Finally, respectability

[Jay]

What’s that proof of?


The Liberals with a majority government said the gun registry would cost 2 million dollars. Lots of these people say lots of things......it doesn't prove anything.


There is no sense in pretending their is consensus here on so-called global warming, and the signs of desperateness are showing in the Kyoto crowd...we have a new term called ‘climate change denial’ trying to link historical wrongs and crimes to denying what the Kyoto crowd believes to be completely true. This crowd is for all intents and purposes a leftist crowd and the facts are more that this is a game of politics than it is anything else. Saying things like "these researchers are funded by oil money" are fine I suppose if we can say "these researchers and NGO's are leftists".....

Here's a link...

http://www.canada.com/nationalpost/financialpost/story.html?id=d0235a70-33f1-45b3-803b-829b1b3542ef&p=1

Another...

http://www.spiked-online.com/index.php?/site/article/1782/

There are plenty of reasons to be skeptical of the current trend in climate thinking.

Were are in a war against terror, something that actually kills people, our people, and wants to change our way of life in the West, but the left is all against that but support fanatically some kaka-mania accord as if the world is coming to an end....I don't get it other than to say I understand this “climate change” to be a game of politics.

I even hear the sun got a littler warmer.

 

[Tonington]

How about you come up with your own ideas then against global warming, instead of posting links to some marginal view of the current "debate". I'll admitt that Gore is by no means an expert on global warming or the science behind it, he does however show his audience models accepted by the majority of those who study the climate.

The "cooling trend" between 1940 and the 1980's, hmmm, what were we doing then that could have caused a cooling trend? Do you have any guesses?

I'm not at all against the war on terror, but I'm not so centered on the present that I cannot see trends which will affect our future. Left versus right poppycock. Anyone who understands climate change to be game of politics should look up scholarly articles written by scientists who understand the data and results, rather than posting journalistic news clips, which are heavilly political.

 

[#juan]

This would certainly catch my eye if I needed proof that that our climate was changing.

http://www.livescience.com/environment/060324_glacier_melt.html

 

[Tonington]

I challenge anyone who is against the anthropogenic global warming to present data for this. All I have ever seen from this group are sentances with one sided facts. Show me a graph, or table with collected data which discounts the disproportionate body of evidence for the causes of global warming. Any model at all which can explain this.

 

[Curiosity]

The way in which the temperatures before recording devices were invented are determined is from the measurements in ice cores, tree rings, and sediments laid down in lakes/oceans. The CO2 concentrations are measured in the tiny bubbles created when new snow falls and traps atmosphere before it freezes.

Thank you Tonington

When did they start "charting" the variations regarding "global warming caused by population and its bad habits???" It has to be a new science yes?

I am getting at this: What if the science has only logged in one trend - but over time it will reverse itself and cool and then warm, etc.? Have we been recording these events long enough to predict accurately with certainty that warming is all there is???

Why are we hysterical over one trend when the earth has been around longer than mankind and we have no idea if there is an alternate cycle in the future.

 

[Jay]

This would certainly catch my eye if I needed proof that that our climate was changing.

http://www.livescience.com/environment/060324_glacier_melt.html[/quote]


And it is cause for concern, at least for the moment....but what to do about it if we can do anything at all. We can't rush to conclusions without all the data or a complete understanding of the data.

A link from the same site your link is from says.

The bottom line, according to a group of experts not involved in any of these studies: Scientists don't know much about how sunlight interacts with our planet, and until they understand it, they can't accurately predict any possible effects of human activity on climate change.

http://www.livescience.com/environment/050505_earth_bright.html

I thought a changing climate and earth were all part of the natural process of things.....at the very least I didn't think everything was static.

 

[Tonington]

It definitely is not static, no one is arguing that. The evidence does however indicate that we are upsetting the natural balance of those changes.

There are infact things we can do, we can reduce our emmissions. Even if you don't agree that we are warming the earth, what about the toxic affects of our industry? Acid rain is ruining rivers here in Nova Scotia for fish like salmonids. The increasing rates of Asthma. Declining bio-diversity at a rate only seen in the past when the earth experienced both impact and large scale volcanic eruptions. Amphibians especially are an indicator species of the health of our planet. Frogs are in decline on every continent that they are found.

Curiousity, there is a negative feedback in the way the Earth can deal with rising CO2 and temperature. In the past, this has been large scale ice ages. This is what I fear most, once the earth warms too much, the balance will tip, and I believe the thermohaline convection which drives the warm currents in the oceans around the globe, and heats cooled melting ice water, will stop. If you look at the graphs of measured oscillation between warm and cold peroids, it seems as though we are menat to be cooling right now, and I'm certain that our CO2 emmissions have accelerated the timeline.

