Global Warming mini-rant

[Quinnf]

Ray, that's what bugs me about your position, or rather non-position since you say you haven't one.  You repeatedly characterize the position of the skeptics using perjorative terms, yet you don't use the same terms for the pro GW position.  It's enough to make the casual reader think that you really HAVE come to a conclusion on the matter.

We DO agree on the lack of good hard evidence one way or the other, and as time goes by more evidence will accumulate.  Perhaps it's best left at that.

Quinn

[Procrustes]

Ray, that's what bugs me about your position, or rather non-position since you say you haven't one.  You repeatedly characterize the position of the skeptics using perjorative terms, yet you don't use the same terms for the pro GW position.  It's enough to make the casual reader think that you really HAVE come to a conclusion on the matter.

We DO agree on the lack of good hard evidence one way or the other, and as time goes by more evidence will accumulate.  Perhaps it's best left at that.

Quinn

Hi Quinn,

As a rule I've found your posts here measured and informative, but not so in this thread.  Earlier you dismissed the great bulk of academic research on man-made global warming because academics are 'collectivists'.  Is that not a pejorative word, reflecting bias?  I've never heard anyone describe himself as a collectivist.  It's glib IMO to challenge scientists on the grounds that they lack integrity.

Man-made global warming is likely enough and onerous enough that we should act as if it is fact.  The harm done by believing it is minute compared to the risk in assuming it false.

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

Of 928 refereed papers on climate change written between 1993 and 2003, 75% supported the consensus position (man-made global warming), 25% were neutral, and zero attempted to refute man-made global warming.




Here we have Greenland losing 100 gigatons of ice in each of the last two years:  "The amount of ice lost in two years is roughly the same as the amount of water that flows through the Colorado River in 12 years."  This seems to be a drastic change in an instant of geological time.

http://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/Newsroom/NewImages/images.php3?img_id=17434


Mobile_bob:

Earth is not necessarily able to absorb any changes imposed by humans.  Look as Easter Island.  Pollen records show that it was once a lush, wooded place, whereas now it is treeless and barren.  The usual question is, who chopped down the last tree?

[GuyFawkes]

OOh I love it when people post the "hockey stick" graph.....

My dog shit in the bathroom yesterday after he was locked in the house for several hours.

The girl, being a typical anthropomorphic (seeing everything in terms of human beings) human being picked it up and cleaned up, but didn't tell him off because "he obviously needed to go, and he couldn't get out so he went to the toilet where we do, so he is clever really and tried his best"

No, the dog is not clever, any more than any dog is clever, eg not in the human sense with considered actions, he just shit where we do, instinctively, in the same way that birds who have no pilots licences or degrees in aerodynamics will fly in a vee formation cos it is easier on everyone except the leader, it was easier for the dog to shit where we do.

========================

Go back a bit and the thames valley was a tropical haven, not dinosaur era, not even close to the continental drift era, because one of the animals running around in the thames was an ancestor of the hippopotamus.

Clearly it was a LOT warmer around here then, at least ten degrees celcius, nearer twenty.

When I was growing up we were headed to an ice age, now it is melting ice caps, but both were apparently caused by man and motor cars.

What utter fucking bollocks.

Sure, man is CONTRIBUTING to envirornmental change, in the same way that throwing a lit cigarette into a burning car is contributing to the conflagration, but we aren't the cause, not even close, do the math.

TOTAL human energy production globally in 24 hours, then compare it to total solar energy over the planet in 24 hours. oops...

TOTAL human body mass, then compare it to total insect body mass, oops

Shit changes, that is nature, only a egotist claims to be influencing it or making it happen, it's a bit like this pink stone egg I have that I used to tell the girl kept lightning at bay, easy to prove because I have never been struck by lightning.

Causality is not the same thing as coincidence.

There is MONEY and POWER a plenty to be had by brainwashing you lot into thinking you are somehow collectively responsible for something bad that is about to happen.

If you want GOOD SCIENCE on climate change you need to consider things like reversal and wandering of the magnetic poles, which ALONE could easily account for all the major climate change on earth.

If you want GOOD SCIENCE you need to consider that three score years and ten, or even total recorded human history of a piffling 5 thousand years, is "insufficient data".

