Houston we have problem

[Vuk]

We can try. For instance, large volcanic eruptions that that spew a whole bunch of ash into the atmosphere are known to significantly reduce global temperatures for a year or two. We can at least attempt to do something similar it the need arises. Heck, remember when Saddam lit up all those oil wells in Kuwait back in 1991? Kuwait didn't have much of a summer that year. Now that's a local example of course, but the point is that it can be done.

I know we can effect global weather patterns somewhat, but I still am not convinced that we can significantly slow or halt global weather patterns.

[rvg]

I know we can effect global weather patterns somewhat, but I still am not convinced that we can significantly slow or halt global weather patterns.

We won't for sure if we never try.

[CBR]

Mostly their letter was objecting to NASA getting involved in the debate.

We believe the claims by NASA and GISS, that man-made carbon dioxide is having a catastrophic impact on global climate change are not substantiated, especially when considering thousands of years of empirical data. With hundreds of well-known climate scientists and tens of thousands of other scientists publicly declaring their disbelief in the catastrophic forecasts, coming particularly from the GISS leadership, it is clear that the science is NOT settled

So they clearly have an opinion about the current scientific results and claim that there is data to support that opinion. And tens of thousands of scientists who apparently have a similar opinion. Big and bold words from people who has no professional experience in such matters. They do write that the NASA administrator can just ask for the info so we will see.

[Vuk]

We won't for sure if we never try.

And will it ever be cost effective even if it is possible? Probably not.

[rvg]

And will it ever be cost effective even if it is possible? Probably not.

Survival is always cost effective.

[Vuk]

We can try. For instance, large volcanic eruptions that that spew a whole bunch of ash into the atmosphere are known to significantly reduce global temperatures for a year or two. We can at least attempt to do something similar it the need arises. Heck, remember when Saddam lit up all those oil wells in Kuwait back in 1991? Kuwait didn't have much of a summer that year. Now that's a local example of course, but the point is that it can be done.

Wait a minute, burning fossil fuels causes global cooling? I thought it caused global warming. Now I am confused.

Survival is always cost effective.

That would be true if it were the only way to survive, but it is not. Slow adaptation is a much less costly way to survive, and won't burden people nearly as much.

[rvg]

Wait a minute, burning fossil fuels causes global cooling? I thought it caused global warming. Now I am confused.

It wasn't a clean burn. The wells generated tons of ash and soot.

That would be true if it were the only way to survive, but it is not. Slow adaptation is a much less costly way to survive, and won't burden people nearly as much.

Less costly in terms of resources perhaps, but surely more costly in terms of lives.

[Vuk]

Less costly in terms of resources perhaps, but surely more costly in terms of lives.

There, I am afraid we disagree.

[rvg]

There, I am afraid we disagree.

Then I guess we're just gonna have to agree to disagree.

[Vuk]

Then I guess we're just gonna have to agree to disagree.

Agreed.

[Papewaio]

Vuk I have to agree with you.

Humans have been shaping the local environments for thousands of years. When the Australian Aborogines came to Australia he local mega fauna soon died out, the burning of the rain forests changed the local environment to being dominated by gum trees which flourish in burn offs.

New Zealand has on local scales filled in entire valleys with slurry, changed where rivers flow (there was more steam boats dredging NZ rivers for gold then there was steamboats on the Mississippi), in the search for gold they created locally the worlds largest man made desert. Later they modified land into the worlds largest non native pine plantations.

As a undergrad I stood beside the mile deep Kalgoolie mine. I've stood on a mine site in equatorial Borneo and seen how a river was redirected from one side of a mountain to the other so that the gold could be mined underneath the old river bed. I spent my 26th birthday in Mount Newman which they are mining for iron ore will become a local lake when the mining is finished.

Australian land is becoming useless as salt rises in the soil due to local clear felling of all the forest. Localised replanting of scrub and larger trees is required to reverse the salty water table rising.

One farmer proved that by planting trees on his dusty land that it is now a lush green farm with a lake and wetlands. So local change is possible and can be planned.

I agree that we have and continue to impact our local environment.

