President Obama announced today that he will attend the United Nations Climate Change Conference in Copenhagen, raising the stakes for himself and all participating nations.
The initial goal for Copenhagen was to forge a binding treaty. But that ambitious goal has been scaled back. With American climate protection legislation bogged down in the Senate after clearing the House, Obama can’t put enough commitments on the table to secure a final agreement. Division over how to financially help developing nations respond to global warming also remains far from resolved.
But the participating nations do not want Copenhagen to be an exercise in vague rhetoric and meaningless communiques. What would constitute a success? What could come out of Copenhagen that would help us avert a climate crisis?
President Obama laid down that marker yesterday, in his joint appearance with the Indian Prime Minister:
...it’s ... essential that all countries do what is necessary to reach a strong operational agreement that will confront the threat of climate change while serving as a stepping stone to a legally binding treaty. And to that end, Prime Minister Singh and I made important progress today. We reaffirmed that an agreement in Copenhagen should be comprehensive and cover all the issues under negotiation. We resolved to take significant national mitigation actions that will strengthen the world’s ability to combat climate change. We agreed to stand by these commitments with full transparency, through appropriate processes, as to their implementation.
In other words, for Copenhagen to be a success, all nations have to get started on cutting actual greenhouse gas emissions.
We don’t have to agree on the exact targets, timeframes and total financial assistance. But we have to get moving, because the planetary clock is ticking.
President Obama going is a sign of American commitment. Hopefully, before Copenhagen, Obama’s decision will be backed up by a tripartisan deal from Sens. John Kerry, Joe Lieberman and Lindsey Graham, so it will be fairly clear America is on the verge of acting, and not making excuses.
Control of Copenhagen’s outcome is far from being solely in Obama’s hands.
China and India, always using America as an excuse for irresponsible growth, need to step up on emissions targets.
The EU, always crowing about its emissions targets, needs to step up on financial assistance to developing nations.
Yet Obama has set the benchmark for success. And he has put his own national and international credibility on the line to achieve that success.
It’s always a political risk to set goals that you can’t achieve unilaterally. But that’s what leaders do.
Originally posted at OurFuture.org
U.N. climate chief raises the temperature with racy novel
New E.U. organic logo set for Europe’s supermarkets
Comments
View as Flat
Mark McIntosh Posted 11:04 am
25 Nov 2009
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Bill Scher Posted 11:41 am
25 Nov 2009
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Mark McIntosh Posted 12:08 pm
25 Nov 2009
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Dave from Canada Posted 1:11 pm
25 Nov 2009
Our Prime Minister is firmly in the pocket of Big Oil; he has written that Kyoto is a "socialist scheme" designed to "suck the wealth" out of developed economies.
(Good thing Canada is not a developed economy!)
He is also very clever and cunning, and his political forte is creating division.
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acnicolet Posted 4:34 pm
25 Nov 2009
And with so many poor people in the world, and so many rich people in the western world, maybe it is indeed time for the world to adapt a more "socialist" ruling.
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Matt Petryni Posted 8:00 pm
06 Dec 2009
In that sense, the "socialist rule" is by no means a new thing. It could be more debatable as to whether or not it's a "good" thing... but most of the people in those countries would likely argue that it is.
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t jones Posted 10:09 am
27 Nov 2009
Canada is the annoying, half-retarded nephew of the United States that everyone tries to avoid.
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Dave from Canada Posted 10:18 am
27 Nov 2009
[awestuck silence at the display of wit]
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Matt Petryni Posted 8:06 pm
06 Dec 2009
Hahaha, I think he thought "no one cares about Canada" was a comeback! Whoa...
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acnicolet Posted 4:25 pm
25 Nov 2009
Not until later in December are the European leaders going to be there to partake in the final negotiations - but Obama scuffles back to Washington because he is afraid of his reputation if the deal doesn't come through.
Not good enough, Obama. Not good enough, America!
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ToddinNorway Posted 6:31 am
26 Nov 2009
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shearwater Posted 6:34 pm
26 Nov 2009
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Gabi Posted 6:38 am
26 Nov 2009
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t jones Posted 10:23 pm
26 Nov 2009
Green communists are losing their political clout. All of your efforts have been wasted. Your brief existence on this earth has been truly meaningless.
Your only sliver of optimism can be derived from the probability that your activism will be forgotten and erased from memory. Nobody was ever personally shamed by the Y2K hysteria, and you'll probably also escape reproach for your share of fear-mongering.
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Dave from Canada Posted 10:38 pm
26 Nov 2009
Truth is falsehood!
Sanity is communism!
Just keep drinking the Big Oil Dupe kool-aid...
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acnicolet Posted 9:15 pm
27 Nov 2009
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Matt Petryni Posted 8:07 pm
06 Dec 2009
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shearwater Posted 1:26 pm
27 Nov 2009
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shearwater Posted 6:26 pm
26 Nov 2009
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Dave from Canada Posted 8:01 pm
26 Nov 2009
If the constitution says no signing international agreements, then you better get out of NAFTA.
Also the WTO Agreement.
And the treaty of San Francisco - the one that ended WWII (at least the brief involvement of the US in it). Hey, the war is still on!
And that one that established NATO. Who needs that?
Also the Geneva Convention (oh, right, never mind that one).
Oh yes the 1778 Treaty of Alliance with France, regarding the American Revolutionary War.
Uh oh, there are a few more http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_United_States_treaties.
I wonder how all those Presidents were so frikkin' stupid not to have read the Constitution! Isn't that kind of... CRAZY?
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acnicolet Posted 8:52 pm
26 Nov 2009
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shearwater Posted 9:05 pm
26 Nov 2009
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Dave from Canada Posted 10:34 pm
26 Nov 2009
And I also haven't watched out my window for black helicopters lately...
I'm really missing out I guess.
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Gabi Posted 12:20 am
27 Nov 2009
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acnicolet Posted 8:49 pm
26 Nov 2009
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ToddinNorway Posted 1:36 am
27 Nov 2009
Published: August 8, 2009 in the New York Times
WASHINGTON The changing global climate will pose profound strategic challenges to the United States in coming decades, raising the prospect of military intervention to deal with the effects of violent storms, drought, mass migration and pandemics, military and intelligence analysts say.
Such climate-induced crises could topple governments, feed terrorist movements or destabilize entire regions, say the analysts, experts at the Pentagon and intelligence agencies who for the first time are taking a serious look at the national security implications of climate change.
(middle of article snipped)
We will pay for this one way or another, Gen. Anthony C. Zinni, a retired Marine and the former head of the Central Command, wrote recently in a report he prepared as a member of a military advisory board on energy and climate at CNA, a private group that does research for the Navy. We will pay to reduce greenhouse gas emissions today, and well have to take an economic hit of some kind.
Or we will pay the price later in military terms, he warned. And that will involve human lives.
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Dave from Canada Posted 9:07 am
27 Nov 2009
Right Trolls?
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melro Posted 10:04 pm
26 Nov 2009
I blogged about the turnaround of Baoding that was just short of a fairy tale in communist China and responded, uh oh. China now has a model city that went from one of the most industrially polluted places to a pretty much green oasis that is ready, willing, and able to produce green whatever. And in as little as three years, Baoding's green profits will surpass its former polluting manufacturing sector. The communist regime is very, very pleased. Uh, oh.
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t jones Posted 10:44 pm
26 Nov 2009
you apparently lack a basic understanding of free market economics.
Wind turbines are manufactured in China because labor is cheap and operating costs are low. This fact is entirely unrelated to our debate of The Greenhouse Doomsday Theory. I would wager that there is no mandarin word for "labor union".
Pickens has over 600 American made GE turbines collecting dust in a barn or on order. But what does that have to do with the price of fiberglass in China?
If you truly desire one of those Chinese "green" manufacuring jobs, then I suggest you follow through and fulfill your dreams. Perhaps you could sneak into China illegally and offer your service for less than the prevailing wage.
What are you waiting for? You could be living the Chinese dream, comrade!
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Dave from Canada Posted 11:11 pm
26 Nov 2009
I guess that means you're a commie, Melro. Whyncha go live with the rest of the commies in China and Sweden? They even hate labour unions. Just like Reagan (hey wait a sec...).
Anyway, yeah, he sure showed you...
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Matt Petryni Posted 8:02 pm
06 Dec 2009
Why? Because the entire government is a labor union. Sorry bro. Read your Little Red Book...
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jondoig Posted 12:05 am
27 Nov 2009
Meanwhile here in Oz the tragedy of our CPRS (Continue Polluting Regardless Scam) is in its final death (or should that be birth?) throes. Kevin Rudd the climate hero battles the forces of darkness to deliver... a 5% cut? Not even that, according to Treasury. But "certainty" for big business, with carbon pollution now a legally enforceable property right. A shameful day.
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Bill Scher Posted 9:11 am
27 Nov 2009
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acnicolet Posted 9:20 am
27 Nov 2009
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Chris Pratt Posted 8:28 am
28 Nov 2009
17% reduction of 2005 levels by 2020? Isn't that business as usual. How hard would it be to reduce our 2005 levels by 22%. How much have we reduced our levels already due to changes in people's behavior and the economic slow down? Where would we be if you extrapolated that rate of reduction out to the year 2020?
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ToddinNorway Posted 9:28 am
28 Nov 2009
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shearwater Posted 11:09 am
28 Nov 2009
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shearwater Posted 11:02 am
28 Nov 2009
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ToddinNorway Posted 2:28 am
29 Nov 2009
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shearwater Posted 11:17 am
28 Nov 2009
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amazingdrx Posted 11:56 am
28 Nov 2009
What wealth is it you think the US still posseses? The huge credit card bills we owe to chinese state owned banks? Can we go to some international credit fraud agency to protest when they raise the rates and boost their profits with extra fees?
Maybe we could start a war with them and just refuse to pay? Or just print a bunch of money and use it to meet the payments?
I think it is more reasonable to depend on the capacity for invention and innovation we still posses, to give our educated, skilled, motivated workforce back their manufacturing jobs, then beat the competition. It's the only realistic plan to get out of the huge financial hole that war of choice (for oil), wall street "trading", and crony contracting kleptocracy have dug.
The world is waking up to the fact that any national economy that depends on fuel based energy, like ours, is a sitting duck for multinational corporate kleptocracy. In order to maintain prosperity and financial security they are turning to renewable energy, a virtually unlimited power source that drops in price as mass production makes the devices we need to use it ever cheaper.
We need to tap into that export market and supply the world and ourselves with wind, solar, smart grid, electric transportation, ground source heating and other new energy economy devices ASAP. Pay down the national credit card bill rung up by the previous regime or face the axe of history, that's the real dilemna facing US now.
No exports, no manufacturing, no jobs, no money,bad credit, ...failure on a massive scale. That's what delayer/denier propaganda spread by lobbyistsand their clusterfox media cronies have in store for us.
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Steven Earl Salmony Posted 7:22 am
29 Nov 2009
Which major corporation, multinational conglomerate or industry "owns" your country's governance mechanisms...democratic principles and practices notwithstanding?
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blueskykate Posted 2:15 pm
01 Dec 2009
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shearwater Posted 6:40 pm
29 Nov 2009
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blueskykate Posted 2:13 pm
01 Dec 2009
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dbaker Posted 8:54 pm
01 Dec 2009
103 - 66 Duncan avenue west
Penticton British Columbia V2A6Z3
Phone/Fax 778-476-3673
25/11/2009
The Copenhagen Diagnosis, 2009: Updating the world on the Latest Climate Science. Has again indicated urgency in action is imperative. Here's my solution and immediate areas of impact.
RE : The solution to climate change.
( human excrement + nuclear waste = hydrogen )
The USA discharges Trillions of tons of sewage annually, sufficient quantity to sustain electrical generation requirements of the USA.
Redirecting existing sewage systems to containment facilities would be a considerable infrastructure modification project.
It is the intense radiation that causes the conversion of organic material into hydrogen, therefore what some would consider the most dangerous waste because of its radiation would be the best for this utilization.
I believe the combination of clean water and clean air, will increase the life expectancy of humans.
