Global Warming

[warpstorm]

And has been for the last 15000 years or so.

 

[betazed]

While reading "Collapse" by Jared Diamond I came across an interesting paragraph.

In that chapter he was explaining the complete deforestation of Easter Island and how it came about and how the thriving Easter Island society collapsed completely after that. Two of the main reasons it happened was because of massive use of trees for making statues and Easter Island being a especially fragile environment that was drastically affected.

Anyway, Diamond asks an interesting question. What was the thought process going on in the man who was cutting down the last palm tree? What was he thinking? Here are a few alternatives.

"Everyone has cut a tree so why not me?"
"Jobs, not trees!"
"technology will solve our problems, never fear, we will find a substitute for wood."
"We do not have proof that there are not palms somewhere else on Easter, we need more research; your proposed ban on logging is premature and driven by fear mongering."

or maybe it was a combination of all these as we see in our contemporary Easter Islander equivalents.

 

[Bozo Erectus]

What was the thought process going on in the man who was cutting down the last palm tree? What was he thinking?

Probably he was thinking: What the...uh... why's everybody looking at me like that??

 

[Gothmog]

Well more than likely there was not a last tree. There is a level of genetic diversity below which a population is no longer viable in the longer term. This same problem is being faced by endangered species in 'wildland reserves'.

 

[phoenix_night]

I don't pollute

Sure you do. Everybody does.

And last time I checked, Iowa was on the same globe as the rest of the world.

If you have to be ignorant of the problem, then at least keep it to yourself.

 

[newfangle]

Sure you do. Everybody does.

Which means in order to eradicate pollution, ever human (and cow) must be slaughtered.

How long are the environmentalists going to hide that this is their motive? (implicit or not)

 

[BasketCase]

No matter how true human caused global warming is then, it will be impossible to prove that it's human caused.

Funny, I've been saying the exact opposite.

So what we're now dealing with is a problem that can't be disproved.

While it is possible that MAN-MADE global warming is happening, I refuse to call this a hard fact because the people who call it hard fact are acting like a bunch of religious idiots. As I already explained, ANYTHING the Earth does at this point could be called a result of global warming, and the global warming worshippers are going to point their fingers and go "I told you so!!!" no matter what happens.

Right now the planet is at a pivotal point in its history. The rise in temperature we've seen over the last century might be man-made, or it might be entirely natural because the planet has ALREADY been bouncing up and down very erratically for ten thousand years. We also have six billion people to feed, and must consider the impact our changes will have on the global food supply (sorry, Dragonlord, but reduced CO2 DOES mean reduced plant biomass. Zero CO2 = zero plants, it's that simple. Oh, and by the way, as a certified scuba diver, I can testify that there's more underwater biomass in the WARMER water, not the colder water--though the life does get EXTREMELY wierd as you dive deep! ). We're also overdue for the planet's next regularly scheduled Ice Age, and drastically reducing greenhouse gases could be what sets it off. Take a look at the chart again and note how many near-vertical jumps and dives there are on it. Earth is very erratic by its very nature.

It's a gamble, and acording to the majority AND the most recognised scientists, the odds are against you, Basketcase

Five hundred years ago, everybody in Europe KNEW Satan was out there trying to corrupt human souls. They were, in fact, all wrong. It does happen sometimes.

It could be happening now. Global Warming is the new God, and everybody who refuses to kneel before it gets burned at the stake. I'm sure feeling toasty right now, I'll tell ya that.

 

[Pikachu]

We also have six billion people to feed, and must consider the impact our changes will have on the global food supply

That is a very important concern. We are rapidly changing a factor that evidently is very important for the global climate, and it is reasonable to fear that this could cause rapid climate changes, and rapid changes would be very bad for our food production as explained earlier in this thread (or was it the other thread?).

(sorry, Dragonlord, but reduced CO2 DOES mean reduced plant biomass. Zero CO2 = zero plants, it's that simple.

You are right that reduced CO2 mean reduced growth for plants, but you are the only one who writes about reducing CO2 in the atmosphere. People here are talking about reducing the rate we INCREASE it with. The tree huggers here don’t want to change much. They just want to slow down the changes we currently are making to our planet. But you say that we don’t have to worry about what chances we are making as long as we don’t know how these changes will affect us. That sounds a little irresponsible to me.

