Quote :

"Wow I don't think I can conceive of a more reckless plan than "Pump massive quantities of sulfur into the upper atmosphere at a constant rate for the rest of time or until magical future-technology saves us.""

Because you're not taking the time to actually understand the proposal we're talking about?

LoanShark is right on this one. If you need to hear it from someone else, I'll dig up some online talks for you from people who have researched this.

There are alternatives to Sulfur as well. There is a great deal of design flexibility and the proposals are frighteningly feasible with current technology and the resources of a nation the size of Panama.
That's right, even a small country would be able to pay for a project that would change GLOBAL temperatures. I mean, think about dealing with China in 20 years.
Stop basing things on the assumption that geo-engineering is not feasible. That has been shown to be wrong by serious people who completely know what they're talking about.
If you have an ethical problem with it, sure, many of us do. That's why we need to talk about it seriously, or else face an inevitable global conflict over the use of such methods.

7/18/2011 8:20:39 PM

HockeyRoman, my proposal would reduce acid rain by allowing China to develop and install scrubbers. Your proposal would make it worse by perhaps provoking a world war or at least making the world too poor to afford scrubbers, the operation of which emits CO2 and worsens global warming.

[Edited on July 18, 2011 at 11:10 PM. Reason : .,.]

7/18/2011 11:09:44 PM

You've mentioned this "provoking world war" thing several times and I am curious as to where you get this nonsense. For the record, my proposal would be to educate people to realize that there is a world beyond their wallets and that we are intrinsically linked to the fate of our environment. Humans have reason and understanding and thus a responsibility to be preserve the sustaining balance that enabled us to be here and to have iPhones and coal fired power plants. So far, we only have one earth. What gives you the right to make it a shithole just because it's economically convenient?

7/19/2011 12:24:44 AM

Quote :

"Humans have reason and understanding and thus a responsibility to be preserve the sustaining balance that enabled us to be here"

I agree and I believe we are fulfilling our responsibility reasonably well. We are cleaning up the air, water, and soil of our national territory. Good work us. If we implement my policy proposals then we will literally be doing all we can.

Quote :

"For the record, my proposal would be to educate people to realize that there is a world beyond their wallets and that we are intrinsically linked to the fate of our environment."

ok...then what? What do you expect them to do with this education?

You cannot be surprised we have no idea what your real intentions are when you have not told them to us. You know exactly what policy proposals I support. How about dropping the platitudes and returning the favor?

[Edited on July 19, 2011 at 12:51 AM. Reason : .,.]

7/19/2011 12:50:33 AM

Quote :

"Stop basing things on the assumption that geo-engineering is not feasible. That has been shown to be wrong by serious people who completely know what they're talking about. If you have an ethical problem with it, sure, many of us do. That's why we need to talk about it seriously, or else face an inevitable global conflict over the use of such methods. "

I don't think most people are worried about the feasibility, its the repurcussions. I'm not just talking about acid rain, there are a multitude of worries that arise. Obviously it needs to be studied further.

http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn12397-sunshade-for-global-warming-could-cause-drought.html

The problem here arises when people pick up the idea and run with it as "the best and only solution" (when it is really only in the theoretical stages) because they have some interest in the status quo. Even the scientist that have studied the stratosperic sulfur subject closely show a strong preference toward reducing carbon emissions as the best solution.

The ethical discussion is important, and I'm glad you keep mentioning it, but I'm not sure ethics carries enough weight to shape global policy with respect to climate change.

7/19/2011 8:32:32 AM

The fact alone that there are people saying we should kill cows, stop having babies, dump sulfur into the atmosphere, dump carbon into the atmosphere, give me enough evidence to realize that WE HAVE NO IDEA WHAT IS GOING ON WITH THE EARTH.

But let's be quick to make some money off of it.

7/19/2011 8:36:54 AM

Quote :

"You're doing what all denialists do, of course. Throw out a bunch of shitty half-completed thoughts, watch them be rebutted, then move on to some new half-completed thoughts without any discussion. Assuming that, any person trying to prove a point opens with his strongest material, I'm curious to know if your position on AGW will change at all as you resort to progressively weaker arguments."

If you want to see more thought out arguments feel free to view either of the other 50+ page threads on the subject of global warming in TSB. I'm not going to regurgitate the same talking points again, as I've already repeated them over the last 4 years.

7/19/2011 8:45:54 AM

^^Sound reasoning. You forgot to mention that Al Gore has a large house.

So a friend introduced me to the author of this book last night:
http://www.amazon.com/Tropic-Chaos-Climate-Geography-Violence/dp/1568586000

Quote :

"From Africa to Asia and Latin America, the era of climate wars has begun. Extreme weather is breeding banditry, humanitarian crisis, and state failure. In Tropic of Chaos, investigative journalist Christian Parenti travels along the front lines of this gathering catastrophe--the belt of economically and politically battered postcolonial nations and war zones girding the planet's midlatitudes. Here he finds failed states amid climatic disasters. But he also reveals the unsettling presence of Western military forces and explains how they see an opportunity in the crisis to prepare for open-ended global counterinsurgency. Parenti argues that this incipient "climate fascism"--a political hardening of wealthy states-- is bound to fail. The struggling states of the developing world cannot be allowed to collapse, as they will take other nations down as well. Instead, we must work to meet the challenge of climate-driven violence with a very different set of sustainable economic and development policies."