The four main areas of concern globally are energy, food,water and air!
The radiologic decomposing of organic materials generates Hydrogen
By using our sewage as a source of energy we also get clean air , clean water, and no ethanol use of food stocks. Eat food first, create energy after.
Simply replacing the fossil fuel powered electrical generating facilities with these plants, would reduce CO2 emissions, and CH4 emissions, to acceptable levels, globally.
This would require a completely new reactor facility capable of converting human waste into hydrogen and then burning the hydrogen to generate electricity on site.
This solution is sellable to citizens because of all the side issue solutions. I've been able to convince most simply with concept of using nuclear waste to a productive end.
Superbugs ( antibiotic resistant ) apparently are created in the waters sewage is discharged into, which is one more side issue solution.
Anything not converting into hydrogen will potentially be disposed of using Transmutation.
The water emitted from hydrogen burning will have uses in leaching heavy metals from other contaminated site clean ups.
I thank you for your consideration, please feel free to contact me anytime.
Dennis Baker
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latecommer Posted 1:52 pm
02 Dec 2009
He will not be able to deliver the votes however...to think otherwise is mearly platitudes.
I personally will do all I can to increase my carbon foot print. I have installed two new wood burning stoves, and purchased 4 cords of wood for the winter. I discovered that burning wood is cheaper and produces more CO2 than my gas furnace does, and gives me exercise as well.
Why do I do this? For two reasons. I am a geophysicist and understand that CO2 is not what causes climate change... especially at such low levels as we see today (more than 90% of the existance of the Earth it has been higher) and I know from being brought up by a greenhouse farmer and working my first 15 years in greenhouses with CO2 levels held at 2000ppm's that there is no danger in CO2 at greenhouse levels.
My second reason is that I will not let incompetent, politically driven scientists, who it now appears have fudged their data and cooked their books to determine what climate is best for me.
I strongly believe that the climate that was on Earth when my specie evolved was by definition the best climate for me... and that climate was warmer and had a higher level of CO2 than what we have today in our CO2 starved atmosphere. The small amount that humans have added to the climate have had a benificial effect, as declared by NASA in their observation of an Earth growing greener each year.
Oh wait...I thought most here were for a greener Earth. What is the matter, the wrong shade of green?
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shearwater Posted 2:04 pm
02 Dec 2009
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Dave from Canada Posted 2:05 pm
02 Dec 2009
Speaking as someone with a bit of knowledge about geophysics, I can offer two observations about geophysicists:
1. they study rocks, not atmosphere.
2. they usually work for oil companies.
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shearwater Posted 4:11 pm
07 Dec 2009
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shearwater Posted 2:03 pm
02 Dec 2009
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latecommer Posted 2:51 pm
04 Dec 2009
Paleogeology is very much involved with paleoclimatology. In fact 16 units worth. and Paleoclimatology is the most instructive part of climatology since NOTHING HAPPENING TODAY HASN"T HAPPENED DOZENS OF TIMES IN THE PAST.
The atmosphere also is not the most important factor in global temperature.
Approx. 12 times more heat is stored in the Oceans and is the buffer that keeps climate changes slow and not abrupt.
General physics and radiative physics make it very clear that 1) the carbon system doesn't care or know where the carbon comes from...it is all the same to it. And 2) CO2 acts in a logarithmic fashion in that every ppm has a reduced effect from the preceeding one. We are also nearly 95% saturated. In other words doubling the CO2 (a level much more common to the Earth for most of its existance) will have less than a 5% difference in its absorbtion ability. What a doubling will do is to catch all the long wave radiation that is being caught now in the first 5 meters (off the ground) instead of the first 10. However there will be still the same finite number of long wave radiation to absorb.
Petrogeologists work for oil companies. My commercial experience was with precious metals (8 years) and I have taught physics and geology for nearly 30 years. I recently earned a BS in atmospheric physics and am about a year away from a MS in that discipline.
So with you knowledge of geology, what empirical proof of AGW can you offer? This is not a specious or wise as* question.
I am a scientist and as a scientist my opinion changes as the facts of the case change. How about yours?
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Dave from Canada Posted 3:21 pm
04 Dec 2009
What proof of AGW do I have? I actually accept the conclusions reached in the peer reviewed publications and consensus positions of the specialist CLIMATE SCIENTISTS - the ones who specialize in the area. Likewise, I listen to the specialists who tell us that uranium is radioactive, even though I don't have the empirical evidence sitting on my desk. Ditto for those specialists who tell us that other stars are light-years away, even though I don't have the evidence of those distances on my desk.
Are you telling us that you don't accept anything unless you get a few degrees in those areas and gather the evidence yourself? I find that more than a little hard to believe.
Does my opinion change as the facts of a case change? Generally yes.
Do I form opinions that contradict the consensus of specialists in an area where I know relatively little? Generally no.
How about you?
PS At which University do you teach physics and geology without having a Ph.D.?
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latecommer Posted 3:03 pm
04 Dec 2009
Your ideas are a bunch of shist. lol I couldn't resist.
Your idea sounds, in fact, very interesting. Do not forget about the methane produced which could conceivably offer the power source to facilitate your process.
But please let's be clear about one thing. Acceptable levels of CO2 are anything between what we have now and about 2000 ppm's (what is commonly found in greenhouses..... and near the world's average CO2 level for its multibillion year lifetime)
There is no danger to greenhouse workers who work all day at these levels...higher levels of CO2 cause world wide greening, and in addition higher levels of CO2 aid in the utilization of water by the plants. Less water/more CO2.
CO2 is not a problem and those who insist it is are doing so from a none science viewpoint, or are using scare tactics to achieve their unspoken agenda.
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latecommer Posted 3:45 pm
04 Dec 2009
I am sorry for you if you actually believe in AGW because of the "peer reviewed" papers that support AGW. First NONE of these papers show any empirical proof. Just theory vbased on climate models. Have you actually read them?
And in addition the "peer reviews" they underwent were a tragic use of the system. They admitt to picking their reviewers, and worked hard to make sure those who disagreed were not included. They have made a sham of peer review as it classically has been used.
I however do read genuine peer reviews that show proof that there is nothing happening today that has not occured before, and from a natural cause.
Of course I have a lot of things I believe that I have not researched personally, however I never put those beliefs in writting. If you find me stating something in print you can be assured I have spent many hours reading the research, or years doing same.
the very first thing you need to understand about science is that there is no such term as consensus. Skepticism is the foundation of science not consensus. Consensus is a political word which should be a big clue for you what this is all about.
I have never said I teach physics at a University. I teach Physics at a highschool, and Geology at a Jr.College.
Where do you teach?
Oh by the way many Universitys have instructors on staff with MS and MA degrees.
Unlike you I do not generally comment on areas of which I know relatively little, and also unlike you, I know relatively a lot about climate.
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Dave from Canada Posted 4:57 pm
04 Dec 2009
And you say there is no evidence in the IPCC reports. This makes it clear that you have not read them. Ditto your point about consensus, as the IPCC reports actually do include consensus statements.
For these reasons, I strongly suspect you have been lying through your teeth throughout. This would not be unexpected, as the climate change denial industry and their dupes constantly lie.
Finally, you claim "I however do read genuine peer reviews [sic] that show proof that there is nothing happening today that has not occured before, and from a natural cause." So what exactly is happening today, and what happened before from a natural cause?
PS I have more university degrees than you claim to. I don't say that in order to intimidate or silence you, as you seem to be doing. Rather I just mention it so that you will know that I am not impressed by your claims, and so you will (hopefully!) stop making them.
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Chris Pratt Posted 6:29 pm
04 Dec 2009
Proof is for mathamatics, climatologists are not trying to prove anything, they are just saying, based on empirical evidence, ie temperature readings, photographs of ice melting, shifts in species range, core samples, etc. that the earth is warming and C02 concentrations are rising at a rate that is very rapid and coincides with our use of fossil fuels. There is a historical correlation between C02 levels and global temperature based on empirical evidence. The consensus is that a part of this temperature and C02 rise is due to our imput of Co2 into the environment. Isn't that an intuitively simple and reasonable assumption. Now what part of this are you saying is wrong? You think this is a natural course of events that has nothing to do with us and all our activity on the planet. The burning of fossil fuels and the negative feed backloops of melting permafrost, increased saturation of Co2 in the oceans, less albedo due to reduced ice coverage is nothing to worry about? That seem intuitively wrong. It is possible, but the probability is extremely small and not worth taking a chance on in my opinion. When the weatherman says there is a 80% chance of rain, I bring my raincoat.
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latecommer Posted 8:12 pm
04 Dec 2009
This process broke down early with IPCC. They refused to release their data. NO one outside their circle was given the data and maethodology until FOI demands forced them too.
First Mann was shown to use the wrong algorithm and it was discovered that any random set of numbers produced the same "hockey stick" graph
Then Bifra was forced to release his seminal paper (cited in over 100 papers) and in two days it was discovered by independent scientits that he had combined two series of tree ring data, invalidating his conclusions.
Then Phil Jones "lost" the data the IPCC used to determine that we are heating at a unnatural rate. NOw that it has been released by most likely a fellow worker at Hadley center (could not have been hacked since it was off of two servers...you computer geeks should know ablut this) and these released papers and e-mails show how corrupted the peer review system has become with active participation by several to keep a number of scientists off the peer review team. And perhpas the sloppiest code writting I have ever seen.
We have been had folks...these people have stolen our environmentalist movement and made it their own for their own reasons.
There is NO empirical evidence in any of the four IPCC reports that show that man is the most likely cause of CO2. I have not only read them I have taken classes on them, and have all four plus the reports to the governments that were drawn up from them (that by the way don't even remotely depict what the scientists said.
The Earth is warming at the same rate in the last 100 years as the average over the last 1000 years. That is empirical fact.
It doesn't even matter how much CO2 is in the atmosphere because NEVER at any time scale has CO2 rise proceeded temperature rise. Never. It is and always has been the other way around. As the world warms more CO2 is relased from the Oceans since cold water can hold more CO2 than warm can...That is why your brew degasses as it warms.
The historical correlation shows a time lag with CO2 always in the trailing position. Show me a report that says other wise.
As far as Albedo is concerned, we have about 2 % more cloud cover in the last 10 years than in any measured period. That accounts for 1.5 W^-2 of the 2.0 W^-2 that the increase in CO2 since 1850. The rest is split between the mild inclrease due to CO2 (most papers put it at about.26C per century) and the continuation of the natural cyclic warming we have had for the last 11.5 ky. (since the last glaciation)
We have had CO2 levels of 15X what we have today during an ice age.
The glaciers have been melting since the early 1800 with surges and then with growth. They are cyclic as well but like temperature they are gradually disappearing and may very well be gone in a hundred years.
Unless of course we continue the cooling phase we are currently in.
Be very careful when you say the poles are melting, because while the north pole has reduced the south pole set an all time high record of ice in 1997. Antarctica has cooled every year since 1957 when it was first studied scientifically.
And yes geophysics has many different disciplines. Sorry you didn't know that.
And Chris you have it wrong. All of science is involved with trying to prove a hypothesis, or invalidate it. That is the way it works. Every paper presents a hypothesis and relases its methods and data for others to prove or dis prove.
And if you look over my posts you will not find that I deny warming. The Earth has been in a warming trend for , as I said 11.5 kyrs. What I argue is that until this new hypothesis of AGW is validated I will stick with the standard model. It is by the way the duty of the proposers of a new hypothesis to prove it is true. They have not proven that any warming is outside the natural cycles of warming or cooling because as I said before. Nothing is happening today that hasn't happened many times in the past (the view point that paleogeology can give you)
Obviously Dave is a rabid liberal with the typical ploy of attacking the messenger when he has no substanative science to offer. (Like the empirical proof that MAN is the culprit here.) I am done talking to him unless we meet personally and then he will be done talking for a while. And Dave I could care less how many degrees you have you are obviously a brainwashed sheep or a troll and you have nothing I need.
I earned mine in school and in the field. One thing I can tell however that all your degrees do not include anything remotely resembling a science degree from any reputable school. (Probably lit and polysci.)