I'm by no means an expert on this, but I do have a good amateur understanding of the science involved. I suuggest you look at the data yourself, and draw your own conclusions.

 

[Curiosity]

How can it be accurate if it wasn't documented say prior to 5000 years ago???

We are new arrivals to this planet ... there is nothing to base any of this on ... except what we have in the here and now.

 

[Tonington]

The evidence for the CO2 and temperature is in the ice cores. Gore said you can "see" the line where the clean air accord was enacted. That was ridiculous of him to say. The data requires measuring devices which can analyze what temperature the ice froze at, and what the atmospheric concentrations of CO2 were when the bubbles trapped in the snowfall froze.

 

[#juan]

Here is a chart that shows very clearly the dramatic rise in the last few years. It gets almost vertical.

 

[jimmoyer]

[SIZE=+2]A Matter of Opinion[/SIZE]

[SIZE=+3]H[/SIZE]as manmade pollution in the form of carbon dioxide (CO2) and other gases caused a runaway Greenhouse Effect and Global Warming?
Before joining the mantra, consider the following:

[SIZE=-1]Compiled by R.S. Bradley and J.A. Eddy based on J.T. Houghton et al., Climate Change: The IPCC Assessment, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 1990 and published in EarthQuest, vo. 1, 1991.[/SIZE] [SIZE=-1]Courtesy of Thomas Crowley, Remembrance of Things Past: Greenhouse Lessons from the Geologic Record[/SIZE][SIZE=+2]1. [/SIZE]The idea that man-made pollution is responsible for global warming is not supported by historical fact. The period known as the Holocene Maximum is a good example-- so-named because it was the hottest period in human history. The interesting thing is this period occurred approximately 7500 to 4000 years B.P. (before present)-- long before human's invented industrial pollution.


(view full-size image)
Figure 1
[SIZE=+2]2. [/SIZE]CO2 in our atmosphere has been increasing steadily for the last 18,000 years-- long before humans invented smokestacks ( Figure 1). Unless you count campfires and intestinal gas, man played no role in the pre-industrial increases.
As illustrated in this chart of Ice Core data from the Soviet Station Vostok in Antarctica, CO2 concentrations in earth's atmosphere move with temperature. Both temperatures and CO2 have been steadily increasing for 18,000 years. Ignoring these 18,000 years of data "global warming activists" contend recent increases in atmospheric CO2 are unnatural and are the result of only 200 years or so of human pollution causing a runaway greenhouse effect.
Incidentally, earth's temperature and CO2 levels today have reached levels similar to a previous interglacial cycle of 120,000 - 140,000 years ago. From beginning to end this cycle lasted about 20,000 years. This is known as the Eemian Interglacial Period and the earth returned to a full-fledged ice age immediately afterward.



view full-size image
Figure 2
[SIZE=+2]3.[/SIZE] Total human contributions to greenhouse gases account for only about 0.28% of the "greenhouse effect" (Figure 2). Anthropogenic (man-made) carbon dioxide (CO2) comprises about 0.117% of this total, and man-made sources of other gases ( methane, nitrous oxide (NOX), other misc. gases) contributes another 0.163% .
Approximately 99.72% of the "greenhouse effect" is due to natural causes -- mostly water vapor and traces of other gases, which we can do nothing at all about. Eliminating human activity altogether would have little impact on climate change.



view full-size image
Figure 3
[SIZE=+2]4.[/SIZE][SIZE=+3] [/SIZE][SIZE=+1]If global warming is caused by CO2 in the atmosphere then does CO2 also cause increased sun activity too?[/SIZE]
This chart adapted after Nigel Calder (6) illustrates that variations in sun activity are generally proportional to both variations in atmospheric CO2 and atmospheric temperature (Figure 3).
Put another way, rising Earth temperatures and increasing CO2 may be "effects" and our own sun the "cause".

[SIZE=+3]F[/SIZE][SIZE=+2]U[/SIZE][SIZE=+3]N[/SIZE][SIZE=+3] [/SIZE][SIZE=+3]F[/SIZE][SIZE=+3]A[/SIZE][SIZE=+2]C[/SIZE][SIZE=+3]T[/SIZE][SIZE=+3]S[/SIZE][SIZE=+2] about CARBON DIOXIDE[/SIZE]

Of the 186 billion tons of CO2 that enter earth's atmosphere each year from all sources, only 6 billion tons are from human activity. Approximately 90 billion tons come from biologic activity in earth's oceans and another 90 billion tons from such sources as volcanoes and decaying land plants.