One of the most interesting pieces from the book is about what drought in India, brought on by climate change, has done in the east of the nation. You have displaced farmers moving south from areas that have long sustained crops until the past decade or two to find new land, adjusting to growing the only profitable crop in these soils and regions, cotton, accruing debts to start production (government supports have been eliminated, largely), being unable to pay the debt as more and more farmers move into cotton production, driving down the price of the crop, and their eventual disenchantment and default on debts, which either leads them to join armed gangs that go after local business and governmental figures or commit suicide (the numbers of suspected suicides in relation to these complications is around 200,000).

[Edited on July 19, 2011 at 8:50 AM. Reason : xx]

7/19/2011 8:48:45 AM

Climate change is a conspiracy of the liberal media and the garment industry to trick you into buying useless appliances and coats. Now ive read articles from both sides and I have yet to find one compelling reason to brush your teeth

7/19/2011 9:18:38 AM

^^the beauty about "climate change" is that you can blame any weather event in the world on it. The climate has always been changing and that will never end. Quite the Coup D'etat by whoever renamed global warming to that.

7/19/2011 9:21:39 AM

Quote :

"I don't think most people are worried about the feasibility, its the repurcussions. I'm not just talking about acid rain, there are a multitude of worries that arise. Obviously it needs to be studied further."

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zt5yR9dYV64

http://people.ucalgary.ca/~keith/Geoengineering.html

This guy, David Keith, has probably studied this subject more than anyone else out there. Now, the paper that you link, from 2007, says this:

Quote :

"To study the effects that sulphur sunshades might have on rainfall, Trenberth and Dai looked at trends in precipitation and continental run-off from 1950 to 2004 to try to detect the impact of the eruptions of Mount Agung in Indonesia 1963, El Chichón in Mexico in 1982, and Pinatubo in 1991. The researchers had to account for the effects of El Niño, which tends to decrease rain over land, and increase it over the oceans. After this, a marked decrease in rainfall and run-off in the year after the Pinatubo eruption was clear (see graph, right). However, the Agung and El Chichón eruptions did not produce a detectable signal in the precipitation records. Pinatubo is thought to have pumped significantly more particles into the atmosphere than Agung and El Chichón, releasing aerosols that increased the optical density of the atmosphere by about 10 times more than each of the other two. "We think those two were not strong enough to have an effect on precipitation," says Dai. Dai and Trenberth say their results suggest that artificially putting large amounts of sulphate particles into the atmosphere in order to decrease solar radiation could have catastrophic effects on the planet's water cycle. "Creating a risk of widespread drought and reduced freshwater resources does not seem like an appropriate fix," they say. They note that the negative effects experienced after Pinatubo erupted were harshest in the tropics."

It's not talking about the same thing. Even if what they say was sufficiently applicable, the strength of evidence is very weak. This isn't climate mechanics based, this is based on a historical study of volcanoes that gives conflicting messages.

If you want to continue feeling upset, then go look up chemtrails. They think this very research (on geoengineering) has already been implemented and that big brother is using it to kill poor people. No really, I wish I was exaggerating. People actually think this. So in case there was any doubt about the sensitivities people have to the subject... it's quite a lot.

[Edited on July 19, 2011 at 9:41 AM. Reason : ]

7/19/2011 9:40:00 AM

Quote :

" If you want to see more thought out arguments feel free to view either of the other 50+ page threads on the subject of global warming in TSB. I'm not going to regurgitate the same talking points again, as I've already repeated them over the last 4 years."

So what were the ones you regurgitated earlier? Are you strictly confining yourself to the worst ones now and making me go to another thread for your good ones?

And folks, I'm sorry but I can't be convinced that the sulfur deal is a good idea, regardless of the talks being given on it. We have a real knack, in fact this whole issue is a prime example, of running into unintended consequences when it comes to environmental interference. How can we know this sulfur injection wouldn't just cause a new, unforeseen problem? It just seems to me like a very brash decision to rely on futuristic technologies to deal with a problem that is a result of once-future technologies now causing havok.

[Edited on July 19, 2011 at 10:24 AM. Reason : .]

7/19/2011 10:22:24 AM

Alright just to throw some stuff at aaronburr

Quote :

"Again, another statement without factual basis. You AGWers need to actually argue from fact."

Are you a young earth creationist or something? Anyone with even a cursory knowledge of the history of life on Earth will tell you that we're experiencing a massive species die-off now that rivals the one that wiped out the dinosaurs.

Quote :

"Yep. Too bad there has been no change from historic levels of sea-level rise. Which tends to suggest that polar ice is NOT melting at any appreciable rate of change from before."

What do you mean historic? I don't care if sea-levels were 10 meters higher 500 million years ago, that's not relevant. Rate of change from before when?You are beyond fucking dumb aaronburr, seriously, a little bit of Google would save you a lot of embarassment.

Quote :

"Sea-level rise graph... shows a constant rise from pre-industrial time... hmmm... same with the second graph."

