Do you accept the reality of AGW ?

[MysticStrummer]

In the absence of a proper question i voted no. I don't accept that humans are the be all and end all of climate change. I would like to see alot less polution, especially from the developing countries, but CO2 would be low on the list of polutants that i would target. You dont get a smog cloud big enough to cover Europe, like the one we are seeing in China/Korea/Japan at the moment, from CO2 alone.

The "reality of AGW" doesn't say humans are the sole cause, so you could have voted yes. Only hardcore deniers pretend that climate scientists don't know about natural cycles. I don't know of anyone who says CO2 is the only pollutant to blame either.

[Goblin-5]

The "reality of AGW" doesn't say humans are the sole cause, so you could have voted yes. Only hardcore deniers pretend that climate scientists don't know about natural cycles. I don't know of anyone who says CO2 is the only pollutant to blame either.

CO2 may not be the only pollutant, but it is the one getting the most press. Methane is significantly more of a problem and there is a LOT of methane in peat bogs and undersea. Hence anything that causes warming will also cause more Methane to be released thus triggering a feedback loop.

That said, ice core data clearly shows that the earth undergoes periods of cooling followed by warming and these shifts take place very rapidly (centuries) in geological terms. What is the main forcing behind these events (since humans and the industrial revoloution were not around then), is uncertain. Currently we are in a warming period, but the fact that we are pumping GIGAtonnes of CO2 into the atmosphere cannot be seen as anything but harmful. I would favour anything that reduces this massive insult to the planets atmosphere, but the fact remains that as the earths population increases, there is a need for more resources which means more CO2 generation. Reduce the population and maybe, just maybe you would reduce the CO2 output. However this will take decades at least and while the earth has seemingly paused in its warming trend, we simply have to do something to reduce the CO2 output ASAP. Common sense if nothing else would dictate that.

[Render]

Well of course we are contributing. But I don't support the idea that this change in climate is necessarily a bad thing. It could just be that, change.

[lightly]

Ya, i think greenhouse gases, predominately C02, are having an effect. When was the last time All of the Glaciers in the Northern hemisphere were melting at the rate they are melting NOW? ... and sea ice was in the shape it's in now? You don't need a degree to notice glaciers melting.

[FurthurBB]

Someone mentioned reducing rates especially in developing countries. I cannot agree that developing countries can be targeted in that way or they will not develop. Developed countries have to take the bulk of the burden because they can and because they were allowed to develop without interference. Although I think China is developed and needs to start reducing their emissions.

[Guest]

Someone mentioned reducing rates especially in developing countries. I cannot agree that developing countries can be targeted in that way or they will not develop. Developed countries have to take the bulk of the burden because they can and because they were allowed to develop without interference. Although I think China is developed and needs to start reducing their emissions.

The convergence rate for sustainable development is 2tonnes of carbon per person. For most people in the developed world this means a reduction of 80% on current emissions. For those in developing nations current emissions are generally in the region of 1tonne so the targets allow for a doubling of their emissions. If this were achieved through a roll out of solar PV, solar cookers and biogas this would raise billions out of abject poverty to a comfortable standard of living. It would ensure that the remaining tree biomass wasn't converted to woodfuel (the primary pressure on trees in developing countries - especially African nations). This is why technology transfer, and support for developing nations investment in these areas, are critically important in arresting the decline of the planetary biosphere and why it is such an important focus within Kyoto.This should be about enlightened self interest.

The west has always had an exploitative relationship with developing nations and the next stage of that is to attempt to deny them appropriate developement to allow for the wests own unsustainable behaviour to continue.

This video should inspire confidence in what can be achieved;

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[/media]

Br Cornelius

Edited February 15, 2013 by Guest

[Guest]

So Little Fish, you finally came off the fence and decided that man has no influence of climate change, Nice

At least your been honest now .

