Climate Change Thread

[Seamus Fermanagh]

Global Temperatures over Time

Yes, we are in a period of global warming.

Yes, we are substantially warmer and trending warmer than an any point in the Common Era of human history (CE, formerly AD).

Yes, the degree of warming being experienced can have a notable, even profound, impact on our daily existence and not all that far in the future.

No, it is not the hottest it has ever been. We have yet to reach the temperature spike experienced 110 thousand years ago by our prehistoric ancestors.

Our global temperature is substantially lower than it was 5+ million years past. (To be fair, the sediment records on this have huge variance swings in any short term segment, and it should be acknowledged that global cooling appears to have stopped and/or slightly reversed in the past 500k years).

We have MUCH better and more complete data of the last 50 years than of the preceding 100, than of the preceding 1000. These shorter time-frame tools do correlate strongly with an anthropomorphic explanation of the current warming trend, but we lack near equivalent data from the deep past that could establish anthropomorphic causality without demur by explaining how this warming is different than preceding ones as to cause. This is the source, ultimately, of those arguing rationally that the anthropomorphic explanation is flawed. It does not, of course, explain the larger number of climate-change detractors who are shouting 'anti-capitalist-conspiracy-theory' from the depths of their own ignorance.

Sadly, we can only drag the mid-point of the intelligence bell curve upwards, not eliminate the negative standard deviation side of the curve.