‘Get Over It’: Climate Change Is Happening

[Guest]

The sad thing is that the greatest threat we face is an invisible gas which we are totally unaware of in our everyday life. All the obvious pollutants have been addressed on the local level (though far from so on the Global level since we have simply exported most of them to China and India).

If you look at the paleohistoric record you will find that in those bright and breezy days of yor we as a species almost died out - which is attested to be genetic archaeology in our mitochondrial DNA. The other significant difference was that we as a species lived almost exclusively within the confines of Africa - which has a remarkably stable climate overall compared to the rest of the world.

Our whole life style and Civilization cannot go through the transition's we experienced in our past since we have come to rely on cheap fossil fuels for almost everything we do, and we have come to cluster around the coastal zones which provide almost all of our food. When sea levels rise we will lose much of our currently most inhabited territory. On top of this is the crisis of the oceans precipitated by over exploitation of the fish stocks - just one of a cluster of resource crisis which we currently face. The most pressing one is, and will increasingly be, the crisis of clean water - which even wet old England has started to face.

Most of these issues are not amenable to easy technical solutions since technology is founded on cheap energy - which is in sever decline.

A delicately balanced complex system is liable to topple completely in a rapid time frame when the main support structure is pulled away and that is happening right now in the form of peak oil. At the very best - our future will be significantly harder than our past.

Br Cornelius

Edited September 19, 2012 by Guest

[stevewinn]

The sad thing is that the greatest threat we face is an invisible gas which we are totally unaware of in our everyday life. All the obvious pollutants have been addressed on the local level (though far from so on the Global level since we have simply exported most of them to China and India).

If you look at the paleohistoric record you will find that in those bright and breezy days of yor we as a species almost died out - which is attested to be genetic archaeology in our mitochondrial DNA. The other significant difference was that we as a species lived almost exclusively within the confines of Africa - which has a remarkably stable climate overall compared to the rest of the world.

Our whole life style and Civilization cannot go through the transition's we experienced in our past since we have come to rely on cheap fossil fuels for almost everything we do, and we have come to cluster around the coastal zones which provide almost all of our food. When sea levels rise we will lose much of our currently most inhabited territory. On top of this is the crisis of the oceans precipitated by over exploitation of the fish stocks - just one of a cluster of resource crisis which we currently face. The most pressing one is and will increasingly be the crisis of clean water - which even wet old England has started to face.

A delicately balanced complex system is system is liable to topple completely in a rapid time frame when the main support structure is pulled away and that is happening right now in the form of peak oil.

Br Cornelius

It sounds all rather dramatic. i wish we could time travel, we neither have a chance to say told you so, a debate without conclusion. i doubt in my life time i will witness the dramatic forecast. seeing am still yet to witness it.

[Guest]

It sounds all rather dramatic. i wish we could time travel, we neither have a chance to say told you so, a debate without conclusion. i doubt in my life time i will witness the dramatic forecast. seeing am still yet to witness it.

I wouldn't be so certain - there are many influences coming to ahead which say that this maybe the most dramatic generation that ever lived. I certainly do not feel confident that it will all wait for my childrens generation.

Br Cornelius

[MID]

I find it fascinating that over the last few months there has been a continuing decrease (on the Internet) of articles arguing against the idea that Man is largely responsible for global climate change. Nowadays, it is somewhat rare to come across such articles:

Read one such a "rare" article here

Climate Change Skeptic Says Global Warming Crowd Oversells Its Message

By: Spencer Michels

"... people that like more regulation use global warming as a tool, as a means to an end. And so as a result, we might be getting more regulation and more taxes that really aren't rooted in science, but more in politics."

The above comments are the last, concluding remarks at the end of the article.

What are your thoughts?

My thoughts have been plainly stated herein, much to the chagrin of doomsday scenario affiliates, but my opinions and thoughts are in fair agreement with what you've said.

I think you're right in that man-made global warming hasn't received alot of press lately. I think the reasons are getting pretty obvious. Pweople aren't buying it, because they may be getting that it's all actually a government ploy, not actually based on any science, but based upon the desire for power and control.

People aren't buyiong alot of this government's present mnechanics as being real or factually based, and their getting bored with all of it...maybe a little upset with it too.

[Guest]

My thoughts have been plainly stated herein, much to the chagrin of doomsday scenario affiliates, but my opinions and thoughts are in fair agreement with what you've said.

I think you're right in that man-made global warming hasn't received alot of press lately. I think the reasons are getting pretty obvious. Pweople aren't buying it, because they may be getting that it's all actually a government ploy, not actually based on any science, but based upon the desire for power and control.

