Do You Believe Human Activity Causes Harmful Climate Change?

[canuckamuck]

Sorry, but you have me wrong. I am not on the fence about GW. I believe that GW is a fact, and I also believe, from the preponderance of the evidence that I have seen, that man is contributing to this phenomenon. However, unlike many people on both sides of the issue, I am not religiously wedded to my current beliefs. I am willing to look at all data and consider it. Just because I don't think the oceans will rise 70 meter does not mean I don't think 4 or even six inches is possible, and I worry about the effect that will have on our world. With that and shifting weather patterns, I see war as a real possibility.

And yes, I am not onboard with carbon credits. I think that is mere smoke and mirrors without a real viable, positive effect. However, it is a step in the right direction at least as far as the debate goes. If companies can reduce their carbon emissions, and make moeny off of it, well, that is better than making money off polluting rivers.

But once again, the specter of the boogeyman Al Gore is raised. Just show me "his companies" he has positioned to take over the world. I am sorry, but the continual screaming "Al Gore, Al Gore" makes no points with me in convincing me of anything. Rather, it shows the lack of a credible argument if someone has to resort to a "Great Satan."

And sorry, my reasoning is no more flawed than that of anyone else's I have read here. Yes, I believe that any environmental awareness and action is better than no action at all. And yes, many actions proposed to reduce the carbon footprint of the human race will also have a significant positive effect in other areas. Please explain to me how more efficient transportation, cleaner burning coal plants, wind turbines, modern transmission lines, etc will have no effect on our overall environmental posture.

Sure I would like to see an overall improvement on how we interact with the eco-system. But you are sadly mistaken if you really believe that the carbon question has somehow taken over the entire environmental issue. I earned my Ph.D. in an environmental field, and believe me, there are many, many different avenues of environmental activism out there which do not even give passing consideration to the amount of carbon we put into the air.

It is your prerogative to read into my comments whatever you feel, but just to clarify I said you were on the fence about the AGW alarmism (which is not a real word so my bad). I was saying that you are unconvinced about the apocalyptic threat level that some would have us believe is being created by CO2. I did not suggest that you did not think man is causing the change. You have dozens of posts that say you believe man is responsible to an unknown degree. Apparently any level of human driven change is bad, no matter how imperceptible.

But you certainly do seem to be convinced the earth is actually warming in an unnatural manner. I on the other hand am unconvinced as we are currently seeing no effects that point to anything unnatural occurring. Likely we will continue to disagree here.

You don't like Al Gore comments, Al Gore withdrawn. He's does enough damage to his credibility every time he talks anyhow.

Now to get to my point. Carbon is looking more and more like the wrong target, although it has become the Great Satan for your side. If CO2 does turn out to be a neutral or insignificant player. We need to redefine what is currently classed as eco-friendly. It is possible that some processes that are currently being mothballed because of their CO2 emissions, might actually be the most energy efficient and most ecologically sound. For example hydrocarbons are currently demonized for there carbon footprint, but carbon aside, they can be quite tame (Quote from wiki) "When a hydrocarbon burns in oxygen, the reaction will only yield carbon dioxide and water. When a hydrocarbon or any fuel burns in air, the combustion products will also include nitrogen." Now if Carbon is neutral or insignificant then we are demonizing all hydrocarbon for no good reason. This is is illogical and reactionary.

So, when you say action is better than no action, that is not necessarily true, especially when fears have moved people to believe losses in national sovereignty are an acceptable loss, as well as an increase in taxes. You must be aware that there is a growing radicalized enviro movement that is massively socialistic and as some have said, anti human. The potential does exist to reshape the entire political map. This is not a step we should be considering without fear and trembling. Socialism has never benefited the earth, it has only served to neuter the middle class.

Clearly you agree that some of these approaches are not likely to succeed, but once they are in place, they are not going away. This is a classic case of the baby in the bathwater. Everybody needs to back off the hype and we need to have a new transparent investigation of the real data. And this time around, lets not leave fluctuations in solar activity locked in a closet.

[bonobo]

 When a hydrocarbon or any fuel burns in air, the combustion products will also include nitrogen."  Now if Carbon is neutral or insignificant then we are demonizing all hydrocarbon for no good reason. This is is illogical and reactionary.

And this is what causes acid rain, and that is a harmful phenomenon. 

Actually, I do agree with much of what you just posted.  I just think that carbon credits aside, and some sort of world takeover aside, many of the common sense proposals to limit carbon emissions have essentially no ill effects other than to those in the petrochemical industry and will have positive effects on our environment as well as to our long-term and some short-term economic engines.

