What Do We Think About Climate Change

[TollyWally]

Boston.
I appreciate the feedback but my questions seem unanswered.

Other than the chill from the Krakatoa eruption I seldom see much explanation for the climate changes experienced over the last couple of thousand years.

1. My natural scepticism keeps asking what were the causes of the recorded climate changes that happened before the industrial revolution spurred carbon production through the transformation of internal combustion etc.?

2. If the alledged carbon based global warming is real and is increasing our temperatures, what would the correct and proper termperature be?

[fasteddy106]

Wow. Troy seeing as how you can't document the supposed payments by ExxonMobil in any manner other than saying "everyone knows" or "well documented" perhaps you should drop that one. Or post your documentation. That would be helpful. Lobbying is not dishonest by the way. Greenpeace lobbys, are they dishonest? The only bogus science I've seen is from the alarmist side. Even were that not the case, the "Tommy did it too" defense usually stops on the playground in grammar school. But please tell me why it is needed to back up the alarmist side. A theory has to be proven to become fact, I don't need to disprove anything. A lie will never become the truth, a fait accompli perhaps, but not the truth.
Polls and surveys from throughout the world show that less and less people believe in the AGW agenda. The AGW believers are in the minority in every recent survey, and should be.The scare tactics have been coming from the IPCC. Remember the polar bears, they aren't in danger, remember the increased number of hurricaines, they are not happening, the oceans aren't rising,etc. What you are calling disinformation is simply the truth getting in the way of the plans of the social engineers at the U.N. Finally I was referring to Boston in particular when I mentioned zero growth, anarchism, and other wackjob philosophys. Look at some of his other posts by him in the forums. There seems to be a lot of those folks involved in the leadership of the AGW movement worldwide. A list of some of those was posted here several weeks ago. Their comments on population control, disease, and government policy are disturbing to say the least. Is it fair to use their own statements against them as they relate to their positions on climate change? I don't see why not. As far as Boston being mannerly or civilized, you need to look at some of his earlier posts in this thread and others before you want to make book on that one.


Pew research Oct. 2009 survey - only 36% believed warming was caused by humans

Rasmussen Dec. 2009 - 34% believe warming caused by human activity


Those are just two of the surveys. Not exactly a resounding pr success by the AGW lobby considering the billions they have spent on convincing the world that human activity is causing climate change. See Troy, when you get caught lying, like the AGW "Team" did, folks don't tend to believe them anymore. You might want to do some actual research into the emails instead of just the headlines about them. You would find a trail of deception and disinformation among the leaders of the AGW movement going back over 10 years and continuing right up until October of 2009. Read Carlins report on the EPA's position. Look up some of the work by Brian Valentine on how the government has been censoring AGW skeptics.

Here is another link that is comprehensive on the entire topic....................

http://www.heartland.org/events/NewY...oceedings.html

[Guillermo]

Boston & Troy, you're going to love this "disinformation":

IPCC's 2007 report:
"Both past and future anthropogenic carbon dioxide emissions will continue to contribute to warming and sea level rise for more than a millennium, due to the time scales required for removal of this gas from the atmosphere."


But......
Is the airborne fraction of anthropogenic CO2 emissions increasing?
Wolfgang Knorr. Department of Earth Sciences, University of Bristol, Bristol, UK (Note: NOT SUSPECT OF BEING IN THE SCEPTICS SIDE )
Geophys. Res. Lett., 36, L21710, doi:10.1029/2009GL040613.
Received 18 August 2009; accepted 23 September 2009; published 7 November 2009.
http://www.agu.org/pubs/crossref/200...GL040613.shtml

"Several recent studies have highlighted the possibility that the oceans and terrestrial ecosystems have started loosing part of their ability to sequester a large proportion of the anthropogenic CO2 emissions. This is an important claim, because so far only about 40% of those emissions have stayed in the atmosphere, which has prevented additional climate change. This study re-examines the available atmospheric CO2 and emissions data including their uncertainties. It is shown that with those uncertainties, the trend in the airborne fraction since 1850 has been 0.7 ± 1.4% per decade, i.e. close to and not significantly different from zero. The analysis further shows that the statistical model of a constant airborne fraction agrees best with the available data if emissions from land use change are scaled down to 82% or less of their original estimates. Despite the predictions of coupled climate-carbon cycle models, no trend in the airborne fraction can be found.

