Global Warming

[betazed]

Gene90, I think those can be a set of possible first steps. It is definitely better than not doing anything. If possible, I would like to know what others who believe in anthropogenic climate change think of these steps.

 

[Gothmog]

@ gene90:
First, I agree in large part with your analysis of coal vs. alternative energy sources. Few people examine the life cycle analysis of alternative energy sources. Has nothing to do with climate change though.

GothMog: you should still go look up that article in AAPG Bulletin.

I tried, but as I mentioned it is not peer reviewed and thus not archived. I would have to get a copy of the original publication. To much trouble for an opinion piece. Maybe you could post a pdf?

CarlosMM: how do you feel about the papers that still blame solar forcing on most climate changes for the last 10,000 years? That one in Science comes to mind. Cosmic Rays, Clouds, and Climate, I think it has already been refered to in this thread.

I posted this reference and more in this vein. If you read them you would know they do not claim to have explained the last 10000 years of climate based on solar forcing.

Also as I mentioned, the main mechanism posed in this paper (cosmic rays having a direct affect on cloudiness) was tested with a field mission to Antarctica and has been pretty much disproven (though of course they have a new hypothesis). I have heard a number of talks on this topic, but publications are still in review. Once again, not simple and it is of no value for you to post such things without understanding them.

Last I heard, science was about observation.

Actually the unique aspect of scientific knowledge has to do with prediction. I think you are referring to the validation aspect of science.

So does farming, if you believe CarlosMM's cite.

Let's get rid of agriculture.

This sort of thing makes you look bad. Carlos didn’t suggest we get rid of agriculture. He was pointing out the depth with which we understand anthropogenic climate change.

And, I am convinced that the article in AAPG Bulletin, which is aimed a a non-lay audience, clearly demonstrates that there are holdouts from GW, at least in certain communities. This is almost as good as actually generating a PR paper to show the same with a lot less work. I consider the issue settled, if you do not.

Of course there are holdouts, mostly people funded directly from sources with a large interest in denying that CO2 has any affect on climate.

Now you need to define what you mean by global warming. There is definitely consensus that anthropogenic increases in CO2 (and other trace gasses) has significantly increased the ability of our atmosphere to retain energy originating in the sun.

I’ll take this as an admission that you cannot meet my challenge. Your claim that: the correlation between the sun and climate is so strong that ‘it leaves little room for anthropogenic influence, or much of anything else’, has no science to back it up. As I said before no reputable scientist would make this claim.

I don’t know what you are saying wrt stratospheric temperatures. There has been weak agreement on this point since the 1970’s about a decade after the first microwave limb sounder satellite was launched. The evidence gets stronger and stronger, and I would say there has been consensus for about the last decade. Major volcanic events are also clearly evident in this record (check out MSU 4, HadRT 4, or SSU 15X data).

Now I want to address your ‘non falsifiable’ argument.

When you make a prediction about something that will happen in 150 years, there is no way to test this prediction for 150 years, by definition. This is the same in any prediction game, that is why I referred to ‘process models’.

When you launch a spacecraft you construct a process model of its hypothetical flight path and all its actions. In your context this is a ‘non falsifiable’ prediction I guess.

This is the same argument made by many creationists in the ToE debates, and is based on a misunderstanding of what science does.

You construct your process model with the benefit of knowledge of the physical processes involved. The science is in the knowledge of the processes, and in the prediction. Then you let the craft fly and hope you were right. This is what it means to predict, you don’t really know if you are right until the event takes place. You place your bets on knowledge of the science involved.

In the case of spacecraft, sometimes things go wrong. Sometimes a heat-shield gets pierced by a meteor, sometimes you forget to convert metric to English units, other times the craft fails for unknown reasons.

So this non-falsifiable argument is a non-starter. Please argue the science if you will, I’ve laid much of it out for you and you continue to respond with hand waving, and reliance on opinion pieces in a petroleum engineering journal. The science is in the physical mechanisms.

Hey, we "might" get hit by an asteroid next month, but we're not building a planetary defense system.

We are actively studying such a system.

EM fields "might" cause cancer, but we have cellphones.

There is no known feasible mechanism for this at typically encountered field strengths, and statistical studies are pretty clear (wrt EM fields in general, cell-phones are another issue).

GM crops "might" have an environmental impact, but we grow them.