I also agree that we can affect our weather patterns and the content of our atmosphere. Most of it so far has been accidental but even from the time of the Romans you can look at ice samples in Mont Blanc and verify which minesite the lead was mined in by the isotope ratio. For more recent leaded gas we can trace the lead to the country of origin based on the isotopic ratio in the lead just like a fingerprint. We can see in ice core samples from around the world lead from gas and we can tell if it is from Europe, US or other refineries. We can see the amount of lead peak and diminish as the supply of leaded fuel diminishes.

Likewise for ozone in the atmosphere we can see the amount increase as the various CFC bans took place, there is a much longer tail on this due to the time it takes and other chemicals that are also depleting Ozone.

What I believe is that if we align up enough local environmental changes we have global change.

[Montmorency]

I'm interested in hearing about the ups and downs of geo-engineering again. Lemur?

[a completely inoffensive name]

I'm interested in hearing about the ups and downs of geo-engineering again.

I have actually read of a few theoretical geo-engineering ideas that don't sound *that* far-fetched.One of them were a fleet of cheap long vertical tubes that pumped cold water from below up to the surface to cool surface temperatures down. They were powered by extracting energy from the waves if I remember correctly. Not exactly practical but not a giant space mirror to reduce the sunlight hitting the earth.Also, idk if this counts as geo-engineering but there were trials (I think) with artifical cloud seeding to promote water droplet formation and rain in dry areas.

[gaelic cowboy]

That is a complete and total myth. Indians had been working the land all across the current United States for hundreds of years before Europeans arrived. Following a sharp population decline after the first Europeans arrived (due mostly to diseases that were accidently transfered), much of North America was unmanaged for a short amount of time, but what came in that time period was a direct result of earlier Indian settlement and agriculture. There is no such thing as a 'natural' or 'wild' state for land to revert back to, because since before we have history it has been shaped by humans, and no matter what happens later, it will be the result of human influence.
I am not denying that humans have the power to affect the land they are living in, by reshaping the land, irrigating, transporting soil, digging canals, etc, etc, but that is a far step from controlling global weather patterns.

I never wrote anything about Indians.

Wild state merely means unmanaged the natural state is of course something we can never again achieve.

A managed eco system will affect local climate and that local means the continental united states. (and thats fairly big yes/no)



Now to some ideas you wrote which I have picked on about control, really we should be using the terms Intereference or Change, this does not imply actual control merely application of certain processes.

It is these processes which shape and change the enviroment then later humans adapt there society to fit within the resultant new parameters.

Thats why global warming is so dangerous because if the resultant parameters are TOO harsh then humanity may be incapable of adapting sufficiently. Humans are basically changing the parameters TOO fast and likely by TOO much, it does not mean that life will be extinguished but we could send it all the way back to bacteria floating around hot vents.

We cannot actually control even the processes that we unleash, in fact in some cases we cannot even stop them. Eventually the change will self regulate by use of natural feedback loops leading to a new equilibrium, does this mean we must attempt to engineer a new equilibrium I would say NO.

We have interfered to much by spreading over the whole planet and changing everything, basically we need to stop or attempt to reduce our adding to the feedback.

Possibly then we can adapt to the new hotter world we are gifting our great grand children.

[gaelic cowboy]

I have actually read of a few theoretical geo-engineering ideas that don't sound *that* far-fetched.One of them were a fleet of cheap long vertical tubes that pumped cold water from below up to the surface to cool surface temperatures down. They were powered by extracting energy from the waves if I remember correctly. Not exactly practical but not a giant space mirror to reduce the sunlight hitting the earth.Also, idk if this counts as geo-engineering but there were trials (I think) with artifical cloud seeding to promote water droplet formation and rain in dry areas.

Probably the easier geo engineering project would be to paint large areas of the earth to reflect sunlight, this would hopefully encourage the growth again of land ice.

Sure it's a big undertaking but it has a simplicity about it and would need no to low energy input once done, also crucially we dont need much in the way of adavnced tech either to do it.

Happily it would not have any unforeseen affects on our climate unlike many of the other projects I have heard about over the years.

[Sigurd]

Its established science that the earth will go through long-term climate changes. If the human race survives for 100,000 more years, we'll witness drastic climate change. This is a fact.