If the US, for example, agrees to cut carbon emissions by 20%, I guess it depends on how the country goes about it.  Shutting down industries or moving them to other, "cleaner" countries is not the answer.  But building more wind power, geothermal power, solar, and nuclear power plants will help us make that figure, and those are all good, in my opinion.  Getting more efficient vehicles, lighting, and appliances will help us.  Modernizing our coal-burning plants will help us. All of these will help us, and all are positive measures in and of themselves.

But you are right in that we should not put all our eggs in the carbon basket. And as of now, we aren't.  But I guess it would be possible to shift more and more in that direction.

[RickBradford]

Anybody with time on their hands might like to look at a detailed analysis of the Climategate e-mails (constructed from a skeptic's point of view).

It reads better if you don't view it in isolation as a scandal, but rather as a detailed historical record of the rather closed world of the scientific community. I can easily see how people almost accidentally drift into a state where defending their position and hence reputation becomes more important than behaving in an open and constructive manner.

As I say, it's detailed, perhaps a two or three-hour read.

[canuckamuck]

When a hydrocarbon or any fuel burns in air, the combustion products will also include nitrogen." Now if Carbon is neutral or insignificant then we are demonizing all hydrocarbon for no good reason. This is is illogical and reactionary.

And this is what causes acid rain, and that is a harmful phenomenon.

We don't want to start demonizing nitrogen now do we? a mere 78% of the atmosphere. Oxidation is also a destructive process shall we limit oxygen as well?

Actually, I do agree with much of what you just posted. I just think that carbon credits aside, and some sort of world takeover aside, many of the common sense proposals to limit carbon emissions have essentially no ill effects other than to those in the petrochemical industry and will have positive effects on our environment as well as to our long-term and some short-term economic engines.

If the US, for example, agrees to cut carbon emissions by 20%, I guess it depends on how the country goes about it. Shutting down industries or moving them to other, "cleaner" countries is not the answer. But building more wind power, geothermal power, solar, and nuclear power plants will help us make that figure, and those are all good, in my opinion. Getting more efficient vehicles, lighting, and appliances will help us. Modernizing our coal-burning plants will help us. All of these will help us, and all are positive measures in and of themselves.

But you are right in that we should not put all our eggs in the carbon basket. And as of now, we aren't. But I guess it would be possible to shift more and more in that direction.

I'm ok with that, except I have no opinion on percents, 20 percent I assume is an arbitrary number.

[bonobo]

When a hydrocarbon or any fuel burns in air, the combustion products will also include nitrogen." Now if Carbon is neutral or insignificant then we are demonizing all hydrocarbon for no good reason. This is is illogical and reactionary.

And this is what causes acid rain, and that is a harmful phenomenon.

We don't want to start demonizing nitrogen now do we? a mere 78% of the atmosphere. Oxidation is also a destructive process shall we limit oxygen as well?

Actually, I do agree with much of what you just posted. I just think that carbon credits aside, and some sort of world takeover aside, many of the common sense proposals to limit carbon emissions have essentially no ill effects other than to those in the petrochemical industry and will have positive effects on our environment as well as to our long-term and some short-term economic engines.

If the US, for example, agrees to cut carbon emissions by 20%, I guess it depends on how the country goes about it. Shutting down industries or moving them to other, "cleaner" countries is not the answer. But building more wind power, geothermal power, solar, and nuclear power plants will help us make that figure, and those are all good, in my opinion. Getting more efficient vehicles, lighting, and appliances will help us. Modernizing our coal-burning plants will help us. All of these will help us, and all are positive measures in and of themselves.

But you are right in that we should not put all our eggs in the carbon basket. And as of now, we aren't. But I guess it would be possible to shift more and more in that direction.

I'm ok with that, except I have no opinion on percents, 20 percent I assume is an arbitrary number.

I am not demonizing anything, and that "demonizing" is an argument continually trotted out. Water is a natural substance, and we need it for life.  yet floods have killed untold millions during the last century, so if we say we need to control the Yangtze, are we demonizing water?

Acid rain is caused when the emissions of nitrogen, sulfur, and carbon mix with water droplets, making them acidic.  It can happen naturally with lighting strikes and volcanic eruptions, but most of the acid rain comes from the combustion of coal and oil-based products.

Interesting enough for those cirtics of carbon credits, the US instituted a cap and trade policy in 1990, and that has been very successful in limiting acid rain.

--

The 20% reduction for the US was anumber suggested by several organizations, and one the Obama administration accepted as doable.  Why 20 and not 18 or 22%, I don't really know.

[RickBradford]

Acid rain is caused when the emissions of nitrogen, sulfur, and carbon mix with water droplets, making them acidic

To clarify. Normal (i.e clean) rain is naturally mildly acidic because of the presence of dissolved CO². The chemicals which create what we commonly call acid rain are sulphur dioxide (SO²) and nitrogen oxides (NOx). These are the main culprits, not CO².