We have many rules and regulations regarding GM crops, we have institutions set up to deal with them. That’s all that is being suggested wrt climate change atm.

I "might" have a nasty accident driving home, but I'm going to anyway.

Not relevant in any way. More relevant would be ‘Smoking ‘might’ give me cancer but I continue anyway.

I agree with the basics of your suggestions, esp #7. #5 sounds very close to much of what Kyoto has to say. Quite well thought out. Each one could be its own thread though and this post is already long enough.

 

[gene90]

This sort of thing makes you look bad. Carlos didn’t suggest we get rid of agriculture. He was pointing out the depth with which we understand anthropogenic climate change.

I know what Carlos said.

However, Pikachu sounds like he thinks we should get rid of anything that 'alters the energy budget'. The paper cited by Carlos shows that farming seems to do that.

You spend a lot of time criticizing my comprehension of certain papers, and it's condescending.

I understand how you must feel about it, but if you insist on doing that, you should at least pay attention to the context of my own arguments.

Of course there are holdouts, mostly people funded directly from sources with a large interest in denying that CO2 has any affect on climate.

Logical fallacy: poisoning the well.

Or, how would you like turnabout?

Hey GothMog, you're in a program funded by grants, many of which are there because of concern over anthropogenic climate change, correct?

Suppose I think that you have a vested interested in it?

Now you need to define what you mean by global warming.

When people, at least the general public, talk about "global warming", the meaning is clear.

Climate is supposedly getting warmer because of technological CO2 emission.

Yet you are unable to show the cause and effect.

Your claim that: the correlation between the sun and climate is so strong that ‘it leaves little room for anthropogenic influence, or much of anything else’, has no science to back it up. As I said before no reputable scientist would make this claim.

Despite that I gave you a link to an article by a reputable scientist making the claim. Would you like another one?

You construct your process model with the benefit of knowledge of the physical processes involved. The science is in the knowledge of the processes, and in the prediction. Then you let the craft fly and hope you were right. This is what it means to predict, you don’t really know if you are right until the event takes place. You place your bets on knowledge of the science involved.

In other words, you can't test your models...

So this non-falsifiable argument is a non-starter.

This confirms that anthropogenic GW is non-falsifiable. You can't test it. You said so above. It isn't science. I don't think this is negotiable.

If I know how much CO2 concentrations have increased over 10 years, I should have a temperature rise to go with it. You've been saying that it isn't necessary true.

Well, either global warming is real or it isn't. CO2 is up, there had better be a warming...if there isn't, GW is in serious trouble. You can talk about "thresholds" all day long, but they sound like handwaving to me. When you imply the existance of a "threshold", you really mean that temps should be going up but aren't and you don't have a clue why, but surely you're not wrong...that would be unthinkable.

Without that warming, the models fail the test. I'm sure you and your colleagues have developed some fine software. But sooner or later, it's time to come out of the basement and look at the real world.

Please argue the science if you will, I’ve laid much of it out for you and you continue to respond with hand waving, and reliance on opinion pieces in a petroleum engineering journal.

Ok great. We will have a clear consensus for GW. As long as GothMog is allowed to pick and choose what constitutes a consensus.


EDIT: Do you not agree that it is entirely possible to know so little about a system that you can't even test your assumptions?

 

[Gothmog]

Logical fallacy: poisoning the well.

Or, how would you like turnabout?

Hey GothMog, you're in a program funded by grants, many of which are there because of concern over anthropogenic climate change, correct?

Suppose I think that you have a vested interested in it?

I am not currently funded on any such program, but I have been in the past. I agree that there is a potential conflict of interests there. However, my funding does not depend on such programs. I am a federal employee with much job security. But really the conflict of interests would only occur if my funding depended on the answers to the questions I posed. Peer reviewed grants do not, funding from private institutions sometimes do. Not always, but sometimes. We also need to distinguish between scientists and lobbyists.

But my point was simply about the scientists that I am aware of who deny that greenhouse gasses have increased the ability of our atmosphere to retain heat and that it is significant enough to affect climate (a reasonable definition of what is meant by global warming IMO). I did say mostly, and I do know of a few. The consensus is very strong though. There are still hold outs on plate tectonics as well, doesn’t mean that there is no consensus.

Despite that I gave you a link to an article by a reputable scientist making the claim. Would you like another one?