This fact has existed since the birth of this planet. Whether by human influence or not, the climate changes and will do so for the unforeseeable future.
Agriculture existed on Greenland a millenia ago and will so again and there is probably nothing we can do about it.
Grapes were found on the North of the east coast of America and perhaps they will be found again.
Lush forests were found on Spitsbergen at one time, maybe this will occur again? We mine its remnants today and releases the carbon they bound in coal burning power plants.
As humans we move around where the nature will let us settle. We follow the retreating glacier and remove ourselves from their advances.
We have done so since the dawn of man... it is only now that we want to impose our will on a ever changing nature. We want it stagnate and controlled.

[gaelic cowboy]

This fact has existed from the birth of this planet. Whether by human influence or not, the climate changes and will do so for the unforeseeable future.
Agriculture existed on Greenland a millenia ago and will so again and there is probably nothing we can do about it.
Grapes were found on the North of the east coast of America and perhaps they will be found again.
Lush forests were found on Spitsbergen at one time, maybe this will occur again? We mine its remnants today and releases the carbon they bound in coal burning power plants.
As humans we move around where the nature will let us settle. We follow the retreating glacier and remove ourselves from their advances.
We have done so since the dawn of man... it is only now that we want to impose our will on a ever changing nature. We want it stagnate and controlled.

What exactly does that prove apart from happens, the aim for humainty should always be to try to interfere as little as possible. Things will change on there own but at least we might have time to adapt due to our technology and intellectual capacity.

We may not have enough time to change to what were unleashing in the future and yes maybe we will adapt in time but it's a big guess.

Also it will likely be 7 or 8 billion people by then and thats not likely to be able to be moved easily, a massivge enough change could kill 2 or 3 billion. However the big danger is climate change and wars waged by nations litterally for survival in the resultant changed climate.

That could give us drastic climate change and nuclear war which would likely either extinguish or severely stunt humanity.

[Slyspy]

And what was the estimated human population last time we ran away from the glaciers? What were the settlement patterns?

[gaelic cowboy]

And what was the estimated human population last time we ran away from the glaciers? What were the settlement patterns?

Probably a few hundred thousand maybe even a few million globably essentially not a large ammount and with plenty room to move into.

But the thing is we actually moved into the ice sheets we didnt run away from them at all, academics are now even asking if people may have crossed from Europe to America on the early ice sheets across the North Atlantic.

Why they moved into the ice sheets is because they had the technology and social structure to survive in the enviroment, and the flora and fauna had time to adapt or move. Take Oak trees as an example they will not have time to move north quick enough if we rise the temperature fast enough, this would severly restict the birds and animals that depend on them for food and shelter.

This would mean only the animals and plants that can move quick enough will survive and that may be a severly stunted eco system. Basically it might take millions of years to develop new flora and fauna to fill the empty niches, however it's likely we will prevent most of them being filled.

[Vuk]

Now to some ideas you wrote which I have picked on about control, really we should be using the terms Intereference or Change, this does not imply actual control merely application of certain processes.

It is these processes which shape and change the enviroment then later humans adapt there society to fit within the resultant new parameters.

Thats why global warming is so dangerous because if the resultant parameters are TOO harsh then humanity may be incapable of adapting sufficiently. Humans are basically changing the parameters TOO fast and likely by TOO much, it does not mean that life will be extinguished but we could send it all the way back to bacteria floating around hot vents.

We cannot actually control even the processes that we unleash, in fact in some cases we cannot even stop them. Eventually the change will self regulate by use of natural feedback loops leading to a new equilibrium, does this mean we must attempt to engineer a new equilibrium I would say NO.

We have interfered to much by spreading over the whole planet and changing everything, basically we need to stop or attempt to reduce our adding to the feedback.

Possibly then we can adapt to the new hotter world we are gifting our great grand children.

This is the biggest load of BS I have ever read. What do they teach kids now adays?
Seriously, you sound like the wacko religious fanatics, hiding in their basements, awaiting the end of the world. I guess apocalyptism has never went out of vogue.
REPENT! GIVE UP YOUR SUVs OR GOD MOTHER EARTH^TM WILL SEND US BACK TO THE STONE AGES!
I am having a hard time thinking of how to seriously reply to this, because I cannot convince myself that you'd believe it!
Dude, you're drinking the cool-aid. Try water, it is a lot more satisfying.