Except it's not constant, it's becoming parabolic. And the coming-out-of the old little ice age ended almost 100 years before we started seeing the warming in the early 20th century. Not to mention this warming is far faster than geological time scales for ice ages, etc.

Quote :

" Aaaaaaaaand the third graph only works because the numbers have been hopelessly fudged by Mann and his buddies, as has already been proven numerous times. "

No, that was never actually proven, maybe you didn't follow the story after the initial sensation because you're a dumb knuckle dragging gorilla.

Quote :

"Do you have ANY evidence that shit is bad? Of course not."

Rising sea levels, rising temperatures, rising ocean acidity and heat, increasing CO2 concentration, just as models predicted , yeah that's no cause for concern.

Quote :

"1) They aren't still rising, you twit. You might wanna do a little research."

Last decade hottest on record

http://www.nasa.gov/home/hqnews/2010/jan/HQ_10-017_Warmest_temps.html

2010 tied for hottest year on record

http://www.sciencenews.org/view/generic/id/68761/title/2010_ties_record_for_warmest_year_yet

Quote :

"2) Hottest on record is dishonest, because we have larger cities, thus driving up recorded temperatures, "

They control for that you dumb fuck. Every single paper published since the 70's controls for the urban heat island effect, but you wouldn't know because you don't read papers you read the opinions of people equally uninformed as yourself.

Quote :

"and we also have "scientists" faking the numbers to make them look worse so they can keep getting research dollars."

Yeah, 97% of the scientific community is faking it to get precious research dollars, even though it'd be way more profitable to disprove it.

Quote :

"Knowing the mechanism is quite different than quantifying its effects. Which we still can't do. We have the IPCC faking a number to worst fucking case, and when we use that number, we get massively different results from what has actually happened. But only in the political arena will science as bad as that get passed of as legit."

Lol you're a joke, don't even pretend you know what you're talking about, it's obvious you don't have a clue, just vague accusations of faking numbers with nothing to back it up except a speculation of a worldwide scientific conspiracy.

Quote :

"Actually, that's exactly what the AGWers did. Mann's hockey-stick was fucking proof of that. So much so, that he had to hide the fact that his numbers didn't predict what actually fucking happened, so he just "chopped it off" and used actual numbers. That's a hallmark of good science, right?"

Once again you're 10 years behind the debate. There have been proxy studies done and the hockey stick still stands. http://www.skepticalscience.com/broken-hockey-stick.htm

aaronburr, I don't think you said a single thing in that entire post that wasn't marred by some kind of logical fallacy, a glaring inaccuracy (such as your claims about the warming stopping), or impossibly large conspiracy theories. You need to actually research this subject a bit because you're woefully misinformed. Please, do not bother posting anything unless you first check it here: http://www.skepticalscience.com/argument.php and make sure it hasn't already been viciously debunked.

[Edited on July 19, 2011 at 10:41 AM. Reason : .]

7/19/2011 10:38:47 AM

Quote :

"^^the beauty about "climate change" is that you can blame any weather event in the world on it. "

Except very few people actually do that. What happens is, every time there's a weather event, one or two jagoff liberals say "It's global warming" and so conservatives assemble all these disparate individuals into one little propaganda talking point and say "See? Every time something happens every liberal says it's global warming!"


In the same vein, every time it's a cold day, 100% of right wingers says "Heh heh hey how about that global warming!!!!"

Quote :

"The climate has always been changing and that will never end. Quite the Coup D'etat by whoever renamed global warming to that."

There are normal speeds for natural climate change, what's going on now is not normal, it is much faster than typical sun cycles or glacial periods.

Now read this and educate yourself, it directly confronts what you just said: http://www.skepticalscience.com/climate-change-global-warming.htm


[Edited on July 19, 2011 at 10:49 AM. Reason : .]

7/19/2011 10:44:37 AM

Quote :

"the beauty about "climate change" is that you can blame any weather event in the world on it. The climate has always been changing and that will never end. Quite the Coup D'etat by whoever renamed global warming to that."

So the unprecedented altering of the landscape in areas like India and Bangladesh doesn't bother you as much as your fear that this is all a conspiracy? I'm sorry you feel that way. I hope whoever you work for isn't dependent on or looking to get into the South Asian market.

Even in India and Bangladesh, two countries which can least afford to move to new energy sources in the middle of a climb out of poverty, two countries which ignored environmental causes as a concern of developed nations for years, climate issues are becoming a big issue. They realize that there's honestly no other option, except to see their agricultural capacity destroyed and their populations destabilized. Maybe we'd care more if we weren't so convinced that America is somehow immune from this sort of thing (it isn't)?

[Edited on July 19, 2011 at 10:49 AM. Reason : x]

7/19/2011 10:46:53 AM

Quote :

"And folks, I'm sorry but I can't be convinced that the sulfur deal is a good idea, regardless of the talks being given on it. We have a real knack, in fact this whole issue is a prime example, of running into unintended consequences when it comes to environmental interference. How can we know this sulfur injection wouldn't just cause a new, unforeseen problem?"

I'm going to stop responding to you like this once you express some kind of understanding of what's being talked about.