People aren't buyiong alot of this government's present mnechanics as being real or factually based, and their getting bored with all of it...maybe a little upset with it too.

You can say that when you can credibly critique the science instead of simply expressing your beliefs.

As for lack of exposure - it was on the news tonight that Arctic sea ice was at such a point of decline this year that the Northern passage was navigable. I think the Deniers have exhausted their credibility and the echo chamber of their "news" is getting increasingly empty and unlistened to. As they say - you can only cry wolf so many times before people stop listening to your lack of evidence based claims of fraud.

Br Cornelius

Edited September 19, 2012 by Guest

[MID]

You can say that when you can credibly critique the science instead of simply expressing your beliefs.

Yes, indeed Doc...my beliefs!

Critique the science?!

And that "science" was what again?

Don't make me re-do what's already been done. It's all here, and frankly, you don't understand it, you don't want to, and you won't go find it.

Whooo!

I'm not going there either. I have more important things to deal with and haven't the time for nonsense.

I could just re-state that the idea that man's activities are having an effect on the atmosphere of this planet is as scientific as the notion that the grasshopper that pooped on the side of my house today will have caused the siding to crack and peel and deteriorate to the point of needing replacement in a matter of years. Thus, the government should pass new laws prohibiting grasshoppers altogether to protect the long term interests of our homes!

[Guest]

Yes, indeed Doc...my beliefs!

Critique the science?!

And that "science" was what again?

Don't make me re-do what's already been done. It's all here, and frankly, you don't understand it, you don't want to, and you won't go find it.

Whooo!

I'm not going there either. I have more important things to deal with and haven't the time for nonsense.

I could just re-state that the idea that man's activities are having an effect on the atmosphere of this planet is as scientific as the notion that the grasshopper that pooped on the side of my house today will have caused the siding to crack and peel and deteriorate to the point of needing replacement in a matter of years. Thus, the government should pass new laws prohibiting grasshoppers altogether to protect the long term interests of our homes!

Exactly as expected - avoid discussing the particulars of your denial so that they can be shown to be as hollow as your rhetoric

I have never actually seen you discuss the actual science of climate change so have no idea what particular flavour of denial you espouse.

Br Cornelius

[Doug1029]

Who knows how long humanity will survive?

Perhaps, but the methane gun has fired before, causing a major loss of species right here on Planet Earth. As things stand right now, there probably isn't enough carbon in the air to push the climate system past the point of no return, even in a worst-case scenario. But we are adding more carbon all the time. Carbon's residence time in the air is at least centuries, possibly a millenium and some people think it is, for all practical purposes, permanent - take your pick. It will take several more decades for CO2 levels to get high enough that the worst-case scenario could happen. Even then, there is disagreement on how long it might take. Early on, people thought it could happen in as little as a century. Further research suggests that the end-Permian extinction took about 10,000 years. So the answer to your question is: sometime between a century and 10,000 years (Hansen thinks 500 would be the best estimate; his information is a little dated, though. Maybe I can find the exact quote, but not for a few days.).

but maybe we should look at a warming world as an advantage instead of the disadvantage.

There will be winners and losers in any major change. Once the Greenland ice sheet is gone, there will likely be a new fishery there. Canada and Russia will be able to grow more grain. Not everything is bad. But the balance is negative; we'll lose more than we gain by it.

our species benefited from a warmer world. a world 4c warmer than today. sea levels were two to three meters higher. its nearly the exact same conditions portrayed as the doomsday scenario.

Sea levels about 250 AD were 5.6 feet higher than today; that's the highest it has been since the Last Glacial Maximum, about 19,000 yBP - as evidenced by rock-boring mollusk holes in the docks at Caesarea. Then sea levels dropped, baring all that coastal land. And then we built things on it. And now the sea is rising. 125,000 years ago Washington, DC was a cypress swamp (The National Geographic Building sits on the site.). Flooding of the Capitol Mall is quite likely. For the US, that's an inconvenience; for thousands of Bengali farmers, it's their livelihood. For many South Sea islanders, it's the total loss of their country.

A few years ago the Great Salt Lake started rising. It flooded parts of the interstate in Salt Lake City. There's a National Geographic cover showing people in a rowboat in the lobby of Saltaire, the luxury hotel. Millions of Federal dollars spent on raising the interstate and in building ditches, retaining walls and pumping stations for the Western Desert Project. My taxes are already paying off the costs of global warming. What happens to them when Washington, New York and New Orleans (again) go under? Do you think Mitt Romney and his buddies will want to pay the costs themselves? It's a case of pay me now, or pay me later, but either way we get to pay.

its no coincidence the abundance of life can be found in the tropics and warmer climes of the world infact of the 9 million species estimated on earth 97% live in the warmer part of the world. in comparison the colder regions seem almost barren.