[Strike For The South]

Definition of HUBRIS

: exaggerated pride or self-confidence

[gaelic cowboy]

This is the biggest load of BS I have ever read. What do they teach kids now adays?
Seriously, you sound like the wacko religious fanatics, hiding in their basements, awaiting the end of the world. I guess apocalyptism has never went out of vogue.
REPENT! GIVE UP YOUR SUVs OR GOD MOTHER EARTH^TM WILL SEND US BACK TO THE STONE AGES!
I am having a hard time thinking of how to seriously reply to this, because I cannot convince myself that you'd believe it!
Dude, you're drinking the cool-aid. Try water, it is a lot more satisfying.

man engages in certain process which affect the system resulting in a new equilibrium within which he must reside

Do you understand what that statement means Vuk

I am amused you think this is some kind of milinarian codology, when it is provable fact that man can affect his enviroment and therefore his climate.

Enviroment is influenced by the climate then as a result of this the enviroment influences the climate back. Man is a part of the enviroment therefore logically he is both influenced by and an influencer of the climate.

Acknowledging this fact does not require one to accept humans will be definately extinguished by climate change, but it does require you to accept that it can happen if left unchecked.

Also the only check we have is to try not to add too much to it, as we cant actually ever fully stop our influence on the climate.

This also doesnt require you to believe climate change is caused by man rather that it is happening and that it is happening very quickly. The earth is finite therfore the energy man can use to live is also finite, this will limit his ability to survive drastic shifts in climate if his entire society is dependent on adding to climate change through enviromental destruction.

[Askthepizzaguy]

This is the biggest load of BS I have ever read. What do they teach kids now adays?

Feedback is a real phenomenon, they'll teach you about in real science classes in colleges. Which are schools for adults.

Allow me to explain one basic feedback process. Did you know that certain chemicals are found inside forests, and inside the ground itself? It's true.

When great amounts of ice melt as a result of warming, less heat gets reflected back into space. Which, in turn, causes more ice melting. It's a minor feedback process in itself.

But, when the temperature changes enough, or deforestation occurs, and certain places such as rainforests which are massive repositories for carbon begin to deteriorate, less carbon gets absorbed by plantlife, and the dead plantlife turns back into carbon.

And, when certain other processes take place, carbon which is in the very soil itself gets released into the atmosphere, and because carbon is a greenhouse gas (not hocus-pocus, but an actual fact you can't argue with) that causes the planet to retain more heat.

So you see, processes that occur when the planet gets hotter, cause it to get hotter still. That's why the Earth was once covered almost entirely with ice, but the slight tipping point where it began to melt, released a whole heck of a lot of carbon into the atmosphere, turning an ice world into one with rainforests and deserts.

That was caused by feedback loops. These are real phenomena. It can drastically affect the planet. You know, causing ice ages, or causing hot periods, both of which can cause mass extinctions and greatly affect farmland, which is important to species which base their entire economies on the ability to farm food. Because without farms, we'll have difficulty feeding the billions of people on the planet. It's hard to farm in ice, or where there's no water, like in deserts. Or how about underneath the rising ocean, that's a difficult place to grow crops.

Seriously, you sound like the wacko religious fanatics, hiding in their basements, awaiting the end of the world. I guess apocalyptism has never went out of vogue.

The difference being, religious fanatics believe the world is going to end because a zombie will rise and smite us with chariots.

Scientists believe the world could become less hospitable to human life due to real processes which are hard to ignore, since they've factually happened before. Several times. Science and history... who knew?

It's the difference between knowledge and wacky magic.

I am having a hard time thinking of how to seriously reply to this, because I cannot convince myself that you'd believe it!
Dude, you're drinking the cool-aid. Try water, it is a lot more satisfying.

I seem to recall telling you something like this recently, except I spelled Kool-Aid correctly.

[Askthepizzaguy]

You can learn more about feedback processes here.

One of the reasons such feedback processes might be accelerated is because, while natural emissions from forest fires and volcanic activity, and other normal events have been playing into this since long before man got involved, it's only been during the most recent years of the industrial revolution that we've been adding to it with the burning of fossil fuels.

These sources of carbon aren't just on the surface being naturally released or deposited, they're being dug up and released into the atmosphere by the tons. So you've got carbon from deep below the surface, in addition to the carbon on the surface, being released simultaneously, and not by a naturally occurring process, but by the combined efforts of an industrialized species across the planet, each contributing to the burning of fossil fuels.