The concern isn't about the chemical existence of Sulfur. It's already up there, and in greater quantities and worse places than what we're talking about. Unintended consequences from the chemical effects of it is a massive stretch. It's like worrying that building the same coal plants in Iowa versus Virginia will have unintended consequences. The thing to be concerned about is the effects of a sunshade for global temperatures in general.

It's hard to argue with the fact that David Keith has entertained the most promising approaches for a sunshade. The goal is to find a molecule that will be pseudo-stable in a position in the upper atmosphere. By that I mean it won't fall down. Of course, it is desirable for it to fall down at some point, since we want it to be temporary, that's why we only talk about mostly stable.

Other approaches include microspheres (manufactured) and orbital sunshades. Both are much more expensive and quite likely functionally worse than the fairly uniform effect of David Keith's proposals which is mostly focused on Sulfur, but has many other options that include things like Aluminum that can be more reflective per unit mass. There is no agreed upon design for this system, and the researchers only have a message that we need to preemptively talk about it. Deployment under any case would only occur with a true sense of crisis prompting it. But naturally, the AGW argument is that such crisis levels are a matter of course.

Precipitation concerns, btw, are inherent and unavoidable to this approach. And to be explicit, the form of geoengineering we are referring to is basically levitating gaseous particles in the upper atmosphere to reflect sunlight. It will decrease precipitation. CO2 will increase precipitation. That's how our atmosphere works. Where would the balance fall exactly and how well can we know? Well, that's what it's argued that we should study better.

Quote :

"Are you a young earth creationist or something? Anyone with even a cursory knowledge of the history of life on Earth will tell you that we're experiencing a massive species die-off now that rivals the one that wiped out the dinosaurs."

Obvious sentence is obvious.

[Edited on July 19, 2011 at 10:49 AM. Reason : ]

7/19/2011 10:47:13 AM

And folks, I'm sorry but I can't be convinced that the carbon elimination deal is a good idea, regardless of the talks being given on it. We have a real knack, in fact this whole issue is a prime example, of running into unintended consequences when it comes to economic and political interference.

Keep in mind what you are saying when you say sulfur injection should be off the table: you are saying we should leave our future to the fate of a warmer world. I just don't see how it will be possible to reduce carbon emissions as much as is required by the doom-sayers. Which isn't terrible, since it isn't clear a warmer world will be a disaster and we have alternatives such as sulfur injection which science says will work with manageable side-effects and is economically feasible to implement.

7/19/2011 10:48:06 AM

I thought that some libertarians had accepted that pricing carbon (carbon tax) was acceptable?

7/19/2011 10:50:31 AM

mrfrog, Wont it also decrease sunlight reaching the planet by reflecting it into space? How is that going to affect ecosystems or the other hundreds of interactions in the atmosphere solar radiation fuels? How can you argue that partially blotting out the sun isn't going to cause unintended consequences?

Quote :

"And folks, I'm sorry but I can't be convinced that the carbon elimination deal is a good idea, regardless of the talks being given on it. We have a real knack, in fact this whole issue is a prime example, of running into unintended consequences when it comes to economic and political interference."

Stop trying to be clever, you're failing and it wastes time. You know what fucks up economics and politics? A world with a shifting food supply, flooding cities and hurricanes, ocean acidity killing fish population, etc. A world without an environment does not *have* politics and economy. Saying we should "avoid protecting the environment because it might interfere with politics and economy" is like saying we should avoid a heart transplant because the surgery would interfere with your golf tee-time.

Quote :

" Keep in mind what you are saying when you say sulfur injection should be off the table:"

I'm not saying it should be off the table. If we're clearly past the point of no return then whatever is necessary to save the human species is obviously on the table

Quote :

" you are saying we should leave our future to the fate of a warmer world."

Of course not, we should be toning down CO2 emissions ASAP. Oh wait, you were preceding this conclusion with an axiom...

Quote :

" I just don't see how it will be possible to reduce carbon emissions as much as is required by the doom-sayers."

Convenient that you suddenly take their position seriously enough to use their estimates (to discount carbon reduction as a strategy). Very selective attention you have there.

Quote :

"Which isn't terrible, since it isn't clear a warmer world will be a disaster and we have alternatives such as sulfur injection which science says will work with manageable side-effects and is economically feasible to implement."

I'm pretty sure a warmer world will be a disaster. You don't shift tropic zones and zones of arable land without causing massive civil unrest, famines, and even more gruesome political motions following those (repression, genocide). You don't change ocean currents to follow new heat distributions without killing off entire fish species, nor do you watch ocean acidity rise each year without decimating fish populations. You don't raise sea levels by a few inches on a city of millions that was built to be oceanfront property in 1800. Millions if not billions of people have the potential to die in these scenarios, it's not "up in the air" whether or not the warming will eventually become catastrophic, it only takes a minute or two of thinking out the consequences to realize.


[Edited on July 19, 2011 at 11:06 AM. Reason : .]

7/19/2011 10:59:33 AM

Quote :

"mrfrog, Wont it also decrease sunlight reaching the planet by reflecting it into space? How is that going to affect ecosystems or the other hundreds of interactions in the atmosphere solar radiation fuels? How can you argue that partially blotting out the sun isn't going to cause unintended consequences?"

