistic. If recent history has proven anything, it has proven that communism fails the people and free market capitalism allows people to prosper and determine their own destiny. Your arguments have little to do with pollution and climate control and more to do with government control over peoples' lives.

[Cobalt60]

I am interested in all the pro's and cons put forward on this debate and quite wiling to be persauded, further to wards my scepticism or towards the warming belief, however I notice many of the posters start getting personal towards their debating opponents, patronising them, telling them to grow up etc.

For me, once you turn to these type of insults or bullying tactics, whatever you have said, you have just lost the argument.

[HS Mauberley]

"Your statements, like those inherent in the Kyoto Protocol, are inherently communistic."

Ha ha! Don't you just love Americans? Anything that's not some mad, blood-crazed, dog-eat-dog uber-capitalist hel_l is actually a Marxist utopia.

Actually, Commmunism is as guilty in this aspect as Capitalism. Both believe that they can defy the laws of physics by pursuing unlimited growth in a limited medium (that's the earth, buddy). Capitalsm is unsutainable. That means it's going to end. The only questions are when and how.

[ignoramus]

Look up :

climatescience dot org dot nz

junkscience dot com

brianwilshire dot com (clk on News)

jimball dot com dot au

bjorn Lomborg on Google

newsweek this cooling world on Google (article of April 28, 1975)

solar radiation increase on Google

mars heating up on Google

global warming hoax on Google

paul ehrlich on Google (another [we're all-gunna-starve] doomsayer, from the '70's)

global warming making money on Google (pay attention fraudsters)

Elsewhere - I don't know where - you will discover that New Zealand is up for 4+ billion for failing to live up Kyoto's expectations. NZ has a population of about 4 mill. Good luck with that lads and lasses (cross your fingers and pray Aussies).

Oh Lordy, please help me to be even vaguely interested in the opinions and 'reasoned' conclusions of the

smugly, quaintly (and ever-vigilant-for-a-soapbox-crowd) gullible.

Carbon dioxide is food for plants. We need plants, animals need plants. End of story.

Al Gore is a meglomaniacal liar. His ESTATES use more electricity than 5 or 6 ordinary homes.

I couldn't even be bothered wading through the doubtless mountainous cr*p viewable in this topic, having only one lifetime. I thank my lucky stars it's almost over. Couldn't give a tinker's cuss about the f**ls, only pity their poor children.

Goodus luckus. We are going to need it.

[A_Traveller]

I see there has been an analogous link made between Kyoto and communism. Forgive me but that is in error, the aim was to provide a framework in which individual nations could take action in a cooperative manner to tackle an issue. That is not communism, it is cooperation, which many studies have show is a key element in human history and development.

Regards

[Spee]

A man in England (or France or Botswana, take your pick) in the 14th century died of lung cancer. This was centuries before Marlboro man set foot in any of these countries so therefore smoking doesn’t cause cancer. QED.

Really, do you see what an absurd argument you made? It’s pathetic.

Well, hardly.

In the 14th century, a man with lung cancer was 100% guaranteed to die quickly, with a horrible death accompanied by massive excrutiating pain.

In the 21st century, because of modern medicine which would not be possible without an oil-driven world economy, a man with lung cancer may have a reasonable chance of cure or at least survival with reasonable quality of life for some period of time. And if or when the man's final hours come, there are treatments and medicines available to make the final days as comfortable and pain free as possible.

It is your arguments that are pathetic. As an example, it is these kinds of all controlling thoughts and policies which prevent oil-fueled electrical plants from being built in poverty stricken areas of Africa, where basic necessities like clean water and elementary medical care are not possible without them. Because of this, millions of people have died horrible, painful and fully preventable deaths. This is what the anti-oil, man-made global warming enthusiasts and devotees cause. They destroy any chance for people to have a basic chance at survival and some modest quality of life, if not a reasonable chance to grow and prosper.

[HS Mauberley]

Carbon dioxide is food for plants. We need plants, animals need plants. End of story.

Pollutants are contextually defined.

Al Gore is a meglomaniacal liar. His ESTATES use more electricity than 5 or 6 ordinary homes.

So what?

I couldn't even be bothered wading through the doubtless mountainous cr*p viewable in this topic, having only one lifetime. I thank my lucky stars it's almost over.

Given the links you've posted, I share your views. Lomberg? He's a statistician. Mars heating? Christ on a bike. This is debunked on a website somewhere at least once a minute. Global cooling? The article is in Time, not Nature. Ehrlich? Watch this space...he was off by a few decades but things are getting tight.

