Humans are the Cause of Global Warming

[NorthStar]

...
What was the volcano in Iceland?

Eyjafjallajökull.

Source: http://patrickmylund.com/blog/pictures-of-eyjafjallajokull/

Sorry Jack, we lost power here in my area (Island) for couple hours (very strong winds and heavy rain).
Keith is right: Eyjafjallajokull

=> http://www.telegraph.co.uk/science/...you-thought-the-last-eruption-was-bad....html

________________________

 

[Orb]

The variety and randomness of natural climatic events presents (IMO) too many confounding variables to make concrete statements about this topic. The earth has undergone many cyclical climatic changes. In the end, as Gary stated, we are basically parasites slowly devouring our host.

Lee

Totally agree,
and then one also needs to model solar flare behaviour, chemicals introduced to layers of Earth's atmosphere that reflect heat (this is happening inwards and critically bouncing off heat from the sun so cooling), el and la nino's, primary oceanic currents, oceanic maelstroms, etc.
Importantly with the latter three one also needs to model and understand the driving force behind them as well as their "engines" and interrelation to global weather patterns and heat behaviour.

And that is the problem, no-one denies that co2 and other chemicals contributes to global warming (and also to global cooling), but the question scientifically is that this needs to be quantifiable (how much does it really contribute) and accurate, which unfortunately current models are not due to some massive anomalies that scientists are having to make assumptions on to fit their narrative of global warming and this is bad.
Because part of this argument that is omitted is rain forests absorbtion of co2, and proven that studied rain forest trees are able to absorb more, however the problem is that rain forests are being destroyed at an alarming rate and strangely those talking of industrial co2 being a primary factor for global warming ignore this massive destruction, which is reducing the ability for the world to cope with co2.

So this is why the argument continues between scientists, as this is a topic that is not based on all the facts and data.

Cheers
Orb

 

[Whatmore]

what if we just decided to stop pumping pollutants into the atmosphere, if we decided to stop destroying rainforests and farming practices that drive species to extinction?
What if we just did that without needing proof of global warming?
Wouldn't that just be awful

 

[Johnny Vinyl]

I would like to see a ban on 500ml water bottles. Just sayin'.

 

[GaryProtein]

I would like to see a ban on 500ml water bottles. Just sayin'.

me too.

 

[MylesBAstor]

no doubt the climate is changing. It always has. Now the question remains, to what extent has human civilization contributed ? That science is not exact. When one side of the isle purports the solution is carbon taxes, we all will pay more...I take issue with that. I have no problem with improved emission controls for cars, power plants, ect. The urgency to act in an irrational way can and does skew report data/estimates to better make their case for their funding constituency.

No maybe it's not exact. But whenever we set standards, we always err on the side of caution. Do [you] want to be wrong on this issue? I don't think so.

 

[MylesBAstor]

I would like to see a ban on 500ml water bottles. Just sayin'.

Consumption of sugary drinks is down 21% since Bloomberg. Guess they're drinking water.

 

[Groucho]

I would like to see a ban on 500ml water bottles. Just sayin'.

What difference will it really make? If it stops some people buying a bottle of water when they're out and about, they'll just spend the money some other way. Maybe they'll buy a 1 litre bottle and chuck it away half empty because it's too big to carry. It makes no odds. The money will be spent some other way on something equally useless and wasteful, and no one will ever try to curb growth itself.

 

[MylesBAstor]

Eyjafjallajökull.

Source: http://patrickmylund.com/blog/pictures-of-eyjafjallajokull/

And you can listen to music inspired by the volcano.

6. Fasten Seat Belts (Wager-Åstrand) 3´07
From: ”Live at Vattnajökull”, Opus 3 CD 19802

 

[Johnny Vinyl]

What difference will it really make? If it stops some people buying a bottle of water when they're out and about, they'll just spend the money some other way. Maybe they'll buy a 1 litre bottle and chuck it away half empty because it's too big to carry. It makes no odds. The money will be spent some other way on something equally useless and wasteful, and no one will ever try to curb growth itself.