Do you mean the link that I originally provided about cosmic rays and climate? Have you read it? Did you read what I said about it above? or previously? It says nothing like the quote that you led off with in this thread. I have spoken to the first author of that paper (after a talk at the fall AGU meeting in 2004, he chaired a session on clouds and climate), and I can assure you he would never make such an asinine claim. He is a good scientist and I am interested in cloud models.

In other words, you can't test your models...

Boy, you go from smart to stupid real quick. I’m not going to rewrite my above post. I think it speaks for its self. Validation is an important part of science and every process model that goes into a climate model has been validated in some way. If you want to argue about the science you are going to have to be more specific.

As for the personal insults, I am not a climate modeler and have never been. I described what I do in previous posts. You seem to have some personal stake in this argument, I’m not sure why though.

Do you not agree that it is entirely possible to know so little about a system that you can't even test your assumptions?

Yes, it is possible. For example anything that happened previous to the big bang as far as I am aware.

But this question, in this context, makes me think that you are completely unaware of what a process model is and haven’t been reading my posts?

 

[gene90]

But my point was simply about the scientists that I am aware of who deny that greenhouse gasses have increased the ability of our atmosphere to retain heat and that it is significant enough to affect climate (a reasonable definition of what is meant by global warming IMO). I did say mostly, and I do know of a few.

Well that's interesting because I'm not even around people currently involved in the oil industry. The ones who are cynical of GW are generally climate people who have nothing to gain by it. However, your pointing out that they have something to gain is still poisoning the well, and it is still fallacious reasoning.

There are still hold outs on plate tectonics as well, doesn’t mean that there is no consensus.

That's funny because I've never encountered one.

Do you mean the link that I originally provided about cosmic rays and climate? Have you read it? Did you read what I said about it above? or previously? It says nothing like the quote that you led off with in this thread.

No, because I had not read that paper when I started in this thread. But it does support solar forcing, if my memory serves me. Do I have to go look it up and pull quotes?

You seem to have some personal stake in this argument, I’m not sure why though.

Well, I'm about done with my bachelor's in geoscience (professional geology) and plan to start in a graduate program in the near future. My aspirations are academic, my interests are in planetary geology, though if I get there through seds I won't rule out the possibility of consulting work on the side because I obviously don't have any political problems with the energy sector. I have never worked for the energy sector, I have never received any energy sector scholarship. No member of my family has ever worked in the energy sector. Some of the meetings I have attended probably have been partly underwritten by oil companies though.

But yeah, I have a personal stake in this argument. I'm a part of the American economy.

But this question, in this context, makes me think that you are completely unaware of what a process model is and haven’t been reading my posts?

All of this is irrelevant to the apparent fact that GW is a non-falsifiable construct!

If you are saying that more CO2 causes higher temperatures, then a reasonable person would suggest that we should see an increase in global temperature when we have an increase of CO2. This should be noticeable on at least a decadal scale. Is it?

My opinion of GW is now lower than it was when we began.

When you launch a spacecraft you construct a process model of its hypothetical flight path and all its actions. In your context this is a ‘non falsifiable’ prediction I guess.

This is the same argument made by many creationists in the ToE debates, and is based on a misunderstanding of what science does.

You construct your process model with the benefit of knowledge of the physical processes involved. The science is in the knowledge of the processes, and in the prediction. Then you let the craft fly and hope you were right. This is what it means to predict, you don’t really know if you are right until the event takes place. You place your bets on knowledge of the science involved.

In the above you confuse science with engineering. And it is a bad analogy because it doesn't have any homology with the idea of falsification.

In science, when you construct a theory, (an intellectual construct to explain a body of data, in this case, the alleged increase in temperature since 1850), it makes predictions and has potential falsifications. Without these falsifications, a theory cannot be really tested, so its truth or falsity can never be known.

Global Warming is a "theory" of the worst kind. To paraphrase Wolfgang Pauli, (on a very different theory), 'It's so bad, it's not even wrong...'.

Here we go:

http://marr.bsee.swin.edu.au/~dtl/het704/lecture3/logfals/node18.html

Generally speaking the more falsifiable a theory is the better a theory it is. This is for the reason that the more a theory claims, the more opportunities exist to find observation statements that are inconsistent with it. Theories that make wide-ranging claims are considered to be epistemologically more desirable than those that don not (assuming they have not been falsified). Science aims at producing theories with large information content.