Of course, it is the single process -- burning of fossil fuels, especially coal -- which produces all of these gases in the first place.

[ArthurPewty]

To my mind this is how it works. The science says we are screwing our climate and the politicians aim to make money from it.

So, the climate lovers follow the science and the fear mongers hate politicians and therefore disagree with anything they say. That is what I see on YT.

[canuckamuck]

To my mind this is how it works. The science says we are screwing our climate and the politicians aim to make money from it.

So, the climate lovers follow the science and the fear mongers hate politicians and therefore disagree with anything they say. That is what I see on YT.

Science is a generous description when discussing the climate predictions based on IPCC data

[catmac]

... ideological environmentalists are often virulently anti-capitalist, anti-growth, anti-technology, in some ways, anti-human. Such types would be against looking at more realistic alternatives to attack the problem other than a cold turkey, global totalitarian, Calvinist suffering approach that people aren't going to choose by free will anyway.

Bless you, JT, I knew we'd find a point of agreement eventually.

Patrick Moore, one of the founders of Greenpeace in the 1970s, resigned in 1986 at what he saw as the increased politicization of the movement.

"I think one of the most pernicious aspects of the modern environmental movement is the romanticization of peasant life. And the idea that industrial societies are the destroyers of the world. The environmental movement has evolved into the strongest force there is for preventing development in the developing countries. I think it's legitimate for me to call them anti-human."

Then came the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1990, and millions of western Marxists found themselves without an ideological sponsor, so where could they take their anti-capitalist, anti-Western stance?

Yup, just like you said, straight into radical ideological environmentalism.

Ah, Rick, you have hit the nail on the head!

Did anyone else see that little gem from Gerontion about "dismantling the entire consumer economy of the West"?

[thatguy]

http://www.scientificamerican.com/article....ense&page=2

[teatree]

http://www.examiner.com/examiner/x-25061-C...-like-to-forget

[RickBradford]

2008/09: Hot weather

Global warming cultists say:

“Why Global Warming May Be Fueling Australia’s Fires.”

“The terrible events [bushfires] of the past couple of weeks are, without doubt, partly the result of global warming and the greenhouse effect.”

2009/10: Freezing weather.

Global warming cultists say:

Associated Press: “Cold Weather Doesn’t Disprove Global Warming: Experts.”

Voice of America: “Meteorologists: Global Warming and Cold Weather Go Hand-In-Hand.”

“I think we have to be careful not to interpret any single event as a proof of either warming or the fact that warming has stopped,“ cautioned World Meteorological Organisation Secretary-General Michel Jarraud.

When it's warm they say it's global warming and when it's cold they say it's just weather. The attitude of ideological supporters of a greenhouse hypothesis based on manipulated data is reminiscent of Orwell's "Ministry of Truth." This hypocritical religious quackery has gone far enough.

[teatree]

2008/09: Hot weather

Global warming cultists say:

“Why Global Warming May Be Fueling Australia’s Fires.”

“The terrible events [bushfires] of the past couple of weeks are, without doubt, partly the result of global warming and the greenhouse effect.”

2009/10: Freezing weather.

Global warming cultists say:

Associated Press: “Cold Weather Doesn’t Disprove Global Warming: Experts.”

Voice of America: “Meteorologists: Global Warming and Cold Weather Go Hand-In-Hand.”

“I think we have to be careful not to interpret any single event as a proof of either warming or the fact that warming has stopped,“ cautioned World Meteorological Organisation Secretary-General Michel Jarraud.

When it's warm they say it's global warming and when it's cold they say it's just weather. The attitude of ideological supporters of a greenhouse hypothesis based on manipulated data is reminiscent of Orwell's "Ministry of Truth." This hypocritical religious quackery has gone far enough.

Reminds me of when "warmers' use their trump card the Arctic (that was until recently decreasing - the last 2-3 years it has been growing) as proof that AGW is real. When skeptics point out that the Antarctic is INCREASING the warmers say that you can't look at one area of the world as proof that that AGW isn't real. This hypocritical argument was on one of the links posted on this topic.

[astral]

Try to get hold of the BBC series Man on Earth, which follows the way the climate

has been changing over the last 100,000 years.

We might be accelerating the changes, but they happen anyway, no matter what man does.

[RickBradford]

The official 2009 U.S. temperature has just been announced; it was 53.13°F.

The official 1900 U.S. temperature was..... 53.53°F.

This is not the global warming Jim Hansen, Al Gore and the rest of the devoted had in mind when they claimed that the billions of tons of CO² humans were pouring into the atmosphere would turn the world into an oven....

Edited January 11, 2010 by RickBradford