Climate change

[Stephen T-B]

What's more likely:

We are experiencing climate change as a result of human activity and resultant accumulations of greenhouse gases or

We are experiencing a naturally-occurring cyclical change or

There have always been quite wide variations in the weather and Global Warming is not, in fact, taking place.

[trillian]

All of them are true except that the third one has periods of thousands of years where the weather is relatively stable (ie, between ice ages).

I think we've done some damage, but the earth has actually bounced back a bit from the 1975 levels. Earth is pretty good at self healing its bruises.

The environmentalists have good intentions but they tend to use too many doomsday tactics to scare people into drastic measures. The predictions that were made 20 years ago were completely off. I think Penn & Teller did a thing on it.

I heard that even the slight change we have now will cause a major increase in hurricanes. We'll see.

trillian

[seanie]

I thought that global warming was pretty well accepted scientifically, and that the argument was more about it's impact and what measures, to what extent, should be taken to counteract it (if at all).

Personally my fear isn't so much about a different climate per se but in our ablity to adapt to it changing. Overall a climate a few degrees higher might not be much of a problem but it depends on how it affects us socially/economically/poltically. Changes in weather patterns may make some areas more arable others less so. Even if the net effect is fairly neutral it could still lead to massive instability.

Some countries might be better off others worse, and that could result in wars over resources (water/arable land), large population movements etc. The slower the change the more manageable but it seems difficult to predict exactly what will happen and at what rate.

[Stephen T-B]

I've read stuff by anti-environmentalists claiming that measurements of the Earth’s temperature taken by satellite show that it is not, in fact, rising at all. This data, apparently, has been influential in persuading Bush that Global Warming is a lie with which America’s enemies are trying to hammer the American way of life. Hence his abandonment of the Kyoto protocols.
US commentator Alan Caruba , founder of the National Anxiety Center (http://www.bushcountry.org/news/nav_view_links/c_acaruba.htm) gives voice to these opinions.

My giving this web address in no way implies that I endorse his views

[Volker.Doormann]

Originally posted by Stephen T-B
What's more likely:

We are experiencing climate change as a result of human activity and resultant accumulations of greenhouse gases or

We are experiencing a naturally-occurring cyclical change or

There have always been quite wide variations in the weather and Global Warming is not, in fact, taking place. There is a serious discussion in science community on this thesis (http://www.dsri.dk/~hsv/prlresup2.pdf) and data.

[Stephen T-B]

- can't get that link to work.

[Volker.Doormann]

Originally posted by Stephen T-B
- can't get that link to work. The link is to a postscript file on URL:

http://www.dsri.dk/~hsv/prlresup2.pdf

You need an 'Acrobat reader' software to open that file. You can download such reader from the web for free:

www.adobe.com/products/acrobat/readstep2.html

Volker

[hedonist ogre]

Originally posted by Stephen T-B
What's more likely:

We are experiencing climate change as a result of human activity and resultant accumulations of greenhouse gases or

We are experiencing a naturally-occurring cyclical change or

There have always been quite wide variations in the weather and Global Warming is not, in fact, taking place.

Here's (http://www.iidb.org/vbb/showthread.php?s=&threadid=59854) a recent lively discussion from PD with lots of good links.

Enjoy

[Stephen T-B]

That wraps it up, I guess.
Thanks for the link.

[LeftCoast]

Originally posted by trillian1
I think we've done some damage, but the earth has actually bounced back a bit from the 1975 levels. Earth is pretty good at self healing its bruises.
I'm not sure what you mean by "bounced back from 1975 levels"?

Yes, the earth is good at healing "bruises", but that healing process could very well include making the earth uninhabitable by human beings. As long as the atmosphere doesn't boil away into space, "life" will remain for the foreseeable future, it just may not be any life that we' recognize. Unless you believe in some sort of Gia hypothesis, the earth has no special affinity for human beings or even life for that matter - the earth abides, and life either adapts to its changes or it dies - the earth does not care one way or the other.



The predictions that were made 20 years ago were completely off.