By the end of this century, we will be able to grow loblolly pine in Minnesota. The climate will be warm enough and we can easily load up a truck with loblolly seedlings and drive north. But what of the millions of species needed by the ecosystem to remain functional? If we're going to transplant southern forests to the north, we're going to have to move over 6500 woody species from Alabama to Minnesota. And that doesn't count earthworms, bugs, fungi and thousands, maybe millions of others we can't even name. At the present, warming is moving north about twice as fast as most plants can propagate. When the plant's southern range limit outruns the northern extent of its population, the result is extinction.

If you don't deal with it on a regular basis, it is hard to see how closely species ranges are tied to the climate. Check the northern limit of shortleaf pine; then check the position of the 10-degree C. average isoline. The range of the armadillo is controlled by the maximum duration of snow cover: it takes an armadillo about nine weeks to starve to death because it doesn't know how to dig through the snow to get food. If snow cover lasts longer than nine weeks, the range of the armadillo shrinks. And so on for millions of species.

Past climate changes were not a problem because they usually happened slowly. Plants and animals had time to adapt. 2000 years ago there was a pine forest around Tulsa. Today, the nearest natural pine is 60 miles away. And the climate then was not significantly different from the climate today; the Climate Optimum that you describe as so beneficial to mankind, effectively exterminated pine in western Oklahoma. When climate change was rapid (end of the Younger Dryas) it was a disaster for mammoths, mastodons, saber-toothed cats and dire wolves, but an opportunity for black bears, grizzlies, moose and white-tailed deer - winners and losers. And so it will be this time - if climate change is slow enough. And that's the problem - it is already moving too fast for populations to keep up and only promises to accelerate in the future.

We really need understand the world isn't a constant, the name of the game is adaptation,

That is what I foresee humankind doing: wait until disaster forces us to adapt, then muddling through as best we can. The problem is that we could entrain disasters like the methane gun without even realizing we've done it until it is too late to recall the bullet, too late to undo the damage. The Near East was once a fertile paradise. Now areas where there once were productive fields are barren deserts. The same thing is happening in the American Southwest. What are we doing about it? Next to nothing. The Agricultural Research Service could be breeding and engineering new fruit crops to take advantage of the changing climate. We could be growing Desert Apricots, or American plums or Service Berries or salt-resistent tomatoes. But we aren't even trying. The Plant Materials Center is domesticating a wild penstamon so we can have pretty flowers. A researcher just got a grant to produce hotter peppers - like Scotch bonnets and Jamaican hellfires aren't hot enough already.

modern day pollution is being tackled, here in the UK our air quality is the best its been in decades, our waters rivers and surrounding seas are also vastly improved. we are moving in the right direction to combat pollution.

My hometown is in the Rust Belt. It benefited imensely from the Clean Air Act and EPA. My brother's inlaws' back yard was a Super-fund site. It's actually a beautiful place now. And Lake Erie is cleaner than I've ever seen it before. I whole-heartedly support these efforts. But what do you do about a place like Pitcher, Oklahoma? It's an old mining district so contaminated with lead and arsenic that the government condemned the whole town and offered to buy out any residents willing to accept. Pitcher can never be restored or rehabilitated. The mining companies destroyed it, then walked off and left it. And the Republicans want to do more of this?

the sad thing is even if we went to zero - 0 greenhouse gases it would only take the eruption of a modest volcano to undo those achievements. mans 00.4% total contribution to the atmosphere as a whole seems insignificant in grand scheme of things.

hypothetical - but i've often wondered if mans release of greenhouse gases was eliminated, Zero Greenhouse gases. but the void left was filled by a new volcano erupting the exact same amount of greenhouse gases how would we stop the volcano, would we simply say its natural? how would we combat it? because the same doomsday scenario would exist. a warming world, rising sea levels etc..

The effect of volcanoes is to cool the climate. Sulfides from the eruption reach the stratosphere where they reflect solar energy back into space. The great storms of 1886/1887 were the result of the eruption of Krakatoa in 1883. The "Year Without a Summer" was the result of Tamboura and the Fimbul Winter of legend was the result of a 535 AD eruption of a South American volcano. But these effects are transitory; ours aren't.