Of the current 10 billion tons of carbon (GtC) emitted annually as CO2 into the atmosphere by human activities [Boden et al., 2009; Houghton, 2008], only around 40% [Jones and Cox, 2005] remain in the atmosphere, while the rest is absorbed by the oceans and the land biota to about equal proportions"


Wow, wow, wow! This study seems to involve a short residence of CO2 in the atmosphere, as Jimbo and myself have showed up several times in this thread. What do you think?

But even worse: If only 40% of the increasing CO2 in the atmosphere at a given time corresponds to an anthropogenic origin....where the hell comes the other 60% from?


Cheers

Attached figure (from the paper): Observed atmospheric CO2 increase derived from direct measurements, taking the average of Mauna Loa (Hawaii) and the South Pole (thin solid line), and two ice cores: Law Dome (dashed thin line) and Siple (dotted thin line). This is compared to total anthropogenic emissions (thick solid line) and 46% of total emissions (thick dashed line).

[fasteddy106]

Just a bit more humor............

[fasteddy106]

This is a great essay on common sense and nonsensical alarmism.......


Global Warming Is a Religion
By Walter E. Williams (Archive) · Wednesday, January 13, 2010

Manmade global warming, for many, is an Earth-worshipping religion. The essential feature of any religion is that its pronouncements are to be accepted on the basis of faith as opposed to hard evidence. Questioning those pronouncements makes one a sinner. No one denies that the Earth's temperature changes. Millions of years ago, much of our planet was covered by ice, at some places up to a mile thick, a period some scientists call "Snowball Earth." Today, the Earth is not covered by a mile of ice; a safe conclusion is that there must have been a bit of global warming. I don't know the cause of that warming, but I'd wager everything I own that it was not caused by coal-fired electric generation plants, incandescent light bulbs and SUVs tooling up and down the highways.

The very idea that mankind can make significant parametric changes to the Earth has to be the height of arrogance. How about a few questions because temperature is just one characteristic of the Earth. The Earth's orbit is another. If all 6.5 billion of us, all at once, started jumping up and down for a little while, do you think we'd change the Earth's orbit or rotation? Do you think mankind could change the direction and timing of the ocean's tides? Is there anything that mankind can do to stop or start a tsunami or hurricane? You say, "Williams, it's stupid to suggest that mankind could change the Earth's orbit or rotation, ocean tides or cause or stop a tsunami or hurricane!" You're right and it's also stupid to think that mankind's activities can make globalized changes in the Earth's temperature.

Nonetheless, there is much at stake in getting people to subscribe to the global warming religion. There is so much at stake that some scientists, using government grants, are fraudulently manipulating climate data and engaging in criminal activity, as revealed in what has been called "Climate gate." One of the most dangerous features of the global warming religion is its level of intimidation of heretics or would-be heretics.

A few years back, Dr. Heidi Cullen, the Weather Channel's climatologist, advocated that the American Meteorological Society (AMS) strip their seal of approval from any TV weatherman expressing skepticism about the predictions of manmade global warming. Scott Pelley, CBS News "60 Minutes" correspondent, compared skeptics of global warming to "Holocaust deniers." Former Vice President Al Gore called skeptics "global warming deniers." But it gets worse. On one of her shows, Dr. Cullen featured columnist Dave Roberts, who, in his Sept. 19, 2006, online publication, said, "When we've finally gotten serious about global warming, when the impacts are really hitting us and we're in a full worldwide scramble to minimize the damage, we should have war crimes trials for these bastards -- some sort of climate Nuremberg."

As a result, many climatologists have been intimidated into silence. That means the public is not informed about counter-alarmists facts such as: Over long periods of time, there is absolutely no close relationship between C02 levels and temperature. Humans contribute approximately 3.4 percent of annual C02 levels compared to 96.6 percent by nature. There was an explosion of life forms 550 million years ago (Cambrian Period) when CO2 levels were 18 times higher than today. During the Jurassic Period, when dinosaurs roamed the Earth, CO2 levels were as much as nine times higher than today. Contrary to what educators are brainwashing our children with, polar bear numbers increased dramatically from around 5,000 in 1950 to as many as 25,000 today, higher than any time in the 20th century.

Political commentator Henry Louis Mencken (1880-1956) warned that "The whole aim of practical politics is to keep the populace alarmed -- and hence clamorous to be led to safety -- by menacing it with an endless series of hobgoblins, all of them imaginary." That's the political goal of the global warmers.

[Boston]

Originally Posted by TollyWally

Boston.
I appreciate the feedback but my questions seem unanswered.

Other than the chill from the Krakatoa eruption I seldom see much explanation for the climate changes experienced over the last couple of thousand years.