You can look at it any way you want, and you may say that it makes no difference, but you'd be wrong. It has to start somewhere and every little bit helps. If you take no part in reducing unnecessary purchases of products that contribute to both green-house gases and an obscene amount of waste to our landfills, then one might say you are concerned only when it does not inconvenience you.

 

[Orb]

No maybe it's not exact. But whenever we set standards, we always err on the side of caution. Do [you] want to be wrong on this issue? I don't think so.

But it is currently skewed Myles.
The debate is focusing on industrial co2 and excludes critical factors such as rain forest devastation (and modern research has shown the tree absorption is not linear, meaning they can absorb significantly more than was thought as co2 increases).
So what is erring on side of caution?
Because they are deliberately setting the narrative as industrial co2 and how western world needs to pay for this while ignoring 3rd-world countries totally destroying the last rain forests (and one could argue global temp rise is related to destruction of rain forests).
And now we have some in the global warming narrative group stating rain forests are declining due to droughts caused by global warming, while ignoring just how much is destroyed annually going back over 200 years.
As an example just the new rain forest initiative in tropics (new growth project) is capable of absorbing the whole of North America co2 (from a science 2011 report picked up by reuters) each year.

Anyway to show how long and how massive deforestation is since the late 1600s (timescale different between each continent), the following university link is very interesting for background interest, but there are also some very good modern scientific studies and research specific to rain forests and global weather/co2 out there:
http://www.globalchange.umich.edu/globalchange2/current/lectures/deforest/deforest.html

So safe would be IMO to stop cutting down rain forests in 3rd world countries while reducing/freezing co2 to something that is a sustainable target rather than "must cut co2 at all costs by at least 30%-40%" by 20xx, and to also re-introduce new rain forests, but this does not sit well with a lot of the vocal global warming scientists

Cheers
Orb

 

[rblnr]

no doubt the climate is changing. It always has. Now the question remains, to what extent has human civilization contributed ? That science is not exact.

The only myth is that there is any substantial debate among scientists that it's human-caused. Only some politicians who likely can't remember high school chemistry and a few industry folk cast doubt at this point. Here is one of the last skeptics -- he poked holes in study after study -- so he did his own:

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/07/30/o...imate-change-skeptic.html?pagewanted=all&_r=0

Let's put it this way, if 95 out of 100 doctors diagnosed you in a certain way, would you do what they suggest or listen to other 5%? Or wait till that 5% finally came around? We are putting ourselves in a position where we'll have to explain to our kids and their kids how we knew and did nothing.

James Hansen, chief of climate science at NASA was one of the first to bring it to the world's attention more than 15 years ago. There was no reason for him to do so, no personal incentive -- it's what the data suggested. The climate modeling that came out of that has been by and large accurate, and as the data has gotten better, so has the modeling. Sure, it's imperfect, but the thrust is correct. Same as why a cooler year here or there means nothing to an overall trend. Most of the debate in the last fifteen years has been manufactured -- it's entirely apart from the science and data.

An old college friend, a scientist, has been studying the glacial activity in Greenland for the last 10 years. He gets paid regardless of what the data is, and he's been afraid for a long time now.

An argument is that we shouldn't do anything 'irrational' or 'radical'. As many climate scientists suggest, what we're doing, by pumping so much greenhouse gases into the environment is 'irrational' and 'radical'.

 

[Groucho]

We are putting ourselves in a position where we'll have to explain to our kids and their kids how we knew and did nothing....
...The climate modeling that came out of that has been by and large accurate, and as the data has gotten better, so has the modeling. Sure, it's imperfect, but the thrust is correct.
An old college friend, a scientist, has been studying the glacial activity in Greenland for the last 10 years. He gets paid regardless of what the data is, and he's been afraid for a long time now.

I'm much more sceptical than you. I don't believe that climate scientists are anything special, and models just tell you what you want them to. You can keep adding and taking factors away, with ostensibly objective reasoning, until they show what you want. And all scientists have an eye on the next research grant, and if there was ever a field where having the wrong opinion could kill your career stone dead, this is it.