[HS Mauberley]

^^ Oh dear. Looks like you failed the test. The analogy showed that effects can have multiple causes. The fact that cause a preceeded cause b in time is not a sufficient condition to conclude that cause a is sufficient explanation for all effects. Do you see?

America produces 25% of greenhouse gasses. We're talking about fat yanks driving their SUV to the mall to have a burger, not starving Africans.

Actually, it's obscene that those who seek to deny the reality of climate change pretend that by so doing they're somehow helping the poor. It's precisely the people you talk about who are in the front line of climate change.

Edited November 13, 2007 by HS Mauberley

[Doza]

QUOTE (nakhonsi sean @ 2007-11-13 17:41:01)

Are you implying MIT, Berkley, Woods Hole, Harvard Smithsonian, Cambridge, Oxford, Max Planck Institute, USC, University of London, Alabama Huntsville, Danish National Space Institute, Russian Academy of Sciences, etc, are right wing think tanks and employ pseudo-scientists?

This is interesting because I thought you were implying these institutions were among those that dispute man made global warming but after a quick search this is what I found:

Max Planck

http://www.maxplanck.de/english/illustrati...9301/index.html

In addition to the findings about the complex interplay between atmosphere and ocean, the current climate models from the Max Planck Institute for Meteorology also include new findings about the effects of aerosols and the influence of the earth's carbon cycle. The results confirm speculations over recent years that humans are having a large and unprecedented influence on the climate and are fuelling global warming.

Woods Hole

http://www.whrc.org/resources/online_publi...th/culprits.htm

Through the study of ancient ice cores from Antarctica it is possible to compare atmospheric concentrations of the dominant greenhouse gas, carbon dioxide (CO2) in the atmosphere with temperature variations over the past 400 thousand years of the earth's history.

While it is impossible to establish a direct causal link between greenhouse gas accumulation and individual, relatively short-term climatic events, it is certain that we have been experiencing increasing numbers of climatic events unprecedented in the human experience. It is also certain that many of the greenhouse gases, including carbon dioxide and methane, have lengthy residence times in the atmosphere and that we will continue to be affected for years or even centuries to come by the atmospheric burden we are creating today.

While the concentrations of almost all greenhouse gases have been increasing since the Industrial Revolution, carbon dioxide has had the greatest effect on changing the climate.

University of Cambridge

http://www.admin.cam.ac.uk/news/dp/2007020201

Professor Nigel Weiss, an expert in solar magnetic fields, has rebutted claims that a fall in solar activity could somehow compensate for the man-made causes of global warming.

“Although solar activity has an effect on the climate, these changes are small compared to those associated with global warming,” he said. “Any global cooling associated with a fall in solar activity would not significantly affect the global warming caused by greenhouse gases.

“This is of course a controversial issue and there is a vocal lobby arguing against the link between anthropogenic gas emissions and climatic change. However I share the view of the majority of the scientific community that the evidence for such a link and thus the occurrence of man-made global warming is significant and a matter of grave concern.”

MIT

http://web.mit.edu/newsoffice/2006/co2.html

carbon dioxide, the gas that has been a primary driver of global climate change in recent decades, according to a team of scientists that includes a professor from MIT.

http://web.mit.edu/connorsr/www/docs/Incon..._Journalist.pdf

COMMUNICATING COMPLEXITY is one of the largest challenges facing both

scientists and journalists. Alex Beam dodges this challenge in his column by

suggesting that there isn't a scientific consensus on whether climate change exists.

The journal Science laid that debate to rest in December 2004 by showing that of

nearly a thousand peer-reviewed scientific journal articles, none concluded by

suggesting that human activities were not influencing the world's climate.

University of Oxford

http://www.atm.ox.ac.uk/main/faq/climatechange.html

What causes the climate to change?

The solar energy that comes to Earth from the sun drives the Earth's climate. To balance this influx of energy, heat escapes from the Earth back into space as infrared radiation. Certain gases are transparent to the incoming solar energy, and let it pass through on its way to the Earth's surface. However, when this radiation is reemitted from the Earth at longer wavelengths, these same gases absorb a large proportion of it, and prevent it from escaping. Ultimately this has the same effect as a glass greenhouse, and raises the Earth's surface temperature.