1. My natural scepticism keeps asking what were the causes of the recorded climate changes that happened before the industrial revolution spurred carbon production through the transformation of internal combustion etc.?

2. If the alledged carbon based global warming is real and is increasing our temperatures, what would the correct and proper termperature be?

hmm
I somehow had not read those questions into your post 4558
but I did find post 4554
which did have a few questions in it that I had not addressed

Originally Posted by TollyWally

I look at the evidence and I just don't buy it. Plenty of room for controversy that's for sure. I'll ask the believers in global warming a couple of questions that if answered in a convincining way would give them a lot more credibility in my mind.

What was responsible for the observed climate fluctuations over the last few thousand years?

If we are now headed towards a mancaused climate change what is the climate we should aspire to?

ok
I do not have any idea what the climate would have looked like had it not been for anthropogenic co2
what I can say with some certainty is that it would almost certainly have fallen into the 600,000 year norm we had been stabilized in
however
we are likely altering that stability

the climate we should be aspiring to
the one we had seen as being the 600,000 year norm

what caused the climate over the last few thousand years

well given that human population has been steadily growing for the last say 10,000 years and that we have significantly altered every area we inhabit it might be reasonable to say that mans interaction with the environment has had more than just the detrimental effects of co2 pollution evident in the last few centuries.
Quantifying those effects are a bit harder than for Co2 but certainly we have had our share of impacts on the environment, with various extinctions directly attributed to paleolithic over-hunting, as well as several wide ranging deforestation events.

however
the most obvious effect has been co2 and plastics pollution

the observed climate change over the last few thousand years is an interesting mix of our gradually increasing influence on climate and the planets gradually diminishing ability to respond to our interference

cheers
B

[TollyWally]

"the observed climate change over the last few thousand years is an interesting mix of our gradually increasing influence on climate and the planets gradually diminishing ability to respond to our interference"

So sometimes even in preindustrial times we make it colder and sometimes we make it warmer?

At the time of the norse explorations in N America it was fairly primitive here. The vikings got here at the end of a heat wave, caused by indians? Several hundred years later it was much colder.

[Boston]

pre-industrialized man definitely had an impact
specifically making it colder or warmer Im not sure
one of the largest impacts was the desertification of the middle east
once it was a lush forest and now it's a barren wasteland
how else do you think so many great civilizations grew and flourished there
it was later that the Egyptians cultivated the delta area but previously much of the area was arable

same holds true of the american Midwest
giant ground sloths mammoths and wild horses to name a few are highly suspect of having been eaten out by precolonial man
and much of the plains is thought to have been burned off by the natives seeking farmland

mans interaction with the climate goes back a ways but its only in recent times that we have begun to impact it on a world wide level

previously most of the impacts were at least contained to a continent or smaller area of influence

the larger question is whats normal
normal is a global average temp as well as its average rate of change over the last stable data set or about 600,00 to 800,000 years

we are hovering at the upper end of the temp scale and the atmospheric chemistry change is most definitely higher than the normal rate of change specific to increasing temps.
species loss is beyond the extreme upper limit as is deforestation and a number of other parameters

even if a super caldera went off it would not match the damage we have done nor the speed with which we have done it

as for the second question
the premise of the question is wrong

cheers
B

[TollyWally]

Well thanks for your answers even though they just seem to raise more questions.

I thought Volcanos sent much more carbon etc. into the atmosphere much more rapidly then anything man has done.

"as its average rate of change over the last stable data set or about 600,00 to 800,000 years "

If I looked at the rate of change from 900 to 1500 it would look much different from the average rate of change over the last 600,000 years would it not?

I think I'm going to withdraw from this thread for a bit. I haven't really gotten any answers that seem to tip the scales against scepticism and I'm sure I'm not going to change the minds of those already convinced. The IPCC scandals certainly illustrate some outrageous behavior on the part of the advocates of global warming. That's not proof that their theories are incorrect but it certainly doesn't increase my confidence in their opinions.

[Boston]

the ash and debris from a volcano have both cooling and warming properties, they seem to nearly cancel one another out over a relatively short period of time concerning the heavier particles and over the longer term ( say a few hundred years when considering co2 ) concerning the finer gasses. If this were not so you would see spikes all over the both the long and short term graphs.