At 368 parts per million CO2 is a minor constituent of earth's atmosphere-- less than 4/100ths of 1% of all gases present. Compared to former geologic times, earth's current atmosphere is CO2- impoverished.

CO2 is odorless, colorless, and tasteless. Plants absorb CO2 and emit oxygen as a waste product. Humans and animals breathe oxygen and emit CO2 as a waste product. Carbon dioxide is a nutrient, not a pollutant, and all life-- plants and animals alike-- benefit from more of it. All life on earth is carbon-based and CO2 is an essential ingredient. When plant-growers want to stimulate plant growth, they introduce more carbon dioxide.

CO2 that goes into the atmosphere does not stay there but is continually recycled by terrestrial plant life and earth's oceans-- the great retirement home for most terrestrial carbon dioxide.

[SIZE=+1]If we are in a global warming crisis today, even the most aggressive and costly proposals for limiting industrial carbon dioxide emissions would have a negligible effect on global climate![/SIZE]

http://www.clearlight.com/~mhieb/WVFossils/ice_ages.html

​

 

[Jay]

It definitely is not static, no one is arguing that. The evidence does however indicate that we are upsetting the natural balance of those changes.

There are infact things we can do, we can reduce our emissions. Even if you don't agree that we are warming the earth, what about the toxic affects of our industry? Acid rain is ruining rivers here in Nova Scotia for fish like salmonids. The increasing rates of Asthma. Declining bio-diversity at a rate only seen in the past when the earth experienced both impact and large scale volcanic eruptions. Amphibians especially are an indicator species of the health of our planet. Frogs are in decline on every continent that they are found.

And I agree for the most part. Pollution is a problem we need to deal with. Toxins are a problem we need to deal with.

"Climate change" on the other hand may very well be a real phenomenon, but the debate is really pointed at predicting the future and what is actually causing this as this information will determine what we need to do and in what time frame if we can do anything about it at all. If it turned out for instance, solar flares were the cause of a 1 degree in warming would signing the Kyoto accord be a mistake? I say yes it would be. Does that mean that we shouldn't try to adopt cleaner strategies, no, but it does mean we don’t need to scream doom and gloom and say the sky is falling. Since I don't believe the sky is falling and the Kyoto camp is screaming to shut down all our industries I think its politics.

 

[jimmoyer]

Well said Jay.


Good post.

 

[Tonington]

CO2 concentrations impoverished now compared to earlier geological periods. True. In fact if it weren't for the large concentrations of CO2 from the volcanic activity in the early years of earth, life as we know it would not exist, we'd probably look more like Mars.


Carbon dioxide is largely a nutrient. Also true. But this has been a natural cycle long before we started adding to the concentrations. Plankton accounts for over 50% of our oxygen, the natural cycles in photosynthesis give off oxygen, then give off CO2.

The sun also plays a key role in the temperature regulation on Earth. These natural cycles are all part of the predictable warming and cooling trends. This is clearly evident in the models which show the temperature deviation over the past 400,000 years.

The simple fact is (at least my interpretation of the data) that when all known causes of global warming are modelled by computers, there is a large correlation between the experimental data and the measured data, until the more recent period of human civilization. What can cause this departure from natural cycles? Only when you account for the increased emmissions does the model accuarately follow the measured results. The sun hasn't radically changed, our axis of rotation is still all normal, the only factors I can tell which have changed are human causes: grenhouse gases and ozone depletion.

On a side note, i also think the cooling trend from the period between 1940-1980 is also anthropogenic. I believe our experiments with thermonuclear weapons is what caused the cooling trend, like a small scale nuclear winter, not nearly as bad as if the Yanks and Soviets had blasted the crap out of each other.

 

[#juan]

Does that mean that we shouldn't try to adopt cleaner strategies, no, but it does mean we don’t need to scream doom and gloom and say the sky is falling. Since I don't believe the sky is falling and the Kyoto camp is screaming to shut down all our industries I think its politics.

Nobody has to scream doom and gloom. The evidence is there. Glaciers that have been there for thousands of years are all but gone. We know to the degree that global temperatures have climbed over the last fifty years. With the temperature rise is a corresponding rise in CO2 levels. These are facts not theory. The sky might not be falling for us but what about our children.....or their children?