Life on Earth relies upon this process occurring, keeping the Earth much warmer than planets with no atmospheric greenhouse gases, so a natural amount of these gases is essential. However, we have gradually been adding too much of these gases artificially, causing the Earth's climate to change.

The chief greenhouse gas is carbon dioxide which contributes 60% to the 'enhanced greenhouse effect'.

EDIT - Although it does appear the Danish Space Institute's research points more towards the sun but bascially you have experts who say one thing and experts who say the other. Its my understanding there are a whole lot more experts pointing to man made climate change. I believe it - the greenhouse effect is well documented and not denied, and I believe a build up of GHGs lead to the advanced greenhouse effect. Those GHGs are coming from us. Simple.

Edited November 13, 2007 by Doza

[plachon]

For all those Gore devotees and true believers that man is killing the planet by excessive CO2 emissions causing spiralling out of control global warming, I urge you to consider the following and prepare some sort of rational response.

Way back when there was an era here on Earth called the Ice Age. I think it is safe to say that this era occurred is generally accepted as fact. In the Ice Age, glaciers covered most of what is now North America and Russia. By all accounts the glacial ice was on the order of kilometers thick.

The Ice Age came and went long before the introduction of large populations of men, before the industrial revolution, and before all of the modern oil-driven conveniences like trains, planes and automobiles, electricity and electrical plants, hospitals that require electricity to save lives, and all the things that all the global warming hypists want us to get rid of today to "save the planet."

What could have possibly made the Ice Age go away? What could have made all the glaciers melt? Where we once had several kilometers thick ice sheeting covering millions of acres of land, we now have the Great Plains which are so fertile as to produce a large portion of the world's grains.

Clearly, this was a massive amount of global warming that caused the glaciers to disappear, on a scale that most people would find difficult to comprehend and easily dwarfing any current climate trends of late.

Yet mankind wasn't around in any kind of numbers to cause it. There was no massive global industrialization pumping millions of tons of CO2 into the air. There were no airplanes polluting the stratosphere.

So how could this massive amount of global warming have taken place if man wasn't there to cause it?

The confusion and ignorance in the views of the "manmade global warming is a myth" club would be laughable, if they weren't so sad. The OP let his dislike for a green member of the British aristocracy cloud his judgement over the reality of climate change science as much as Spee thinks that Al Gore is hatching some kind of communist plot on us all, by very publically stating AGW exists, be very worried and if we act now, we might actually be able to head off some of its worst impacts. Luckily, some governments in Western Europe, Japan, NZ and low lying lands in the direct line of fire have woken up to this threat and have decided to do something about it, while others notably US, Australia and China are thrashing around like beached whales trying all they can do to postpone their inevitable fate.

In the meantime, a massive misinformation and propaganda campaign has been launched by a few oil corporations and a handful of rightwing/Christian nutters, aimed specifically at sowing the seeds of confusion amongst the general public. Result: read the drivel spewed out by the likes of Spee, Chloe, OP and half a dozen other posters.

It's getting pretty tiresome, so unless it can be brought round to specifically include Thailand, I've had just about my fill at this particular trough of pigswill. Others enjoy.........

[A_Traveller]

Interesting to see Lomborg's name come up here, though what many don't realise is that he does contend that anthropogenic global warming is real, though he hedges his bets including reference to natural changes as well, and takes the view {in his most recent book Cool It Sept 2007} that flawed analysis is leading to invalid and unwise 'solutions'. He then takes, what might be best described as an economists viewpoint, endeavouring to tabulate risk/rewards. He also takes the view, that action in the areas of HIV/AIDS, malaria, and access to clean water, combined with a coherent approach to the actualities would benefit human kind, better than allowing emotional 'all the polar bears are dying' viewpoints to make policy. On the last point I'm with him, and I do feel that the pot/kettle situation of accusing him of cherry picking evidence was/is at best specious.

However, my issue with this analysis is that he appears to ignore feedback loops and the problematic {for all} reality that we as a species know so little about how, what we blandly describe 'the climate' acts, operates and manages itself. Further, the Newsweek 'Cooling World' article points out this very issue clearly. It's not bad science, nor is it unrealistic, since what has become clear in the intervening time is that whilst powerful computers using established models can improve weather forecasting we still understand remarkably little about the complex environmental schema of the planet we inhabit. Though it was Hollywood, the Day after Tomorrow does note that small changes have amplified results. In the move the failure of the Gulf Stream leads to rapid cooling. In the real world there is evidence that a volumetric interruption contributed to the, so called, little ice age in Europe.