On the other hand, of course man's industrial activities are having an effect on the climate. Maybe in a helpful direction and maybe not, and maybe too little to notice, or the opposite. But if anyone thinks that saving a few carrier bags and plastic water bottles is going to make any difference, they're mistaken. If our children are allowed to have such thoughts by future politicians, they should be annoyed with the whole idea of economic growth at all costs.

P.S. Are the scientists the equivalent of the digital lovers and the skeptics the vinyl? Or vice versa?

 

[rblnr]

I'm much more sceptical than you. I don't believe that climate scientists are anything special, and models just tell you what you want them to

Based on your deep understanding of the data and issues? For me, this is an argument like 'why go to doctors?, what could they know?' There's no expertise anywhere then.

 

[jazdoc]

The only myth is that there is any substantial debate among scientists that it's human-caused. Only some politicians who likely can't remember high school chemistry and a few industry folk cast doubt at this point. Here is one of the last skeptics -- he poked holes in study after study -- so he did his own:

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/07/30/o...imate-change-skeptic.html?pagewanted=all&_r=0

Let's put it this way, if 95 out of 100 doctors diagnosed you in a certain way, would you do what they suggest or listen to other 5%? Or wait till that 5% finally came around? We are putting ourselves in a position where we'll have to explain to our kids and their kids how we knew and did nothing.

James Hansen, chief of climate science at NASA was one of the first to bring it to the world's attention more than 15 years ago. There was no reason for him to do so, no personal incentive -- it's what the data suggested. The climate modeling that came out of that has been by and large accurate, and as the data has gotten better, so has the modeling. Sure, it's imperfect, but the thrust is correct. Same as why a cooler year here or there means nothing to an overall trend. Most of the debate in the last fifteen years has been manufactured -- it's entirely apart from the science and data.

An old college friend, a scientist, has been studying the glacial activity in Greenland for the last 10 years. He gets paid regardless of what the data is, and he's been afraid for a long time now.

An argument is that we shouldn't do anything 'irrational' or 'radical'. As many climate scientists suggest, what we're doing, by pumping so much greenhouse gases into the environment is 'irrational' and 'radical'.

Ahh, but science doesn't become fact simply because there is a consensus. If that were the case we'd still be teaching that the world was flat. In my medical career, all sorts of settled science have been overturned. To whit; I wonder how many WBF members take statins and H2 blockers? One only need to go back to age of Studio 54 to find that climatologists and Time magazine were warning us about climate change caused by greenhouse gases...i.e. global cooling.

The scientific method requires that we question established consensus. All theories must endure continuous, rigorous inquiry and if the findings do not fit the theory; the theory must be modified to fit our new understanding...or be replaced by a better explanation. The recent 15 year+ pause in global warming (despite increasing CO2 emissions) make our prior assumptions increasingly untenable, as a recent interview with renowned climatologist Hans Van Storch in Der Speigel (http://www.spiegel.de/international...lems-with-climate-change-models-a-906721.html) revealed:

If things continue as they have been, in five years, at the latest, we will need to acknowledge that something is fundamentally wrong with our climate models. A 20-year pause in global warming does not occur in a single modeled scenario. But even today, we are finding it very difficult to reconcile actual temperature trends with our expectations.

Here is a money quote from the IPCC's recent report:

Climate phenomena exhibit large natural variations both in amplitude and spatial patterns. While they are increasingly well simulated by climate models, there still remain uncertainties in the physical understanding. This results in overall low confidence in projections in many aspects of these climate phenomena.

Like everyone else on this site; I do not have the expertise to evaluate and come to any educated conclusion regarding climatology. So like everyone else, my opinion on this subject conforms to my world view. It does seem to me that the following questions should be asked:

1. If humans are responsible for global warming, is this a good or bad thing?
2. If it is a bad thing, at this point, can we do anything to stop it? If not, then we should work to mitigate the untoward effects.
3. However, if we can 'bend the curve' of global warming by reducing CO2 emissions, why do most environmentalists oppose the only two existing technologies that can replace oil and coal; namely natural gas and nuclear?