If you look at the graph you see several things
one
is that the spike at the far right in both methane and co2 which is definitly outside of the normal range of motion
two
that these spikes are accompanied by an anomaly in the temp chart; temp appears to be hovering at the high mark in a distinctly uncharacteristic way. If you take a look at the near term graph bellow you can see that it has resolved into a distinct rise in temp
three
is that solar radiation has not changed much and if anything has settled some into a nice long term average



now here's the rub
and the part the deniers have the most trouble with

if you cherry pick some part of the 600,000 year graph you can show just about anything you want within the normal parameters; there are rapid increases and rapid decreases in temp within the norm, however, if you consider where we are in the cycle and what is happening to the parameters that lead to additional warming then you begin to realize that we are for one

on the top of the temp curve or nearly so
and staring at at least four major influences that tend to drive the temp even higher all hitting up at once

co2
methane
albedo
fresh water influx

the danger is that if the system wants to naturally correct itself
which I believe it does
and if that natural correction is artificially delayed
then the eventual correction will be amplified resulting in a catastrophic cooling event

and a huge number of climate scientists agree

on the extreme end of the result
snow ball earth time
600 million years ago
( to the extreme described in the film it is still controversial )
the earth froze
( you guys are going to love Hofman )



but in a less dramatic event we still get a worse ice age than what we have seen in a long time because the triggering mechanism was turbocharged so to speak and the event is likely to respond in kind

thus it would be significantly better if we did not screw with what amounts to a very delicate system

what makes it worse is that we have multiple barrels going off at the same time
we are also killing the oceans
anaerobic stratification is commonly accepted as the cause of our most catastrophic extinctions

add that to the impending climate correction and with the plastic starvation event and you get an seemingly insurmountable overall worldwide die off

one I think we would have been better to avoid

cheers
B

[fasteddy106]

The KoolAid Club tells us their real agenda.............

Their Own Mouths: Global Warming is a Fraud

"We need to get some broad based support, to capture the public's imagination... So we have to offer up scary scenarios, make simplified, dramatic statements and make little mention of any doubts... Each of us has to decide what the right balance is between being effective and being honest." - Stephen Schneider, Stanford Professor of Climatology, lead author of many IPCC reports

"Unless we announce disasters no one will listen." - Sir John Houghton, first chairman of IPCC

"It doesn't matter what is true, it only matters what people believe is true." - Paul Watson, co-founder of Greenpeace

"We've got to ride this global warming issue. Even if the theory of global warming is wrong, we will be doing the right thing in terms of economic and environmental policy." - Timothy Wirth, President of the UN Foundation

"No matter if the science of global warming is all phony... climate change provides the greatest opportunity to bring about justice and equality in the world." - Christine Stewart, fmr Canadian Minister of the Environment

"The only way to get our society to truly change is to frighten people with the possibility of a catastrophe." - emeritus professor Daniel Botkin

"We require a central organizing principle - one agreed to voluntarily. Minor shifts in policy, moderate improvement in laws and regulations, rhetoric offered in lieu of genuine change - these are all forms of appeasement, designed to satisfy the public’s desire to believe that sacrifice, struggle and a wrenching transformation of society will not be necessary." - Al Gore, Earth in the Balance

"Isn't the only hope for the planet that the industrialized civilizations collapse? Isn't it our responsiblity to bring that about?" - Maurice Strong, founder of the UN Environment Programme

"A massive campaign must be launched to de-develop the United States. De-development means bringing our economic system into line with the realities of ecology and the world resource situation." - Paul Ehrlich, Professor of Population Studies

"The only hope for the world is to make sure there is not another United States. We can't let other countries have the same number of cars, the amount of industrialization, we have in the US. We have to stop these Third World countries right where they are." - Michael Oppenheimer, Environmental Defense Fund

"Global Sustainability requires the deliberate quest of poverty, reduced resource consumption and set levels of mortality control." - Professor Maurice King

"Current lifestyles and consumption patterns of the affluent middle class - involving high meat intake, use of fossil fuels, appliances, air-conditioning, and suburban housing - are not sustainable." - Maurice Strong, Rio Earth Summit

"Complex technology of any sort is an assault on human dignity. It would be little short of disastrous for us to discover a source of clean, cheap, abundant energy, because of what we might do with it." - Amory Lovins, Rocky Mountain Institute

"The prospect of cheap fusion energy is the worst thing that could happen to the planet." - Jeremy Rifkin, Greenhouse Crisis Foundation

"Giving society cheap, abundant energy would be the equivalent of giving an idiot child a machine gun." - Prof Paul Ehrlich, Stanford University

"The big threat to the planet is people: there are too many, doing too well economically and burning too much oil." – Sir James Lovelock, BBC Interview

"My three main goals would be to reduce human population to about 100 million worldwide, destroy the industrial infrastructure and see wilderness, with it’s full complement of species, returning throughout the world." -Dave Foreman, co-founder of Earth First!