Br Cornelius

Edited February 23, 2013 by Guest

[Tutankhaten-pasheri]

I certainly think we should not be pumping out millions of tons of various gases into the atmosphere, or as much other waste into the sea and land. This is clearly commonsense for both sides of argument. However, it seems disagreable that skeptics of AGW are being treated like some sort of primitive reactionaries,and sly hints that they may of course be fascists, rascists, witches etc etc. The propaganda is as obvious as it is obnoxious. I am not any earth scientist of any description, but I know Earth is technically still in an ice-age, and an ice-age is determined if there is any ice at both poles. At the moment we are in an interglacial period. within an overall ice-age. Eventually this period will end. The question is about if this interglacial is not actually an interglacial, but the natural end to the ice-age. Certainly there is evidence of existing glaciers retreating and sea ice declining, though this is by no means conclusive proof of anything as it is within any normal fluctuations. Despite ice core analysis, we still have a very short term view of natural cycles, for instance, how long have we been able to take the measurements we are able now? and now old is the Earth? Perhaps there is some arrogance about our own abilities here. The normal condition for most of Earth's history is of a greenhouse planet, it could be simply a co-incidence that we the ones alive when Earth begins to return to it's normal state. The problem for us is that we are no longer hunter gatherers able to freely move about the planet, migrating away from problem areas. Now we have developed nation states we have lost the abiltiy to migrate at will and on a big scale. There will be devastating wars over any real climate change, and likely in our lifetime, if this is the end of the ice-age and not just a fluctuation within an interglacial.

Edited February 23, 2013 by Atentutankh-pasheri

[Guest]

I certainly think we should not be pumping out millions of tons of various gases into the atmosphere, or as much other waste into the sea and land. This is clearly commonsense for both sides of argument.However, it seems disagreable that skeptics of AGW are being treated like some sort of primitive reactionaries,and sly hints that they may of course be fascists, rascists, witches etc etc. The propaganda is as obvious as it is obnoxious.

You are the only one name calling here. I have pointed out that certain members are well known conspiracy freaks and that makes them highly motivated to distort reality. The simple fact is that those who espouse skeptism cannot defend their position in a logically consistent way which accounts for the evidence. As such it is reasonable to call them deniers. I have consitenty found that those in denial are motivated by ideological drivers such a political conservatism, a belief that all governments are out to get/kill us and/or religious belief that we are insignificant in the grand scheme of things. When presented with the evidence of AGW they either distort it or deny it, and this is why they have been justly labelled deniers because it perfectly describes their methodology.

I am not any earth scientist of any description, but I know Earth is technically still in an ice-age, and an ice-age is determined if there is any ice at both poles. At the moment we are in an interglacial period.

Care to support that with any evidence since no definition of an ice age I have ever come across defines it as needing to have ice at the pole. Thats a simple request which you will find shows that you are arguing from a false premise and therefore you conclusions are highly suspect. You are correct in saying that we are in an interglacial period - not a glacial period.

The Wiki entry would make a nice summery of what an ice age is, but remember that an ice age is very much an arbitrary definition based upon subjective criteria defined by the user of the term. This maybe where you arrived at your misunderstanding since if you are quoting from a site which is espousing the new trendy theory of a coming ice age (russian in origin), they have probably fabricated the polar bit to support their dubious position;

An ice age, or more precisely, a glacial age, is a period of long-term reduction in the temperature of the Earth's surface and atmosphere, resulting in the presence or expansion of continental ice sheets, polar ice sheets and alpine glaciers. Within a long-term ice age, individual pulses of cold climate are termed "glacial periods" (or alternatively "glacials" or "glaciations" or colloquially as "ice age"), and intermittent warm periods are called "interglacials". Glaciologically, ice age implies the presence of extensive ice sheets in the northern and southern hemispheres.^[1] By this definition, we are still in the ice age that began 2.6 million years ago at the start of the Pleistocene epoch, because the Greenland and Antarctic ice sheets still exist.^[2]

within an overall ice-age. Eventually this period will end. The question is about if this interglacial is not actually an interglacial, but the natural end to the ice-age. Certainly there is evidence of existing glaciers retreating and sea ice declining, though this is by no means conclusive proof of anything as it is within any normal fluctuations.

The actual long term temperature record shows that we have been in a long term decline in temperature which would have eventually put us back in an ice age, but that would have been in about 20thousand years time. The current warming came out of nowhere with none of the usual normal climate drivers causing it and dramatically and rapidly reversed the cooling trend of millenium.

Despite ice core analysis, we still have a very short term view of natural cycles, for instance, how long have we been able to take the measurements we are able now? and now old is the Earth? Perhaps there is some arrogance about our own abilities here. The normal condition for most of Earth's history is of a greenhouse planet, it could be simply a co-incidence that we the ones alive when Earth begins to return to it's normal state. The problem for us is that we are no longer hunter gatherers able to freely move about the planet, migrating away from problem areas. Now we have developed nation states we have lost the abiltiy to migrate at will and on a big scale. There will be devastating wars over any real climate change, and likely in our lifetime, if this is the end of the ice-age and not just a fluctuation within an interglacial.