Planet Earth is about 4,500,000,000 years old.

Life appeared about 350,000,000 years ago.

Let's express that 350 million years as a lister running at 650 rpm.

That means each RPM = about 540 thousand years.

That means each degree of crankshaft rotation = 1495 years.

***Total*** recorded history = 3 degrees of crankshaft rotation.

Each recent 100,000 year ige age period is about 71 degrees

Go back as far as science will take us with fossil records and ice cores and everything else and we get about 700 degrees of crankshaft rotation, and this is REALLY pushing the limits, isolated points of data generated by computer modelling.

Still 20 degrees of crankshaft rotation short of informing us about the fuel injection and combustion event 720 crankshaft degrees ago.

+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
                            Alternative scenario
+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++



You are all bastards and wankers and the climate is going to change because the earth's magnetic pole is moving and it is going to invert again.

Errrrr, riiiight, no easy way to brainwash you into giving me MONEY and POWER out of that one is there?

So, total recorded human history, upon which we are basing these dire warnings of the next ice age / meting glacier / ozone hole / whatever, is 3 degrees of crankshaft rotation.

650 RPM = 10.83 recurring RPSecond

10.83 x 360 degrees = 3900 degrees of crankshaft rotation per second.

3900 / 3 seconds of rotation which = human history = 1/1300th second.

So on the basis of 1/1300th of a second of observation, only the last femtosecond of which we had or used scientific measurements and record keeping, we have people speaking with authority about what this motor was doing a minute ago, or what it will be doing next minute.

==============================

Kyrdawgs carbon fibre pushords for the 6/1 that he doesn't own have more basis in truth, science, intelligence and observable fact than any of the eco shit I have ever seen.

[Andre Blanchard]

Planet Earth is about 4,500,000,000 years old.

Life appeared about 350,000,000 years ago.

Maybe want to clarify that a bit.
Microbial life appeared almost as soon as things cooled off enough.
http://www.news.harvard.edu/gazette/2004/10.07/15-origins.html

[fuddyduddy]

RPG and procrustes, you both accept pure BS from Wikipedia that ANYONE can post and say is truth, and yet you conveniently ignore reality.   

Will give it one more try, knowing you will both ignore truth.  There was/is a project, called The International Satellite Land-Surface
Climatology Project. It is the culmination of a great deal of scientific research by the global community of scientists, and is the last word on global carbon, water, and energy cycles. 

When you get all done with it, what you will see is that CO2 in the atmosphere is but a TINY (say it again, TINY!!!) % of the  total CO2 in rocks, etc, in the Earth. The atmospheric CO2 consumption by rock weathering is several times that caused by any miniscule (say it again, MINISCULE!!!!) effect that mankind has.

The link is http://islscp2.sesda.com/ISLSCP2_1/html_pages/groups/carbon/atmos_co2_by_erosion_xdeg.html  . Again, I suppose it will do no good, because;  #1, you won't digest the material, and #2, you would not/will not believe that just 98% of the Earth's scientists could be right. 

Please let me summarize for you, what these learned men say.:

First, they say mankind is responsible for about 250 million tons of CO2 per year. 

The amount of CO2 the Earth absorbs per year because of rock weathering and absorption in the ocean's waters from erosion is around 1 billion tons of CO2 (you DID know that that is the main way the Earth absorbs CO2, didn't you?). 

Continental erosion absorbs about 600 millions tons of carbon/CO2 per year.  That is a whole lot more than 250 million tons. AND, the researchers say their absorption numbers may be as much as 1/3 low.

Now if you are still concerned, there is also a report in the journal Geology by UK scientists that relates anecdotal evidence of greatly INCREASED CO2 absorption when worldwide temperature increase and CO2 levels increase. 

Oh, one more thing; the best estimates are that the Earth holds about 1 1/2 quadrillion tons of CO2 in her bosom. That also is one HUGE AMOUNT!!! Now by my calculation, if mankind put out 250 MM tons/yr for another 1,000 years, that would be about 250 billion tons, or less than 1/1,000th of what mother Gaia holds to her bosom.

So the short and sweet is, Mankind, as always, is just a tiny piss ant, and mother Gaia will continue to turn long after we are gone.