Humans are able to live, function and reproduce within a very small window of environmental tolerances, sometimes described as the homo-biome. Go too high and children will not be born viable, we can't live within the oceans {at least without artificial habitats} so driven by pressure, literally, temperatures, and resources the area of the planet we can reasonably occupy is less then one might expect.

There is a need to manage resources in a sustainable manner. Burning dead dinosaurs is not sustainable, the quintessential question of our time is do we bequeath to those who follow a world fit for them to live in and develop their future, or do we leave them one which is stagnating, pulling their skills into undoing or compensating for our 'devil take the hindmost' attitude as opposed to moving humanity forward.

Regards

[jubby]

I wasn't going to comment as I'm much too thick to cross swords with you guys on this subject,

However, I would like to know what happens to Co2 in the atmosphere , Does it just stay there ? , with my limited science knowledge I would have thought that it is cycled or recycled over time . I don't personally see Co2 as a Polutant as it is needed by; and recycled by plantlife .

As an individual I'm more concerned about polution than climate change as I know we cause polution and I'm not convinced we have a great impact on climate change in the big scheme of things.

But saying that I do my bit.

I use much less Energy in the form of Fossil Fuels here than I did in the UK.

I try to cook with Wood as much as possible which I see as a renewable ; Use the Car as little as possible and have planted Thousands of trees over here in the last 10 years.

If everyone was to do there bit ;-)

[xyborg]

<br />Quick test for you Spee. See if you can work out this analogy.<br /><br />A man in England (or France or Botswana, take your pick) in the 14th century died of lung cancer. This was centuries before Marlboro man set foot in any of these countries so therefore smoking doesn't cause cancer. QED. <br /><br />Djageddit?<br /><br />Really, do you see what an absurd argument you made? It's pathetic.<br /><br />And like I said, Al Gore has as much to do with climate change as Neil Armstrong has to do with the moon being made (or not) of cheese. Grow up.<br /><br />

<br /><br /><br />

I think the word you should use is "MAY" cause cancer, I know folk of 93 who smoked and didnt die of cancer.

[nakhonsi sean]

QUOTE (nakhonsi sean @ 2007-11-13 17:41:01)

Are you implying MIT, Berkley, Woods Hole, Harvard Smithsonian, Cambridge, Oxford, Max Planck Institute, USC, University of London, Alabama Huntsville, Danish National Space Institute, Russian Academy of Sciences, etc, are right wing think tanks and employ pseudo-scientists?

This is interesting because I thought you were implying these institutions were among those that dispute man made global warming but after a quick search this is what I found:

Max Planck

http://www.maxplanck.de/english/illustrati...9301/index.html

In addition to the findings about the complex interplay between atmosphere and ocean, the current climate models from the Max Planck Institute for Meteorology also include new findings about the effects of aerosols and the influence of the earth's carbon cycle. The results confirm speculations over recent years that humans are having a large and unprecedented influence on the climate and are fuelling global warming.

Woods Hole

http://www.whrc.org/resources/online_publi...th/culprits.htm

Through the study of ancient ice cores from Antarctica it is possible to compare atmospheric concentrations of the dominant greenhouse gas, carbon dioxide (CO2) in the atmosphere with temperature variations over the past 400 thousand years of the earth's history.

While it is impossible to establish a direct causal link between greenhouse gas accumulation and individual, relatively short-term climatic events, it is certain that we have been experiencing increasing numbers of climatic events unprecedented in the human experience. It is also certain that many of the greenhouse gases, including carbon dioxide and methane, have lengthy residence times in the atmosphere and that we will continue to be affected for years or even centuries to come by the atmospheric burden we are creating today.

While the concentrations of almost all greenhouse gases have been increasing since the Industrial Revolution, carbon dioxide has had the greatest effect on changing the climate.

University of Cambridge

http://www.admin.cam.ac.uk/news/dp/2007020201

Professor Nigel Weiss, an expert in solar magnetic fields, has rebutted claims that a fall in solar activity could somehow compensate for the man-made causes of global warming.

“Although solar activity has an effect on the climate, these changes are small compared to those associated with global warming,” he said. “Any global cooling associated with a fall in solar activity would not significantly affect the global warming caused by greenhouse gases.

“This is of course a controversial issue and there is a vocal lobby arguing against the link between anthropogenic gas emissions and climatic change. However I share the view of the majority of the scientific community that the evidence for such a link and thus the occurrence of man-made global warming is significant and a matter of grave concern.”