Which all preceeds from the misunderstanding that climate science is all about AGW, it is not. Climate science is all about understanding the mechanisms of natural climate change and anthropogenic climate change. We have a fairly good handle on the natural processes which cause transitions from ice ages to interglacials, and that is why the current warming is so startling in that it is so out of character for the planet in its current orbital state.

Br Cornelius

Edited February 23, 2013 by Guest

[Tutankhaten-pasheri]

My post was rational and calm and correct to my knowledge. Your replies are almost Stalinist and show an almost religious and dogmatic approach to this subject. I will not quote any science back at you, for it will be simply my word. No discussion here about the money made from this climate change nonsense. Nothing about all the false reporting (lies) about Himalayas, or the corruption by those unelected officials in UN and other bodies who make jobs for family and friends about this affair, or the vast amount of money they make. This climate change was treated as fringe a few years back, then Bush and others saw opportunities for $$$ and sudenly it is the new reality and crap dropped on heads of "deniers" . You a friend of Bush and big business? tovarish.........

[Guest]

My post was rational and calm and correct to my knowledge. Your replies are almost Stalinist and show an almost religious and dogmatic approach to this subject. I will not quote any science back at you, for it will be simply my word. No discussion here about the money made from this climate change nonsense. Nothing about all the false reporting (lies) about Himalayas, or the corruption by those unelected officials in UN and other bodies who make jobs for family and friends about this affair, or the vast amount of money they make. This climate change was treated as fringe a few years back, then Bush and others saw opportunities for $$$ and sudenly it is the new reality and crap dropped on heads of "deniers" . You a friend of Bush and big business? tovarish.........

I am not interested in your opinions since they are worth nothing to anyone here. If you are not prepared to defend your statements with evidence then they are just more hot air. My reply addressed the specific misconceptions you espoused based on my understanding of climate science. I can back up every single statement I made with scientific papers - can you ???

As to the rest, just ill informed paranoid nonsense. Bush did everything he could to block climate research in defence of his fossil fuel interests and their lobbyists. Climate science existed before AGW and the amount of money spent on it would have been significantly the same since it is of economic importance to understand what climate will do in the future based on understanding of what it did in the past.

Br Cornelius

Edited February 23, 2013 by Guest

[Little Fish]

My post was rational and calm and correct to my knowledge. Your replies are almost Stalinist and show an almost religious and dogmatic approach to this subject. I will not quote any science back at you, for it will be simply my word. No discussion here about the money made from this climate change nonsense. Nothing about all the false reporting (lies) about Himalayas, or the corruption by those unelected officials in UN and other bodies who make jobs for family and friends about this affair, or the vast amount of money they make. This climate change was treated as fringe a few years back, then Bush and others saw opportunities for $$$ and sudenly it is the new reality and crap dropped on heads of "deniers" . You a friend of Bush and big business? tovarish.........

well said tut.

cornelius, you should stop spitting your poison, it does no good for your political cause.

I hear they have figured a technical way to remove co2 from power station emissions.

how will the name calling cultists respond i wonder.

[Guest]

well said tut.

cornelius, you should stop spitting your poison, it does no good for your political cause.

I hear they have figured a technical way to remove co2 from power station emissions.

how will the name calling cultists respond i wonder.

Last time I looked (about 6months ago) carbon capture was been abandoned everywhere it had been tried as been totally uneconomic, so unless some miracle has happened since I doubt anyone will be saying anything. It is estimated any viable carbon capture would make coal twice as expensive making it uneconomical when competing against renewables.

I always have a little corner of my spleen for you little fish. Reassuring to see your still consistently backing the wrong horse.

Br Cornelius

[Guest]

The reason that the current interglacial has about 20Kyears left to run;

To answer this question, it is necessary to understand what has caused the shifts between ice ages and interglacials during this period. The cycle appears to be a response to changes in the Earth’s orbit and tilt, which affect the amount of summer sunlight reaching the northern hemisphere. When this amount declines, the rate of summer melt declines and the ice sheets begin to grow. In turn, this increases the amount of sunlight reflected back into space, increasing (or amplifying) the cooling trend. Eventually a newice age emerges and lasts for about 100,000 years.