Your total lack of science shows in your reponsees... sorry a scientist just doesn't write like you do. I have dealt with too many activists to not see the signs.
You say, Chris that what you believe is intuitive, and you should understand that many things in science are not. If you want to test your belief, spend a couple of hours looking at what was released from the Hadley Climate center and see what you think of the ethics of those who propose what you now believe. If you feel it is O K to "hide the recent decline" as they put it then we really have nothing to talk about because I am about science and they are about political activism.
The IPCC theory is actually based on a very few number of papers, several of which it now has been shown were wrong in their process and wrong in their conclusions. The bulk of their "proof" are the General circulation models (GMC) which have not predicted even one thing that has happened. They predicted that the Stratosphere would heat first...it hasn't. They predicted that we would be almost .5 degrees warmer than we are now, and not one of the 21 models used predicted the cooling we have had in recent years. A cooling by the way that is caused by the least active sun in at least 200 years (since the Dalton Minimum)and perhaps since the Maunder Minimum during the dark ages.
It (the quiet Sun) is causing the cooling just as the hyperactive sun since 1970's (the highest activity ever recorded) caused the warming we had in the 90's
By the way, the Oceans are cooling according to ARGOS (sea monitoring system) and have become a sink instead of a source in the last two years.
The ocean is the buffer that holds the vast majority of the Earths stored heat. It is what keeps "tipping points" from happening and is why there has never been, and never will be a climate tipping point that didn't have a geological cause such as the closing of the Panama straits.
We are on the same side here. I want to see the burning of fossile fuels stopped (they are far to valuable to waste as fuel) but the facts are we do not as yet have a replacement. To ban one without having a replacement is insanity...but it will sure make some people a hell of a lot of money.
I want clean air, water and a healthy ecology. I was into this perhaps before most of you were born. I was first impressed by man's distructive ability in Viet Nam where I spent most of 1965, '67 and '68 with the 5th Cavalry airborn unit. I saw what agent orange did in the early 70's when I went back as an observer, and became a conservationist on the spot. I wouldn't be involved with grist if I wasn't.
It just makes me very angry to see these politicos taking over the movement, with their BS about AGW.
I am convinced that what they suggest is a physical impossibility. Short of nuclear war man just can not effect global climate....regional for sure with cutting of rainforests, bad land use etc. but to suggest that we could change global climate is pure hubris.
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shearwater Posted 8:32 pm
04 Dec 2009
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dbaker Posted 10:32 am
06 Dec 2009
If its bullshit, prove its bullshit!
How come you don't know that Methane is about 24 times worst than carbon?
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Dave from Canada Posted 10:38 am
06 Dec 2009
He's just another denial industry dupe posing as a "scientist."
There are a few on Grist, and they use multiple names for their posts.
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t jones Posted 11:14 am
06 Dec 2009
"Prove that the sky is NOT falling" is like saying "Prove that there is NO flying spaghetti monster."
The burden of proof rests with the carbon pimps, and their evidence is obviously insufficient.
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Matt Petryni Posted 8:23 pm
06 Dec 2009
We could further explain the scientific theory in depth, but it's really basic knowledge at this point: get a textbook and read up on what you seemingly failed to learn in science class. If that incredibly minor effort is still way too much for your lazy ass, I'll see if there's a high schooler around who's down to repair your missing education.
But ultimately if you refuse for whatever preconceived reason to see that the sky is blue, fine. We're all going to pay the consequences of your denial, and that includes you too. I'm just sick of arguing about the facts.
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shearwater Posted 5:27 pm
06 Dec 2009
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Matt Petryni Posted 8:09 pm
06 Dec 2009
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dbaker Posted 10:42 am
06 Dec 2009
They call it "Gang Stalking".
But its worth it as I also got your attention.
Dennis
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t jones Posted 11:19 am
06 Dec 2009
"ITS A BIG OIL, RIGHT-WING, KGB, MULTIPLE ACCOUNT USER CONSPIRACY!"
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Matt Petryni Posted 8:49 pm
06 Dec 2009
So we really don't care if he wants to use multiple usernames. That being said, we know a person is using multiple accounts based on their IP address. (You do know what an IP address is? Here's a link. You are not anonymous on the Internet.)
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latecommer Posted 3:45 pm
06 Dec 2009
Lets start this off with the fact that I am not a liberal. That means that I am telling the truth. A liberal will always accuse others of doing what he would do in that position.
What I am is constitutionalist and a conservative conservationist.
As has been said, it is up to the new hypothesis to prove it'self. There is always a theory in place, and that theory is accepted until proven wrong. AGW has done nothing to either prove the standard model wrong or their hypothesis as correct. So, bright boy, it is your side's job to prove it or be ignored.
By the way I can prove that AGW is wrong. It is very simple. Observational evidence (yes I am talking about the real climate not the virtual climate AGW lives in) has shown for the last 15 years that the climate models (the only proof you have sadly) are hopelessly wrong. In fact every prediction made by the climate models has proven wrong. Please point to their correct conclusions if you can.
The very foundations of AGW are based on Hadley CRU reconstruction of data showing temperatures since 1850. Now they admit to "losing" the majority of this data, and their personal correspondence shows that this and other deceptions were intentional.
The fact that any of you still believe in this shows me you are either green trools or incredably unable to understand science.
I am only writing on this site to try to convince enough pure hearted environmentalist of the fact that the movement has been hijacked by unscrupulous politicians and thier pet "scientists". If you want to see proof of that I challenge you to find in any of the IPCC reports the exagerations that are found in the policy statements written for governments. In TAR, the third report, it says "no definative fingerprint of human caused warming can be certain".
The policy statement from the same report has changed this to read "we are very confident (95%) that the recent warming has been caused by man"
You see the science shows warming but can't attribute it to man with any more certainty than they can attribute it to natural causes.
This is exactlly what I am saying...Climate always is changing. Our overall trend for 11,500 years has been a warming, a warming that would be expected following a glaciation. Within this overall warming, there have been many fluxuations of cooling and warming...in fact these periods fall into well known cycles that can be followed thousands of years into the past, and now to the present.
In 1977 Theodore Landscheidt (among several others) predicted, based on known cycles of climate, that warming would continue until the turn of the century and then a 30 to 40 year cooling event would erase the warming of the previous century. It is being called by REAL scientists the Landscheidt Minimum, and we are in the opening stages of it.
Those of you who believe with Dave that I don't know what I am talking about now can check me out over the next few decades. There will be short warming and cooling events, but an overall trend downward.
Lastly, why in heavens name do any of you believe we need to take draconian measures to keep it from warming? In all periods of our climate past, man has done best at temperatures 2 to 3 degrees warmer.
The Minoan Warm period contributed to the first great civilizations, The Roman warm Period allowed the Roman culture to spread across the known world of its day, (a time when wine grapes grew in Scotland) the medieval warm period allowed human population to nearly triple due to abundant food.
And of course in pre-history the period of time that man is said to evolve (along with most of the animals we see today) was considerably warmer, as was the period of time of the clovis culture and the expansion of man throughout the world.
In addition ten minutes of surfing can show you that ten times as many people die every year from cold as from heat. Warmer is better.
Oh and Dave...why don't you ask the site moderator to run a check on me if you believe that. My base adress would show on all these people you suspect me to be. What a clown...what a typical liberal. If I need a laugh I always check out what a liberal does or writes.
The only thing I appreciate about the coming cooling is that it will affect you more than me lol. If I lived in Canada I would be a big fan of warming...were it to happen your country would be one of biggest benificiaries.
My biggest disapointment on this site is that there are no other scientists here that can put up a debate or even a point to debate. I suspect they are just to smart to go to war unarmed without any data that proves their side.
Oh one more last thing...It doesn't really matter if our so called leaders decide to do something about this non problem. The majority of America will not obey their new laws,(because the majority doesn't believe in AGW) and in fact, any Representative or Senator who votes to tax us for our personal carbon emissions will not be re-elected. This I believe, and hope because a new revolution will happen if they persist.
If you think this is far fetched just look up the term "Oath Keepers" and "3 percenters". These people are active military, police officers, and vets who have made a stand and will not back off from it.
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dbaker Posted 4:53 pm
06 Dec 2009
my alternative energy source is still a winner
Human excrement is sustainable as an energy source,
What ever your criteria, run my solution against your parameters!
D.Baker
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latecommer Posted 5:06 pm
06 Dec 2009
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shearwater Posted 5:34 pm
06 Dec 2009
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shearwater Posted 5:42 pm
06 Dec 2009
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shearwater Posted 5:45 pm
06 Dec 2009
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shearwater Posted 5:51 pm
06 Dec 2009
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latecommer Posted 7:35 pm
06 Dec 2009
You best be careful, Dave from Canada may think you are a troll lol.
You speak of buffers and you are absolutly right. The oceans hold about 15 times the heat of the atmosphere and as it cools (as it is now) the heat comes out of the oceans very slowly and buffers the effect. This is exactly why any talk of climate tipping points is ridiculous.
Jones, Mann, Bifra, and Schneider, afirm themselves as cheaters scientifically, with their e-mails to each other...and we havn't even talked yet about the physical threats against Pat Micheals, and the attempts to keep certain people off their "peer review" team. They very cleverly manuvered to make sure only true belivers we able to peer review...which of course makes every paper thus published suspect.
I teach an honors physics class and am the department chair at the highschool I work for. I have sent a message to the department to not allow citations from any of the above cheaters as well as Wikipedia which is controlled (the science section) by Dr. Connerly who very quickly deleates any posting that does not meet the AGW agenda. If you don't believe that just try to post an anti AGW viewpoint.
It has been three years since I deleated Wiki, but now that there is proof (from their own writing) that those named above have cooked their books to hide the decline and amp up the warming it is a reduction in grade to use any of their papers in their final Term paper. Only 3 (out of 11) of my students are writing on climate but it was common for most in the past to use Wiki. This paper is no joke. It must be at least 15 pages plus citations and footnotes (at least 20) and counts for one third of their grade. All these students already have accepted scholarships to colleges and universities in science. Hopefully they can start to heal the damage these AGW clowns have inflicted on the good name of Science.
I personally will not use Hadley temperature data, nor GISS in my research. I have long suspected that they have been manipulated but with the release of this 65 megs of information by some worker at CRU, (by the way it was not a hacker...couldn't have been since it came from two seperate searvers)we now have at least an ethics violation, with the bodies and a signed confession pinned to each. In a perfect world these men would have to find work outside of science starting Monday morning.
Interesting as well is the fact that papers from Jones and his crew formed the foundation of FAR (first IPCC report) and without these papers there really is no justification to believe that there is any AGW. Mann's hockey stick bolstered the 2nd and 3rd report until it was found corrupted, and Bifra's tree ring series was used and cited in over 100 pro AGW papers as the data base... even after it was shown that he combined two series and called it one. Neither data series alone gave them as robust a foundation for the paper as selecting parts of two series.
So if any of you out there are students or scientists be aware that any paper using citations from these people could be corrupted.
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Matt Petryni Posted 9:04 pm
06 Dec 2009
Ad hominem aside, there's plenty of data out there from scientists other than those you refer to whose conclusions show the same observations about the environment. You could look at the data, but I'm not going to even waste my time detailing it because I'm damn sure your mind is too made up to even consider it if it disagrees with your preconceived notions. You can find both Hadley and non-Hadley data at woodfortrees.org, though.
That being said, I'm pretty confident your students' observations will come out to confirm those of mainstream science. It's purely speculative to say one way or another at this point. The better question to ponder might be: if your own students' data is consistent with the theory of global warming, will you then change your mind? We both know the answer. (Hint: It's "no.")
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Matt Petryni Posted 9:20 pm
06 Dec 2009
She insisted the book was "wrong," and kicked us out of the class. Every established historian placed the Battle of Hastings in 1066, but this argument was irrelevant. We lobbied to simply have our test reflect that historians had this view, even if her test acknowledged their view might be wrong. She ignored this argument too. She was right; established historical data was wrong.