MIT

http://web.mit.edu/newsoffice/2006/co2.html

carbon dioxide, the gas that has been a primary driver of global climate change in recent decades, according to a team of scientists that includes a professor from MIT.

http://web.mit.edu/connorsr/www/docs/Incon..._Journalist.pdf

COMMUNICATING COMPLEXITY is one of the largest challenges facing both

scientists and journalists. Alex Beam dodges this challenge in his column by

suggesting that there isn't a scientific consensus on whether climate change exists.

The journal Science laid that debate to rest in December 2004 by showing that of

nearly a thousand peer-reviewed scientific journal articles, none concluded by

suggesting that human activities were not influencing the world's climate.

University of Oxford

http://www.atm.ox.ac.uk/main/faq/climatechange.html

What causes the climate to change?

The solar energy that comes to Earth from the sun drives the Earth's climate. To balance this influx of energy, heat escapes from the Earth back into space as infrared radiation. Certain gases are transparent to the incoming solar energy, and let it pass through on its way to the Earth's surface. However, when this radiation is reemitted from the Earth at longer wavelengths, these same gases absorb a large proportion of it, and prevent it from escaping. Ultimately this has the same effect as a glass greenhouse, and raises the Earth's surface temperature.

Life on Earth relies upon this process occurring, keeping the Earth much warmer than planets with no atmospheric greenhouse gases, so a natural amount of these gases is essential. However, we have gradually been adding too much of these gases artificially, causing the Earth's climate to change.

The chief greenhouse gas is carbon dioxide which contributes 60% to the 'enhanced greenhouse effect'.

EDIT - Although it does appear the Danish Space Institute's research points more towards the sun but bascially you have experts who say one thing and experts who say the other. Its my understanding there are a whole lot more experts pointing to man made climate change. I believe it - the greenhouse effect is well documented and not denied, and I believe a build up of GHGs lead to the advanced greenhouse effect. Those GHGs are coming from us. Simple.

Yes, all of those institutions have eminent scientists putting forward both views. Whether more point to one side or the other in science is irrelevant, it only takes one scientist to upset the apple cart and prove the others were mistaken. Consensus in science is meaningless. Look at Galileo and Wegener, if the consensus had won we would still have the sun orbiting the Earth and would have no plate tectonic theory!

Funny how people ridicule scientists until they are proven correct. Lindzen (MIT) has been lambasted for over five years now by AGW proponents over his Adaptive Infrared Iris hypothesis (would tend to reduce temperature rises). The AGW brigade seem to have gone very quiet over this in the last month. Might have something to do with the recent paper by Christy and Spencer and their observational data proving the hypothesis!

One should never ridicule scientist and their ideas, even if the majority believe them to be wrong. The lone maverick is often proven correct in the end leaving egg on many faces!

Edited November 13, 2007 by nakhonsi sean

[mrbojangles]

Quick test for you Spee. See if you can work out this analogy.

A man in England (or France or Botswana, take your pick) in the 14th century died of lung cancer. This was centuries before Marlboro man set foot in any of these countries so therefore smoking doesn’t cause cancer. QED.

Wrong. Smoking does cause Lung Cancer and although it is the number one cause of lung cancer, there are other causes like asbestos, arsenic, radioactive gases including exposure to Radon etc. etc.

Therefore, in the event that the guy in the 14th century hadn't been exposed to the "Marlboro Man", i would imagine he had been exposed to an alternative cause.

In summary, you may have your views on climate change but in this respect, your argument to Spee's analogy of the Ice Age, holds no water

Edited November 13, 2007 by mrbojangles

[HS Mauberley]

People are more thick than I imagined. Let me make it as simple as I can.

My point was NOT NOT NOT to make a statement about the relationship between smoking and cancer (despite flagging my post as an analogy, it seems this simple point passed many people by.) Rather, it was to show that we cannot say that because a given effect (in my example cancer, in this thread climate change) has at a given point a given cause, subsequent occurrences of the same effect are always attributable to the same initial cause. So, just as the fact that people suffered from lung cancer before the invention of cigarettes does not preclude smoking from being a cause of cancer, we cannot say that climate change caused by variations in the earth's orbit (or whatever) precludes explanations of climate change based on man's activity. If this is still too opaque for you, I suggest you stick to the discussions on the relative merits of Nana and Cowboy.