So what are today’s conditions like? Changes in both the orbit and tilt of the Earth do indeed indicate that the Earth should be cooling. However, two reasons explain why an ice age is unlikely:

• These two factors, orbit and tilt, are weak and are not acting within the same timescale – they are out of phase by about 10,000 years. This means that their combined effect would probably be too weak to trigger an ice age. You have to go back 430,000 years to find an interglacial with similar conditions, and this interglacial lasted about 30,000 years.
  
• The warming effect from CO2 and other greenhouse gases is greater than the cooling effect expected from natural factors. Without human interference, the Earth’s orbit and tilt, a slight decline in solar output since the 1950s and volcanic activity would have led to global cooling. Yet global temperatures are definitely on the rise.
  

It can therefore be concluded that with CO2 concentrations set to continue to rise, a return to ice age conditions seems very unlikely. Instead, temperatures are increasing andthis increase may come at a considerable cost with few or no benefits.

http://www.skeptical...tle-ice-age.htm

So extrapolation from paleoclimatological records comes to our rescue to explain why a currently trendy theory is wrong, and why climate science studies history to better understand the present.

well said tut.

Its only well said when it comes from a reasonable position

Br Cornelius

Edited February 23, 2013 by Guest

[Tutankhaten-pasheri]

I am not interested in your opinions since they are worth nothing to anyone here. If you are not prepared to defend your statements with evidence then they are just more hot air. My reply addressed the specific misconceptions you espoused based on my understanding of climate science. I can back up every single statement I made with scientific papers - can you ???

As to the rest, just ill informed paranoid nonsense. Bush did everything he could to block climate research in defence of his fossil fuel interests and their lobbyists. Climate science existed before AGW and the amount of money spent on it would have been significantly the same since it is of economic importance to understand what climate will do in the future based on understanding of what it did in the past.

Br Cornelius

Entire long original reply edited out to become this - I do not engage in theosophical arguments with arrogant, pompous, pedantic religious fundamentalists (climate change hysterics) who engage in fascist slur and disinformation tactics. Sneer and insult all you like, there will be no reponse, I no longer have time or inclination for these stupid idiot games on this site. And as for the ridiculous habit of people always having to have the last comment to "proove" they are right, well, KMA

Edited February 24, 2013 by Atentutankh-pasheri

[Guest]

Entire long original reply edited out to become this - I do not engage in theosophical arguments with arrogant, pompous, pedantic religious fundamentalists (climate change hysterics) who engage in fascist slur and disinformation tactics. Sneer and insult all you like, there will be no reponse, I no longer have time or inclination for these stupid idiot games on this site.

No you make unsupportable statements and expect to be taken seriously.

Remember this, everything I said was supportable with evidence, and I get mighty sick of people repeating bull**** as if it were fact

When you can be grown up enough to present a statement and support it in debate with evidence, you might feel a bit happier when your opinions are questioned and you can actually defend them. Until then its only you who are playing games.

As to the ad homiems - grow up.

Br Cornelius

Edited February 24, 2013 by Guest

[Little Fish]

Last time I looked (about 6months ago) carbon capture was been abandoned everywhere it had been tried as been totally uneconomic, so unless some miracle has happened since I doubt anyone will be saying anything. It is estimated any viable carbon capture would make coal twice as expensive making it uneconomical when competing against renewables.

you think this way because you are stuck in your box. the new process doesn't burn coal, it releases the coal's energy through chemical reaction not combustion, so there is no co2. I'll wager you never heard of this because the parties that promote and fund this "AGW" have an agenda, not in itself to reduce emissions, but as a means to take society back a thousand years to a feudalistic slavery system. will it ever become reailty, probably not since safe thorium nuclear reactor technology has been available for 50 years and strangely was never developed.

I always have a little corner of my spleen for you little fish. Reassuring to see your still consistently backing the wrong horse.

that's encouraging, i would have expected much less from you.

[Guest]

you think this way because you are stuck in your box. the new process doesn't burn coal, it releases the coal's energy through chemical reaction not combustion, so there is no co2. I'll wager you never heard of this because the parties that promote and fund this "AGW" have an agenda, not in itself to reduce emissions, but as a means to take society back a thousand years to a feudalistic slavery system. will it ever become reailty, probably not since safe thorium nuclear reactor technology has been available for 50 years and strangely was never developed.

that's encouraging, i would have expected much less from you.

Little Fish, if you have some actual facts to share then please share them so we can all be educated. Only when I see the facts and figures can I have an informed opinion on them. Things are rarely as simple as they first appear, but maybe you have something and we can all go back to burning coal in a clean and efficient way. Only the scientific evidence will allow us to know though.

