The Global Warming Thread

[CaptainF]

Global Warming is real.

 

[Babbler]

I was going to start a similar thread. They say that great minds think alike; I wonder what happened here?

Mediocre minds hit upon the same idea.

I have mixed feelings about climate change. The medicine against climate change is also the medicine for poverty, social chaos, crime, unhappiness and resource shortages etc. I think that without climate change there would be no incentive to fix these other problems.

'Greening up' will create millions of jobs, redistribute wealth into the countryside, reduce war and the areas with good sunlight and spur technological advancement. It's starting to do that now. This medicine is extremely potent (a panacea), but we won't accept it unless climate change skeptics are humbled.

Basketcase get humble immediately!

Shouldn't you get follow your own advice? 'Greening up' may provide many benefits, but a panacea? I doubt it. The countryside will always be poorer than the cities, wars will still occur, etc.

 

[azzaman333]

I refuse to trust scientists. If you watch movies, there is always an evil scientist trying to help the bad guy. Always!

 

[tossi]

Global Warming is of course real and it is ridiculous that some people still refuse to accept it.

 

[Xenocrates]

What I was trying to say in my boring last post is that the existance of my loaf of bread depends on the cooperation of thousands of people. In the past it was probably a dozen people of so. This type of cooperation requires functioning legal systems, finance systems and governments. I don't think that these systems will survive rapid onset climate change.

Shouldn't you get follow your own advice? 'Greening up' may provide many benefits, but a panacea? I doubt it. The countryside will always be poorer than the cities, wars will still occur, etc.

The countryside will have abundant energy, water and food and the cities won't. Wealth isn't money you know!

 

[BasketCase]

Oh don't worry I forgive you for having a SUV

I was only kidding anyway, Basket Case has gone from being a big hell no to a big don't know, that's a good thing.

Sidhe, I have been undecided on global warming for five entire global warming threads. If I'm wrong, then quote me.

Gotcha.

A computer that receives bad input is gonna give bad output. Get the right input, folks. I'm undecided on global warming. Stop mis-reading that as "hell no".

 

[azzaman333]

Global Warming is of course real and it is ridiculous that some people still refuse to accept it.

Global Warming is the same as god. A myth, yet so many people believe it. (IMO)

(Do not get offended religious people. This is not the time nor place.)

 

[Grohan]

Global warming is 100% real.

Winters are much warmer and summers too! When my mother was young (about 40 years ago) the winters were much colder. It wasn't unusual if temperature was as low as -30°C by then. But nowadays temperature hardly reaches -20°C and something like -5°C is typical temperature.
Summers are also much warmer and summer of 2003 was the hottest summer for ages.

Of course people in warm countries don't notice it because it's always warm there.

 

[Atropos]

That depends how you look at it. Right now the UK grows little of it's food so there isn't even a monoculture.

Which makes it much less vulnerable, economically, to food price shocks, since it doesn't produce much food.

Our transport is inferior because it relies of fossil fuels. After the collapse of our currency, which is inevitable if we get hit hard or our trading partners get hit hard, we'd be unable to buy automobiles or fuel.

All of this presupposes what you wish to prove, i.e. that global warming would create major disruption.

At the time that you are talking about the countryside provided the building materials, the transport fuel (oats) and the food. Now it provides more or less only food. We are dependent upon energy for all of our income and the energy supply will be interupted by weather changes. If wind speeds increase we can kiss goodbye to lorries. If sea weather deteriorates we can kiss goodbye to mass import and export. Same with air transport.

Wind speeds are volatile. So is sea weather. Please cite a study indicating that global warming would affect transport.

By the way, please note that when I'm talking about improved transport, I mean more and better roads. The last famine in England occurred in the 1590s and was a direct consequence of the inability to move large quantities of food over the poor roads of the period. Our roads are not going to disappear because it is even 20 degrees warmer or colder.

Other things are produced by PLC's that are likely to need restructuring if the finance system collapses. A breakdown of trust in these organisations will cause the failure of companies completely. I don't know about the overcrowding, but relatively speaking we can't spread our popluation because of the small matter of land ownership. That would need to be changed.

Once again, I am afraid that you are assuming what you wish to prove. Evidence, please, that the financial system would collapse? There was a financial system of sorts in the fourteenth century, you know, and the climate change had very little impact on it. As for your point concerning land ownership, it is obvious that you do not like private ownership of land, but please do not extrapolate from that preference to the assumption that future events will bear you out. Or are you really unaware that there was private property in land in the fourteenth century?

The black death may have been spread with human migration. Climate change will necessitate migration and, therefore another black death will occur.

The black death occurred thirty years after the main impact of climate change had passed.

We won't have any government as it derives it's power from taxation and people won't pay it when there's an imperative to hoard money and goods. I don't see how democracy can survive and maybe it shouldn't.

