Global warming - a suggestion

[civ_king]

The proof is lacking all over the place. I could go on for hours about the holes in the two arguments, but that is for another thread on another forum. For now let's keep the disscusion to gameplay.

Besides, we'll probably move on to something new in a few years anyways just like the new ice age and peak oil etc etc...

I certinaly hope so, none of you people have come up with something new in ages, exept for those emails. I somewhat board and irrataded by the whole thing.

probably one of those who think peak oil is when we run out! peak oil is when demand exceeds supply... PERMANENTLY, no one will harvest the last barrel as it will be worthless


PS lern 2 spel!

 

[Ahriman]

peak oil is when demand exceeds supply..

Uh, no. Peak oil is when global oil extraction reaches its maximum.

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

 

[Aussie_Lurker]

That may be true, Ahriman, but according to the graph at Wikipedia, peak oil has effectively been reached, & we have nothing left to look forward to but ever depleting oil reserves (because we are already using it faster than we extract it). This is what makes the refusal to switch to alternative fuels so reprehensible. We have two very solid reasons for switching to alternative fuels (global warming & peak oil) but still the money-grubbing fossil fuel industry people continue to spread rampant denialism about both issues! One also wonders what more proof the contrarians need-warming of +0.16 degrees per decade, in spite of a drop in Total Solar Irradiance of 3W/square meter per decade over that same period, retreating glaciers & multi-year ice in the Arctic & Antarctic, a cooling stratosphere, major changes in rainfall patterns & the seasons-all just happening to coincide with the period in history when humans across the globe are pumping billions of tonnes of CO2 per year into the atmosphere. "No proof"? Yeah right!

 

[civ_king]

Uh, no. Peak oil is when global oil extraction reaches its maximum.

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

Okay, I over simplified, but the real pain starts when demand exceeds supply by 20% causing massive price increases

 

[Ahriman]

when demand exceeds supply by 20% causing massive price increases

That's not really how markets work. Prices rise such that the quantity supplied and demanded are equal, and the oil market clears.

So saying "demand exceeds supply by X" isn't something that has meaning in reality; "supply" and "demand" aren't numbers, they're a function of the market price. As oil gets more scarce, oil prices will rise and people will transition to other forms of energy, either nuclear and renewables (if we get serious about creating a price for carbon) or coal (if we don't).

 

[civ_king]

That's not really how markets work. Prices rise such that the quantity supplied and demanded are equal, and the oil market clears.

So saying "demand exceeds supply by X" isn't something that has meaning in reality; "supply" and "demand" aren't numbers, they're a function of the market price. As oil gets more scarce, oil prices will rise and people will transition to other forms of energy, either nuclear and renewables (if we get serious about creating a price for carbon) or coal (if we don't).

not going to be in place soon enough, it is a essential good these days, the economy is run off of it

 

[Me,myself,and,I]

Since civ_king and Aussie can't be bothered to discuss ciV then I do not see why I should bother to post. Also sorry about the spelling, I've been posting from my iPhone for the past few days, someday maybe I'll get around to correcting it.

Bye y'all.

 

[Chalks]

Since civ_king and Aussie can't be bothered to discuss ciV then I do not see why I should bother to post. Also sorry about the spelling, I've been posting from my iPhone for the past few days, someday maybe I'll get around to correcting it.

Bye y'all.

Welcome to page 5 of the thread.

 

[Grey2ham]

Firstly:
Global Warming / Climate change as a game-mechanic does not fit into CiV as i see it. (Maybe as a scenario). I find it too arbitary and random. You could in theory fill a desert with factories just to raise global warming and ruin everyone elses fertile valleys.
As for actually modelling it into the game in a realistic way, i think that would be too much of a challenge, (as you'd need weather patterns, tidal patterns, etc etc).

I agree an eco-cataclysm would provide a challenge to avoid, but i dont feel it belongs in vanilla CiV.