 

[Groucho]

Based on your deep understanding of the data and issues? .

Have you ever had reason to play with computer models? Better still, have you ever used a computer model to further your career or to impress your peers? I'm ashamed to say that I have, and it was like taking candy from a baby - and not entirely cynical as it was early days and I was as naively impressed by my own apparent omnipotence, as anyone. It was only later that I began to understand what was really going on.

It looks like magic. You can let the customer watch the model learning from the randomly-selected data (just make sure you give it the right random selection of data). It gives a vision of the future! It is self-learning! It generates pretty pictures. It is almost conscious! What can it not do?!!

 

[Keith_W]

Ahh, but science doesn't become fact simply because there is a consensus.

Yes it does. That flat earth argument is a very poor one, because the people opposed to a Copernican round earth, heliocentric view were clergy and not scientists.

In my medical career, all sorts of settled science have been overturned.

The science is far from settled in medicine, which is why there is ongoing research. As a doctor myself, I have to be prepared to abandon my current practice when new evidence emerges. OTOH there is some science which is settled, e.g. the causative link between smoking and lung cancer. I am sure you can find some scientists who work for Phillip Morris who dispute this, but that would be akin to climate change skeptics. The tiny minority who dispute it are crackpots.

 

[NorthStar]

I'm reading all comments here and it is quite interesting some of them; without any scientific basis.

Yes, for years and years they said that marijuana was bad, real bad; and now some of the best studies by some of the best doctors on the subject are saying the opposite!
They apologized for all the years that they were wrong.

Cannabis is a medicinal plant, and more and more states and countries are starting to wake up, even my own country, Canada (if you keep track with the latest).

Now, that scientific 2,000-page report authored by 257 scientists from all over the world and from a wide span of years and years of researches,
some here are questioning it!
Did you read it all?

Fossile-fuel extracted from the earth and burned into the atmosphere have a direct relation with the planet's temperature and its effects on the earth's elements; like glaciers, river's flows, oceans' waves, volcanoes, forests, ... even the planet's core.
There is no economic or politic reason, it's the science of our planet's temperature based from serious studies on emissions and all that jazz.

Jeez, some stuff (comments) you read sometimes!
Are those 257 scientist's analysis just hyperbole? ...Hundred years from now are they going to simply say that they were wrong all along? ...When our planet will be closer and closer, on its way to extinction! ...Just like the dinosaurs of yesteryears.

* And whoever invented the cigarette should be banned forever from North America, or was it Africa?

 

[jazdoc]

Yes it does. That flat earth argument is a very poor one, because the people opposed to a Copernican round earth, heliocentric view were clergy and not scientists.

The religious allusion is apropos. Global warming adherents increasing act like a religion....

There is a holy day, Earth Day. There are high priests; Al Gore/IPCC. There is a god; Gaia. There are indulgences, i.e. carbon credits. All sorts of natural phenomena are scribed to it (prepare to go blind):http://www.numberwatch.co.uk/warmlist.htm. Skeptics are not merely people questioning; they are evil sinners, i.e. 'deniers'.

The science is far from settled in medicine, which is why there is ongoing research. As a doctor myself, I have to be prepared to abandon my current practice when new evidence emerges. OTOH there is some science which is settled, e.g. the causative link between smoking and lung cancer. I am sure you can find some scientists who work for Phillip Morris who dispute this, but that would be akin to climate change skeptics. The tiny minority who dispute it are crackpots.

The issue isn't whether some science is 'settled'; rather it is whether climate science is settled. Increasingly it seems it is not.

If you are going to base enormously disruptive policies based upon scientific modeling, it better damn well be right.

I've posted this before, and it's NSFW, but I love George Carlin's take on the environment:

 

[rbbert]

Where is this "pause" in global warming?? so far, 10 of the 12 years in this century are the 10 warmest years on record. They may not have been as warm as some climate models predicted, but that doesn't mean that there isn't a pretty continuous warming trend.

NOAA.gov

climate.gov