That is, fuels that come from under the rocks. Carbon, under the rocks, going into our air. From a solid or liquid form, into a dispersed gas. But no less present.

That would be a significant change in the biosphere. And it's not just carbon, we've got plenty of other things we dump into the air constantly.


Now, if the Earth gets naturally hotter, or cooler, depending on how much CO2 is in the atmosphere, or how much of it is trapped inside plants or below the surface, as part of a natural process that is unrelated to mankind, that would be one thing. We'd still be headed toward heating or cooling periods.

But what if we double or triple the effect by adding to that process with CO2 that wasn't going to be naturally released? And what if, every minute of every day, we continue doing so, for decades, or centuries?

Let me put it another way. Forest fires happen from time to time. Perfectly natural.

Now, suppose we dump a billion drums of oil and gasoline into the forest, to dispose of it. Well, a forest fire might naturally occur. But since we've contributed to the natural process with an unnatural amount of fossil fuels, the fire might be a little bit hotter this time. In fact, it could burn so hot that it sterilizes the soil and it could cause not only the forest to burn down, but it could take a while for anything to grow there again.

Can mankind really affect the environment? Well, we do dam up rivers, which can wreck entire ecosystems. And that's just a river. We do dump toxic pollutants into the ground and water and release it into the air. We have hunted things to extinction or otherwise caused extinctions. And we're changing the chemical composition of the atmosphere, which if altered enough causes world-wide effects, effects which are real and have occurred before by natural processes. But here, we're adding to it, and not by an insignificant amount.

It's easy to paint scientists as alarmists, because we've got plenty of those. People who are convinced that the world is coming to an end.

Well the world is going to be just fine. But even minor environmental disasters like an oil spill, or flood, or drought, wreak havoc on entire populations. And these are "disasters" so small, the earth as a whole doesn't even notice. It's just part of normal life on Earth. It's just that when we dump countless tons of greenhouse gases into the atmosphere, we don't have a real good idea of how to undo that process. And furthermore, while it might take years or decades for us to see serious effects, we've already seen minor effects. And global temperature change, even slight change, can cause massive effects.

You know, there's not a whole lot of temperature difference between freezing and near-freezing. But when we're talking about ice sheets that are thousands of years old, and we're talking about near-freezing, then we're also talking about that ice sheet disappearing completely. And that is not a minor event. And that is only one event, among thousands, which will re-shape the entire planet. Deforestation, rising oceans, deserts expanding, and the shifting of locations for good farmland. Sure, you might farm more in Greenland, but you'll farm a lot less in the middle of the United States, for example.

Even minor changes can destroy ecosystems. It doesn't have to be temperature; Every one of them has a tipping point. Too little oxygen in parts of the ocean causes dead zones where fish do not live. It's a minor change from a tiny amount of O2 and not enough. Very minor. But dead zones in the ocean do occur, and many are expanding.

But we're not really talking about minor changes. An increase in the median temperature of the planet by 10 degrees will make things quite different. Life is kind of delicately balanced like that.

I remember watching a documentary where they discussed how certain honey bees react to a wasp entering their nest. Most are defenseless, but a certain kind of honey bee has a defense; they surround the invading wasp and simply wiggle their bodies to generate heat. The wasp dies at a certain temperature. The honey bees die at a temperature one or two degrees higher. They use that to nearly kill themselves, but definitely kill the wasp. It is only a matter of a degree difference. So if the temperature on an average day in July is 90-100 degrees, and it increases to 100-110 degrees, and all of a sudden there are no more honeybees in an entire region, that could affect our ability to pollinate using honeybees, which is kind of an important part of our ability to feed ourselves, because bees do it much more efficiently than we do. That's one aspect out of countless thousands of how temperature change can cripple ecosystems and economies and nations, and species.

A couple degrees difference causes extinctions and can make things a lot harder on us. 10 degrees will render the world pretty unrecognizable, and largely inhospitable for most of us. Droughts and famine are bad enough, but if they didn't end because it was a fairly permanent change in the biosphere, that will ruin nations. Some nations don't have much land to farm as it stands, and if the climate changes such that they have none, what's the solution? What's the quick fix? How is that not a big deal?

Just wondering, because it's not something we lay schmucks are likely to solve, considering the scientists which we consider our brightest minds haven't been able to think of a solution, with decades of thinking about it.