Secondly:
King Yosef:
I think you should read this:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/8618024.stm

Don't believe all the hype stories the media pedal: Climate-Gate! Sea levels will rise 10m by 2020!
Most of the time these are non-scientifically trained journalists reporting an area they know little about, while reporting upper 5% probability results or simply mis-understanding the report/paper they are reading.
The climate gate argument is actually an argument about maths, not about climate change. How do you represent data? Which statistical method is most appropriate? What time period should be looked at?
In one of your posts you have sea-ice data from the last year! wow, a very comprehensive data set covering <0.001% of the earth's lifetime (even post oxidation). In my opinion not long enough to make long term predictions from. One major problem for climate modelling is that there is insufficient data to make long term predictions. Therefore predictions are always presented as percentages chance, and often studies disagree depending on their model.

I am studying for a PhD in aeorosol (an aerosol by the way is gas or liquid particles (dispersed phase) in a gas (dispersion medium)) chemistry, specifically dealing with atmospheric aerosol. I have spent 3 years determing how 5 combinations of 3 components (one inorganic (by which i mean a salt), one organic, and one anthropogenic) affect the size, thermodynamics and kinetics of their aerosol droplets. I use single particle study techniques to investigate one droplet at a time. This data is then passed to modellers to make use of.
During my analysis i have to decide which model i use: AIM (aerosol inorganic model), or ADDEM (aerosol diameter dependant equilibrium model). They have one small but important difference and to be honest 95% of the data from both models is the same. One accounts for curvature effects, the other doesn't. One is used for rough analysis, the other for paper quality final analysis. Why? One takes 10 minutes, the other one takes 1 day.

Furthermore climate change is dependant on many factors both natural and anthropogenic.
Denying that anthropogenic sources effect the climate is incredibly naive. The climate is an extremely complex system.

As an interesting aside:
Most of my research is about how much aerosols cool the atmosphere. Indirect effect, e.g cloud albedo (scattering light from clouds) cools the atmosphere.

 

[Me,myself,and,I]

I would like to offer Aussie and civ a partial apology on the grounds that Yosef started it. I want the disscusions from before Yosef posted those were nice, but these disscusions about whether AGW is or is not real have already been done to death. My problem with these arguments is that many people on both sides of the argument are simply blindly following what their political leaders say. Also I'm pretty sure we had this same disscusion about the ozone layer, and geez if you want a manegable renewable recorce for energy build nuclear plants.

 

[Chalks]

My problem with these arguments is that many people on both sides of the argument are simply blindly following what their political leaders say.

Just because you don't understand the science behind it doesn't mean that the other people in this thread also do not. I am following my knowledge of physics and the scientific studies on the matter. It is fairly obvious that you have failed to read this thread, since the only person attempting to bring politics into it is Yosef.

Also I'm pretty sure we had this same disscusion about the ozone layer, and geez if you want a manegable renewable recorce for energy build nuclear plants.

You don't appear to understand what "renewable" means.

 

[Ahriman]

Also I'm pretty sure we had this same disscusion about the ozone layer

Yes, to some extent. And guess what? The scientists were right.

Just go to Australia and NZ and hang out no the beach for a while with no sublock and see if saying "the ozone hole is just a liberal/scientist conspiracy" saves you from getting severe sunburn.

Ozone depletion will gradually lessen over time ONLY because countries actually got together and signed the Montreal Protocol, phasing out CFCs.

You don't appear to understand what "renewable" means.

Well, to be fair, "renewable" these days gets used by a lot of people to mean "non-carbon emitting". Its funny how the issue has shifted from resource depletion to climate change, but we're still using the same language.
We favor hydro/wind/solar to reduce GHG emissions because they're zero emission, not because they're renewable.
Nuclear power has plenty of issues, but insufficient uranium isn't really an important one in the near-term, se "renewable" or not isn't a defining characteristic.

 

[PieceOfMind]

My problem with these arguments is that many people on both sides of the argument are simply blindly following what their political leaders say.

I don't intend to start another whole debate but I don't believe that comment is fair. Mainly because you seem to imply it's true of the people you were arguing with. Actually I don't think anyone in this thread so far has demonstrated that they blindly follow their political leaders. Though I haven't been really participating in this thread, I know that I and many others who support the consensus of the scientific community in general take some offense to the suggestion we are doing it because of the views of a politician who frankly is unlikely to understand the science any better than us.