Um, what predictions are you talking about? There is a common canard that people were predicting an impending Ice-age 20 years ago, but if you look at the literature, the only place you can find that is in "popular" magazines which are driven more by spectacle than by science. There were no papers written in the relevant climatological journals that made any such predictions.


I think Penn & Teller did a thing on it.
I saw that one (one of the episodes of their, Showtime, series, "Bullshit") and it was the single most egregious hack-piece that I've seen in a long time. The level of pure dishonesty and what I can only attribute to intentional misdirection to "prove" their point would have made a professional creationist green with envy.

Their whole presentation was so slanted as to be ridiculous. The spokesmen for the "no warming - no problem" side were all professional shills for the oil, gas, coal and timber industry. All pros at selling their garbage. On the other side for their supposed "balance" they had the following:

1) Some poor chick that was the designated spokesperson for some environmental group setting up for a demonstration on the Mall in DC. They apparently showed up the day of the demonstration and asked for a spokesman - it's not clear that they even made clear to the folks in charge that they were specifically interested in Climate Change issues. She was obviously not a pro and why one would expect that she would be highly conversant in the intricacies of Global Climate change is beyond me. They would show clips of her stumbling over some point and hey would then come back with the tag line "You'd think that their spokesman would know more" trying to insinuate that all who say that we are to blame for the rise in global temperature are equally ill-informed.

2) They interviewed a few random individuals from the DC gathering and I'm sure chose the ones that came across the worst or the most ill-informed.

3) They interviewed Julia "Butterfly" Hill whose claim to fame is sitting in an Old-Growth Redwood tree to keep it from being cut down. If I want to know about climate issues, she's certainly near the bottom of my list of whom I'd seek out.

4) They interviewed an attorney who was involved in some climate issues (It's been long enough now that I don't recall the specifics), but before they played any of his interview, the poisoned the well by making some back-hand comments about people making "hysterical claims".

There was a conspicuous absence of anyone (Climatologist anyone) who could really talk intelligently and with authority about the issues from a scientific perspective.

One of the shills for the timber industry displayed his ignorance with a comment that "supposedly we're losing 50,000 species each year, but I don't see anyone getting up in arms and protesting" then drawing a parallel with the snail-darter. What this piece of industry slim conveniently did not mention is that most of these species are in the tropical rain forests and are lost due to over logging - the vast majority without ever being cataloged. Again the false dichotomy that well, we don't hear anyone protesting so it must not be happening. Complete and utter shit.

I now have exactly 0.00% respect for Penn and Teller. They are an embarrassment.

[LeftCoast]

Originally posted by Stephen T-B
I've read stuff by anti-environmentalists claiming that measurements of the Earth’s temperature taken by satellite show that it is not, in fact, rising at all. This data, apparently, has been influential in persuading Bush that Global Warming is a lie with which America’s enemies are trying to hammer the American way of life. Hence his abandonment of the Kyoto protocols.
US commentator Alan Caruba , founder of the National Anxiety Center (http://www.bushcountry.org/news/nav_view_links/c_acaruba.htm) gives voice to these opinions.

My giving this web address in no way implies that I endorse his views

The problem is that it was discovered that the satelite data had not been adjusted for the decay in the satelites orbits - once that correction was made the satelite data agreed reasonably well with the data from earth based measurements.

I looked at that crank, Caruba's, web-site. Right-wing demagogery. I did find one amuzing link over on the left side near the top behind the caption Don't Believe the Bible? (http://www.evidenceofgod.com/skepticschallenge3.htm). Starts off with Pascals Wager and then tries to lead you through 10 "questions for the skeptic", but unfortunately, you can't get from one question to the next until you answer the current question with the "correct" answer.

[Leli]

I really don't know how you can claim that we have 'bounced back' from 1975 when there is a permanent gaint smog cloud hanging over India and South Asia, and South American rainforest burns away into the atmosphere hectare by hectare and day by day. Yes, we have tried to institute clean air laws, (although the Clinton Administration did absolutely zip about improving gas mileage, and DON'T tell me that's not possible), and prevent reckless disposal of CFC's and other ozone destroying compounds, but still....the pole is squishy. We still have lots of work to do before we're out of the danger of poisoning ourselves like a bunch of fish in an overcrowded tank.