No more global warming?

[Rhyfelwyr]

Already we've finished with the science and suddenly it's a left-right shootout that ends up talking about evolution and whether Darwin turned Christian or not.

This sums up people's understanding of the global warming issue from what I've seen in RL. Left-wingers say "omg stupid hillybilly christians can't accept basic facts because they just watch fox news", then right-wingers return "gah brainwashed marxists global warming must be a big-government conspiracy to tax us and fund the new world order".

How many on either side actually know enough to make a serious decision on this issue? It seems to me they can't (which is understandable since the scientists apparently can't either, or is this just one side's conspiracy???), so every left-winger automatically accepts global warming, and everyone on the right denies it (generally speaking).

[Agent Miles]

In case you missed it, I gave you the facts. CO2 went from 287 to 380 parts per 1,000,000 parts, if the people in the nineteenth century can be trusted. No one has proven that this caused the climate to change. This is not science. Realising this, make your own serious decision.

[drone]

For those too young to remember, we were told that a new ice age was on it's way back in the 70s. This is why some of us are pretty suspicious about the current clamoring of global warming. Newsweek's article about this in 1975. The boy has cried wolf already.

IMO, what we are seeing is the result of tons of data from more accurate modern global weather collection, collected and analyzed to death by people trying to assess and figure out why various isolated natural disasters happen. We don't have accurate/complete readings for a long enough timeframe to properly figure out what is going on, it's all guesswork at this point, combined with whatever political agenda people want to push. And all this work and fuss will mean nothing the next time some random volcano in the Pacific Rim blows it's top and spews enough ash and sulfur dioxide into the atmosphere to cool the planet down by a couple of degrees.

Now I'm all for clean air and water. I think we should attempt to live in harmony with nature as much as possible. Are human responsible for climate change? Most likely. Is it as far-reaching as people say? Probably not. What to do about it? Not much. When the planet wants us gone, we will be gone, and it will continue on happily without us (since it already has the plastic ).

[Fragony]

For those too young to remember, we were told that a new ice age was on it's way back in the 70s.

Well I have been dead since 2000, acid rain finally did it.

these silly apocalyptoloco's.

[Centurion1]

There are a lot of respected scientists who say global warming is a crockpot. i think the world goes through natural cycles and that twenty years fom now people (probably al gores son) will be preaching the imminent ice age. The problem is how this unproven THEORY is being used to indoctrinate children into eco-freaks and how in us schools at least it is treated as scientific dogma.

Gah, and al gore is an idiot. some of those scenes in an inconvenient truth of ice caps melting are from the day after tomorrow. That that man won the Nobel peace prize, it is empty for me........

[Sarmatian]

Caring about environment isn't a bad idea. Just because there is no consensus among scientists about what's really happening doesn't mean we should pump as much CO2 in the atmosphere, leave plastic waste in forests and dump oil into the ocean.

We're rich enough to afford spending some money on environment.

I'm no expert on the issue but according to my knowledge, there have been significant variations in temperature in some periods even during recorded history.

[Centurion1]

i agree of course that environmental change is needed, i just do not think we are going to single-handedly destroy the earth and melt all the ice. simply humans unable to accept that the world doesn't need us to survive or destroy itself (not that that is going to happen)

[Aemilius Paulus]

The problem is how this unproven THEORY is being used to indoctrinate children into eco-freaks and how in us schools at least it is treated as scientific dogma.

Sorry, you made a valid point, but in an exceedingly and humorously hypocritical manner. Remember, a theory is something that has been observed countless times, something that is backed up by immense amounts of data and general scientific consensus.

A theory is a couple of steps away from a natural law. The only distinction between a theory and a law is generally the fact that a law must be capable of being observed directly. If something is not capable of that, then it must forever remain branded as "theory" until it is observed directly.

Thus, to call something in science an "unproven theory" is no different from saying "pleasurable torture" or 'harmonious annoyance". Do not mix the popular definition of the noun "theory" with the proper scientific one. Otherwise you just made a serious miscalculation. Such as those people who dismiss evolution on the grounds "it is just a theory - the evolutionists themselves say so". How false. Evolution on a large scale has not been well-observed, but no serious scientist doubts for even a nanosecond the validity of the "theory" of evolution. A scientist regards a theory as equal to fact for all practical purposes.

Thus, the global warming is a hypothesis, meaning someone came up with a suggestion, a wild idea, it was already brought up in a community of scientists, then thoroughly researched, and only after that was a hypothesis formed, or a very well-educated guess. Now we are in the long period of experimentation, in hopes of proving or disproving the hypothesis. However, let no one tell you global warming is a "theory". No, it is a long way from that.