I am optimistic that things will get done. Noble Energy is already on record that they will one day have to transition away from petroleum and move into areas like biofuels and wind if they want to stay in business. Even Mr. Big Oil - T. Boone Pickens - is promoting the move away from oil. Electric cars are getting better and cheaper and home solar and wind units are doing the same.*

The political rhetoric aside, I see the world, US included, moving to clean energy because it is both cheaper and produces fewer health and environmental problems than fossil fuels. The question is: will we do it soon enough?

Doug

*Karlis: I jumped the gun on buying that home solar unit. There's a better one out - by the same company.

Edited September 20, 2012 by Doug1029

[Doug1029]

here is the study you quoted

http://specialpapers...99/249.abstract

"atmospheric injections of methane and its oxidation to carbon dioxide could have been a cause of extinction"

which column do we put "could have" under? the fact column or the speculation column? I guess it depends on whether ones intent is to be scientific or political.

I think I see your problem: you want nothing less than a categorical, absolute statement. If that's what you want, try religion. You will not get it from science. Science cannot "proove" anything. It is probabilistic. We can reduce the chances of error to an absolute minimum, but no science can totally eliminate them.

Even authors who don't explicitly state this in their papers know it. And so does anybody who reads those papers. The risk of error may be 1:20 or 1:20,000,000,000, but it is always there.

Once before I asked you what level of risk you would accept in a scientific paper. You just answered it: none.

You don't seem to be interested in the science, only in an argument.

Doug

P.S.: You quoted the abstract. At least read the paper.

Doug

[MID]

Exactly as expected - avoid discussing the particulars of your denial so that they can be shown to be as hollow as your rhetoric

I have never actually seen you discuss the actual science of climate change so have no idea what particular flavour of denial you espouse.

Br Cornelius

I guess you just didn't get the response at all. Doen't surprise...at all.