REAL scientists please help me and correct any mistakes in my post.

[Andre Blanchard]

RPG and procrustes, you both accept pure BS from Wikipedia that ANYONE can post and say is truth, and yet you conveniently ignore reality.   

Will give it one more try, knowing you will both ignore truth.  There was/is a project, called The International Satellite Land-Surface
Climatology Project. It is the culmination of a great deal of scientific research by the global community of scientists, and is the last word

That is where I stopped reading.
Anyone who claims to have the last word on any topic as complex as the global climate is a kidding themselves.

[fuddyduddy]

Here is a link to the  group of contributors to that report:

http://islscp2.sesda.com/ISLSCP2_1/html_pages/logos2.html

And thank you, Andre Blanchard, for your wonderful post, also.  We SO appreciate your contribution.

[Procrustes]

RPG and procrustes, you both accept pure BS from Wikipedia that ANYONE can post and say is truth, and yet you conveniently ignore reality.   

Fuddyduddy, I do wish you would drop the outraged tone.  It's grown tiresome.  What is BS in what I said?  Give me at least a single example or I can't very well reply.  You won't attempt to disprove anything I said.

Will give it one more try, knowing you will both ignore truth.  There was/is a project, called The International Satellite Land-Surface
Climatology Project. It is the culmination of a great deal of scientific research by the global community of scientists, and is the last word on global carbon, water, and energy cycles. 

When you get all done with it, what you will see is that CO2 in the atmosphere is but a TINY (say it again, TINY!!!) % of the  total CO2 in rocks, etc, in the Earth. The atmospheric CO2 consumption by rock weathering is several times that caused by any miniscule (say it again, MINISCULE!!!!) effect that mankind has.

The link is http://islscp2.sesda.com/ISLSCP2_1/html_pages/groups/carbon/atmos_co2_by_erosion_xdeg.html  . Again, I suppose it will do no good, because;  #1, you won't digest the material, and #2, you would not/will not believe that just 98% of the Earth's scientists could be right. 

Please let me summarize for you, what these learned men say.:

First, they say mankind is responsible for about 250 million tons of CO2 per year. 

The amount of CO2 the Earth absorbs per year because of rock weathering and absorption in the ocean's waters from erosion is around 1 billion tons of CO2 (you DID know that that is the main way the Earth absorbs CO2, didn't you?). 

Continental erosion absorbs about 600 millions tons of carbon/CO2 per year.  That is a whole lot more than 250 million tons. AND, the researchers say their absorption numbers may be as much as 1/3 low.

Now if you are still concerned, there is also a report in the journal Geology by UK scientists that relates anecdotal evidence of greatly INCREASED CO2 absorption when worldwide temperature increase and CO2 levels increase. 

Oh, one more thing; the best estimates are that the Earth holds about 1 1/2 quadrillion tons of CO2 in her bosom. That also is one HUGE AMOUNT!!! Now by my calculation, if mankind put out 250 MM tons/yr for another 1,000 years, that would be about 250 billion tons, or less than 1/1,000th of what mother Gaia holds to her bosom.

Your argument doesn't even address whether the extra 250 million extra tons of carbon changes the earth's temperature.  What difference does it make how much carbon earth 'holds to her bosom'?  The volume of the earth's atmosphere is miniscule compared to the earth itself.

As for 'you would not/will not believe that just 98% of the Earth's scientists could be right', I gave you a concrete number regarding scientific views on manmade global warming: "Of 928 refereed papers on climate change written between 1993 and 2003, 75% supported the consensus position (man-made global warming), 25% were neutral, and zero attempted to refute man-made global warming."  I'm calling bullshit now, and about something specific.  Explain to me how you are right about this and I am wrong.

So the short and sweet is, Mankind, as always, is just a tiny piss ant, and mother Gaia will continue to turn long after we are gone.

You didn't begin to demonstrate that.  As I said before, Easter Island was laid barren by man.  Fish stocks are dwindling the world over.  Large swaths of the oceans are 'dead zones'.  Humankind has undeniably pushed many species to exinction.  The rainforests will all but disappear in our lifetimes.  If I understand right, you are claming that man's footprint on the earth is relatively insignificant.  I don't see how you can justify that.