AGW deniers, from what I've seen, often fall into the habit of fixating on the climate change debate as a political one rather than a scientific one. This is probably because in political debates there is not really any right or wrong result whereas in scientific debates there usually is a right or wrong result. They would rather be seen to be supporting a political cause in a political debate than supporting some retired/crackpot/vested-interest scientists in a scientific debate.

@Grey2ham,

Thanks for offering your input to the discussion. Do you expect your research will have implications for possibly countering the global warming effect? This seemed to be the view an engineer friend expressed to me, and I would do him a great disservice to try and replicate his argument here.

Sadly, statisticians in this day and age are an under-used resource by scientists. I am often quietly disappointed to see statistics as a subject treated with contempt by students studying science, including medical students for whom an appreciation of statistics is a necessity.

 

[GhostWriter16]

I admit I have simple logic, but how can the blizzards of the world be caused by Global Warming? How can one of the Northern hemisphere's coldest winters be caused by Global Warming? Give it a rest. It's a myth. Don't put it in Civ.

 

[PieceOfMind]

How can it be that eating a healthy diet leads to lower risks of certain diseases when people who do eat healthy diets do get sick?

How can it be that wearing a seatbelt lowers your chance of death in a car accident when every year people who wear seatbelts still die in car accidents?

The absence of evidence that A causes B is not evidence that A is false. That is, unless based on best models A is predicted to cause B. Even then, absence of evidence is not evidence of absence.

This may be beyond someone of simple logic but variation in a sample is pretty normal. It is possible for an area to experience the worst drought on record yet in the same year have the record for the highest rainfall in a day.

Of course, long-term weather patterns are much more complicated than your or I would understand so it amazes me you'd think you have the knowledge to decide the validity of a scientific theory that thousands of scientists around the world test and refine every day. A myth? Please, spare us the jokes.

EDIT... By the way, to answer your questions, you might be better off reading through this wiki page: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anecdotal_evidence
Basically the cherry picking of evidence to support a claim while ignoring the evidence that does not support the claim is an example of a fallacy.
...And a quote for you, from that page...

For instance, if an anecdote illustrates a desired conclusion rather than a logical conclusion, it is considered a faulty or hasty generalization.[9] For example, here is anecdotal evidence presented as proof of a desired conclusion:

"There's abundant proof that drinking water cures cancer. Just last week I read about a girl who was dying of cancer. After drinking water she was cured."

Anecdotes like this do not prove anything.[10] In any case where some factor affects the probability of an outcome, rather than uniquely determining it, selected individual cases prove nothing; e.g. "my grandfather smoked 40 a day until he died at 90" and "my sister never went near anyone who smoked but died of lung cancer". Anecdotes often refer to the exception, rather than the rule: "Anecdotes are useless precisely because they may point to idiosyncratic responses."[11] Even when many anecdotes are collected to prove a point, "The plural of anecdote is not data." (Roger Brinner)

 

[Chalks]

Well, to be fair, "renewable" these days gets used by a lot of people to mean "non-carbon emitting". Its funny how the issue has shifted from resource depletion to climate change, but we're still using the same language.
We favor hydro/wind/solar to reduce GHG emissions because they're zero emission, not because they're renewable.
Nuclear power has plenty of issues, but insufficient uranium isn't really an important one in the near-term, se "renewable" or not isn't a defining characteristic.

Certainly, nuclear power is a great short term solution, but the phrase "nuclear power is a renewable energy" is all kinds of wrong.

It's our cleanest non-renewable - especially with some of the fascinating recent technological advances.

 

[Ahriman]

I admit I have simple logic, but how can the blizzards of the world be caused by Global Warming?

A somewhat simplified explanation:
Blizzards are caused not by cold, but by getting colder + having water vapor in the air. If it were really cold for a long period, you could not get a major snowfall, because there would be little evaporation, and because the air would not be able to absorb and hold enough water.
[The amount of water that can be held in air is a function of temperature; you can only get really high humidity when its hot.]