I invite you to share this story with your class. I feel like your students might somehow relate to this experience with a high school teacher that clearly doesn't understand their own field.
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Dave from Canada Posted 9:31 pm
06 Dec 2009
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latecommer Posted 7:46 pm
06 Dec 2009
This is not to say that a massive release of methane would not be a serious problem. However there has never been a massive release based on temperature. The only known global events of this sort have been tectonic in nature.
You worry too much chicken little.
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Matt Petryni Posted 8:41 pm
06 Dec 2009
Forgive me for trying to reason with the Internet; but for the handful of reasonable people reading this, it's important to know that methane concentrations went down for two reasons:
1. The atmosphere is complex, and things vary all the time. We'll never predict the exact atmospheric concentration of anything for any given year. We'll just get the overall trend close, if we're right. That's why it's coming back up again, in line with general predictions.
2. And perhaps more importantly, we began programs to more aggressively sequester methane. It's one of the cleaner-burning fossil fuels, and as we began using it more in place of oil and coal for powering industry, we generally did a little better about releasing unburned methane into the air over time.
3. Finally, no one really is saying massive releases of methane are "based on temperature." They are saying temperature is based on massive releases of methane.
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latecommer Posted 9:29 pm
06 Dec 2009
Every paper I have seen, and believe me I have analyzed several hundred, show that temperature leads CO2 and methane, a well as water vapor. Warming causes a release of CO2 in the same way your glass of beer degasses as it warms. The same effect happens with methane, and water vapor.
So what this says is that these greenhouse gases, while adding a small amount of warming potential, do not cause the warming. Of course that leads to the question of "what does then?"
My answer, until a better one is found is that it is caused by the same processes that have always done it. Total solar energy, angular momentum as the Sun orbits the barycentre of the universe, and cosmic rays are the best candidates.
Perhaps I do not feel the worry that some do because I have studied the past climates of the world. In the past 10,500 years we have identified at least 12 periods that closely mimic todays climate. Even to the details of a slow rise of CO2 during warming and a slow decline during cooling periods. The buffering provided by the oceans causes this change to be very gradual.
The climate is self adjusting. For instance, recent research has shown that as CO2 sources and amounts increase, so do sinks. In the present case NOAA estimates that we now have 2% more vegitation than we had in 1985. Part of this can be seen in the growth of vegitation around the fringes of large deserts like the Sahara. The same is true of methane.
I do have a question though Matt. As far as I know there has not been any increase in "pain" from the warming of the climate. Could you detail it for me please?
I find it very strange that warming back to more favorable temperatures for human beings could be painful.
I know for instance that the Hurricane scare was bogus with studies showing that we are at a very low cyclonic energy state.
Sea level has stayed at or below its 200 year level, and as I said before cold kills much better than heat.
I am not saying you are wrong, but if there is great distress going on somewhere in the world I will be suprised. Unless of course you are talking about the pain of the power bill that has gone up due to not ready for prime time alternative energy.
Drought is not any higher although some areas are worse than others, and some are wetter. Warming causes more rain, cooling less. Cooling causes less evaporation, and if as I believe we are beginning a 30+year cooling trend, we WILL see more misery, less food, etc.
So that puts us both in an ironic position. You hope I am right, I hope I am wrong... and that we will continue to warm. You feel the danger is with warming, but all of Earths history says differently. It is very clear that the worst times for humanity have all come during cold spells.
The sack of Rome was probably caused by the Goths and Vandals moving away from the cold toward more food and warmer weather. It is historical fact that their armies crossed the frozen Rhine River...something that hasn't happened in nearly 200 years. The Dark Ages were times of cold and lack of food. This contributed to the plague, and the death of tens of millions. The last Ice Age nearly exterminated human beings, creating a bottleneck, genetically, that can be traced to that event.
So I am hoping that the Sun will snap out of its historic quiesence, and return to its very high level of activity it blessed us with only 15 years ago.... because dispite all the AGW dogma, it is truely what determines climate.
The IPCC tried to dismiss the effects of the Sun by saying that irradience does not vary by more than a percent or two. However not only is one percent translatable to climate effects, they (IPCC) did not include the UV effects that regulate Ozone, the solar flux, the solar wind (at the lowest level now since we have been able to measure it), the solar magnetic field (also very very low) and the effects of the above. (for instance the increase in cloud forming nuclei caused by the increase in cosmic rays). The Solar magnetic field helps shield us from CR, and as more CR hit the atmosphere it appears, through recent research, that cloud cover has also increased.
I truly am interested in what "pain" you have seen increased due to warming however, and will look for your reponse.
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Dave from Canada Posted 9:35 pm
06 Dec 2009
Thanks for making my day :-).
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Matt Petryni Posted 9:50 pm
06 Dec 2009
As for the "pain" of global warming, I know this is a waste of time to pretend to talk about in good faith. The floods the year before last in Chehalis might be one example, a result of increased evaporation that you point out would be a cause of global warming. The prevalence of the pine beetle is another obvious example, which is rapidly destroying forests relied upon for their timber resources. But we both know you're going to just deny the relationship between any example I choose and the prevailing theory. What makes something "denial" is its preconceived nature, a condition in which one irrationally ignores obvious realities out of some kind of psychological delusion or need.
That being said, I may have misunderstood your denial's case presentation. Earlier, you said scientists manipulated data to make it seem as if the Earth was warming. This assertion would imply you think that it's not warming. But here in this post you seem to suggest that it is in fact warming, but that we are not the cause of it (The sun is! Ah! Why didn't the scientists think of that?!! Oh wait, they did.) If the denial exemplified by the second post more accurately describes your condition, then why would it matter if scientists manipulated data? According to this brand of denial, their data was in fact correct, but their theory was not.
So I guess the question right now is mainly: what type of denial do you suffer? Do you think the Earth is warming or not?
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Dave from Canada Posted 9:47 pm
06 Dec 2009
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dbaker Posted 9:59 pm
06 Dec 2009
the solution with me!
D.Baker
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Matt Petryni Posted 10:08 pm
06 Dec 2009
There's more than enough other viable clean energy sources to power our entire economy, we just need the political will to pursue them. Actually, we really don't. They're emerging in the market place on their own, and are already profitable. We just need political will to, well, acknowledge that the earth is in fact warming up. And pursue them more quickly. Actually, we don't need that either. We really just need the political will to internalize the costs of production, so that the free market could actually function efficiently.
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dbaker Posted 10:04 pm
06 Dec 2009
3. Finally, no one really is saying massive releases of methane are "based on temperature." They are saying temperature is based on massive releases of methane.
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http://climateethics.org/?p=225
D. Degradation of Arctic Terrestrial and Sub–Sea Permafrost
Perhaps one of the most disturbing recent findings is that degradation of the Arctic terrestrial and sub–sea permafrost is releasing large amounts of methane that have been frozen as methane hydrates (see, e.g., Canadell and Raupach 2009). This is particularly worrisome because methane is about 23 times more potent as a greenhouse gas than is carbon dioxide. Release of methane hydrates was not considered in the IPCC’s AR4 report. Yet, recent information indicates that: (1)large amounts of methane are frozen in arctic methane hydrates; (2)continental shelves hold most of this methane and they increasingly are being released as permafrost melts; (3)that sub–sea permafrost is already releasing methane; and (4)there is a positive feedback of methane release insofar as methane hydrates increase in volume when they are destabilized by an increase in temperature and this leads to abrupt methane releases to the atmosphere.
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Matt Petryni Posted 10:34 pm
06 Dec 2009
So someone who's willing to talk intelligently and honestly about the issue could start there, but for the more ignorant/crazy, I find it's usually better to start back at the very beginning and work our way up to something like that. I sort of was assuming LateCommer was one of the more ignorant/crazy: I mean, he admits to grading papers down for using more credible citations! Wild.
Sort of off-topic, the important thing to realize here is that the majority of the "opposition" to the established facts of climate change is not really scientific. It's psychological. We're conditioned to believe that we're an independent person, that we are an individual who is capable of acting without consequence in our own best interest. As we grow up, and mature, we realize this isn't so much the case. We learn to share, interact with others, the value of personal responsibility. We don't apply these lessons to everything in our lives, but usually to enough that society is allowed to function. Since industrialization, the power of our technology has required us to adapt psychologically, and to apply these lessons to more and more of our decisions.
In short, if for no other reason than to ensure our own survival in light of potentially greater self-inflicted threats, it has forced us to realize our place in a larger system and take responsibility for the things that we do. But just as children were originally averted to believe they should share, not pick on other children, or help out their family with chores, many adults are averted to believe that they should place themselves in this more social human context. I think that this aversion played out is essentially the denial we witness, which explains why it stops at nothing to exploit every potential issue in climate change to ultimately protect some false concept of a "status quo" (I say false, here, because there is no such thing as a "status quo," and everything in the universe is constantly in flux). Some will never overcome this aversion.
This, really, is the issue: the denial comes not from a fear of the potential consequences of climate change, nor from a mere inability to understand the issue at hand (although sometimes it is these). It really stems from a fear they might have to let their sister play with their teddy bear for a little while, and that acknowledging climate change will force those of us who have a conscience to behave differently in relation to our friends, neighbors, and fellow human beings. We've all experienced this kind of fear from a very early age, and must understand it as a fundamental challenge of the human condition, I think.
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latecommer Posted 12:11 am
07 Dec 2009
And IF you were my student then you would have a reason to be worried. I do not take "arguments from authority" like you present. I do not grade papers down for "more credible sources". I just do not accept them at all. However the rub is that you obviously do not understand what a credible source is.
Your name calling does nothing but help me identify you as just another liberal with very little science. I seldom find one that has. If you really knew anything about climate you would debate me at a level of science above the pedestrian level you can learn from the newspaper.
My mind is not made up. If facts change so does my view of the problem.
I have been involved in climate for a large part of my life and have changed my POV several times.
If you would like to see me change my POV again just show me one piece of empirical evidence that proves AGW. I don't say this to be sarcastic. There just hasn't been that fingerprint found yet by anyone.
No one denies that CO2, like any greenhouse gas causes warming... in fact it allows us to live on Earth. The effect of all the greenhouse gases raises the base temperature of Earth about 33 degrees from -14 C (what energy we get from the Sun) to almost 17 degrees, which is near the average of the global temperature. While water vapor does most of the heavy lifting, CO2 comes in second.
And it is basic physics that the effects of CO2 are logarithmic (each additional ppm has less efect than the one before) And everyone also knows that the majority of heating from greenhouse gas is from water vapor. These are not in dispute by any scientist I know of.
Where the disagreement comes is in the estimated temperature sensitivity of additional CO2, which various models set anywhere from 2.3 to 4.8. (it should be a red flag that they vary this much). Independent research puts it at a .5 to .65 sensitivity. Interestingly enough if these figures (.5) are put into the models we have a very good corrolation with what we can observe as actual climate, which tells me that it is very likely close to the true figure.
A very good book on this subject is "The Resiliant Earth" written by two climate modelers. They are a middle ground source with a good prehistoric base, they talk about uncertainties of measurement, climate modeling and its limits, and the consequences of possible actions to change climate.
I know everyone does not have the opportunity I do to study this stuff, afterall I get paid to keep up with my discipline, but it really takes only a short time of personal study to see that predictions based on the GCM's (general circulation models) do not match observed climate. What are you going to believe... the computer or your own eyes?
Icecap.com is a good site for all the publications available, as is CO2.com.
Admittedly these are skeptic sites but they make available all the research of the warmers as well so you can see both sides from one site. I have yet to find a warmer site that does this.
Another red flag to a thinking person should be the fact that no "warmer" will debate a skeptic on this subject. Not even highly respected scientists like Richard Lindzen of MIT, or Willie Soon of Harvard, can find someone to publically debate.
This will change very soon because the US Senate is now calling for a complete review of all the science on global warming based on the unethical processes and perhaps criminal activity found at Hadley CRU. The United Kingdom has also started an investigation and the head of CRU, Dr. Phil Jones has stepped down until the study is completed.