Once again, you are assuming rather than proving that there will be disruption. Government was not disrupted in the early fourteenth century and there is no particular reason to believe that it would be disrupted now.

There'd be wars over water. The Americans really covet Canadian water for example even now. Not all wars will be country v country as people from the harder hit regions (maybe Scotland for example) may migrate on masse and be shot at, or filthy southerners may demand our water. Wars would have to be taken into consideration and the likelyhood of WMD's being used and of course nuclear accidents. What happens when heavy snow and wind cuts off a nuclear power station for weeks? Would the staff be able to cope?

Sigh. Evidence, please? You seem to have a rather selective view of the utility of the scientific method.

There's lots of problems that could come out of climate change. Sure we may be able to solve them but not easily.

There are lots of problems that could come out of the explosion of the sun. We do not, however, have any particular reason to believe that these problems would come out of climate change. All that I can say is that, in the historical example which has most similarity to our own, no such problems occurred.

Please forgive me if any of the above sounds offensive. That is not its intent. I am simply pointing out that it appears to me that many of the assumptions people make about what "would" happen seem to me to be hyperbole in view of the undramatic nature of what happened before.

 

[Sidhe]

Sidhe, I have been undecided on global warming for five entire global warming threads. If I'm wrong, then quote me.

Gotcha.

A computer that receives bad input is gonna give bad output. Get the right input, folks. I'm undecided on global warming. Stop mis-reading that as "hell no".

I was referring to you starting off on one thread extremely dismissive of any evidence and then by the end you said I don't know or I'm undecided. That's the way I saw it progress, if that's not how you felt then excuse me for misinterpriting what you said.

Prove the input is eroneous and then you can of course make the argument that global warming models are bullfeathers, trouble is there are a lot of very qualified people making these models and arguments, doesn't mean they aren't wrong, but you'd have to know a great deal about statistical modelling and climatolgoy to argue with them so good luck with that. If nothing else looking at the last long thread you must of learnt a good deal about global warming though?

 

[tomsnowman123]

It is real, and we need to do what we can to stop/prevent making it worse now.

 

[Xenocrates]

Wave speed and height is a function of wind speed and water depth. Atmospheric warming will increase average wind speeds and pressure differentials and increase wave power. This will obviously increase the risk to shipping.

Since we cannot grow enough food of our own, we are more vulnerable because we are at the mercy of more than the localised weather conditions. As in the little ice age, sea ice will inhibit ocean trade. Since we are more dependent on imports, this will obviously affect us more.

About road transport, we need roads now more than in previous centuries because of urbanisation. More food has to be transported for greater distances. Higher wind speeds will cause high-sided lorries to stay off the roads for longer periods. Same if winters are extended, snowy or colder.

The strength of the pound depends on a lot of things, including our trade balance. I feel that since it's quite obvious that the economy would be slowed by severe weather, as it was during the little ice age, that the burden of proof is on you! If warming occurs in the tropics and cooling in Europe, which is likely, where will we import food from? What will we give in exchange?

As far as migration is concerned, I don't see how under rapid onset climate change, we'd have the chance to modify our legal sytem to cope with refugees. The little ice age was slow onset and still had significant effects:

The Great Famine of 1315-1317 (or to 1322) was the first of a series of large-scale crises that struck Europe early in the 14th century, causing millions of deaths over an extended number of years and marking a clear end to an earlier period of growth and prosperity during the 11th through 13th centuries. Starting with bad weather in the spring of 1315, universal crop failures lasted through 1316 until the summer of 1317; Europe did not fully recover until 1322. It was a period marked by extreme levels of criminal activity, disease and mass death, infanticide, and cannibalism. It had consequences for Church, State, European society and future calamities to follow in the 14th century.

If wiki is to be believed the last extended period of poor weather in Europe did have dire consequences despite being the result of a very modest 1 degree average temperature drop.

Or are you really unaware that there was private property in land in the fourteenth century?

I know enough to say that land ownership was different from today's system and that the authority from which ownership is derived was ultimately from the monarchy. You are asking me to believe that the authority of the government would not be damaged by it's failure to mitigate climate change! My model is that people would lose faith in any government system that had failed, despite copious warnings, to take action to protect us from climate change. People won't blame God any more.

I know the black death was later, but it was a result of migration.

I have only made the assumption that climate change will result in a cooler Europe. Everything else is straightforward. If Europe heats up, the huge demands made on our energy system will increase. I don't remember the number exactly, but Europe uses billions of KWh on air conditioning; this is increasing. Where will the energy come from? There'll be different problems, but still serious ones.

 

[C~G]

Yes, it is real but the matter of degree is still on the table.

I'm not really advocate of these doomsday predictions.
All I want to say is that truth is out there and be careful out there.

The world might get you some day, but like many people nowadays says, whatever.