[Karlis]

~~~ ...

*Karlis: I jumped the gun on buying that home solar unit. There's a better one out - by the same company.

Just goes to show that solar technology is still in its baby-infancy stage. Bet you that in twenty years, today's solar power generation ability will be classed as "baby steps".

[Guest]

I guess you just didn't get the response at all. Doen't surprise...at all.

I understand your approach very well MID. Avoid Avoid Avoid. But make lots of noise whilst doing so.

Br Cornelius

[MID]

I understand your approach very well MID. Avoid Avoid Avoid. But make lots of noise whilst doing so.

Br Cornelius

Because I don't go back and dig up material put on line for you, and which concluded the discussion, long ago?

It's a nice device to make you sound like you still have an argument, but...

I know better. So does everyone else of rational critical mind reading this thread...

Edited September 20, 2012 by MID

[Guest]

Because I don't go back and dig up material put on line for you, and which concluded the discussion, long ago?

It's a nice device to make you sound like you still have an argument, but...

I know better. So does everyone else of rational critical mind reading this thread...

Still nothing but opinion (again). The critical mind can see hot air - which ever hole it come from

You really don't get this science thing - which is surprising for a man who made his living as an engineer. Let me give you a clue - opinions have to be supported by evidence in science such that others can understand what you based those opinions on and critique them if they are not based on sound evidence.

Go on - give science a try for a change.

Br Cornelius

Edited September 21, 2012 by Guest

[Karlis]

Hi MID and Br Cornelius -- call off your ping-pong game, or continue it via PM.

Thanks,

Karlis

[MID]

It is a little irritating, isn't it?

I really have no time for such nonsense, Karlis I'm off this "discussion".

.

[regeneratia]

Yes, but it is all anthropomorphic? I don't think so. I think this is about the evolution and/or cycles of the sun and the cosmos, including the evolution of the earth.

Robert Schock talked on C2Cam about major solar events and how it effected the earth and how people dealt with it. Seems that this type of thing has happened before. While it does indeed appear to be doomsday stuff, it is all about the cycles of the sun and earth.

http://www.robertsch...ioandintro.html

But again, I agree with the remedy.

Edited September 21, 2012 by regeneratia

[Doug1029]

Hi everybody -

Look what a typo can do! Type http://www.wottsupwiththat.com into your browser and see what comes up. I suggest reading "Denialist Squeaks" for a laugh and "Surface Temperature Paper" for some good into on Watts' BS paper on "good stations" Vs. "bad stations." I haven't had a chance to read through much of the rest of it.

Doug

[Little Fish]

I suggest reading "Denialist Squeaks" for a laugh

those are anonymous comments from around the web, he probably even made it up, what a loser.

did you know the moderator at cornelius favourite website skepticalscience accidently turned off adminstrator privileges recently and exposed their secret forum to the world where the moderators and "scientists" held strategy meetings. they talked about ripping anthony watts throat out and other nasty things, and that was the moderators and people that run the site!

"And this isn’t about science or personal careers and reputations any more. This is a fight for survival. Our civilisations survival. .. We need our own anonymous (or not so anonymous) donors, our own think tanks…. Our Monckton’s … Our assassins.

Anyone got Bill Gates’ private number, Warren Buffett, Richard Branson? Our ‘side’ has got to get professional, ASAP. We don’t need to blog. We need to network. Every single blog, organisation, movement is like a platoon in an army. ..This has a lot of similarities to the Vietnam War….And the skeptics are the Viet Cong… Not fighting like ‘Gentlemen’ at all. And the mainstream guys like Gleick don’t know how to deal with this. Queensberry Rules rather than biting and gouging.

..So, either Mother Nature deigns to give the world a terrifying wake up call. Or people like us have to build the greatest guerilla force in human history. Now. Because time is up…Someone needs to convene a council of war of the major environmental movements, blogs, institutes etc. In a smoke filled room (OK, an incense filled room) we need a conspiracy to save humanity."

"Sometimes you just want to let loose and scream about how you want to take those ***********ing arseholes, those closed-minded bigotted genocidal pieces of regurgitated dog **** and do unspeakable violence to their bodies and souls for what they are doing to the safety of what and who we all hold dear. (Ain’t a lack of a moderation policy a cleansing and liberating thing?)…

Work out what you are best suited too and do that. But be able to distance yourself enough from your personal reactions to also see the bigger picture of the entire war and contribute to framing that broad campaign – “We need to focus on this and this and this. But my personal contribution will be to ripe Anthony Watts’ throat out – metaphorically of course.”"

http://wattsupwithth...-save-humanity/

skepticalscience? don't make me laugh.

scientists? what a joke!

disgusting.

that's the true face of the enviro mental movement.

[Doug1029]

skepticalscience? don't make me laugh.

So you read "Denialist Squeaks." I thought they were hilarious, too.

scientists? what a joke!

disgusting.

And now you know what you sound like to the rest of the world.

that's the true face of the enviro mental movement.

I understand their frustration. A project you spent ten years working on, making sure everything was right, is trashed by someone with no scientifictic training at all who spent all of ten minutes "researching" the topic, makes so many fundamental mistakes that their rant barely makes sense and doesn't even understand what your paper said. So much for deniers.

Doug

Edited September 24, 2012 by Doug1029

[MID]

Yes, but it is all anthropomorphic? I don't think so. I think this is about the evolution and/or cycles of the sun and the cosmos, including the evolution of the earth.

Robert Schock talked on C2Cam about major solar events and how it effected the earth and how people dealt with it. Seems that this type of thing has happened before. While it does indeed appear to be doomsday stuff, it is all about the cycles of the sun and earth.

Regeneratia, I tend to agree with you!

[Professor Buzzkill]

So you read "Denialist Squeaks." I thought they were hilarious, too.

And now you know what you sound like to the rest of the world.

I understand their frustration. A project you spent ten years working on, making sure everything was right, is trashed by someone with no scientifictic training at all who spent all of ten minutes "researching" the topic, makes so many fundamental mistakes that their rant barely makes sense and doesn't even understand what your paper said. So much for deniers.

Doug

What you are saying is that the facts don't speak for themselves, and anyone with a spare 10 minutes can destroy a properly researched project?

Surely the facts should speak for themselves and scientists do not need to resort to guerrilla tactics or name calling, disinformation and personal opinions.

What i want from researchers is unbiased observations.

[Guest]

What you are saying is that the facts don't speak for themselves, and anyone with a spare 10 minutes can destroy a properly researched project?

Surely the facts should speak for themselves and scientists do not need to resort to guerrilla tactics or name calling, disinformation and personal opinions.

What i want from researchers is unbiased observations.

Its easy to make a vaguely convincing narrative for people who don't want to understand the facts, and that is the audience for Watts Up.

Br Cornelius

[Guest]

Regeneratia, I tend to agree with you!

Solar cycles do not explain the current warming. Its that simple.

Br Cornelius

[regeneratia]

Hi everybody -

Look what a typo can do! Type http://www.wottsupwiththat.com into your browser and see what comes up. I suggest reading "Denialist Squeaks" for a laugh and "Surface Temperature Paper" for some good into on Watts' BS paper on "good stations" Vs. "bad stations." I haven't had a chance to read through much of the rest of it.

Doug

I see that you are readily using labels. That demonstrates a few and narrow neuropathways, and perhaps the inability to forge new neuropathways. See how you have been trained to not think for yourself?