Don't be a tool of those who have warped values. Until you learn the science yourself, and quit basing your opinion on the authority of those proclaiming AGW, just because they say so, you will remain a tool. When you learn that there are many very accomplished scientists who disagree with Al Gore and company you may perhaps be on your way to an independent point of view.
I predict the first thing you will learn is that the theory of global warming is the one I hold, and the challenging hypothesis is what you think of as a theory. Science does not allow a hypothesis to move on to theory level until it (the hypothesis) has been validated by observational evidence. All "evidence" presented to date is much easier explained by natural causes, and these natural causes have many precedents in paleoclimate.
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Dave from Canada Posted 8:47 am
07 Dec 2009
And IF you were my student then you would have a reason to be worried. I do not take "arguments from authority" like you present."
Wow - and these statements are back-to-back. Hilarious!
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Matt Petryni Posted 9:30 am
07 Dec 2009
And he admits this openly, as if it's some sort of valiant attempt to defend society against "appeals to authority," because the only appeals to authority that are inductively valid are appeals to the Oregon Petition and a vaguely identified "30,000+ scientists."
I just wonder how a person can't see the overwhelming obviousness of that internal contradiction. I guess the best way to take this a part is point-by-point?
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Dave from Canada Posted 8:58 am
07 Dec 2009
And the Richard Lindzen who got funded by Western Fuels and OPEC?
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Matt Petryni Posted 10:38 am
07 Dec 2009
If this is a "mistake," I'm making, then certainly so too is the AAAS. But you know, who are they to be an "authority" on what is and is not mainstream science? I'm sure your authority is wayyy better. Oh right, CO2.com. I forgot.
"And IF you were my student then you would have a reason to be worried. I do not take "arguments from authority" like you present. I do not grade papers down for "more credible sources". I just do not accept them at all. However the rub is that you obviously do not understand what a credible source is."
Okay, besides the obvious that this totally contradicts with his last sentence, I can do nothing but point out here that people use "arguments from authority" in scientific papers all the time. Why? Because no scientist, no matter how brilliant, can do every single task of original research themselves. Nor should they. Having others test, re-test, and increasingly confirm one's results is critical to the veracity of those results. An experiment becomes stronger when it is repeated, by other "authorities."
"Your name calling does nothing but help me identify you as just another liberal with very little science. I seldom find one that has. If you really knew anything about climate you would debate me at a level of science above the pedestrian level you can learn from the newspaper. "
No, my name calling does nothing to advance my argument. It also doesn't say much about me. I admit this: I just do some unnecessary name-calling here because he well past deserved it, as he's claiming to be a high school department head and can barely compose sentences. Sadly, I could believe this is the case. It's much more disconcerting than being "a liberal with very little science." It's not like being "with science" is a prerequisite for being a liberal. Being a competent writer is a prerequisite to being a teacher.
I have no problem debating him at the "level of science above..." but unlike some people, I'm not going to pretend to be an expert in this field. It's not my field. But just that it's not my field doesn't suddenly mean he's right, and that the Earth has not been warming up. It just means it's not my field.
"If you would like to see me change my POV again just show me one piece of empirical evidence that proves AGW. I don't say this to be sarcastic. There just hasn't been that fingerprint found yet by anyone."
He knows we cannot "prove" global warming; nor do we want to. We have empirical evidence that it is happening, but I can anticipate that he will promptly ignore this, citing some bizarre argument. That's why it's called "ignorance." And no reasonable scientist would call this "proof." A proof is a tool in mathematics, not climate science. I would assume he knew that, so if you're looking for "proof" he must be sarcastic.
"No one denies that CO2, like any greenhouse gas causes warming... in fact it allows us to live on Earth."
Actually a lot of his fellow denier trolls do in fact deny that. Constantly.
"The effect of all the greenhouse gases raises the base temperature of Earth about 33 degrees from -14 C (what energy we get from the Sun) to almost 17 degrees, which is near the average of the global temperature. ... These are not in dispute by any scientist I know of."
Actually, many of the scientists who signed the Oregon Petition do dispute these facts. I figured those were scientists that he knew of. But the facts in this section are correct, and how one cannot interpret them to mean that more CO2 would mean more warming is beyond me; I assume that nonsense is coming...
"Where the disagreement comes is in the estimated temperature sensitivity of additional CO2, which various models set anywhere from 2.3 to 4.8. (it should be a red flag that they vary this much). Independent research puts it at a .5 to .65 sensitivity."
Here we get to the entire argument: the temperature sensitivity of "additional" CO2. By "additional," he means "double the concentration of," and by "2.3 to 4.8," I must assume he means "2.3K to 4.8K." I can only assume this is what he's referring to because it's the common practice in climate science to estimate the temperature sensitivity of doubling CO2.
But without mentioning it, one could easily manipulate this argument by using a temperature sensitivity that refers to something other than the doubling of CO2, or other than Kelvin. (ie. Increasing its concentration by only 100 ppm, and measuring the sensitivity of that increase in Fahrenheit. Or, in another example, one could be measuring the impact of increasing concentration on sea temperatures and compare that to air temperatures.) I suspect that might be going on here, but without knowing more about what "independent research" he's using, I cannot confirm it. This sort of redefining the variables trick has been responsible for different numbers in some of the data used by those suffering climate change denial before.
What is not mentioned is that the range of error for sensitivity used to be as wide as 1-10K, and increased scientific investigation has reduced it dramatically, somewhere close to the original numbers he cites (2.3-4.8K). Kandel argues, in a recent issue of Nature, that reconciliation of the two major experiment designs could reduce this number even further, leading us to be capable of making more accurate predictions from climate data. Thus concludes "debating at a level of science above the pedestrian level found in a newspaper."
"Interestingly enough if these figures (.5) are put into the models we have a very good corrolation with what we can observe as actual climate, which tells me that it is very likely close to the true figure."
Again, I have no idea where he gets this data, or what he means by "actual climate." But most observations of the climate have shown that it's more likely to be between 1.5 and 6.2K, which is where they got those numbers in the first place. I'm not even going to waste my time citing a source here, I'm sure it's invalid for whatever preconceived reason. I just can't assess this claim without a link to more data, which I'm sure is coming...
"A very good book on this subject is "The Resiliant Earth" written by two climate modelers. They are a middle ground source with a good prehistoric base, they talk about uncertainties of measurement, climate modeling and its limits, and the consequences of possible actions to change climate."
I've read it. It's poorly written, and it mostly consists of anecdotes about random instances in climate history, and then makes the trick of pointing out it's been even warmer at past points in the Earth's history. It rants on and on about modeling error, using similar tricks to obscure the fact that industrialization has tipped the balance of atmospheric content dramatically. But in the end, the authors do in fact think we should do something about climate change, or so they seem to imply. It's weird. But It's hardly the smoking gun we're looking for here. Again, this is not my field, it doesn't mean I know nothing about it.
"I know everyone does not have the opportunity I do to study this stuff, afterall I get paid to keep up with my discipline, but it really takes only a short time of personal study to see that predictions based on the GCM's (general circulation models) do not match observed climate. What are you going to believe... the computer or your own eyes?
Icecap.com is a good site for all the publications available, as is CO2.com.
Admittedly these are skeptic sites but they make available all the research of the warmers as well so you can see both sides from one site. I have yet to find a warmer site that does this."
Yes, but other people get paid even more than him to keep up with this discipline, and those are those "authorities" we keep harping about. That being said, I did take the time to check out his two sites here, so I can "believe my own eyes": CO2.com is a placeholder for a domain registry and Icecap.com is about HVAC products. Go figure.
"Another red flag to a thinking person should be the fact that no "warmer" will debate a skeptic on this subject. Not even highly respected scientists like Richard Lindzen of MIT, or Willie Soon of Harvard, can find someone to publically debate."
They do publicly debate, actually, in JOURNALS. I'd address the fact that these two individuals are paid hacks, but all of those public debates are "authorities" that we're not allowed to use in your papers.
"This will change very soon because the US Senate is now calling for a complete review of all the science on global warming based on the unethical processes and perhaps criminal activity found at Hadley CRU. The United Kingdom has also started an investigation and the head of CRU, Dr. Phil Jones has stepped down until the study is completed."
Okay, and if this so-called investigation turns out clean, will he then give some respect to the established theory? No. He will not.
"Don't be a tool of those who have warped values. Until you learn the science yourself, and quit basing your opinion on the authority of those proclaiming AGW, just because they say so, you will remain a tool."
There's a difference between "being a tool" and admitting you can't know everything. I pay people to make my shoes, grow my food, and build my computer. This makes me a "tool" to their authority no more than it does LateCommer. It's perfectly common to specialize in a field as human being, and it's also perfectly reasonable to trust those who specialize therein to know the most about what goes on in that field. In this case, we're paying scientists to observe the climate for us and make reasonable predictions. That we don't agree with the predictions they are employed to make professionally is another issue.
"When you learn that there are many very accomplished scientists who disagree with Al Gore and company you may perhaps be on your way to an independent point of view. "
What he doesn't know here is that I have learned this. I've also learned that there's many very accomplished scientists who do agree with "Al Gore and company" who have much more experience, are much more competent, and far more reasonable about the things they observe. But we can't go on and on with this forever.
"I predict the first thing you will learn is that the theory of global warming is the one I hold, and the challenging hypothesis is what you think of as a theory. Science does not allow a hypothesis to move on to theory level until it (the hypothesis) has been validated by observational evidence. All "evidence" presented to date is much easier explained by natural causes, and these natural causes have many precedents in paleoclimate."
Here he admits that he believes in global warming. This is a pretty typical of Stage III Climate Change Denial, where a generally informed person has given up on attempting to disprove the basic physics of the greenhouse effect and instead resorts to a more modest argument that largely consists of "global warming exists, we're not causing it or we can't cause it." The evidence for this denial is a significant deflation of the temperature sensitivity for the doubling of CO2, a pretty simple trick. This implies that if this denier were to have (or "believe in") correct CO2 sensitivity numbers, he would suddenly change his mind.
Here's how the trick works: "The argument rests on - presumably - Lindzen and Choi's CO2 analysis of sea surface temperature. However, sea surface temperature was a difficult proxy for atmospheric temperature, and as a result they found much lower sensitivity numbers. This leads us to conclude that "independent research" yields a much lower thermal sensitivity number. So global warming isn't happening. etc. etc." Unfortunately, most estimates (surely invalid for preconceived reasons) are much higher than this. That is basically the crux of the "scientific argument" that we are "not making."
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latecommer Posted 10:23 am
07 Dec 2009
Argument from authority means to me that you say "It must be true because the IPCC says so," and leave it at that.
The Oregon Petition is simply a statement saying that ALL voices need to be included and is an argument against the authority of the IPCC and their stranglehold on what gets put into print.
Dr. Vincent Gray is an Austrailian climate scientist who was involved in the first three reports. If you want to know how they were put together read some of his work.
Oh and about the oil companies...who do you think, as an industry, has the most money invested in green technology? You would be right if you guessed the oil companies. They know that their product will never go unwanted since the majority of pharmaceuticals are based on petroleum, as are nearly all plastics. They can see as well as anyone that at some point they will not be selling fuel, so they diversify their money into solar and wind. Many of the largest alternative energy companies are owned and funded by the oil industry.
Many of the scientists preaching AGW also are funded by oil. Scientists are not afraid of taking money for research no matter what the source is.
And do you really think that Lindzen is less of a scientist because of who funds him. Afterall he is the chair of his department at perhaps the top science University in the world.
I have no idea if what you say about him or Soon is true, Could you tell me what reaserch these companies funded?
As to acceptable sources, If you consider Wiki as an appropriate source for term papers, I am sorry for you because you went to inferior schools. I have never been allowed, in my schooling from highschool forward, to use an encyclopedia as a source, and Wiki has shown it'self to have an obvious bias and thus is even less usable.
When you use an encyclopedia as a source, you impose one more filter on your data, that of the editor. My students must use origional source material in Physics.
Do you know anything about the scientific method? You know... the one detailed by Popper, and used by all of science at all levels?