 

[Timko]

Anyway, Diamond asks an interesting question. What was the thought process going on in the man who was cutting down the last palm tree? What was he thinking? Here are a few alternatives.

"Everyone has cut a tree so why not me?"
"Jobs, not trees!"
"technology will solve our problems, never fear, we will find a substitute for wood."
"We do not have proof that there are not palms somewhere else on Easter, we need more research; your proposed ban on logging is premature and driven by fear mongering."

or maybe it was a combination of all these as we see in our contemporary Easter Islander equivalents.

From something on the 'tragedy of the commons'

"After the Civil War, the cattlemen in Edwards County, Texas overstocked the land, and when settlers started showing up in the 1880s, the cattlemen's answer was to crowd even more animals onto the land. At a stockmen's meeting, they produced: 'Resolved that none of us know, or care to know, anything about grasses, native or otherwise, outside of the fact that for the present, there are lots of them, the best on record, and we are after getting the most of them while they last.' (D. Duncan, MILES FROM NOWHERE, Penguin Books, 1994, pg. 145)."

Thus, we have cases of deliberate destruction of the commons to not only get the wealth out of it before someone else does, but also to leave nothing for others. Often, this has involved the ruin of other commons resources along with the ones sought after. The history of the quests for gold and whales are other examples. These kinds of episodes reflect instances of pure greed.

"..none of us know or care to know..."

I'd be more interested to know what the man was thinking right after he cut down the last tree.

"Everyone has cut a tree so why not me?"
"Well I didn't do any more damage than anyone else - so it wasn't my fault."

"Jobs, not trees!"
"If only there were more trees - then at least I'd have a job"

"technology will solve our problems, never fear, we will find a substitute for wood."
"Well I guess we'll just have to rely on God to help us out"

"We do not have proof that there are not palms somewhere else on Easter, we need more research; your proposed ban on logging is premature and driven by fear mongering."
"Land ahoy! We've spotted trees on a faraway land! Now all we need to do is build enormous ships to transport them. Fetch the shipwright... what do you mean he's out of business?... It takes wood to build ships?!?... Well lets just chop down the last trees and once we have a ship we can get plenty more... WHAT?!? What do you mean the last tree has already gone? WHY DID NOBODY WARN US!"

 

[Dragonlord]

Re CO2, Basketcase: Pikachu already answered for me : it's not about lowering the level, it's about stopping the increase. I very much doubt plants would be affected, as they haven't been able to absorb the emissions, so they obviously aren't on the brink of CO2 starvation!

@betazed and timko: Great posts on the psychology of raping resources! Some of our ostriches (naming no names - if in doubt, this means YOU! ) here please take note!

 

[Dragonlord]

Which means in order to eradicate pollution, ever human (and cow) must be slaughtered.

How long are the environmentalists going to hide that this is their motive? (implicit or not)

Idiotic post. A certain amount of pollution and enviromental impact is inevitable and not necessarily a problem - the environment has a certain flexibility and can compensate/absorb for some pollution. This flexibility has limits, however. After a certain point (in this case emissions, CO2 and others influencing global warming) natural compensations can't cope any more and the effects are felt.
No responsible environmentalist favors 'slaughter' or 'let's all go back to farming' (except for nutcases, which you can find anywhere). What we favor is putting controls on negative environmental impacts like CO2 emissions to limit their impact.

If you're against that, you show yourself as no different than those cattlemen in that previous post: I want the best, f*** the rest!

 

[storealex]

Funny, I've been saying the exact opposite.

You say lot's of things...

While it is possible that MAN-MADE global warming is happening, I refuse to call this a hard fact because the people who call it hard fact are acting like a bunch of religious idiots.

If that's all you have to say about a wide spectrum of people. Many of them serious scientists, who only say so because that's what they see as the only logical explanation, then you've already dug your self in. Sitting in your little trench saying "It's just them who are idiots"
Open your eyes, open your mind. Very few people are idiots. Take people serious, or you can't expect them to take you serious either.

As I already explained, ANYTHING the Earth does at this point could be called a result of global warming

Yup, everything is always possible, but that's no reason to ignore what's most likely to be possible.