The problem with global warming is that we've changed, and we continue to change, the greenhouse effect. This is a change in the heat flow, quantified:



That's about 1.5 W/m^2, and this compares to total solar radiation of about 1.3 kW/m^2. Ok? That's about 1/1000th of the total heat rate. So the bottom line is we are talking about catastrophic effects from small imbalances. Geoengineering solutions would dictate "blotting out the sun" to a similar magnitude. That is, blotting out on the order of 0.1% of the sun.

But let's be clear what you're talking about. This isn't just blotting out the sun, but doing so in conjunction with global warming. But that DOES constitute a different physical state.



We have
- pre-industrial state of this balance
- the higher temperature balance after global warming
- the engineered solution at closer to pre-industrial temperature

In the 3rd case, those numbers in the picture there are still different. We don't restore the flows to what they were before. That's because we can't. CO2 blocks radiation - you can't add some unblocker gas. A very simple answer to your question is that yes the radiation reaching the ground would be less, but by around that 0.1%.

Would this affect things? Well yeah of course it would. But it won't stop trees of phytoplankton from doing their job. Plants are hearty far far beyond the amount we would be perturbing this by, and don't forget they're affected by temperature too. How would this be affecting ecosystems? I simply don't know.

[Edited on July 19, 2011 at 11:27 AM. Reason : ]

7/19/2011 11:24:52 AM

Quote :

"it's not "up in the air" whether or not the warming will eventually become catastrophic, it only takes a minute or two of thinking out the consequences to realize."

Clearly not. I've thought about it thoroughly and we have whole countries built below sea level, they don't seem to mind. Similarly, the tropics are not going anywhere: they are already as hot as they can get since water vapor swamps CO2 in affecting their climate. CO2 is only going to impact non-tropic latitudes, which excluding Africa tend to be wealthy enough to afford the transition.

Keep in mind the human race is already accustomed to yearly wild changes in rainfall and temperature, inflicted by normal climate variation. It is why wealthy countries tend to install irrigation systems. In comparison, the slow warming of the planet over decades will be slow by comparison.

7/19/2011 11:37:19 AM

Quote :

"Similarly, the tropics are not going anywhere: they are already as hot as they can get since water vapor swamps CO2 in affecting their climate. CO2 is only going to impact non-tropic latitudes, which excluding Africa tend to be wealthy enough to afford the transition. "

say what?

7/19/2011 11:45:51 AM

Quote :

"Clearly not. I've thought about it thoroughly and we have whole countries built below sea level, they don't seem to mind."

Something tells me these "whole countries built below sea level" aren't coastal.

Quote :

" Similarly, the tropics are not going anywhere: they are already as hot as they can get since water vapor swamps CO2 in affecting their climate. CO2 is only going to impact non-tropic latitudes, which excluding Africa tend to be wealthy enough to afford the transition."

What? There are multiple tropic regions undergoing desertification right now. Are you really trying to say that there is a "maximum heat" for tropics? Are you aware that CO2 concentration itself affects water vapor levels? Are you aware that changing heat distribution on the Earth leads to changes in weather patterns, which could lead to water being diverted from tropics altogether? You don't seem to grasp how complex the climate and ecology and their interactions are, at all.

Also, see mrfrog's map. What the fuck are you smoking? If you're just making things up (it seems like you are) could you at least google them first to see if there is any basis in reality for them?

Quote :

"Keep in mind the human race is already accustomed to yearly wild changes in rainfall and temperature, inflicted by normal climate variation. It is why wealthy countries tend to install irrigation systems. In comparison, the slow warming of the planet over decades will be slow by comparison."

Irrigation systems aren't what we're talking about. We're talking about Dust Bowls, desertification, or transfer of arable land to other countries such that import/export balances have to change, or that the plantable crops will change with the climate, or even just a net loss of farmable land. America wont be so wealthy if the bread basket starts shifting north into Canada and we have to start importing more food. A warming is not just a uniform increase of a few degrees across the board, it translates to all kinds of shifts in weather patterns (some places even get colder), precipitation distribution, it could lead to complete rearrangements of the haves and have-nots in terms of food supply.


[Edited on July 19, 2011 at 1:32 PM. Reason : .]

7/19/2011 1:13:28 PM

Quote :

"Extreme weather is breeding banditry, humanitarian crisis, and state failure."

You mean the "Extreme weather" that is no different than what it has always been and has been no worse than it has been historically? riiiiiiiiiiiiight...

Quote :

"One of the most interesting pieces from the book is about what drought in India, brought on by climate change,"

You mean a drought that you actually can't tie to "climate change"? riiiiiiiiiiiight... I have no doubt that man probably fucked up these areas, but I doubt it had anything to do with a trace gas in the atmosphere.

Quote :

"Anyone with even a cursory knowledge of the history of life on Earth will tell you that we're experiencing a massive species die-off now that rivals the one that wiped out the dinosaurs."

Facts not in evidence. Appealing to popular opinion does not make it so. Plenty of people think Christopher Columbus had to deal with flat-earthers, but he didn't.