 

[Gothmog]

Do I have to go look it up and pull quotes?

gene90, you just have to read it. As I have done. I would not have posted the reference otherwise. You seem intelligent, just read it without your rose colored glasses. Then do a ‘future search’ on it.

The reason I keep questioning your interpretation of things is because you keep posting things you don't understand and haven't even looked at carefully. Starting with the original sun spot graph, and going downhill since then.

I have no problem with the petroleum industry, I enjoy the fruits of their labor. Have I suggested otherwise?

I understand science, and am not confusing it with engineering. As I said, if you make a prediction about something that will happen in 150 years, you cannot falsify it for 150 years. If you make a prediction about the existence of an unknown particle, you must wait until the accelerator is built that can reach energies high enough to produce the particle. Do you get that?

I was saying that a climate model is made up of process models, and each is individually falsifiable and has been validated. That's where we could actually talk about science, as I have tried to do. The weakest process model is ‘cloud physics’ as I have mentioned, not ‘radiative transfur’.

Many scientists think that we are currently observing anthropogenic warming, the evidence certainly isn't indisputable yet (no consensus) and could be due to natural causes. I've never said otherwise. But climate models have done a good job of modeling the temperature trends of the last century. That is one form of validation.

There are too many references for me to go over here in this area. I suggest you read the “2001 IPCC report - Working Group I: The Scientific Basis” to start. Then do a ‘future search’ on the key references therein. The IPCC will be releasing a new report soon that will summarize work done since then. I can’t be arsed.

Are you saying that you know a lot of people in the business of climate studies who don't agree with this quote from my above post?

greenhouse gasses have increased the ability of our atmosphere to retain heat and that it is significant enough to affect climate

I find that hard to believe, but I guess anything is possible.

I work with a very conservative group of scientists and engineers, many of whom don't believe anything that comes from coupled climate models (I myself am quite a skeptic). But they all agree with that quote.

The funny thing is that we agree on much with regard to the proper steps to be taken, and that you have not once actually attacked the science I've described. You need to chill and think before you post.

 

[BasketCase]

I understand science, and am not confusing it with engineering. As I said, if you make a prediction about something that will happen in 150 years, you cannot falsify it for 150 years.

ADVANCE WARNING: This is another one of those posts with the thingy about natural global warming ten thousand years ago.


When there's more than one possible source that can produce the result you can predict, you need to do more: you need to know what caused that result.

We know the planet had at least two natural temerature spikes (to levels higher than today) with no help from humans. We need to know whether our current spike is human-caused or natural. Right now we don't.

If our much-vaunted computer simulations can't account for today's temperature spike without including human-caused global warming in the model, then there must be a problem with the simulations, because we damn well CAN account for today's temperature spike without including human-caused global warming: it could be an entirely natural spike just like ten thousand years ago.

 

[Pikachu]

Hey Pikachu, are you a Young-Earth Creationist?

When I put a smiley in the end of the sentence you take me seriously! That’s great, I’ll try to do that more often.

However, Pikachu sounds like he thinks we should get rid of anything that 'alters the energy budget'.

What? Where did you get that idea? I have stressed that we should be able to discuss how real global warming is independently from what we may or may not want to do about it.

As I said before: “I am in the camp that believes in the science that proves that global warming is a real concern, but still is not willing to do anything dramatic to avoid the problem.” I guess you thought that was sarcasm since I didn’t include a smiley, so I’ll give it an other try: I am not willing to do anything dramatic to avoid global warming! (This is not sarcasm!)

 

[Gothmog]

If our much-vaunted computer simulations can't account for today's temperature spike without including human-caused global warming in the model, then there must be a problem with the simulations, because we damn well CAN account for today's temperature spike without including human-caused global warming: it could be an entirely natural spike just like ten thousand years ago.

It seems you are criticizing climate models for not sufficiently linking cause and effect (though you wont detail that failure and basically ignore my many posts on cause and effect), and then are saying you can account for today's temperature spike without invoking cause and effect at all. Indeed, without even proposing a mechanism…

Heh, not much I can do to convince you I see. Maybe you should say something about all the holes in the theory of climate change again. That's good stuff. I’ve always been too into details.

 

[BasketCase]

It seems you are criticizing climate models for not sufficiently linking cause and effect (though you wont detail that failure and basically ignore my many posts on cause and effect), and then are saying you can account for today's temperature spike without invoking cause and effect at all.