 

[BasketCase]

Prove the input is eroneous and then you can of course make the argument that global warming models are <snip>

Will do.

Random Climate Web Site

Global and regional climate models have not demonstrated skill at predicting climate change and variability on multi-decadal time scales.

Done.

Different models are producing different results. Clearly, all of the models except one must be wrong. Which one is the correct one? Point it out to me, please.

Edit: I made a mistake in the line above. Only one climate model at most is correct. It's possible all of them are wrong.

Side note: before you call Dr. Ruddiman a crackpot, allow me to remind you that he says humans ARE responsible for global warming. His contention that said warming stopped an Ice Age, is of course mildly inconvenient for you--it makes the disaster "less bad".

 

[Sidhe]

I don't acknowledge his anecdotal evidence as scientific at all. I'm not sure what it is your looking for from me, what can I say accept people who hypothesise openly are generally labled as crackpots unless they provide detailed evidence of said events occuring instead of conjecture, I didn't make the rules.

That other web site doesn't have an oposition model it's merely trying to pick holes in the current one, so no it isn't the right model, it's genuinely trying to improve scientific modelling though by being the voice of contention, which is an example of good science. I can see why you are undecided, but with improvement in modelling directed by positive and negative feedback your concerns should be answered, let's hope your right eh? I certainly would love to see a business as usual scenario produce no harm to the planet, I'm just not foolish enough to believe that is definitely going to happen, to be honest few are, better to do something and have it proved fruitless than do nothing and suffer because of it.

 

[Tulkas12]

Global warming is definitely real, the question is does it matter. If we melt all the ice and loose venice does i matter that much. Would we gain antartica as a viable land mass? Considering that any ice that melts thats not on top of land doesn't displace any more water than the ice itself the north pole melting is totally irrelevant.

What I find more relevant is sustainability. We need off of fossil fuels.

 

[azzaman333]

Global cooling would be much more worrying imo. If everything freezes, we're doomed.

 

[CaptainF]

Global Warming is real. Question is, can we adapt?

 

[BasketCase]

I don't acknowledge his anecdotal evidence as scientific at all. I'm not sure what it is your looking for from me, what can I say accept people who hypothesise openly are generally labled as crackpots unless they provide detailed evidence

Dr. Ruddiman's got it. A sample:
http://cires.colorado.edu/events/lectures/ruddiman/

A different hypothesis is posed here: anthropogenic emissions of these gases first altered atmospheric concentrations thousands of years ago. This hypothesis is based on three arguments. (1) Cyclic variations in CO2 and CH4 driven by Earth-orbital changes during the last 350,000 years predict decreases throughout the Holocene, but the CO2 trend began an anomalous increase 8000 years ago, and the CH4 trend did so 5000 years ago. (2) Published explanations for these mid- to late-Holocene gas increases based on natural forcing can be rejected based on paleoclimatic evidence. (3) A wide array of archeological, cultural, historical and geologic evidence points to viable explanations tied to anthropogenic changes resulting from early agriculture in Eurasia, including the start of forest clearance by 8000 years ago and of rice irrigation by 5000 years ago.

It's more than just conjecture, he says he's got actual hard evidence to back it up. Don't assume that he doesn't have any ammunition just because you haven't seen it. Once you do see it, you've got lots of avenues to counter-argue: not enough evidence, or it has holes in it (and holes can be found in just about anything), or his research is wrong, or his research is a flat-out lie. Who knows.

And, that second-to-last link I posted wasn't supposed to be a counter to the large number of climate models we humans have made in an attempt to predict what's going to happen. That link was simply a summary of the final results we got from all those models: they widely disagree. The wider the span of results obtained from a set of studies, the less reliable are the conclusions drawn from said results. The simple fact that the results are all over the charts shows that our methods are far from perfect at the moment.

(What CivPhilZilla said earlier on)

 

[onejayhawk]

Different models are producing different results. Clearly, all of the models except one must be wrong. Which one is the correct one? Point it out to me, please.

Edit: I made a mistake in the line above. Only one climate model at most is correct. It's possible all of them are wrong.

Side note: before you call Dr. Ruddiman a crackpot, allow me to remind you that he says humans ARE responsible for global warming. His contention that said warming stopped an Ice Age, is of course mildly inconvenient for you--it makes the disaster "less bad".

Here is the meat of the argument. It is very difficult to determine to a statistical certainty that global warming is occuring at all, however polar ice sampling seems to have done that much--just barely, and over a 400 year base. The question of causation is not settled. Some argue that fossile fuel emmissions are the only reasonable factor, but that is specious in my mind. Too many factors, such as volcanic CO2 emmissions and onceanic diatom levels, figure into the equation.

One thing that seems clear, is that the calls for immediate reduction of vehicle exhausts are shaouting at the wind.

J