^^ Great isn't it. Five years ago, deniers like you were saying that climate change was wrong because it was a fringe belief. Now you're saying it's wrong because it isn't. Make your mind up. Oh, and any chance of a link to Christy and Spencer saying, explicitly, that their research shows that it is false that human activities are causing climate change? Thanks.

Edited November 13, 2007 by HS Mauberley

[Pepe']

For all those Gore devotees and true believers that man is killing the planet by excessive CO2 emissions causing spiralling out of control global warming, I urge you to consider the following and prepare some sort of rational response.

Way back when there was an era here on Earth called the Ice Age. I think it is safe to say that this era occurred is generally accepted as fact. In the Ice Age, glaciers covered most of what is now North America and Russia. By all accounts the glacial ice was on the order of kilometers thick.

The Ice Age came and went long before the introduction of large populations of men, before the industrial revolution, and before all of the modern oil-driven conveniences like trains, planes and automobiles, electricity and electrical plants, hospitals that require electricity to save lives, and all the things that all the global warming hypists want us to get rid of today to "save the planet."

What could have possibly made the Ice Age go away? What could have made all the glaciers melt? Where we once had several kilometers thick ice sheeting covering millions of acres of land, we now have the Great Plains which are so fertile as to produce a large portion of the world's grains.

Clearly, this was a massive amount of global warming that caused the glaciers to disappear, on a scale that most people would find difficult to comprehend and easily dwarfing any current climate trends of late.

Yet mankind wasn't around in any kind of numbers to cause it. There was no massive global industrialization pumping millions of tons of CO2 into the air. There were no airplanes polluting the stratosphere.

So how could this massive amount of global warming have taken place if man wasn't there to cause it?

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So are you saying we shoulden't do everything we can to conserve and protect the environment?

[britmaveric]

Protect the environment as far as it doesnt interfere with your life or is a burden. However lot of 3rd world countries are ramping up their own industrial age, so its rather arrogant to think anything will change.

[mrbojangles]

People are more thick than I imagined. Let me make it as simple as I can.

I love it when people resort to insults, which is what youv'e done to anybody who dare question your super knowledge. However, in my experience, the person resorting to insults has usually lost the argument. Carry on, you are holding the shovel.

^^ Great isn't it. Five years ago, deniers like you were saying that climate change was wrong because it was a fringe belief. Now you're saying it's wrong because it isn't. Make your mind up. Oh, and any chance of a link to Christy and Spencer saying, explicitly, that their research shows that it is false that human activities are causing climate change? Thanks.

Is that also aimed at me?? If so, how do you deduce what my beliefs are, from what i have posted upto now? If you have reached your decision on the cause of climate change, in the same speedy way, as you conclude from a few posts, that we are more thick than you imagined. I need say no more, except for, "do you need a bigger shovel for that hole".

[sweetchariot]

500 years ago the prevailing wisdom was that the world was flat. Just because an opinion carries popularity does not make it correct.

There is NO scientific evidence for climate change. The world's weather patterns are cyclical, in 20 years we will all be moaning about global cooling.

In answer to the original question: No.

[Pepe']

Protect the environment as far as it doesnt interfere with your life or is a burden. However lot of 3rd world countries are ramping up their own industrial age, so its rather arrogant to think anything will change.

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How could living in a "green" way as much as is humanly possible be an arrogant position?

If the Thais would just start picking up the millions of plastic bags and other piles of trash strewn about LOS (and burned indiscriminately) that would be a simple yet major step in the right direction...

[Spee]

So are you saying we shoulden't do everything we can to conserve and protect the environment?

Well of course not.

Discussing conservation and pollution in the same context as global climate is apples & oranges, fruits & nuts, Cadillacs & tuk-tuks (to keep this remotely Thailand-related).

There is nothing wrong with being "green," recycling paper, plastic and glass, conserving resources, etc. I do it and would encourage anyone to do it if they are so inclined. There is nothing wrong with protesting and fighting for reduced pollution in factories, automobiles, motorcycles, etc. I have done it and would encourage anyone to do it if they are so inclined. Certainly Bangkok would be a much more pleasant place with less pollution.

But to intermingle these kinds of passions, emotions and actions for green and environmental activism into the same boat as mankind and central governments having the arrogance and audacity to think that we can control mother nature and massive forces of the sun, the oceans, the tides, the atmosphere and the mantle geology is just nonsensical. There is no correlation or causality.