I can. The temperature spikes that happened ten thousand years ago obviously could not have been caused by humans, because there were no such things as cars or factories--the only greenhouse gases we humans were producing were when we ate beans for lunch.

Therefore the Earth itself produced the spikes. We don't need to know any more than that; we know the Earth has natural temperature fluctuations without human assistance.

 

[carlosMM]

I can. The temperature spikes that happened ten thousand years ago obviously could not have been caused by humans, because there were no such things as cars or factories--the only greenhouse gases we humans were producing were when we ate beans for lunch.

Therefore the Earth itself produced the spikes. We don't need to know any more than that; we know the Earth has natural temperature fluctuations without human assistance.

Your logic is (as usual in this thread) flawed:

We CAN account for many previous, non-human caused spikes.
The smae models CANNOT account for TODAYS spike without human influence.

Only logical conclusion: if what did ti before doesn't do it now, it must now be a new factor - man!


Also, if you'd read the paper I posted you'd know that this is nonsense:

the only greenhouse gases we humans were producing were when we ate beans for lunch.

Ruddiman disproves that notion quite well, thank you!

 

[BasketCase]

Here's a little more fuel for the fire!

Global Warming -- on NEPTUNE!

Explanation: In the 1960s spring came to the southern hemisphere of Neptune, the Solar System's outermost gas giant planet. Of course, since Neptune orbits the Sun once every 165 earth-years, it's still springtime for southern Neptune, where each season lasts over four decades. Astronomers have found that in recent years Neptune has been getting brighter as illustrated in this Hubble Space Telescope image made in 2002. Compared to Hubble pictures taken as early as 1996, the 2002 image shows a dramatic increase in reflective white cloud bands in Neptune's southern hemisphere. Neptune's equator is tilted 29 degrees from the plane of its orbit, about the same as Earth's 23.5 degree tilt, and Neptune's weather seems to be dramatically responding to the similar relative seasonal increase in sunlight -- even though sunlight is 900 times less intense for the distant gas giant than for planet Earth. Meanwhile, summer is really just around the corner, coming to Neptune's southern hemisphere in 2005.

Now, this could be ammunition for BOTH sides, depending how ya play yer cards: on the one hand, since Earth gets 900 times more sunlight than Neptune, we could be in 900 times more trouble! Or, if environment and weather patterns respond to a tiny change in sunlight reception on Neptune, it could be argued that a tiny change in solar emissions could have 900 times stronger effects on Earth's temperature and weather, making Earth's weather 900 times more unpredictable, throwing 900 times more chaos into our computer models, and lending 900 times more weight to the theory that Earth's environment is responding to changes in solar emissions.

Have fun!

 

[carlosMM]

finally have some time to answer a few of yours, gene:

A move to "alternative" energy would be irresponsible socially, economically, and environmentally. If CO2 is the only reason for the shift, I'll stick with fossil, thank you.

Care to give some sources that show this?

Also, we've been discussing methane etc. long enough here to make your flippant remark seem rather uninformed.

Let's assume that economic models and climate models are equally understood and both are flawed.
In that case we don't know if anthropogenic GW is happening, and we don't know what Kyoto will cost.
That makes your point moot.
Why?
Because if you don't have GW, you don't have a need for Kyoto.

If, if, if!

But climate models are quite good, so your basic assupmtion is out the window.

Ok. We'll put the GaAs solar cell plant across the street from your kids' school, and the windfarm next to your house. Cheers.

What a cheap - and stupoid - shot: you also do not place a coal plant in a residential area. Somehow it seems you are opposed to alternative energy sources and will tkae any argument, idiotic or wrong, to make them appear 'bad'. Why?

For those who don't know, there are very real environmental issues that don't involve CO2, and most alternative energy sources are kind of hard on them.

You'll have to elaborate a bit on that, as most alternative sources are quite free of CO2, SOx, NOx etc.
I for one have hardly ever heard of serious concerns.

GW is the only thing that keeps modern coal plants from being the best energy source we have in terms of environmental quality.

Bull, even the best coal plants are pumping quite a bit of other dirt into the air, along with all the damdge the coal mining does coal is nto really nice.

Think carefully before you suggest we give it up.

Done.
Coal = no good.