 

[Tonington]

As I just said, solar activity is part of the modelling which has eclipsed the measured data.

It's really quite simple. The technology exists now to reduce our emmissions back to levels before the 1990's. It will cost money, but it will also spur growth in a new industry. Our economy in Canada is largely based on energy. Energy, minerals, and financial companies make up 70% of our economy. It can't hurt any economy to diversify. I'm not saying we cut all petroleum products, thats not realistic, but to meet Kyoto regulations, we have the technology to do it right now, and we could still be using petroleum products.

Is it better to make changes now, and never know what would have been the consequences, all the while diversifying our economy, and contributing to better health of us all, and nature too? Or to wait on what catastrophes could happen? An ounce of prevention, I won't even finish that thought becaus ewe all know how that ends.

 

[Curiosity]

Tonington I mean no disrespect

If you are currently studying this phenomenae, perhaps you are getting one side of the issue only or are they teaching oppositional viewpoints? If so, they would probably be the only higher academic institution doing so.

There is a great deal of money to be made in the "Fight Against Global Warming" (drum roll here), because there is much fear of the "End Times" as preached by the global warming enthusiasts.

I have yet to read something satisfying and inclusive of both sides of the issue and assurance that what we have is documented fact from the first standing upright ape/man to this date.

It is not possible - we are working with recent information only and have no idea what Mother Nature has in store for us - we can't even control Hurricanes and Tornados....even though we can reasonably predict them.

 

[Tonington]

I am not studying this, I am currently working on an agricultural science degree. It's just one of the many issues I feel passionate about so I do devote a lot of time to it. It does have aspects which have shown up in some of my classes though, you can't really get an agricultural degree without some knowledge of the environment you have to work with.

I don't really prescribe to anything one particular study says. You have to view everything in context, so that means understanding the larger picture. My interest in science is the pursuit of truth. There are many truths to any subject matter, but by bringing all those truths together you can get at the core of the issue. I do not discount studies simply because they are contrary to things I've heard in the past, I look at the data,methods, results and conclusions. Then I try to fit it into that bigger picture I talked about. I have an inherent distrust for anything published by journalists. They have biases and interests which shape their stories. I trust data which is peer reviewed, that means that the study has met the criteria and criticisms of those in the field. There is no way to do that with most news stories.

I do trust the data that has been presented for the records we have. Just the same as I trust that if I have one gram of carbon-14, in 5730 years there will be half that much left. This has been proven mathematically. There are many known phenomena which we can use to analyze events which have allready passed. We can tell how old the Atlantic is by radio-dating the non-sedimenatary rock, or we could count the number of times the polarity of the volcanic rock reverses( though not as accurate). The point is we have identified means of evaluating information trapped by time for us to read now.

Hurricanes and tornados. Well I would suggest that we can't predict them that reliably yet. We can look at satelite or dopplar radar, and identify the storm cells and low pressure systems that will form a hurricane, or could spawn a tornado. But we can't predict them. Hurricane predictions have been shown time and again to be off. Even the forecasts of where they will land is inadequate. The weather is too unpredicable to be accurately predicted. However, long term climate is more easilly predictable. That is because we have trends which can be modelled. Of course it's never going to be perfect, there is no crystal ball.

 

[Tonington]

By the way you would have to try very hard to hurt my feelings, no disrespect at all, it's normal to question people.

I forgot something in your post, there is also money involved by those industries which have a vested interest against climate change. I hate to bring up the petro industry at risk of being labelled conspiracist, but they and other heavy polluting industries have no wish to incur more costs, and I'm sure they have probably spent money on research as well.

 

[Curiosity]

Torington

Thank you - as part of your Agricultural Sciences I can understand you would be of necessity interested in global climate trends....

You say:

The weather is too unpredicable to be accurately predicted. However, long term climate is more easilly predictable. That is because we have trends which can be modelled. Of course it's never going to be perfect, there is no crystal ball.

I have to respond: There is no crystal ball for anything. We do not have enough documented data to be
running around predicting global warming unless we are interested in setting up more funded bureaucratic nonsense - and I have seen enough of these failures to negate the whole concept until science comes up with some concrete long term reporting. As for weather being less predictable than long term climate - I believe we are arguing the same thing here - and both are unpredictable.

We have found ways to handle much extreme weather, and are fearful because we "expect" the worst from long term climate change - when there is a 50% chance it could be a complete opposite from the dire predictions we are given by those who amount to soothsayers - people with no real data.

Is anyone making plans for a global ice age? Why not? This is ridiculous to concentrate on one thing only.