You see Little Fish, if it is true, then I will be a fan. Its that simple - I want the best for us all. I don't share your paranoia about the powers that be.

Its nice for you finally to state out in the open your real motivation, the great oppressive feudal return conspiracy. Only took you a full 5 years to be honest about what you really believe.

Br Cornelius

Edited February 24, 2013 by Guest

[onereaderone]

this is way to easy...

three ideas... lets see if you can get upset with out calling me names and getting red faced ....

*****************************************************************

idea 1 ,

oxygen at 20% in the atmosphere is unnatural , it is caused by plants that produce oxygen to kill off those life forms that are not oxygen hardy .

when oxygen levels go up... things burn , and animals get active .

when carbondioxide goes up... plants grow faster and animals sleep more .

it is a self regulating system , and frankly speaking , its a whole lot bigger than 7 billion people can disrupt .

************************************************************************************

idea 2 .

during second season of world war one , they had the worst winter on record .

during second season of world war two , they had the worst winter on record .

during second season of american revolution , they had the worst winter on record .

i could go on , but lets look at the time line of hot and cold ....

and something that has been known since the time before history ...

when people are busy doing other things... they do not plant crops , but they make a lot of messy oil spills and nasty burned out building , and dead animals laying about rotting ....

and guess what your climet models do not see... history says... things get cold when carbon goes up, you start pulling carbon dioxide out of the air , plants will grow slower , and things will heat up.

it has absolutly nothing at all to do with green house gas... and everything to do with heat comming off feilds of growing crops . if you look at the real record , and take the academic point of spin and politic's out... you have what every sail plane pilot in the world knows .... you catch thermals over parking lots and corn feilds... this is not rocket science ... stop feeding people , let them starve... and you will get more global warming , which will lead to castistophic failures of the eco-system... which will lead to a new academic model... that says... ooops, we got it backwards....

we need more of the carbondioxide , to pump up the growing seasons , to last longer... to cool everything down...

to cool the center of the earth , so the magnetic feild will fail... and kill off all life on earth...

*****************************************************************************************************************************

idea 3

there is no way to explain this so that it makes even the tiny sense it needs to... if the earth was the size of the earth... all the living matter is so small... it makes no sense at all how tiny it is . the atmosphere is not miles thick... its thousands of feet thick... living things are not hundreds of feet below the ground... the bark of a tree is how deep living things go... living stuff is between one cell floating in a ocean ...or... mostly 3 to 6 cells deep , and that is 99.999% of the bulk weight of what we know is living stuff .... frankly speaking.. the stuff that walks around is pretty amazing , but its so very tiny in the scheme of things , and its not been around for long enought to know how its going to effect the old guys .

i understand that there are 7 billion humans. but there is a billion tons of planckton for every human on the earth , and when the planckton gets a sniffel... the earth sees an ice age ....

[Little Fish]

the poll is a leading question, vote no and you risk looking like a wacko who denies science in the eyes of the believers.

so, putting the stupid poll aside, here is what the data says, and what the debate is really about.

[Tutankhaten-pasheri]

And don't forget this

[Guest]

And don't forget this

The Mann graph is a global average trend line. Comparing it with a regional graph informs us not one tiny jot.

This is on the same level as saying its cold where I am today so it must be cold across the planet - illogical.

Br Cornelius

Edited February 24, 2013 by Guest

[Von Bismarck]

Would you care to share the data used for this graph?? Or at least a sorce for the graph.

I'm qurently going trough a reconstruction for AIR temperatures in Northen Euorpe for the last 2000 years. Although it's not surface temperatures i'm working on, i still got a surface dataset which also shows the MWP was warmer than today in NORTHEN EUROPE but is no where near the graph you have shown Aten.

[Tutankhaten-pasheri]

Would you care to share the data used for this graph?? Or at least a sorce for the graph.

I'm qurently going trough a reconstruction for AIR temperatures in Northen Euorpe for the last 2000 years. Although it's not surface temperatures i'm working on, i still got a surface dataset which also shows the MWP was warmer than today in NORTHEN EUROPE but is no where near the graph you have shown Aten.

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

[Guest]

http://en.wikipedia....ick_controversy

That graph doesn't come from that link.

What are you trying to pull - whats the real source ??

Br Cornelius

Edited February 24, 2013 by Guest