I guess it's easy for people to dismiss things as nonsense without knowing much about it. I know I am not an expert. But I also know that there are people who are experts, and they've explained it to me using college textbooks, documentaries, news articles, and other repositories of knowledge, that the problem is not imaginary and is not an easy fix. It's sort of like cancer. Preventing or detecting cancer early is the solution... trying to fix cancer when it's advanced to a certain stage has been mostly futile. Maybe that will change, but for now, it's the case that prevention or early detection is your best solution.

When it comes to removing countless tons of carbon from the atmosphere because the planet is too hot, the best cure is prevention, not actually trying to cure it. The alternative, which is a combination of ignorance, denial, and prayer, isn't much appealing to me.

[Fragony]

10 degrees?? Oh dear, yeah that is sure to have an effect. Luckily for us the 0.2 degrees celcius rise in the past hundreds year has almost none.

[Askthepizzaguy]

10 degrees?? Oh dear, yeah that is sure to have an effect. Luckily for us the 0.2 degrees celcius rise in the past hundreds year has almost none.

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

Global warming is the rising average temperature of Earth's atmosphere and oceans since the late 19th century and its projected continuation. Since the early 20th century, Earth's average surface temperature has increased by about 0.8 °C (1.4 °F), with about two thirds of the increase occurring since 1980.[2] Warming of the climate system is unequivocal, and scientists are more than 90% certain that most of it is caused by increasing concentrations of greenhouse gases produced by human activities such as deforestation and the burning of fossil fuels.[3][4][5][6] These findings are recognized by the national science academies of all major industrialized nations.[7][A]

So, not 0.2 degrees, but 0.8 Celsius or about one and a half degrees Fahrenheit which is the scale I'm referring to. Mostly in a few decades, not centuries.

Now, that represents an acceleration. That means a change in the rate at which something happens. If that continues to accelerate, then you could see temperature changes of multiple degrees difference within a few decades, or less. If it does not accelerate, it doesn't really matter, because you'll still get the same effect, just a few decades later.

So, if we're talking really insane and unrealistic numbers, which assume no feedback, acceleration, population growth, or economic development, (which would represent a dramatic shift in not only global birth rates, economics, and um.... the laws of physics) then yeah, it will take longer than I'm talking about. And yet, it will still happen.

Instead, we look at projections, which take into account that a more developed society will have more people using fossil fuels, or more of them, than we presently do. We also see a larger population than we presently have doing that. Because unless people stop having sex or using fuel, that's what's going to happen. We also see feedback within the biosphere due to changes in temperature and chemical composition of the atmosphere, which is what you'd have to factor into things to begin to predict events.

Differences in temperature are small on the order of a year or decade, sure. And, you know, sometimes it snows, which conflicts with the idea that the earth as a whole is getting warmer, because even when global temperatures change, for some unknown reason, there are still seasons. That makes it hard for some people to understand climate. That's why people have to go to school and study this stuff to begin to know what they're talking about.

A lay person can hear a climate skeptic point to a piece of data and say that it's all alarmist nonsense. Fooling people with data is quite easy to do, especially when the provided data are inaccurate. But even the real data doesn't mean much to the average person, because they don't know what it means.

You can hear 1.4 degrees and go, so what? The temperature changed 30 degrees between lunch and midnight. Nothing is really happening.

But that's not climate. When we're talking about climate, 1.4 degrees median difference matters. And especially because it's not going to be 1.4 degrees, it's going to be more than that, because we're talking about a mathematical progression, not static numbers in a static system. 1.4 represents the eventual 5 or 10 degrees difference, easily. 1.4 plus 1.4 plus 1.4 equals 4.2, and that's just for starters. That's again not factoring in population growth or economic trends, or feedback loops, or the acceleration of the trend. That's not hard for most people to comprehend, but it's easier to suggest that it is meaningless than to explain how it is not meaningless.

Climate scientists (or lay advocates such as myself) need to convey pages of information in order to make their point, skeptics can pick a number, take it out of context, and cry conspiracy theory/alarmism and they don't need to use facts or reasoned arguments to make their point. It's simpler, and simpler appeals to simple people.

[Fragony]

Fahrenheit/celcius mixup de moi. But It stopped, so the cummulative effect just isn't there. Instead we will more likely get the mini ice-age of ultimate doom, it's chilling.