[Procrustes]

OOh I love it when people post the "hockey stick" graph.....

Please explain how they are wrong or not pertinent.

...

Go back a bit and the thames valley was a tropical haven, not dinosaur era, not even close to the continental drift era, because one of the animals running around in the thames was an ancestor of the hippopotamus.

Clearly it was a LOT warmer around here then, at least ten degrees celcius, nearer twenty.

When I was growing up we were headed to an ice age, now it is melting ice caps, but both were apparently caused by man and motor cars.

What utter fucking bollocks.

Sure, man is CONTRIBUTING to envirornmental change, in the same way that throwing a lit cigarette into a burning car is contributing to the conflagration, but we aren't the cause, not even close, do the math.

TOTAL human energy production globally in 24 hours, then compare it to total solar energy over the planet in 24 hours. oops...

TOTAL human body mass, then compare it to total insect body mass, oops

I don't know that these buy you anything.  By fouling a lense with carbon you can have a dramatic effect on energy distribution while consuming little energy.   How does total human body mass and insect body mass pertain?

Shit changes, that is nature, only a egotist claims to be influencing it or making it happen, it's a bit like this pink stone egg I have that I used to tell the girl kept lightning at bay, easy to prove because I have never been struck by lightning.

Causality is not the same thing as coincidence.

There is MONEY and POWER a plenty to be had by brainwashing you lot into thinking you are somehow collectively responsible for something bad that is about to happen.

If you want GOOD SCIENCE on climate change you need to consider things like reversal and wandering of the magnetic poles, which ALONE could easily account for all the major climate change on earth.

If you want GOOD SCIENCE you need to consider that three score years and ten, or even total recorded human history of a piffling 5 thousand years, is "insufficient data".

Ice cores provide carbon data for hundreds of thousands of years.

I submitted that atmospheric carbon and temperature have spiked over the last century.  The simple answer is that these are related.  You speculate that there may be other factors, but you don't present any evidence.

Planet Earth is about 4,500,000,000 years old.

Life appeared about 350,000,000 years ago.

Let's express that 350 million years as a lister running at 650 rpm.

That means each RPM = about 540 thousand years.

That means each degree of crankshaft rotation = 1495 years.

***Total*** recorded history = 3 degrees of crankshaft rotation.

Each recent 100,000 year ige age period is about 71 degrees

Go back as far as science will take us with fossil records and ice cores and everything else and we get about 700 degrees of crankshaft rotation, and this is REALLY pushing the limits, isolated points of data generated by computer modelling.

Still 20 degrees of crankshaft rotation short of informing us about the fuel injection and combustion event 720 crankshaft degrees ago.

+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
                            Alternative scenario
+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++



You are all bastards and wankers and the climate is going to change because the earth's magnetic pole is moving and it is going to invert again.

Errrrr, riiiight, no easy way to brainwash you into giving me MONEY and POWER out of that one is there?

So, total recorded human history, upon which we are basing these dire warnings of the next ice age / meting glacier / ozone hole / whatever, is 3 degrees of crankshaft rotation.

650 RPM = 10.83 recurring RPSecond

10.83 x 360 degrees = 3900 degrees of crankshaft rotation per second.

3900 / 3 seconds of rotation which = human history = 1/1300th second.

So on the basis of 1/1300th of a second of observation, only the last femtosecond of which we had or used scientific measurements and record keeping, we have people speaking with authority about what this motor was doing a minute ago, or what it will be doing next minute.

==============================

Kyrdawgs carbon fibre pushords for the 6/1 that he doesn't own have more basis in truth, science, intelligence and observable fact than any of the eco shit I have ever seen.

Still, atmospheric carbon and temperatures have spiked in tandem over the last century.  Our ignorance of history doesn't discount a relation between those two.

I'm not sure what you're getting at regarding money and power.  Are you saying that the world governments use global warming as a pretext to exert control?

[Quinnf]

Pro, where did that come from?  I thought I was using measured phrases and neutral language.  I don't do rants; I don't have the passion for it.  How come you think the term "collectivist" is perjorative?  It really isn't.  Take GuyFawkes. [PLEASE]   He's English.  England has a socialist economy.  Therefore he's a socialist, as much as is any citizen of the U.K.  So if I referred to Guy as a socialist, would that then be a perjorative term that you'd use to whack me over my balding head with?  