Antarctica is very cold, but it is a desert; it has very little snowfall.

So, warmer temperatures in fact can increase snowfall, and increase the likelihood of severe snowfall events. You need relatively warm temperatures to evaporate significant amounts of water and to hold it in the air, and then a sudden trop in temperatures (below freezing) so that the water falls as snow.

So there is no contradiction between higher average global temperatures and increased probability/size of extreme snowfall events.

 

[civ_king]

I admit I have simple logic, but how can the blizzards of the world be caused by Global Warming? How can one of the Northern hemisphere's coldest winters be caused by Global Warming? Give it a rest. It's a myth. Don't put it in Civ.

Massive Arctic fronts moving south? or maybe the bizarre lack of sunspots

How can it be that eating a healthy diet leads to lower risks of certain diseases when people who do eat healthy diets do get sick?

How can it be that wearing a seatbelt lowers your chance of death in a car accident when every year people who wear seatbelts still die in car accidents?

The absence of evidence that A causes B is not evidence that A is false. That is, unless based on best models A is predicted to cause B. Even then, absence of evidence is not evidence of absence.

This may be beyond someone of simple logic but variation in a sample is pretty normal. It is possible for an area to experience the worst drought on record yet in the same year have the record for the highest rainfall in a day.

Of course, long-term weather patterns are much more complicated than your or I would understand so it amazes me you'd think you have the knowledge to decide the validity of a scientific theory that thousands of scientists around the world test and refine every day. A myth? Please, spare us the jokes.

EDIT... By the way, to answer your questions, you might be better off reading through this wiki page: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anecdotal_evidence
Basically the cherry picking of evidence to support a claim while ignoring the evidence that does not support the claim is an example of a fallacy.
...And a quote for you, from that page...

Certainly, nuclear power is a great short term solution, but the phrase "nuclear power is a renewable energy" is all kinds of wrong.

It's our cleanest non-renewable - especially with some of the fascinating recent technological advances.

yes, cleanest nonrenewable, Solar, Wind, Hydro, Geo are all called renewable because it is not a finite suppply

A somewhat simplified explanation:
Blizzards are caused not by cold, but by getting colder + having water vapor in the air. If it were really cold for a long period, you could not get a major snowfall, because there would be little evaporation, and because the air would not be able to absorb and hold enough water.
[The amount of water that can be held in air is a function of temperature; you can only get really high humidity when its hot.]

Antarctica is very cold, but it is a desert; it has very little snowfall.

So, warmer temperatures in fact can increase snowfall, and increase the likelihood of severe snowfall events. You need relatively warm temperatures to evaporate significant amounts of water and to hold it in the air, and then a sudden drop in temperatures (below freezing) so that the water falls as snow.

So there is no contradiction between higher average global temperatures and increased probability/size of extreme snowfall events.

also I remember last summer the US had an abnormally warm summer which may have been a cause of the massive snowfall

 

[Me,myself,and,I]

[this post has been removed due to the fact that it probably won't help end debate on AGW in the real world]

The GW mechanic is bad gameplay and should therefore be removed, fixed, or made an option.
Also someone mentioned earlier that it could easily be modded out can someone tell me how?

 

[civ_king]

Aussie "according to that graph on wikipedia" is not a valid argument, unless you have somehow made wikipedia magically more reliable. Just because you get sunburn it does not mean that the ozone hole is caused by humans. Also the Earth's climate is cyclical if we died now the world would barley notice. In fact those climate scientists that have moved past the politics have come to two conclusions one: temperatur stations on asphalt are not reliable indications of warming, and two: that since we are in the warm period of an ice age cycle it is far more likley that any time now (since we are nearing the time when we run out of the margin for error) we will enter another ice age, probably that Last that humans will ever see. But it is impossible to argue this subject since no one here can be convinced by any one else here so I will Now move on to gameplay.

The GW mechanic In civ needs to be either fixed, removed, or made an option.
Also somebody said that it was easily removable could someone tell me how?

duh, however temperatures have never changed this fast