We also have six billion people to feed, and must consider the impact our changes will have on the global food supply

Climate changes cause famine too. It's impossible to meassure which way we will save most lives. Sure the artic regions will be fertile, but who live's there? Many areas that are already overpopulated, will face less bioproductivity (The Himalaya glaciers are melting already, when they're gone, so is Ganges)
So many people in the third world would have to migrate to the north, in order enjoy the increase in biomass, but do you think the northern countries would allow them?

Five hundred years ago, everybody in Europe KNEW Satan was out there trying to corrupt human souls. They were, in fact, all wrong. It does happen sometimes.

That's a very poor comparison, and you know it! By doing that, you can dismiss ALL science. I've written this before, but here we go again:

Of course the majority and the most recognised scientists could be wrong. The possibility is there. But ask your self how likely that is? Yup, science has been wrong before, but ask your self how many times it's been right! Again, WHAT ARE THE ODDS?

It could be happening now. Global Warming is the new God, and everybody who refuses to kneel before it gets burned at the stake. I'm sure feeling toasty right now, I'll tell ya that.

That's because you're in a forum of intelectuals

Ask the man on the street, and he will probably not care at all for this new "God"

 

[bigfatron]

given this thread now running, thought this might be interesting:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/4190997.stm

In summary, scientists have constructed models of polar river flow based aroud various climate models, and only the model that pre-supposes at least some human influence on climate change explains the observed variation.

Of course, these scientists may be:
a) a bunch of global warming nuts,
b) fruitcakes aiming for total annihilation of the human race,
c) totally mistaken, just like all the other climatologists out there,
d) just a beer short of a sixpack generally,
but it is just possible that their conclusions are well-founded....

 

[Timko]

Or a new set

"Everyone has cut a tree so why not me?"
"Well at least I made sure I have enough trees to see me through the winter."

"Jobs, not trees!"
"Yes on Proposition 41. - The reason there are no longer trees to go around is because of immigrants. Proposition 41 proposes to remove all immigrants, guaranteeing a future for good honest EasterIslanders. Vote Nockalooloo for Chief and he will back Proposition 41. Please send donations of trees and branches to support his campaign!"

"technology will solve our problems, never fear, we will find a substitute for wood."
"It was the Devil who cursed our trees to wither and perish! Burn anyone who shows signs of the evil one! Anyone who doesn't vote Nockalooloo follows the anti-christ, and should be burned to appease God and drive out the Devil!"

"We do not have proof that there are not palms somewhere else on Easter, we need more research; your proposed ban on logging is premature and driven by fear mongering."
"Well I know a lot of you want to take the trees from the rich since they are the ones who cut them down in the first place, but to those people Nockalooloo says this:`So the trees are gone. So what! They'll grow back, they always do. We need to do more research, anyone who says otherwise is unpatriotic and fear mongering.' "

 

[Gothmog]

I'm no nutcase environmentalist, but the 'tragedy of the commons' is well known in game theory - and in human history. This is why regulatory groups (be they private or governmental) are so necessary to efficient resource utilization. It would be much easier if there was a 'last tree' but in fact there most likely will not be. We need to do something before that to avert disaster. The current discussion about fishing stocks) global and local are a good example of this.

While it is possible that MAN-MADE global warming is happening, I refuse to call this a hard fact because the people who call it hard fact are acting like a bunch of religious idiots. As I already explained, ANYTHING the Earth does at this point could be called a result of global warming, and the global warming worshippers are going to point their fingers and go "I told you so!!!" no matter what happens.

As bigfatron points out, the best current climate models cannot reproduce the tempreature perturbations (or other climatic variables) in the last couple centuries without anthropogenic influence. This includes aerosols as well as greenhouse gasses. Idiots do not run the best climate models. They represent the best thinking about climate that humans can currently achieve. Also there are specific predictions made by these models, such as the cooling of the stratosphere. Which have been born out by experiment.

Right now the planet is at a pivotal point in its history. The rise in temperature we've seen over the last century might be man-made, or it might be entirely natural because the planet has ALREADY been bouncing up and down very erratically for ten thousand years. ...edit... We're also overdue for the planet's next regularly scheduled Ice Age, and drastically reducing greenhouse gases could be what sets it off. Take a look at the chart again and note how many near-vertical jumps and dives there are on it. Earth is very erratic by its very nature.