And I did not dismiss "the great bulk of academic work"  I merely urged caution accepting anything published in a journal without considering the academic context.  There is a process whereby papers are accepted for publication based on approval by a series of committees.  Papers that are controversial, or that challenge the accepted dogma or are contrary to the biases held by the members of the internal or external review committees face more scrutiny and sometimes open hostility during review and are less likely to see publication than are those that go with the flow, so to speak.  

And as for challenging scientists' integrity, are you [edit: sight-impaired] or just naive?  Scientsts are people like everyone else, with their own biases, their own political views and human failings.  Don't place them up on a pedestal or you might someday find yourself on the Golgafrincham Ark-ship #2 with all the ad executives, hairdressers and telephone sanitizers wondering what happened to the other two ships.  Remember Piltdown Man?  Room-temperature fusion?  If I cared enough, I'd Google up a list of hoaxes that have passed peer-review and paste them here.  But I simply don't give a hang about partisans like you who have your minds so made up that you will call anyone who dares to think otherwise names.

I was raised during a time when we were taught to question authority and eschew obfuscation assiduously.  These days everything has been so politicized people decide which camp they're in and then assume its position like Orwell's sheep, chanting "Four legs good, two legs baaaad."

Quinn

[GuyFawkes]

These days everything has been so politicized people decide which camp they're in and then assume its position like Orwell's sheep, chanting "Four legs good, two legs baaaad."

Quinn

What about chickens?

Fucking pigopoly innit

[Quinnf]

"The work of teaching and organising the others fell naturally upon the pigs, who were generally
recognised as being the cleverest of the animals."

Sotto voce:  (Bloody Socialist!)

Quinn

[Procrustes]

Pro, where did that come from?  I thought I was using measured phrases and neutral language.  I don't do rants; I don't have the passion for it.  How come you think the term "collectivist" is perjorative?  It really isn't.  Take GuyFawkes. [PLEASE]   He's English.  England has a socialist economy.  Therefore he's a socialist, as much as is any citizen of the U.K.  So if I referred to Guy as a socialist, would that then be a perjorative term that you'd use to whack me over my balding head with? 

Perhaps I was too sensitive.  The argument I most often hear against GW drives me nuts*, namely that it is a conspiracy to form a larger government by those who hate capitalism and free enterprise.  Politics has nothing to do with my belief.  I suppose that's why the 'collectivist' comment sticks in my craw.  If you are not part of this camp, then I beg your pardon.  I am particularly excitable about this because I regard a wait-and-see attitude with respect to GW to be cavalier.

And I did not dismiss "the great bulk of academic work"  I merely urged caution accepting anything published in a journal without considering the academic context.  There is a process whereby papers are accepted for publication based on approval by a series of committees.  Papers that are controversial, or that challenge the accepted dogma or are contrary to the biases held by the members of the internal or external review committees face more scrutiny and sometimes open hostility during review and are less likely to see publication than are those that go with the flow, so to speak. 

And as for challenging scientists' integrity, are you [edit: sight-impaired] or just naive?  Scientsts are people like everyone else, with their own biases, their own political views and human failings.  Don't place them up on a pedestal or you might someday find yourself on the Golgafrincham Ark-ship #2 with all the ad executives, hairdressers and telephone sanitizers wondering what happened to the other two ships.  Remember Piltdown Man?  Room-temperature fusion?  If I cared enough, I'd Google up a list of hoaxes that have passed peer-review and paste them here.  But I simply don't give a hang about partisans like you who have your minds so made up that you will call anyone who dares to think otherwise names.

But I didn't call you any names, did I?  The shoe is In fact on the other foot: you called me stupid or naive, then edited it to sight-impaired.

Why do you think I'm a partisan?

I know you didn't mean that about not giving a hang about me.  I'm as irresistable and cuddly as ever.

As for the scientific community often being dead wrong: sure, no argument here.  If they are wrong in this case I don't think it will be because of their political beliefs.