"A total population of 250-300 million people, a 95% decline from present levels, would be ideal." - Ted Turner, founder of CNN and major UN donor

"... the resultant ideal sustainable population is hence more than 500 million but less than one billion." - Club of Rome, Goals for Mankind

"If I were reincarnated I would wish to be returned to earth as a killer virus to lower human population levels." - Prince Philip, Duke of Edinburgh, patron of the World Wildlife Fund

"I suspect that eradicating small pox was wrong. It played an important part in balancing ecosystems." - John Davis, editor of Earth First! Journal

"The extinction of the human species may not only be inevitable but a good thing." - Christopher Manes, Earth First!

"Childbearing should be a punishable crime against society, unless the parents hold a government license. All potential parents should be required to use contraceptive chemicals, the government issuing antidotes to citizens chosen for childbearing." - David Brower, first Executive Director of the Sierra Club
__________________


--------------------

Manners & Civility are not a sign of weakness, but clarity is paramount!
Who is John Galt????

[Marco1]

Boston, you are refering to the effect on land by ancient civilisations, be it by deforestation, bad agricultural practices that lead to mass erosion and the like.
Do you imply that such changes actualy changed the climate? Very doubtfull and by minuscule amounts if at all. The changes would have to be at afull continental level and in a very short period of time. Both did not happen.

[hoytedow]

When Yellowstone blows, say bye-bye, Boston, cause Denver ain't gonna be no more. Your statement about man's destruction of the environment surpassing that caused by the super caldera is laughable.

[capt vimes]

Originally Posted by Boston

the danger is that if the system wants to naturally correct itself
which I believe it does
and if that natural correction is artificially delayed
then the eventual correction will be amplified resulting in a catastrophic cooling event

and a huge number of climate scientists agree

on the extreme end of the result
snow ball earth time
600 million years ago
( to the extreme described in the film it is still controversial )
the earth froze
( you guys are going to love Hofman )

this is very plausible and one of my fears as well...
it does not need very much to mess up the gulf stream and its motor... IF that is happening - sax 'hello' to the new iceage and wax your skies!

but in a less dramatic event we still get a worse ice age than what we have seen in a long time because the triggering mechanism was turbocharged so to speak and the event is likely to respond in kind

thus it would be significantly better if we did not screw with what amounts to a very delicate system

what makes it worse is that we have multiple barrels going off at the same time
we are also killing the oceans
anaerobic stratification is commonly accepted as the cause of our most catastrophic extinctions

add that to the impending climate correction and with the plastic starvation event and you get an seemingly insurmountable overall worldwide die off

one I think we would have been better to avoid

cheers
B

i agree with you...

[blacksmith]

One thing to always keep in mind:
The people in government (virtually ALL governments)
have a primary focus on control. They look for any
justification for increasing the amount of control that
they have over the people in the country that they're in
charge of administrating (and -naturally- any other countries
that they can get a finger into). Global warming gives governments
everywhere an excellent reason to get an immense increase of
control over their population and business in their countries.
They just LOVE the concept of "global warming".
Note that they have no interest in stopping global warming even
if it existed and even if -by regulation- they could do so.
They'd be reducing their control as well as the amount of money
that they could make otherwise. How many politicians have that
kind of integrity? (or -for that matter- any integrity at all?).
HUGE bucks have already been invested in "carbon credit exchange"
to allow countries and companies to keep doing what they're already
doing by simply paying a fee/fine/operating cost. Naturally, that
will just be passed down to the consumer, so it's not a single buck
out of their profits. It does ends up being skin off the back of the working
middle class, and, eventually, they will be unable to keep buying
whatever it is that's being sold, but since modern business is driven
by quarterly profits, they could care less...once they've got a few
million, it's all a game.
Note: A sure way to get a lot of money coming your way:
come up with a "crisis" that can only be solved by bigger government.
Government research money (taxes) will come flowing to you by the truckload.
(Figure out how to justify an "air tax" and you'll be set for life).
A sure way to get funding cut (or never get it at all), point out that
increases in government regulation will not solve any given problem
(or that one of the "problems" doesn't exist).

These days, having money trumps having integrity.

One last note: focus on fake "crisis" keeps people from noticing what/where
the real problems are.