[Askthepizzaguy]

I have traveled for one second, and I have traveled just over three percent of the distance to my eventual destination, increasing the rate at which I travel by double every second, as a steady curve. In how many more seconds will I reach my destination, or 100% of the distance?

The answer is, approximately five seconds. But I'm not even 1/25th of the way there. It's not easy to conclude that my journey is 1/6th over.

Just take the number 100 and divide it by two six times, and you'll see that 3 percent can actually be 1/6th of the way there, assuming a certain rate of change.

As with accelerating trends in climate, which represents a rate of change, if I've only gone 14 percent of the way to my eventual destination of 10 degrees difference, in a matter of 30 years, then this isn't a big problem to most people. But realistically, I am much further along than it appears.

It's not blindingly obvious, but it's mathematics, due to rate of change.

What the precise rate of change is, with regards to climate, is up for debate. But if we assume a steady change for no reason whatsoever, 14 percent is still a significant progression towards the end result of 10 degrees difference. That's the completely unfounded and entirely unreasonable assumption of steady change. There hasn't BEEN steady change. So it's actually worse.

I can't tell you how much worse it is, precisely. But I don't think 1/4th or 1/3rd of the way there is an unreasonable assumption to make, considering the relatively dramatic shift and recent changes. If we're not assuming steady change, then even a minor acceleration can put you at 1/4th progression, with only 14% of the distance traveled.

Debatable is the rate of change, not debatable is that the earth is warming, and that the warming is becoming more rapid. Even if it weren't becoming more rapid, the end result is still nasty. But it is becoming more rapid.

Deniers would have more plausibility if they were trying to argue that it won't get bad for 100-200 years. They'd still be wrong, but at least they could use bad math to argue their point, which is better than nothing at all. Instead, they argue total nonsense entirely.

[Vuk]

The difference being, religious fanatics believe the world is going to end because a zombie will rise and smite us with chariots.

Scientists believe the world could become less hospitable to human life due to real processes which are hard to ignore, since they've factually happened before. Several times. Science and history... who knew?

It's the difference between knowledge and wacky magic.

First of all, that 'zombie' is a religious figure of extreme importance to many millions of people. As I have gotten infractions many times for insulting a certain prophet, my guess is saying things like that are against the rules. You may want to show some respect.

The difference between knowledge and wacky magic? lmao, I can't tell you how funny that is. Of course everyone thinks their beliefs are factual. Christians bracing for Armageddon throughout history have also based their beliefs in 'fact'. The corruption in the world around them, the fact that God exists and that the all of secular history bears that out, the fact that current events coincide with prophecy, etc, etc.
Now you may argue that those are facts, but I would argue that the voodoo science of global warming is not factual either. Point is, everyone thinks that the facts back up their wacko apocalyptic beliefs and that everyone else is just a superstitious peasant. Greek 'science' and observation backed up a lot of BS too, so it is not just religion. Don't forget that eugenics and race science was supported by 90% of the scientific community, and if you argued with it, you were arguing with science. They taught it at schools, and had plenty of 'scientific' data and arguments to support it, that were plenty water-tight looking to fool the average bozo college student. Are we forgetting all the science backing up the fact that by 2010 half the landmass on earth would be covered in ice? How did that turn out? People went to college and learned a bunch of BS voodoo science like you have to make it look real, but that did not make it any more factual, did it?

It is all scare tactics. You may not like being compared to those fanatical religious people, but you are no different. Since the beginning of large, organized societies people have profited from end-of-the-world scares. They were orchestrated in Europe a few hundred years ago so that the people behind them could profit, and that is just what is happening now. The only thing that has changed is what they lie about. They used to lie and say that religion supported their arguments (which it didn't), and now they lie and say science does (which it doesn't). Both are very complicated subjects that even the most knowledgeable do not come close to fully understanding, so it is incredibly easy for them to make you believe whatever they want you too. I could argue with you all day about the 'why's', but I am not getting in to that, because I don't have the time and I would not change your opinion anyway. Suffice it to say, I think you should be a little more critical of what you believe.

[Montmorency]

Are we forgetting all the science backing up the fact that by 2010 half the landmass on earth would be covered in ice? How did that turn out?

No such claims were ever put forth.

I think you should be a little more critical of what you believe.

Hypocrisy?