I was raised during a time when we were taught to question authority and eschew obfuscation.  These days everything has been so politicized people decide which camp they're in and then assume its position like Orwell's sheep, chanting "Four legs good, two legs baaaad."

Quinn

In fact I wouldn't blink if I were to see proof positive that it is due to sunspots or the magnetic pole or what have you.  For the time being though, Occam's razor tells me that the tandem spikes I keep banging on about are causally related.

I don't believe everything conventional.  Nearly the entire medical establishment believes that serum cholesterol leads to arteriosclerosis, so in refusing to take statins I am literally betting a heart attack that this is not so.  So I'm not a rugged individualist, but that's something, right?


* A pirate walks into a bar.  The bartender says, "You've got a ship's wheel in your trousers!".  The pirate says, "Yar, it's driving me nuts."

[Doug]

A lot of people here are totaly missing the point or rather the big picture.

If you find ways to use less material and fuel to produce a product or service and you reduce or devert the amount of waste created in the production you win, everyone wins....

You burn a pound of, fuel its gone....
Create a pound of dioxin your stuck with it....
C02 in the atmosphere may or may not be a huge problem but why not try and do something to reduce fossil fuel consumption?

Doug

[Quinnf]

Pro,

Yes you did, you said I was being glib.  That's as much name-calling as saying you're sight-impaired.  Maybe that's a little harsh.  Perhaps myopic or astigmatic would be a better choice of words.  Now, I'll admit there have been times when I HAVE been glib, such as when I said "I do" at the altar (Take my ex-wife PLEASE), but today wasn't one of those times. 

My point was that it's dangerous to accept an argument from authority (since you mention Occam, I presume you're acquainted with the principles of logic).  I don't have any position one way or the other as regards anthropogenic GW.  I just say "Show me the data."  This whole Donnybrook began when  . . . oh, what'shisname  Ray, can't find it now, posted a missive saying, essentially, "show me the beef."  I replied that since he's the one positing that GW is more likely than not man-caused/accelerated, it's not up to the skeptic to disprove GW, it's up to those making the positing the causal relationship to come up with the incontrovertible evidence.  To which he replied, Nay, and a whole bunch of folks came out of the woodwork and piled on.  That's all this is about.

I can't stand the leap that the pro-anthropogenic GW crowd make, when challenged by the lack of definitive evidence, to the "well, even if there isn't any conclusive evidence, there's so much at stake, we CAN'T just sit back and do nothing."  Which is sort of what you said in your last.  My point is we have to either act rationally based on the evidence, or out of fear of what MIGHT happen.  But whichever you do, just call it what it is. 

A case in point:  A good friend and coworker is an avid birder.  The guy has a Ph.D. in molecular chemistry so he's no dummy.  Problem is, he's also so much into his conservation stuff, he sees nothing wrong with admitting to me the little gnatcatcher that was supposed to be go extinct if some coastal hills were built on here in So. Cal. isn't really endangered.  He leads guided tours for the local Audubon society and really knows where his alula's at.  One day we were hiking along through the weeds, flicking ticks off our jeans when he casually mentioned "there's another gnatcatcher."  I remarked that I thought they were supposed to be almost extinct.  He said, "You just have to know when and where to look for them.  They're really quite common."  His position is (and he actually said this) that if the end (halting development along the coast) is achieved through a phony claim, then in the end, that's a good thing.  While I didn't want to see homes built in those hills either, I can't buy into that ethic.  It's intellectually dishonest and makes a whore of the scientific endeavor. 

That sort of thing has caused me to be suspicious of claims of dire consequences.  I have begun asking myself, "OK, so what's the REAL reason you want _____?"  Frequently there is at least a plausible ulterior motive for the claim, but one that would not get much traction if it were plainly stated.

An example is the Kyoto protocol.  Kyoto would prohibit the largest CO2 producer, the US of A, from exceeding some threshold, while exempting the second largest emitter, China, and India as well.   A conspiracy theorist, which I am not, would say Kyoto was/is a scheme to slow the growth of industrialized nations or to transfer wealth from the West to 3rd world nations.  However if it were enacted, it would likely have both those effects.  Can you blame folks for saying, "If it looks like a duck, walks like a duck, quacks like a duck, then . . . ?" 

Quinn