If you did you would have no problem agreeing with me that AGW is still at the hypothesis stage, and likely will remain there for decades. There is no way to simulate the real climate, so results from 30 or so years observation are needed to varify any idea. Do you think we shold spend trillions of dollars on a hypothesis that may not ever be found true?
This is why I stick with the varified standard theory of climate. It has proven useful for hundreds of years.
Like I said, only time can varify AGW, and the last decade has not been kind to them...in fact they havn't had any of the suppositions they published varified yet by the observed climate.
This is fact: The temperature curve is well below even the lowest estimates of model predicted temperature, while CO2 has continued to rise.
Not one of the models anticipated the climate we have had since '98.
And perhaps the biggest bump in the road has been the recent disclosure of manipulation of data by both CRU and GISS to hide the fact that temperature has not gone where they hoped it would.
I do not however put the major blame for this very unscientific approach on the scientists involved. The political factions in the UK and the US demanded that they show the IPCC to be correct.
Something for all of us to remember. A fact is not more or less true based on how many support it. If it is wrong 100,000 people saying it is right doesn't change the fact that it is wrong.
For the last time, my purpose on this site is singular. I want to wake up you environmentalists to the fact that your (our) movement to make a better world has been hijacked by the big boys who are only interested in bigger government and more control over our lives. I have no doubt that the majority of you read Grist because you love nature and want to do something to keep it as good as it can be. I am right there with you on that. The difference between us is that I have spent the time to personally learn what the political activists have in mind. They have not made it secret. They have clearly stated that they want a one world government. They have also stated openly that they want to re-distribute the wealth (that means your income) from the richer nations to the undeveloped nations. China is included as one of those nations the UN wants us to finance in their move to clean energy, along with every banana republic and dictatorship in the world, because as you know they are the ones who run the UN. They have the votes.
The US produces 25% of the carbon but also produces 25% of the world economy, and supplies 75% of the world aid to needy countries. How long do you think that can continue if the taxes they seek to impose on first world nations are codified?
Only time will prove to you that I am right... and I have little doubt that I am. I suspect we will have a big economic hit individually, just as the climate enters a minimum state, with less food due to shorter growing seasons, less tillable land to farm, much, much higher energy costs and much higher demand for what is available... just for people to survive the cold.
What has been the pattern in past cooling periods is cooler summers first, and gradually colder winters following. The cooler summers are the greatest threat to the world since there will be less food available and what is, will be at higher prices.
Even though we have seen a decade of slight cooling, the buffer effect of the oceans moderate this for a few years until the oceans cool to a level where this effect is neutralized. At that point the winters will get much colder and the overall moisture levels will fall. Basic Paleoclimate.
Remember what I told you 20 years from now when we are in the depth of the Landscheidt Minimum.
Oh, and Matt... you are a liar.
I have not said a word about Nature, Science, or the Journal of Geophysical Research, as you well know.
But lying about what people you disagree with comes very easy to you I see, and presenting science of any sort to refute my statements are totally absent as well. Very typical of the ignorant.
You are obviously just a hack with no science behind his beliefs. Oh and where is the "pain" you mentioned before....I still havn't heard the details of that exageration.
Oh and by the way how do the two of you post in the same posting, and the PS kind of looks suspicous.
Liberal hacks always accuse others of doing things they themselves would do in their place. Perhaps we need to varify that Matt and dave are not the same person.
Between the (two?) of you you should be able to present some small item of your scientific case, but so far only personal attacks and lies.
It is clear what I am dealing with here. No wonder you know so much about gang attacks.
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Dave from Canada Posted 10:38 am
07 Dec 2009
Especially when you say hilarious things like this: "This is why I stick with the varified standard theory of climate. It has proven useful for hundreds of years." (And the spelling is not the most hilarious part of that, by the way.)
Or politically hilarious things like this: "They have clearly stated that they want a one world government." (It may be time to watch out the window for those black helicopters.)
Don't forget - I'm the guy who pointed out he has more degrees than you claim to have. Again, I say that not because I want to silence or intimidate you (as you seem to be attempting, unsuccessfully I might add) but because I want you to realize that nobody is impressed by your rattling off so many weak denialist talking points as if they were science. If you want someone to say "Wow, you are so smart" please try out your cut-and-paste expertise on a Fox "News" network blog.
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Matt Petryni Posted 10:52 am
07 Dec 2009
No, but you have said you would not accept papers from the scientists you feel are suspect, some of which you named, and some of those are in fact published in these journals. It would then suggest that if they cite one of those examples, you'd reject them for citing it. Sorry bro. All the "science" behind my beliefs is up above, as well as a detailed "refute," so you can dismiss with your assertions about what is "very typical of the ignorant" etc. (by the way, it's a "refutation," refute is a verb).
Dave's right: go to Fox News. People will love you there, if that's what you're looking for. Here, we need something more convincing than merely misrepresenting CO2's temperature sensitivity and something about how "oceans moderate climate" for a few years (of course we know that! Christ!). Or something.
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Dave from Canada Posted 11:02 am
07 Dec 2009
The one that was direct-mailed along with an "article" that fraudulently tried to pass itself off as one put out by the National Academy of Sciences, and which the NAS expressly disavowed?
The one put out by OISM, the founder of whom (Art Robinson) also takes issue with evolution, supports creationism, and has ties to the Exxon-funded, right wing fringe group called the Heartland Institute?
Is that the one you mean?
Yes, I'll be sure to read that ... :-)
(Anyone starting to see a pattern here?)
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latecommer Posted 10:55 am
07 Dec 2009
And still you, like all alarmist, refuse to debate the science.
I have much better things to do than argue with trolls, so unless you pose a debatable scientific question I will take the high road and not respond to your rants.
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Matt Petryni Posted 10:59 am
07 Dec 2009
Oh wait, I forgot, I was "refusing to debate the science." My bad. Hahaha. It's always clever to claim your opponents are "refusing to debate" you, and then when they actually rip apart your argument, run away and "take the high road" against "trolls." Real slick.
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dbaker Posted 11:01 am
07 Dec 2009
lets play a game ......... lets play evaluate my solution!
whats your questions?
the point being it is the only viable solution and like the old prell shampoo commercial, they tell two friends and they tell two friends......
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Dave from Canada Posted 11:36 am
07 Dec 2009
It's been a slice, but my reflections on the discussion have made me conclude that the so-called denialists on this thread are not even denialists. They are actually global warming activists who are presenting a straw-man denialist case so that we normal people can practice knocking it down. Why else would they be posting such weak / discredited / crazy arguments? Surely they can't be serious denialists.
Oh, wait. Maybe those are the only arguments that the denialists have. Hmm...
Either way, I'm just not that into it. So I'm turning off my notifications for this thread, and I leave you to it.
All the best,
Person who naively accepts scientific consensus
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shearwater Posted 4:28 pm
07 Dec 2009
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Matt Petryni Posted 4:47 pm
07 Dec 2009
He challenged our citations of authorities on principle, and then immediately presented his own authorities to substantiate his argument. And while I acknowledged those authorities as valid, and said I was aware of them, I then reminded him that there were some fundamental problems with their science (namely, using sea surface temperature as a proxy for atmospheric surface temperatures). He ignored these arguments, and continued to cite those sources as if they had not been mentioned at all. It's weird.
He asked for empirical evidence of the Earth's rising temperature. I provided it, expecting him to argue that the data was meaningless or corrupted somehow, but he too ignored that completely.
He asked me to "debate on the level of science" the claims that he was making. I tried to do this as well; contending that while his science seemed generally solid on theory, his numbers for the thermal sensitivity of CO2 were simply wrong. I presented evidence of the more widely-accepted thermal sensitivity numbers, expecting him to argue that evidence was some how part of the great "Al Gore Conspiracy." He didn't even do that, though, and instead ignored this argument too, finally asserting that he was running away because we "refused to debate him on the science."
At this point, I'm liable to agree with you, Dave, that this could be a straw man. I have no problem with him challenging my arguments; I welcome it. Where it is problematic is when he seems to ignore my arguments as if they're not even being made. It's ignorance, both literally and expressively.
Perhaps, fairly, one could say I set this off by calling him "barely literate," or something, but I'd argue that too is a legitimate assertion given such gems as this: "My belief is the standard model that has shown the abilty to expaline the variety of climates the world has experienced." Haha, my "belief" is a hardly defined "standard model" as well, I guess. I often use it to expaline things in my high school classes as well...
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shearwater Posted 4:38 pm
07 Dec 2009
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shearwater Posted 4:44 pm
07 Dec 2009
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Matt Petryni Posted 5:01 pm
07 Dec 2009
Most alternative energy is likely to be cheaper than the current system, especially when it becomes more efficient. It will create jobs and stimulate the economy, as well as allow individuals to have greater control over their personal source of energy, which is currently very limited.
But let's say I even were to buy into this bullshit and say that energy would become more expensive as we incentivize cheaper energy. There's still two important facts you're ignoring:
First, the current prices are low because of an externality. Bills do not reflect the cost of pollution to our society, and we end up paying these costs later. True efficiency comes from allowing consumers to make decisions based on the real cost of what they're buying from producers. Producers try to actually innovate and come up with solutions so they can deliver things to market more cheaply, rather than "trick" people into buying their products by pawning costs off on someone else - or everyone else.
Second, and perhaps more importantly, these bills are going to go up anyway. The supply of fossil fuel energy is rapidly reducing, and simultaneously, demand is also increasing. These fuels are non-renewable, and will run out. I don't know how much you know about economics, but this guarantees a price increase, no matter the fate of carbon regulation. Investing now, when we can afford it, in alternative energy is the only way to drive costs down in the long run because it will increase the supply of energy, which fossil fuels simply cannot do.
No one supporting climate change legislation wants to limit, trade away, or somehow destroy the free market and individual freedom. Usually, they actually want to expand it. By removing externalities from the market, it operates more efficiently. By decentralizing energy sources, individuals have more control over their energy budget, and the government has less. By allowing power companies to purchase carbon emissions, the free market is allowed to develop the best solution to end the externality, rather than relying on government fiat.
What we ultimately seek is a world where individuals, not a corporate collective, have the opportunity to work for their personal success if so motivated. We're trying to make it so it wouldn't be up to a centralized authority whether they succeed or fail in society, but the strength of their personal character and their willingness to work hard. We seek an energy industry that is difficult for the government to get its hands on and subject to onerous regulation - one that can only be developed if we allow the market to work and quit stifling it with rampant externalities and tax-and-spend subsidies.
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shearwater Posted 5:13 pm
07 Dec 2009
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Matt Petryni Posted 5:29 pm
07 Dec 2009
All markets have middlemen. They do not necessarily mean a market is inefficient, but they are usually eliminated over time. That being said, this alternative energy industry is developing of its own momentum. We're mostly talking about eliminating the market failures that are allowing the current corrupted system to exist: a system externalities and wasteful government subsidies.
You shouldn't bill the government, but you should be able to bill carbon polluters if you figure out an ingenious way to sequester the carbon they emit during production. Or if you can take their garbage (CO2) off their hands for them and dispose of it somewhere on your property. But as long as they can externalize their carbon pollution on everyone else's property without cost, it will never be valuable for them to buy these services from you.
It's like if you live downriver from a plant that emits toxic waste, and their pollution destroys your farm. They will only figure out a way to efficiently reduce their pollution if your property rights are protected and they're not allowed to steal from you. Then they can pass costs onto their consumers, and the market decides which innovations are viable. It is exactly the same thing.
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shearwater Posted 5:45 pm
07 Dec 2009
I don't believe that a state should propose a tax on dairy cows because when they belch it consist largely of methane. Do you? That is exactly what was proposed in Michigan . . . a $175 tax on all ruminant animals on a farm because they emit methane. The insanity of these politicians is unbelievable.
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Matt Petryni Posted 5:58 pm
07 Dec 2009
That being said, I don't think cows should be taxed either. In short, they could be carbon-neutral: the methane they emit comes from the grass they eat, and the grass they eat comes from the methane they emit. However, we must remember that a lot of cattle feedstock is financed on the fossil fuel externality. In theory, they're not really "adding" carbon to the atmosphere. Which is characteristically unlike fossil fuel energy producers, who literally dig up the carbon from sequestration and throw it into our atmosphere for profit, which is perfectly feasible so long as they don't have to pay for their pollution's cost. I can see where those politicians are coming from, but I also see why a "cow tax" is probably an absurd and short-sighted approach to the larger problem.