Quote :

"What do you mean historic?"

what do you not understand about that word? Historically recorded sea-level rises. What is hard to comprehend about that? It's 1.8mm/year for the past 1000 years.

Quote :

"Not to mention this warming is far faster than geological time scales for ice ages, etc."

Yes. when we use fudged numbers intended to show just that.

Quote :

"No, that was never actually proven,"

Actually yes. Yes it was. Google "Steven McIntyre" and you will see.

Quote :

"Rising sea levels at the same rate as they have done for 1000s of years, rising temperatures that can only be shown via fudged numbers, rising ocean acidity and heat ,heat which can't be shown to actually exist, increasing CO2 concentration to mere trace levels, OH NO, just as models predicted and this one is a hoot, because the models have consistently failed to predict ANYTHING. go look at the IPCC models and predictons and see how they have utterly failed to predict anything. yeah that's no cause for concern."

FTFY

Quote :

"Last decade hottest on record"

After fudging the numbers. Do I need to show you the effect of the "corrections" made by James Hansen and his cronies? They conveniently always push current temperatures up and previous temperatures down. Funny.

Quote :

"2010 tied for hottest year on record"

After fudging the numbers.

Quote :

"They control for that you dumb fuck."

ACTUALLY THEY DON'T. Do a little research.
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2009/12/09/picking-out-the-uhi-in-global-temperature-records-so-easy-a-6th-grader-can-do-it/

Quote :

"Yeah, 97% of the scientific community is faking it to get precious research dollars, even though it'd be way more profitable to disprove it."

Not 97%. Probably 5%, with the rest too scared to speak out or too unconcerned with the research to care.

Quote :

"There have been proxy studies done and the hockey stick still stands."

Proxy studies that have equally been disproven. Since when was "well, we did it wrong but we got the right answer" an acceptable thing in scientific discourse? lol.

Quote :

"Except very few people actually do that. "

Bullshit.

Quote :

"So the unprecedented altering of the landscape in areas like India and Bangladesh doesn't bother you as much as your fear that this is all a conspiracy?"

If you can show that they were due to a trace gas in the atmosphere, then maybe it would matter. I'd bet it has more to do with land use than anything else, much like the Dust Bowl in the 30s.

Quote :

"You don't change ocean currents to follow new heat distributions "

You mean things we haven't even observed yet? Things with zero evidence for them?

Quote :

"This is a change in the heat flow, quantified:"

That quantification has been blasted to hell and back. It was done by separating groups of scientists and having them work independently to find the worst case number for each component. When one looks at the aggregate, one sees that assumptions made by some groups are in direct contradiction to assumptions made by others. In other words: that number is BULLSHIT. Do a little research.

7/19/2011 1:57:38 PM

^maybe you should respect the OP and bump the other thread

Quote :

"First off, this isn't a thread to debate whether or not climate change is happening or if it's caused by humans."

7/19/2011 2:11:36 PM

I just want to dwell on the fact that burro disagrees with the following information.

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

The following is the atmospheric absorption as a function of (inverse) wavelength. The temperature of the Earth is around the 290k-ish temperatures shown as lines. That is what the spectrum that the Earth's surface emits. The wiggly lines are what the atmosphere blocks. The green lines are what increased CO2 absorbs.

The sun, btw, has a 5250 C blackbody spectrum. So incoming sunlight is not on this graph at all.



The previous graph is showing an increase of 4 W/m^2 in the rate of absorption. That is for a doubling of CO2, which has not happened yet. The next graph shows the IPCC predicted radiative forcing right now, with a smaller increase in CO2 concentration and puts the forcing at 1.5 W/m^2. This is perfectly consistent.



Then the impact on Earth's temperature will come from the T^4 relation for blackbody heat loss, which I assume burro is an expert on. That is to say, T changes to adjust for the change in albedo, predicted by the absorption spectrum.

burro disagrees with this.

Really.

[Edited on July 19, 2011 at 2:17 PM. Reason : ]

7/19/2011 2:17:19 PM

Quote :

"Something tells me these "whole countries built below sea level" aren't coastal."

"The Netherlands is a geographically low-lying country, with about 25% of its area and 21% of its population located below sea level,[9] and 50% of its land lying less than one metre above sea level."
And yes, it is quite coastal.

7/19/2011 2:47:27 PM

Quote :

"maybe you should respect the OP and bump the other thread"

WHY? The premise of the OP is assumed, yet there is no reason to assume it. Why talk about something if it is based on something that is false? Hey, there's no debate that bears eat people 10 times a day, so let's talk about solutions to the problem!

Quote :

"burro disagrees with this."

way to build a beautiful man of straw and not address what I actually said. I'm trying to find the source for one of my claims to show why the IPCC's radiative forcing number is complete bullshit.

Quote :

"which I assume burro is an expert on"

So I have to be an expert to detect bullshit? wow. Didn't know that. What are YOUR climate credentials, oh Women and Gender Studies major? I guess none of us can talk about any of this stuff now, right? You know what we call this fallacy? Appeal to Authority.