CarlosMM: how do you feel about the papers that still blame solar forcing on most climate changes for the last 10,000 years? That one in Science comes to mind. Cosmic Rays, Clouds, and Climate, I think it has already been refered to in this thread.

has been addressed.
Several factors:
1) the 11 year cycles are BS
2) soon after the paper was published the apparent correlation went to pieces. Tmep kept going up, solar cylces kept going down. Oops.
3) historic data doesn't indicate a correlation - otherwise you would not get such a good fit with the currently favored explanantions.

 

[carlosMM]

How do I test the theory of anthropogenic global warming in a timely manner? What are the potential falsifications?

Not. At least not to the fare-thee-well that people with interests in oil will require.

Sufficiently for a scientifically minded independent observer: take past climate data, model on from there with all factors included excpet man, see if it fits later past data.
Continue doing that, starting as early as possible, until your model fails.
If your model is good it will not fail - not until man's influence starts.

Redo - now include man. You should now get todays climate.

If I present you with evidence of a past CO2 increase without a following increase in temperature, will you concede defeat?

For the tenthousands time: IT IS NOT ONLY CO2!!!

If you factor in all other things as well and STILL there is a massive divergence between expectancy and data, THEN I will say our models are too simple and our understnading insufficient.

Do you agree that without potential falsifications, a tenet cannot be science? If you can present no potential falsifications, will you concede defeat?

Yep. See above.

 

[carlosMM]

So does farming, if you believe CarlosMM's cite.

Let's get rid of agriculture.

another flippant remark that you should know is BS. if you check Ruddiman's charts (especially the one I posted), you'll see that WITHOUT farming we might be at the beginning of an ice age.

Nobody here wants to lower CO2 levels to below-1900 levels, probably note ven below-2000 levels.

let's just not blast EVEN MORE of the stuff into the athmosphere!

You know, that's great and all, except that the current source of hydrogen is natural gas. You're still dumping CO2 into the atmosphere. How about that MIT study that found that current gasoline hybrids are as efficient as a hydrogen car prior to 2020? (By which time we will supposedly get H2 from electrolytic dissociation of water).

How about you inform yourself about the fuel cell projects on the webpages of e.g. Daimler-Chrysler? They use H2 from H2O splitting, which can be done with solar power. And they have repeatedly admitted that more and timely funding would have sped this along a lot, and that widespread use of hybrid cars TODAY would have been feasible.

 

[carlosMM]

Well, "Gaia" seems to have been running things for the last three billion years or so, and I don't see that changing.

Look at the casualty rate!

Ok. So you are saying that I can dump CO2 into the atmosphere and not increase temperature?

You just say that that will change some other variable, and you can't say where?

This is sounding more and more like a non-falsifiable (non-scientific) premise.

For Christs sake, this is not a lecture hall!

But, ehre you go: if you dump Co2 from volcanic action, then it may also happen that you at the same time, due to the same palte tectonics that cause the CO2 outgassing, get a drying-up of swamps. This can reduce methane. Les greeenhouse effect vs more greenhouse effect.

Just one example...

 

[carlosMM]

In fact, there is a state climatologist upstairs that doesn't believe in global warming.

There is a paleontology professor in the US who doesn't believe in evolution.

Nuts exist.

Doesn't make them right.

Show me your list of Johns!

Climate is not static. It is always changing, what it is doing depends on which timescale you are interested in (you can make it do whatever you want it to do just by choosing the interval over which to plot). This is also why the 150 year curve doesn't necessarily mean anything.

Oh, and it's either getting warmer or colder. Your model had a good chance of passing this test to begin with. And if it didn't fail, you would've just gone back to tinker with variable until you did get one that passed.

ah yes, some commonplace trivia.
Sadly, you fail to address the issue: that 150 years are MORE THAN SUFFICIENT for massive changes - let me give you an example where 10 seconds are: a large meteorite strike!

Also, you chose to ignore that one needs to look at the appropriate scale FOR THE APPROPRIATE TREND - that your method and your data must fit your question.

If you look at earths climate from around 50 billion years ago to today you get an incredible heatin trend lately - simply because interstellar nebula tend to be very cold

 

[carlosMM]

We should continue as we are now, until technology progresses to a point where we can get energy from a less environmentally disruptive source (fusion, or offworld). Until then, the best sources are fission and fossil.

crap claim: less environmetally disruptive energy sources than coal and oil are well known. Wind, water, fusion.