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dbaker Posted 10:07 pm
07 Dec 2009
Penticton British Columbia V2A6Z3
Phone/Fax 778-476-3673
25/11/2009
The Copenhagen Diagnosis, 2009: Updating the world on the Latest Climate Science. Has again indicated urgency in action is imperative. Here's my solution and immediate areas of impact.
RE : The solution to climate change.
( human excrement + nuclear waste = hydrogen )
The USA discharges Trillions of tons of sewage annually, sufficient quantity to sustain electrical generation requirements of the USA.
Redirecting existing sewage systems to containment facilities would be a considerable infrastructure modification project.
It is the intense radiation that causes the conversion of organic material into hydrogen, therefore what some would consider the most dangerous waste because of its radiation would be the best for this utilization.
I believe the combination of clean water and clean air, will increase the life expectancy of humans.
The four main areas of concern globally are energy, food,water and air!
The radiologic decomposing of organic materials generates Hydrogen
By using our sewage as a source of energy we also get clean air , clean water, and no ethanol use of food stocks. Eat food first, create energy after.
Simply replacing the fossil fuel powered electrical generating facilities with these plants, would reduce CO2 emissions, and CH4 emissions, to acceptable levels, globally.
This would require a completely new reactor facility capable of converting human waste into hydrogen and then burning the hydrogen to generate electricity on site.
This solution is sellable to citizens because of all the side issue solutions. I've been able to convince most simply with concept of using nuclear waste to a productive end.
Superbugs ( antibiotic resistant ) apparently are created in the waters sewage is discharged into, which is one more side issue solution.
Anything not converting into hydrogen will potentially be disposed of using Transmutation.
The water emitted from hydrogen burning will have uses in leaching heavy metals from other contaminated site clean ups.
I thank you for your consideration, please feel free to contact me anytime.
Dennis Baker
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shearwater Posted 4:43 am
08 Dec 2009
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latecommer Posted 9:41 am
08 Dec 2009
If any of you have ever been involved with modeling you will already know that a forcing factor of more than one nearly all the time leads to a "run away" system. This is what will happen with a sensitivity of 2.5 to 6. The climate could do nothing but "run away" with higher and ever higher temperatures as it feed on itself.
Now we know from history that this has never happened before. (or we would not be here discussing this point) Since the climate does not discriminate between sources of CO2, and we have had CO2 levels many times higher in the past, it is intuative that it will not "run away" this time.
This is what interested me in this problem from the beginning. I went looking for more reasonable figures and found them in quite a few papers.
(The last time I tried to post links they came out jumbled...hopefully it will work this time. If it doesn't go to Warwickhughes with the usual .com
and find the article by Sherwood Idso...one of the best for this question.
Try
http://www.palisad.com/co2/eb/html
http://www.warwickhughes.com/blog/?p=87
http://www.warwickhughes.com/papers/idso98.htm
These are three papers written by different scientists who all calculate the sensitivity to be between .5 and .65. The physics can get a little dense if your not use to working in the field. Hope you understand the process.
These are just three of the papers I have on file concerning this...if you want more just ask.
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Matt Petryni Posted 11:32 am
08 Dec 2009
Your first link is a 404. The second takes me to a page that does things like this in their calculations: "Since even the IPCC concedes that half the warming may be coming from other causes (such as solar), the calculated climate sensitivity becomes 0.4 C for a CO2 doubling." and: "Simply put, where clouds decrease in amount, the water warms. It has nothing to do with carbon dioxide."
I presume such a physics genius as yourself would easily be able to see what's wrong with that.
That being said, the main problem with the calculations in the second page is that they are using past data to estimate the amount of warming that has occurred since we have doubled CO2. Basically, their argument, which seems reasonable, amounts to this: "We've doubled CO2 since industrialization, and temperature has only increased .8 (or so) C, therefore, the thermal sensitivity of CO2 doubling is .8C. Which, thanks to IPCC, we can arbitrarily cut to .4C. And the ocean isn't absorbing any of the heat because light doesn't get past the top few millimeters of the ocean, and the ocean could never absorb heat by conduction quickly enough to make a difference; and plus, the ocean hasn't warmed at all since 1948. Or, I mean, it's warmed, but not very much."
There's a lot of fudgery going on here, but the main problem is that only recently has the CO2 composition of the atmosphere increased so dramatically. It's safe to say, in a system as complicated as the world climate, that heat absorbed by the earth still has yet to radiate back to space, and subsequently be trapped in the atmosphere and only when it does this over time will we know if our estimated thermal sensitivity numbers are exactly correct. In the meantime, we've only been able to narrow the number considerably, but enough to know .5C is pretty well outside our confidence interval (save for Idso, which I'll get to). Additionally, this experiment has plenty of problems with constants: solar irradiance has not been held constant, other greenhouse gasses have not been held constant, etc. They don't seem to do anything to account for these issues. It's not that these numbers are inherently wrong, it's just we can't clearly tell if they're right. There's too much variance in the experiment that could be accounted for by other factors.
The third link, which I've read before (it comes up a lot from the denialist camp) is much more reasonable. Idso generally argues not that the fundamental physics of climate models is wrong, but that the increased forcing from the greenhouse effect is likely to be absorbed by biological life. There's some validity to that, but it doesn't necessarily mean it's okay to just start dumping endless CO2 into the atmosphere. Hansen also took this into account in their later model, and still found reason for concern.
Their logic was not that Idso was inherently wrong, but that the biological reaction to forcing cannot be expected to manifest immediately. Part of the problem is that Idso's analysis does not account for the amount of time such an absorption might take. It also doesn't respond to the fact that global warming is not in a vacuum, but is occurring at the same time as desertification, deforestation, and biodiversity loss, all of which are likely to slow the biological absorption rate. It's sort of the difference between a short-term and a long-term problem, in that way.
Go ahead and send over more papers...
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latecommer Posted 10:02 am
08 Dec 2009
Yes you are right...less than 100 years of oil and 400 years of coal left...We must hurry and do this even if the alterantives are not ready yet. Right!
And alternative fuels will only be less expensive
WHEN they become more efficiently produced...Until then don't fool yourself. We are looking at a tripling of our energy cost.
Wind will NEVER be efficient since every wind farm need an already spinning backup fossile fuel plant to avoid grid problems when the wind dies. )plus my, God, can you imagine thousands of 200 ft towers and all the power lines everywhere you look? Talk about destroying nature.)
Solar at its present stage has come up against a hard spot. Efficiency demands some very large breakthroughs or we are looking at literally hundreds of square miles of solar apparatus and once again thousands of miles of new power lines from these remote gathering sites.
The only alternative that is practicle is to copy what France has done. To stop fossile fuel burning, the only practical solution is nuclear. (Try selling that after 30 years of brain washing on the great radiation dangers.)
I agree with your very good point about us not paying the full bill of fossile fuel energy. But we will still have to create more practicle alternatives than we have today (outside of nuclear) and we can not go "cold turkey" into this because of the misery it would cause all around the world.
We are years away from dropping oil as fuel for transportation of goods and materials. Every ship a nuc?, every airplane a ?? , every big rig run on solar?
There are uses for windpower...pumping water from the ground, or back up hill for hydro purposes, but to dream of running a city is fantasy.
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Matt Petryni Posted 10:51 am
08 Dec 2009
No. Go back and re-read my post. My point was not that we should "hurry and do this" because we're running out. My point was that the bills he said cap-and-trade would increase are going to increase anyway, no matter what we do politically. This re-frames the problem as a question of "when," not "if."
"Wind will NEVER be efficient since every wind farm need an already spinning backup fossile fuel plant to avoid grid problems when the wind dies."
This assumes that our use of electricity will continue exactly as it does now: where we use it on demand, and must have it constantly on in all situations. No one is proposing that this must be the case.
But think outside the box for a minute. We could learn to store and capacitate unpredictable energy. We could develop ways of transporting it. We could be more conservative with our energy use with technology like LED lighting. We could use it to drive biological growth, which captures energy in chemical compounds that we could later burn... We just have to think.
"Solar at its present stage has come up against a hard spot. Efficiency demands some very large breakthroughs or we are looking at literally hundreds of square miles of solar apparatus and once again thousands of miles of new power lines from these remote gathering sites."
This statement would have been totally accurate a couple years ago. Newer solar technology negates it.
"The only alternative that is practicle is to copy what France has done. To stop fossile fuel burning, the only practical solution is nuclear. (Try selling that after 30 years of brain washing on the great radiation dangers.)"
Fine, but as I said, internalize into the cost of that energy the cost of disposing of nuclear waste. For example, if it costs billions of dollars to get rid of it, expect the consumers of nuclear electricity to be charged this cost. Also I don't see why this is the "only" alternative that is "practicle."
"We are years away from dropping oil as fuel for transportation of goods and materials. Every ship a nuc?, every airplane a ?? , every big rig run on solar? There are uses for windpower...pumping water from the ground, or back up hill for hydro purposes, but to dream of running a city is fantasy."
I'm not entirely sure what this means, but I can tell that you assume nuclear, solar, and wind are the only alternative energies available to us. You also assume whatever energy we develop must be capable of providing us with the exact same society we have now. I don't take either of these things to be a given. There's other alternatives: biofuels, to name the most obvious. Also, trying to propel our current society on whatever energy we choose is a futile cause. Our society will change. Because it always changes.
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Matt Petryni Posted 10:42 am
08 Dec 2009
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latecommer Posted 11:06 am
08 Dec 2009
Yes indeed, just like our climate.
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Matt Petryni Posted 11:39 am
08 Dec 2009
Our climate will most certainly change. It always does, whether or not we cause it. And society will most certainly change with it. I guess the real question is how much control we'd like to have over this change, and the degree to which we admit that it's taking place. We might not have any control at all, ultimately. But if choose to acknowledge and adapt to it, rather than ignore it, we have to potential to be more effective at ensuring our children a better world to live in, if not merely our own survival.
By the way, I love how the entire rest of the post is ignored, almost as if it weren't even said. Maybe it was a lot to read. Perhaps I can only assume you must have seen the light on that issue...
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dbaker Posted 11:37 am
08 Dec 2009
Its kind of like apartide, as long as the Zulew and the ANC were fighting, apartide ruled.
As long as you argue, big Oil wins1
dennis baker
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latecommer Posted 12:26 pm
08 Dec 2009
This can easily been illustrated by the fact that we had 5,000 ppm's during more than one thousand years of glaciation. Look up the history of the atmoshperic carbon on Earth, and you will see that what the IPCC is selling is bogus goods.
I am not willing to communicate with you again until you do.
Read all of the third link I gave you. This man has nearly 100 peer reviewed papers in circulation over his 30 years of research.
If you don't believe him I am wasting my time....go back to calling people who disagree with your POV names ...you do that best.
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Matt Petryni Posted 1:02 pm
08 Dec 2009
I've read a lot of Idso's work, including the entire study you linked, which is actually published in Climate Research. We were required to read a copy of the article in a survey Environmental Science class. It's pretty compelling. But it'd be hard for a reasonable person to interpret it, especially in light of all the other research, as "debunking" climate change theory. I don't think even Idso argues that.
Idso, contrary to your arguments, does believe that CO2 will have a significant greenhouse effect, just that the effect may be offset by other factors, making the magnitude of the effect difficult to accurately determine. He may prove to be right, but he also admits that there's significant potential for error in his analysis. His work clearly does add to our understanding of a complex phenomenon. So it's not that I don't "believe him," I just place him in context with other things that we know, including the fact the carbon cycle reduces atmospheric CO2 very slowly. In this way, I don't believe "just him." You seem to suggest that you don't believe anyone but him, but really I can't know what you believe, so...