7/19/2011 3:11:39 PM

Quote :

"way to build a beautiful man of straw and not address what I actually said. I'm trying to find the source for one of my claims to show why the IPCC's radiative forcing number is complete bullshit."

You believe the IPCC's radiative forcing number is BS. I addressed exactly that, and would appear, absent any more clarification from you, that everything I said was correct.

You use the term "radiative forcing", which gives me at least the ability to know the units of the number that you believe is wrong. You believe that 1.5 W/m^2 is wrong. Please! Correct me if you do not believe this. I am writing this directly as a result of what you have expressed. So go think about the use of the term "strawman".

I'm not letting you hide behind ambiguity anymore. You don't have any left.

You believe that 1.5 W/m^2 is wrong.

You believe that 1.5 W/m^2 is wrong.

You believe that 1.5 W/m^2 is wrong.

You believe that 1.5 W/m^2 is wrong.

7/19/2011 3:18:23 PM

Yes, I believe that number is wrong. As do others. Some claim it as low as .35

7/19/2011 3:23:28 PM

Quote :

"I'd bet it has more to do with land use than anything else, much like the Dust Bowl in the 30s."

I'd bet you don't know a good goddam thing about what you're talking about.

Quote :

"As a result of this long exposure to natural disasters, Bangladesh benefits from a long history of designing and implementing various types of adaptation activities (both policies and capital investment) especially as they pertain to floods and cyclones."

http://climatechange.worldbank.org/content/bangladesh-economics-adaptation-climate-change-study

7/19/2011 3:27:23 PM

where is the signature atmospheric hot spot? strange that none of this fear mongering comes true

7/19/2011 3:28:15 PM

shhhh, Teg, none of that matters! When we make wild predictions and say that we will find the smoking gun and it will show everything to be true and then... it never shows up... we can ignore that!

^^ none of that shows that the problems encountered now are due to "climate change." If anything, it says that Bangladesh is prone to exactly the kinds of calamities that are now befalling it.

7/19/2011 3:34:03 PM

Quote :

"WHY? The premise of the OP is assumed, yet there is no reason to assume it. Why talk about something if it is based on something that is false? Hey, there's no debate that bears eat people 10 times a day, so let's talk about solutions to the problem! "

Just common courtesy. There is another thread on the specific topic you could post in, but instead you are taking a huge shit in this one.

Its a free country and this is a mostly free message board so you should do whatever you want. Just know that I, and maybe some others, think you are a huge gaping asshole.

7/19/2011 3:37:18 PM

I think it has to be said that the severity matters, and the discussion about the facts should be limited to that. If I thought the current anthropogenic CO2 forcing was less than 0.5 W/m^2, I would not be very worried. That would result in a comparatively very small temperature change and we would frankly have bigger problems. This is a quantitative problem. There is no way around that.

7/19/2011 3:54:57 PM

Quote :

"If anything, it says that Bangladesh is prone to exactly the kinds of calamities that are now befalling it."

Pretty sure the World Bank, whose been following the place pretty closely for decades, would know if today's patters are abnormal.

7/19/2011 4:50:19 PM

Quote :

"Just common courtesy. "

OK, then. I'll go start a thread where I assume something that hasn't been shown to be true and then demand we talk about only solutions. I think I'll start with the New World Order. How would you like that?

^ the fuck? Now the World Bank is a bastion of scientific knowledge? That's your claim now? I'll bet the World Bank would gladly start insuring against climate-related disaster, especially if they knew it was all bullshit t begin with. Free money. Either way, it doesn't go, at all, to disprove what I said: that maybe Bangladesh's problems are normal

[Edited on July 19, 2011 at 5:51 PM. Reason : ]

7/19/2011 5:49:38 PM

^I wouldn't care if you made that thread, I probably just wouldn't click on it.

7/20/2011 8:39:03 AM

I realized that most of the studies I can pull up on Bangladesh mention the UN or scientists involved in the IPCC, and you think they're a conspiracy, so I'm not going to bother to argue with you. Just stick to your denialist blogs and the minority report studies. People who are in danger will continue to plan to handle our ignorance.

7/20/2011 9:23:09 AM

Quote :

"Just common courtesy. There is another thread on the specific topic you could post in, but instead you are taking a huge shit in this one."

Or we can just ignore them. Arguing against climate change is basically a religion at this point. It's based on talking points and fallacies, with the entire scientific community on the other side of the issue. I don't argue with people don't believe in evolution, people who believe that Saddam Hussein was responsible for 9/11, or people who don't believe that the Holocaust actually happened. This isn't any different.

7/20/2011 1:25:33 PM

Quote :

"Arguing against for climate change is basically a religion at this point."

Hard to put a stop to an industry now worth 10s of billions of dollars a year in grants and backdoor corporate deals.

Quote :

"Now read this and educate yourself, it directly confronts what you just said: http://www.skepticalscience.com/climate-change-global-warming.htm"

I've been following the global warming debate since 2006, so I think I'm good on that front.

[Edited on July 20, 2011 at 2:01 PM. Reason : thank you though]

7/20/2011 2:00:16 PM

Arguing ITT is an exercise in futility. Both sides will claim arguments, neither will provide anything to back up the apparent scientific evidence, which is apparently everywhere, and everyone pretends to know what they are talking about not based on preconceived notion.