[Centurion1]

i understand the difference between a theory and law. I was typing this really quickly as i often do and wasn't really thinking. I do not have the luxury of time today to type long well thought out papers.

Of course thank you for your correction, you are indeed right.

Most importantly my point got across

[Ironside]

Well I have been dead since 2000, acid rain finally did it.

these silly apocalyptoloco's.

Don't you recall that tiny matter of acid rain being reduced due to heavy regulation and is still requireing calcinations of lakes and causes the destruction of lime stone, that was mentioned last time you brought the subject up?

Those side product streams of sulphuric acid isn't sold for profit you know.

Anyway cutting it fairly short.

Since oil depence is going to be needing a replacement fairly soon (the peak oil of cheap oil has already passed), a process that is going to take decades, would it be more prudent to start focusing on a replacement now instead of when the gasonline prices are cheap when they're twice as high as now? That this coincides with CO2 reductions and gives time to see the effects, instead of doing nothing, is just a boon. And in best case scenario, no man made increase in temperature. In worst, we have a developed system to counter it, without being forced to shut down the industry.

As for uncertain old data. Tree lines growing higher, melting polar ice, most glaciers shrinking, shorter winters and crops being able to grow further north are more physical signs of it becoming warmer. To add that it has been warmer before and that a warmer climate might actually support more biomass (exception is the sea and its critical 4 degree C zone), but a incread temperature means a weather shift. That in turns affect rainfall patterns that in turn affect agriculture negativly until proper adaption is done. Rapid changes makes it hard to adapt. That's not counting increasing water levels.

About uncertain models, in weather there's a difference between full accuracy and general trends that are much easier to predict. For example will 2010 be a warm year due to an El Nino forming. Warmer than this year for example (that will be a warm year).

[Fragony]

Don't you recall that tiny matter of acid rain being reduced due to heavy regulation and is still requireing calcinations of lakes and causes the destruction of lime stone, that was mentioned last time you brought the subject up?

I do remember that it were in fact bugs that caused trees to lose leaves. I remember the hysteria, the doomsday scenario's, having to write a paper on it WE ARE SCREWED, 'how are you going to educate your parents about acid rain?' OMG DEAD LAKES

but that was then and things have changed.

Now we see hysteria, doomsday scenario's, kids being dragged to the cinema to watch Al Gore's lies, kids having to write a paper on it WE ARE SCREWED, 'how are you going to educate your parents about global warming?' SAVE THE POLAR BEARS

flyingspagettimonsterlolclever

[Louis VI the Fat]

Will a mere $250 million suffice to undo CO2's climate effect? A Microsoft funded science group thinks so, and at least one Nobel Prize winner agrees...

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/new...cle6879251.ece

Go geo-engineering! If CO2 is a problem, then remove it from the atmosphere and store it underground, back to where it came before it was burned as fossilised fuel. If warming is a problem, than cool the planet. Far more efficient than bankrupting the economy because alarmists fear the wrath of nature for man's sins.

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

As much as Caldeira disliked the concept, his model backed up Wood’s claims that geoengineering could stabilise the climate even in the face of a large spike in atmospheric carbon dioxide — and he wrote a paper saying so. Caldeira, the most reluctant geoengineer imaginable, became a convert — willing, at least, to explore the idea.

Which is how it comes to pass that Caldeira, Wood and Myhrvold are huddled together in the former Harley-Davidson repair shop showing off their scheme to stop global warming.
IT wasn’t just the cooling potential of stratospheric sulphur dioxide that surprised Caldeira. It was how little was needed to do the job: about 34 gallons per minute, not much more than the amount of water that comes out of a heavy-duty garden hose.

Warming is largely a polar phenomenon, which means that high latitude areas are four times more sensitive to climate change than the equator. By IV’s estimations, 100,000 tons of sulphur dioxide per year would effectively reverse warming in the high Arctic and reduce it in much of the northern hemisphere.

[...]

IV estimates this plan could be up and running in about three years, with a start-up cost of $150m and annual operating costs of $100m. It could effectively reverse global warming at a total cost of $250m.

Nicholas Stern, the economist who prepared an encyclopedic report on global warming for the British government, suggested we spend 1.5% of global GDP each year — that would be a $1.2 trillion bill today — to attack the problem.

By comparison, IV’s idea is practically free. It would cost $50m less to stop global warming than Gore’s foundation is paying just to increase public awareness about global warming.
Would it work? The scientific evidence says yes. Perhaps the stoutest scientific argument in favour of it came from Paul Crutzen, a Dutch atmospheric scientist whose environmentalist bona fides run even deeper than Caldeira’s — he won a Nobel prize for his research on atmospheric ozone depletion.