I'm not sure which period of glaciation you refer to. It is true that, during the geologic past, carbon dioxide levels in the atmosphere have been much higher than they are now. For example, scientists believe that ppm CO2 during the Jurassic period may have been as high as 4000, and probably was even higher during the Devoninan period. But that was a very long time ago, and neither the Jurassic nor the Devonian was a period of glaciation. We also don't have any evidence to suggest that those CO2 levels became a reality overnight - for all we know, they came about after millions of years (the scale on which evolution takes place). Scientists believe that both period had much higher average surface temperatures than it does now as well, attributed in part to the greenhouse effect of carbon dioxide.
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latecommer Posted 2:13 pm
08 Dec 2009
CO2 does has an effect as you, he, and I all know...however he and I believe that it's effect is nearly saturated. In otherwords the CO2 now present absorbs nearly all the longwave that is emitted from the Earth. A doubling would be an over kill in receptors, since the longwave radiation does not change with an increase in CO2.
I am glad that you appreciate him however. He and I have corresponded for about three years, and he has helped me through the maze. I am sure that he would respond to your questions as well.
We are watching the last few weeks of the AGW hypothesis as it dies its long overdue death. Have you seen what NOAA has done to the code of continual temperature records. Their "adjustments" are part of the CRU material dumped on line, and what they did is more revealing than what they said in their e-mail exchanges (which was bad enough)
They have forgotten that a scientists first duty is to the truth, and not toward a goal.
Now we understand what Steven Schneider (Stanford?) meant when he said that each scientist must decide on a line between truth and expediency.
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Matt Petryni Posted 3:51 pm
08 Dec 2009
You think its effect is saturated. Most scientists do not. We have gone over that already; it's really the entire argument here, and the reason I raised the question. Idso, for example, is less sure. Or at least, if he agrees with your reasoning about "CO2 thermal sensitivity saturation," he's not really saying so in very many of his articles. His research does suggest the magnitude of the effect of CO2 beyond pre-Industrial levels will be lower than that of some climate models. We have yet to fully explain the mechanism by which this could theoretically be the case. There's a number of hypotheses available for that, but again, none of them are disputing that further increases to CO2 concentration will continue to increase warming by a significant factor, they just suggest the warming could be offset by dramatic cooling factor: be it an expansion of biological life, global dimming, ocean absorption, human reaction, or some other mechanism.
However, the vast majority of observations in this area have put the effect of doubling CO2 concentrations somewhere in the range between 1.5 and 6.2 K (Hegerl, Crowley, Kim, Cook, Forest, Stone, Sokolov, Cubasch, Baum, Hyde, Frame, and many, many others). And they continue to narrow this number down with further research. And research since Idso's 1998 article has done a better job of estimating those cooling factors than was previously possible. The IPCC has taken these issues, as well as many others including solar forcing, surface albedo, desertification, (etc) into consideration, whether you're aware of it or not.
So I'm not, and have not been, asking anyone to dismiss potential cooling factors, or that there's a range of potential thermal sensitivities for a uniform doubling of CO2. I'm just choosing to consider those factors in light of the vast body of other research, which has much more to say on this subject. I'm trying to avoid becoming fixated on any one study or any one author, and am trying instead to consider a wide array of diverse viewpoints on these complex issues. I'd argue that it seem like a reasonable thing to do.
It's important to remember that the last few weeks, like every few weeks, are but a moment in a long and storied progression of expanding scientific knowledge and political strife. They will be forgotten in the short-term memory of a sensationalist global media and the passing fixations of a endlessly fickle public. Scientists will continue to make observations over time based on the data available to them, and generally they could care less who "wins" and who "loses" in the momentary media circus. For environmentalists, we have to think beyond the short-term and try to understand how things might interact on a larger and more long-term scale. But science itself, as you rightly point out, is merely observation; it's not moving toward a political goal post, such as "dying an 'overdue' death," or something.
I fear that you think here that I (and other environmentalists) are rooting for a "side" on this issue, and I'm not sure why you believe that. (Are you rooting for a "side"? I hope not.) If it turns out the theory of human-induced global warming is wrong, we'd much rather have that be the case. It'd be so much better for everyone in so many ways. But the evidence simply does not support that conclusion, unfortunately, and so we have to continue to try to understand the effects our actions have had on the global climate over time, as well as what those effects might mean for our future.
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latecommer Posted 10:39 am
09 Dec 2009
First they do not and can not take into account all of the facets of climate...many of them are not understood well enough.
Two there is no way to run an experiement on the climate... (one problem would be what would be our control factor, another identical climate?) Three, a model works in a linear fashion and the climate, in my opinion, is a chaotic system to some extent and can not be modeled accurately. Their predictions and reality show this quite well I believe.
So what do we have? I believe the only real example is past climate. We have a pretty solid proxie record of climate in the past, and I never could buy the IPCC's statement that for all of our existance the sun was the forcer of climate....until about 1980 and then man took that position. And that is what they attempted to make us believe. That is just pure Bull Shit, easily confronted with the fact that we have had many periods, in fact the vast majority of the Earth's existence with higher CO2 atmospheric conditions. I am open to the idea that man can change climate, but absolutly closed to the idea that it through CO2.
As yourself, Matt, why in the past when we had CO2 in the range of 5 to 15 thousand ppms we did not have global extinctions due to heat? If you doubt the amount of CO2 I mention, just look at any paleoclimate record.
The last few thousand years we have been atypically CO2 starved.
And Yes many scientists, including Idso, factor a doubling of CO2 to be under 1.0.
As to most scientists disagreeing with my belief in NEAR-saturation, I caution you that in this you must go with those who specialize in radiative physics. Climate studies are a generalist discipline in a specialist crazy world. Every radiative physicist I have every spoken to or read agrees that between 85 and 95% of the possible heating CO2 can provide has happened already. The logarithmic effects are such that if we would double the CO2 we would be at about 98% saturation (very little effect from the second half) One of the best in this field is Dr Jack Barrett of Kings College London. Once again a very affable person willing to answer questions. He believes more than most skeptics, in some CO2 human effects. Google him and read some of his work. good scientist, good writter.
Remember also that it is the first duty of every scientist to be a skeptic.
They are almost synonomous terms to dedicated scientists. The debate on anything is never settled, and neither is the science of anything. That was just a political attempt to "move on" with the policy making part they crave.
I have to prepare final exams for my people and I will be unable to follow grist for a couple of weeks, but now that we both left namecalling behind, I am reluctant to truncate the discussion. If you want to continue this off site, mail me at (JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address)
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Matt Petryni Posted 1:03 pm
09 Dec 2009
And so:
"First they do not and can not take into account all of the facets of climate...many of them are not understood well enough. ... I believe."
This is true. No climate model is perfect, nor does anyone expect it to be. But an incorrect model still wouldn't change the basic theory, and the basic theory is really what is it at issue here. Otherwise we'd be arguing about the degree to which we'll have warming, not whether we'll have warming or not. And as for "predictions and reality," I still really have no idea what you mean by that. If it's the last ten years alone, during which everyone acknowledges there has been a cooling period, we have to remember this is a much longer scale than that. It is unlikely we'll feel the full effects of climate change for decades, perhaps centuries. No one is disputing that there will be cooling periods during that time.
"So what do we have? I believe the only real example is past climate. We have a pretty solid proxie record of climate in the past, and I never could buy the IPCC's statement that for all of our existance the sun was the forcer of climate....until about 1980 and then man took that position. And that is what they attempted to make us believe. "
I don't think the IPCC ever argued that only solar radiation is a factor in climate forcing. Their argument is that there are many factors, of which CO2 is one. The same proxy record you argue is "pretty solid" is what was used to originally suggest, and later help confirm, this theory. Natural factors still effect climate as much as and sometimes more than anthropogenic CO2, but this fact doesn't suddenly mean anthropogenic CO2 is entirely irrelevant.
"That is just pure Bull Shit, easily confronted with the fact that we have had many periods, in fact the vast majority of the Earth's existence with higher CO2 atmospheric conditions. I am open to the idea that man can change climate, but absolutly closed to the idea that it through CO2.
As yourself, Matt, why in the past when we had CO2 in the range of 5 to 15 thousand ppms we did not have global extinctions due to heat? "
I've asked myself. Here's the answer: there have been global extinctions due to heat increases in the past. One likely example might be the extinction event at the Triassic-Jurassic boundary, which many paleontologists posit was in fact due to global warming from CO2.
That being said, and much more importantly, it is very rare - if not entirely absent - in the paleoclimate for CO2 levels to double within less than a hundred years. This far outpaces biological evolution on the macro level, which is why it is so troubling for the stability of biodiversity on Earth. The issue, thus, is not so much the temperature - there is no "optimum temperature" necessarily for Earth - but how fast the temperature is changing. No one argues that all species on Earth are threatened. Nor do they argue our species will suffer complete extinction from this impact. But such a transition would likely be very challenging, tragic, and unpredictable; so most reasonable people think if something like that can be prevented or mitigated, this might be a very smart thing to do.
"The last few thousand years we have been atypically CO2 starved.
And Yes many scientists, including Idso, factor a doubling of CO2 to be under 1.0. "
Many factor the overall impact on climate to be under 1.0 K. Few argue that the thermal sensitivity of CO2 alone is under 1.0 K. I strongly urge you to reread the very article you sent to me. Idso suggests, in his conclusion, that the overall impact of CO2 on climate models is less than 1.0 K due not to the inherent sensitivity CO2 but due to other factors, many of which are difficult to understand. But again, Idso is not the end-all, be-all voice in climate science. There are many other voices and many other analyses that have put the thermal sensitivity of CO2 between, again, 1.5 and 6.2 K with 99% confidence.
There are arguments for why the real number might lie outside that confidence interval, and you can find them easily, I'm sure. But they represent that duty to "scientific skepticism" you're talking about: they do not suddenly and incontrovertibly throw out the entire theory. Just as science has a duty to be skeptical of every theory, so too does it have a duty to be skeptical of all suggestions, either supporting or refuting, that theory. So, again, it's not that Idso's argument shouldn't be considered, it's just that it should be considered in light of additional data.
"Every radiative physicist I have every spoken to or read agrees that between 85 and 95% of the possible heating CO2 can provide has happened already. The logarithmic effects are such that if we would double the CO2 we would be at about 98% saturation (very little effect from the second half) One of the best in this field is Dr Jack Barrett of Kings College London. Once again a very affable person willing to answer questions. He believes more than most skeptics, in some CO2 human effects. Google him and read some of his work. good scientist, good writter."
I don't know how many radiative scientists you've spoken to. But I - like many climate change followers - have read Barrett's work. But I've also read the work of other scientists, as well as pretty detailed discussions of Barrett's theories. Someone else, knowingly or not, earlier echoed his ideas on this board as well, and we discussed them. But anyway, his idea was primarily that the wavelength at which tropospheric CO2 could only absorb radiation in a particular wavelength window, and that it would be insufficient to continue heating the earth at this wavelength. There are a number of problems with this. He cites many of the paleoclimatic examples you do, but his analysis of the global temperature during those times turns out to be simply wrong.
"Remember also that it is the first duty of every scientist to be a skeptic.
They are almost synonomous terms to dedicated scientists. The debate on anything is never settled, and neither is the science of anything. That was just a political attempt to "move on" with the policy making part they crave."
I agree there is a scientific duty to be skeptical. There's also a scientific duty to make reasonable observations using instruments, and to try to explain those observations with theories. No one in the scientific community thinks the debate is "settled," and that we can ignore any and all objections to the theory of anthropogenic global warming. We're always continuing to understand our climate system further, and are improving our predictions based upon our new understanding.
But the point I'm really trying to make, with regard to the objections raised here, is that none of this is new. Most informed people on this issue - either scientists or environmentalists - have heard it all before, and have had it addressed in one way or another before.
So it's not that your argument is "bad" or something that is the reason we "refuse to believe it," because if we knew very little about climate change theory, we'd totally agree with you. We have acknowledged these objections with an open mind in the past, and continue to discuss them as our understanding improves. It's just we have even more information that, unfortunately, overwhelmingly suggests otherwise.
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