This IS the TSB.

7/20/2011 2:11:29 PM

Institutions and people can lie, exactly who was saying what is completely irrelevant of the question relevant to what we should expect from the Earth's climate in the next 100 years. The accurate evaluation of what should reasonably be expected by the physics of climate is exactly what the term "science" encompasses.

From the perspective that we all share a common definition of what climate is and are talking about the same qualities, like temperatures, things like the IPCC or the climate deniers are irrelevant. We should all have our own personal belief of what climate will most likely do and what the extreme possibilities are.

Really, this thread should be about how we live with future climate. The climate deniers, btw, have done a very poor job in articulating their position that no further adaptations than what we already do should be necessary. Instead, they have mostly assumed we know this and then turned the thing into a shouting match, and almost everything they say is rhetorical in nature, with only the occasional necessary injection of their perceived evidence (temperature not rising, sea level increasing at constant rate, that sort of thing).

Technically, a full-fledged climate denier should still have concern about our ability to deal with the supposedly "normal" climate in the future, if said denier believes that overpopulation, fossil fuel scarcity, farmland availability and depletion themselves will be problems. In that sense, we may still need to do something about it, which, consequently, has many of the same solutions that addressing climate change does.

[Edited on July 20, 2011 at 2:17 PM. Reason : ]

7/20/2011 2:16:47 PM

Quote :

"overpopulation, fossil fuel scarcity, farmland availability and depletion themselves will be problems. In that sense, we may still need to do something about it, which, consequently, has many of the same solutions that addressing climate change does."

I can definitely agree with that. But if the method to "address" these issues is from increased government control and taxation I'll usually be against it.

7/20/2011 2:23:54 PM

Quote :

"Hard to put a stop to an industry now worth 10s of billions of dollars a year in grants and backdoor corporate deals."

I've worked for grant funded research projects for the past 1.5 years. Medical research projects. You know, that 2.5 trillion dollar industry that's going to ruin our country long before climate change. No one does this shit for the money, I can promise you that, and I guarantee you climate research doesn't pay any better. There is no money in finding solutions to problems, only in selling them.

[Edited on July 20, 2011 at 4:49 PM. Reason : :]

7/20/2011 4:47:20 PM

Quote :

"I guarantee you climate research doesn't pay any better."

For the scientists that want to do research it's a lot easier to get grant money if you mention that your study has anything to do with climate change.

And as far as people profiting from the whole green craze, look no further than Al Gore, Jeff Immelt and countless others. Surely you can agree that people would take their message more seriously if they practiced "do as I do" instead of "do as I say, not as I do".

(Hell, my company is cashing in on the whole going green thing as well, despite all the heads of my branch agreeing it's a bunch of hogwash)

[Edited on July 21, 2011 at 8:42 AM. Reason : k]

7/21/2011 8:41:29 AM

Quote :

"For the scientists that want to do research it's a lot easier to get grant money if you mention that your study has anything to do with climate change."

In what field? Climatology? I would hope so.

There's also a potential confusion here. If I hold a position at a university then it's possible that I'm looking to make big statements about the big picture (well, that depends on the field too). The imperative associated with climate change is inarguable. I think that an application of any given research to climate change would appealing from an individual standpoint, and less appealing from an institutional and funding standpoint.

Quote :

"(Hell, my company is cashing in on the whole going green thing as well, despite all the heads of my branch agreeing it's a bunch of hogwash)"

Is the "green thing" hogwash or is the perception of climate change occurring as a result of human activities hogwash? Greenpeace itself would lambast many of the "green" things going on.

7/21/2011 8:53:15 AM

While I don't believe in AGW most people in here know that I still support being efficient and not wasteful in most aspects of life and that I care about the environment. My company helps others save electricity, which is no doubt good. What irks me is when they send out green newsletters telling us how to reduce our carbon footprints.

In light of that, I don't understand why we bother with occupancy light sensors here, yet leave the 6 plasma TVs (scattered about the office) on 24/7.

7/21/2011 9:24:05 AM

Quote :

"In light of that, I don't understand why we bother with occupancy light sensors here, yet leave the 6 plasma TVs (scattered about the office) on 24/7."

lol, my thoughts on energy saving measures exactly.

IMO, the metrics we have for energy saving efforts are useless. Carbon footprint is a metric... but it's useful in international politics at best. The more important realizations about energy efficiency in people's lives are that:
- There is no meaningful concept of value
- The concept of "impact" in general is extremely far reaching and beyond our understanding

Ideally, conservation would focus on greater value for lower impact. However, it has the same problem endemic to all paperwork - it only focuses on a very small number of things that an individual (probably not even consulting with many other people) is aware of. If any company was actually going to address impact they would start from the balance sheet, doing a full input/output analysis.

I'm sure there are some out there that do that. Well, maybe. There are too many, however, who feel like an intentional decision to have the lights on a smaller amount of the time matters to any significant degree.

7/21/2011 10:23:11 AM

Agreed, as I sit here in my office at work where the temperature (indoors) is 69° F...


lol

7/21/2011 12:37:27 PM