In 2006 he wrote an essay in the journal Climatic Change lamenting the “grossly unsuccessful” efforts to emit fewer greenhouse gases and acknowledging that an injection of sulphur in the stratosphere “is the only option available to rapidly reduce temperature rises and counteract other climatic effects”.

Crutzen’s embrace of geoengineering was considered such a heresy within the climate science community that some of his peers tried to stop the publication of his essay. How could the man reverently known as “Dr Ozone” possibly endorse such a scheme? Wouldn’t the environmental damage outweigh the benefits?
Actually, no. Crutzen concluded that damage to the ozone would be minimal. The sulphur dioxide would eventually settle out in the polar regions but in such relatively small amounts that significant harm was unlikely.

[Rhyfelwyr]

In case you missed it, I gave you the facts. CO2 went from 287 to 380 parts per 1,000,000 parts, if the people in the nineteenth century can be trusted. No one has proven that this caused the climate to change. This is not science. Realising this, make your own serious decision.

I'm sure people from both sides could throw a few facts around, it's getting the bigger picture that matters.

[PBI]

Already we've finished with the science and suddenly it's a left-right shootout that ends up talking about evolution and whether Darwin turned Christian or not.

This sums up people's understanding of the global warming issue from what I've seen in RL. Left-wingers say "omg stupid hillybilly christians can't accept basic facts because they just watch fox news", then right-wingers return "gah brainwashed marxists global warming must be a big-government conspiracy to tax us and fund the new world order".

How many on either side actually know enough to make a serious decision on this issue? It seems to me they can't (which is understandable since the scientists apparently can't either, or is this just one side's conspiracy???), so every left-winger automatically accepts global warming, and everyone on the right denies it (generally speaking).

This is pretty much what bugs me about this issue; that what is a highly technical debate about the finer points of an extremely complex, chaotic system seems to split so neatly along party lines, with both sides claiming the issue is "easy" and the other side is "obviously" wrong.

Either way, the political will is clearly not there to make anything more than cosmetic changes, so I guess we'll have the answer soon enough; and I can see a certain merit in settling the issue once and for all through direct experiment. Personally I feel it would be best if we can move to a more sustainable, low-carbon energy economy in our generation since it needs to be done eventually anyway; I certainly think it would be a better use of time, money and political will than further rearranging of the deckchairs in the Middle-East. However this has more to do with ensuring that the benefits of industrial society will outlast the supply of fossil fuels than with any effect it may have in curbing climate change.

[LittleGrizzly]

Already we've finished with the science and suddenly it's a left-right shootout that ends up talking about evolution and whether Darwin turned Christian or not.

Okay I apologise, my fault. Agent Miles post reminded me of so many conspiracy video's I have watched though....

Yes im sure Darwin was referred as an evil leftie (probably more recently) at the time I think godless Atheist may have been a more popular term... (which is an interchangable 'insult' to some these days)

Ill leave it at this, I generally accept the idea as there is seems to be a consesus amongst those with the relevant scientific education and I don't accept the idea they are lefties trying to trick us into doing what they want by making up science (I don't completely rule out the idea though.... which is why I enjoy watching conspiracy viedos...) EDIT that and most of the inititatives are multi beneficial anyway...

I have got to learn to stay out of the GW topics....

[Aemilius Paulus]

This is pretty much what bugs me about this issue; that what is a highly technical debate about the finer points of an extremely complex, chaotic system seems to split so neatly along party lines, with both sides claiming the issue is "easy" and the other side is "obviously" wrong.

Well, I do think I am done here, as Poor Bloody Infantry summed it up. None of us here are even close to being as much as slightly qualified to say anything about global warming as a general topic. Even the experts on the field are themselves lost. I myself posted a few responses on specific aspects of global warming, but to do anything more than quote singular statistics is beyond all my characteristics.

...Which is why I dislike with passion the categorical and self-sure statement, often imbued with great zeal, debating for either side of global warming.


On a final note, I will add to LittleGrizzly's end statement by pointing out once again that I generally attempt to stay away from all online science-related debates because of the plethora of problems with such endeavours. Mainly, unlike in politics, we are not entitled to an opinion as we are almsot always not qualified to debate science, which is not relative or down-to-earth as politics are comparatively.

But I am sure I am not stating anything new here... Most of the time, I simply grow frsutrated and quit in such debates, which is what I will do now. Not that the behaviour of posters is bad, it is just that this is pointless. Even mere discussion of this is pointless. None of us can operate with the tetrabytes of the summaries of climate change. This is like five-year olds debating on the validity of US Supreme Court ruling in Gibbons v. Ogden.