EDIT: The issue is important because the only real indictments against modern fossil fuel technology are limited (though still plentiful) supply and GW. When you get past the CO2 emission, you see that the plants are cheap to construct, don't involve a lot of toxic substances, don't take up much area, and can be built near the end user's physical location, to minimize transmission losses and costs. They're not pretty to look at but don't require us to cover Arizona with solar cells or North Dakota with windmills. They are also not subject to the vagaries of climate and don't have the maintenance costs of large areas of equipment exposed to the open environment.

True - but they cook a very large area, roughly 5.1x10ttpo18 cmxcm.

In short, if we're running off of coal (or nukes) I can tuck the plant away someplace convenient. But if we're talking about solar or wind, where the energy distribution is so much more diffuse, the plants are going to be everywhere, and it will be expensive (in terms of money, resources, labor, land, and environmental quality).

But a LOT cheaper in cleanup.

It frustrates me how so few people seem to come close to seeing "the big picture" with environmental issues.

It frustrates me how so few people who deny GW see the big picture of many factors and choose to focus one one factor to support their claim.

"Renewable" energy sources aren't necessarily good for the environment.

But fossil fules are definately bad.

And they certainly don't come without significant environmental costs, as well as economic.

Though much less so than fossil fuels.

 

[carlosMM]

Evidence? Where's that?

The evidence for GW is a recent increase in temperature, whereas there have always been natural fluctuations in temperature, there is no particular reason to think that people are the cause.

The rest are models, oversimplified abstractions of reality that sometimes meet observations.

false - the 'rest' is a lot of very smart reasoning, testing and measuring. They usually meet reality fairly well.

Also, this it utter nonsense:

The evidence for GW is a recent increase in temperature, whereas there have always been natural fluctuations in temperature, there is no particular reason to think that people are the cause.

for the following reasons:
- not all temp changes have the same reason
- most historic ones can be well explained
- all these explanations FAIL to explaint he recent rise.


OOPS!


Can you in ANY way explian the recent rise without massive man-made greenhouse gasses in the athmosphere?

 

[carlosMM]

I know what Carlos said.

However, Pikachu sounds like he thinks we should get rid of anything that 'alters the energy budget'. The paper cited by Carlos shows that farming seems to do that.

You spend a lot of time criticizing my comprehension of certain papers, and it's condescending.

Nope, you are constantly (intentionally, methingks) misinterpreting statements - then point out that they are nonsense. Well, YOU mad ethem nonsense.

Quite obviously pikachu was NOT talking about the last 8000 years, but only the last 150 years

Logical fallacy: poisoning the well.

Or, how would you like turnabout?

Hey GothMog, you're in a program funded by grants, many of which are there because of concern over anthropogenic climate change, correct?

Suppose I think that you have a vested interested in it?

Well, will gothmog get paid if he fins climate change is NOT our fault?

Hell yes!

Will Exxon sell more oil if it is clearly ruining our world?

I am starting to doubt that.

there you go!

When people, at least the general public, talk about "global warming", the meaning is clear.

Climate is supposedly getting warmer because of technological CO2 emission.

Yet you are unable to show the cause and effect.

Would you please pull your head out of the sand?
It has been shown clearly here in this very thread!

Despite that I gave you a link to an article by a reputable scientist making the claim. Would you like another one?

And this article was debunked repeatedly. For a variety of reasons.

In other words, you can't test your models...

You cannot test them in vivo if you have only one system. But you can test in a lab no sweat.

This confirms that anthropogenic GW is non-falsifiable. You can't test it. You said so above. It isn't science. I don't think this is negotiable.

Duh! You mis-quote, twist words, then base your argumentation on that

I am uised to this style of debate - but only from creationists or adamant fundamentalists.

If I know how much CO2 concentrations have increased over 10 years, I should have a temperature rise to go with it. You've been saying that it isn't necessary true.

Yes, indeed. So?

Well, either global warming is real or it isn't. CO2 is up, there had better be a warming...if there isn't, GW is in serious trouble. You can talk about "thresholds" all day long, but they sound like handwaving to me. When you imply the existance of a "threshold", you really mean that temps should be going up but aren't and you don't have a clue why, but surely you're not wrong...that would be unthinkable.

Yaddayaddayadda, the old 'reduce a complex system to one facor, then show that oenf actor doesn't do it all' argument. Doesn't get any more sensible by reheating!

Without that warming, the models fail the test. I'm sure you and your colleagues have developed some fine software. But sooner or later, it's time to come out of the basement and look at the real world.

Please do come out, willya?