It is a fact that humans have increased the infrared opacity of the troposphere in a very significant way, and that this affects planetary energy balance in the short term, and the whole earth system in the longer term.

It is the very erratic nature of our earth system that is so worrying. We have enjoyed an almost unprecidented period of stable climate that is condusive to human development. The earth system exhibits chaotic behavior (thus its erratic nature), there are 'attractors' within this system that correspond to specific climatic patterns. An attractor is a specific configuration of variables such that small perturbations about the point decay in time back towards that point. We know that greenhouse gasses are part of the variables that produces a given climate. Some of us are worried that the earth system will jump into a new stable mode due to a forcing that is directed towards one of those attractors.

I prefer the term 'climate change' to global warming, and it is pretty clear that aerosols are as important as greenhouse gasses to climate change.

 

[betazed]

NASA actually has released a climate modeller. It is free and anyone can test out different scenarios.

Check it out http://www.edgcm.org/index.php

 

[GEChallenger]

Didn't feel like wading through all these posts, but has it been brought up how incredibly small one part per billion is, which is what the CO2 increase is measured in? One part per billion, folks. That's 0.0000001% of the entire amount of gas in the atmosphere. I fail to see how an increase of a couple of parts per billion will really have an affect on global temperature.

 

[Gothmog]

GEChallenger, do you have any idea what the transmission characteristics of the atmosphere are at various wavelengths? Or how the overall energy balance of the earth system is maintained?

Obviously not.

 

[BasketCase]

As bigfatron points out, the best current climate models cannot reproduce the tempreature perturbations (or other climatic variables) in the last couple centuries without anthropogenic influence.

Not true. Look at the top left corner of the graph again. (The part inside the orange box labelled "temp tells CO2 to take a hike").

Note how, for the last ten thousand years, Earth's temperature has been bouncing up and down very rapidly over a range of a little under 2 degrees Celsius. The planet was doing this BEFORE any such things as factories and automobiles came along!

The planet already has been producing the temperature perturbations we've seen in the last two centuries, and the planet has been doing that for a HUNDRED centuries. The peturbations (okay, I really hate that word!) we've seen in the last two centuries cannot be verified as human or natural.

 

[Gothmog]

@Basketcase,
You are not following what I wrote. Your graph only shows CO2 and temperature, and the time scale is thousands of years. I specifically said the last couple centuries (i.e. 200-300 years), and anthropogenic influence (including all greenhouse gasses and aerosols) on climatic variables (including temperature but also precipitation and others).

There is a large literature on this subject, way beyond this one graph you keep posting. What your graph does show is how stable global temperatures have been for the last ten thousand years, as I referred to. You cannot say anything about the last couple centuries based on this graph, indeed the Vostok record doesn’t have that sort of resolution. We have better records on that timescale.

Again, the earth system is chaotic. We understand the variables that affect it, but not how they all interact. This is mostly true on a long timescale (like the ten’s of thousands of years in your graph), because this is the timescale where some difficult feedbacks work. For example, oceanic circulation and large scale biosphere feedbacks (which affect greenhouse gasses… as you pointed out for CO2 but also for methane and others, as well as aerosols).

Note that the most important greenhouse gas is water, not CO2.

While we cannot ‘verify’ recent temperature changes as human or natural, we can say as an observed fact that humans have changed the infrared opacity of the troposphere. We can also say as a fact that humans have changed the aerosol loading and distribution.

We know that the amount of solar energy trapped by the earth is directly coupled to tropospheric opacity (greenhouse gasses) and reflectivity (aerosols and clouds). We know that aerosol loading and distribution is a determining variable in cloud formation and persistence, which affects precipitation, which affects fresh water (ocean circulation) and the biosphere.

Our best climate models on century timescales cannot reproduce recent climatic variables without including anthropogenic influence. This includes cooling trends as well as warming ones, and other variables. Bigfatron’s link is about fresh water entering the Arctic Ocean, another climatic variable.

Again the ‘bouncing’ you refer to is cause for worry, not cause for apathy. IMO.