Socialists in a Panic

[Dexter Sinister]

As a scientist myself...

I'd never have guessed from your posts that you're a scientist. What's your field?

 

[Extrafire]

Perhaps it isn't that harmful right now but according to people that monitor it, the concentration is climbing and it's almost doubled in the last 200 years.

with only beneficial effect. 15% increased plant growth, for example. I recall reading somewhere that CO2 becomes toxic at 6000 PPM, but if we were to burn all fossil fuel on earth in one month we wouldn't reach anywhere near that level. I've also read that at one time CO2 was at 8000 PPM but it didn't extinguish animal life so I don't know if 6000 PPM really is toxic. At any rate, it's the last thing anyone should worry about.

RealClimate: The Acid Ocean – the Other Problem with CO2 Emission

So even if the stuff doesn't affect the climate that much, it (along with SO2 and other pollutants) sure as heck affects the oceans.

Or maybe not.

In a striking finding that raises new questions about carbon dioxide’s (CO2) impact on marine life, Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution (WHOI) scientists report that some shell-building creatures—such as crabs, shrimp and lobsters—unexpectedly build more shell when exposed to ocean acidification caused by elevated levels of atmospheric carbon dioxide (CO2).
Because excess CO2 dissolves in the ocean—causing it to “acidify” —researchers have been concerned about the ability of certain organisms to maintain the strength of their shells. Carbon dioxide is known to trigger a process that reduces the abundance of carbonate ions in seawater—one of the primary materials that marine organisms use to build their calcium carbonate shells and skeletons.
The concern is that this process will trigger a weakening and decline in the shells of some species and, in the long term, upset the balance of the ocean ecosystem.
But in a study published in the Dec. 1 issue of Geology, a team led by former WHOI postdoctoral researcher Justin B. Ries found that seven of the 18 shelled species they observed actually built more shell when exposed to varying levels of increased acidification. This may be because the total amount of dissolved inorganic carbon available to them is actually increased when the ocean becomes more acidic, even though the concentration of carbonate ions is decreased.

“Most likely the organisms that responded positively were somehow able to manipulate…dissolved inorganic carbon in the fluid from which they precipitated their skeleton in a way that was beneficial to them,” said Ries, now an assistant professor in marine sciences at the University of North Carolina. “They were somehow able to manipulate CO2…to build their skeletons.”
Organisms displaying such improvement also included calcifying red and green algae, limpets and temperate urchins. Mussels showed no effect.
“We were surprised that some organisms didn’t behave in the way we expected under elevated CO2,” said Anne L. Cohen, a research specialist at WHOI and one of the study’s co-authors. “What was really interesting was that some of the creatures, the coral, the hard clam and the lobster, for example, didn’t seem to care about CO2 until it was higher than about 1,000 parts per million [ppm].” Current atmospheric CO2 levels are about 380 ppm, she said. Above this level, calcification was reduced in the coral and the hard clam, but elevated in the lobster

Lots more at the link Oh snap! CO2 causes some ocean critters to build more shells « Watts Up With That?

Right. I've seen pics of LA's air on a bad day. Or how about Mexico City these now?

People I know tell me that LA's worst air day now is practically pristine compared to what it was a few decades ago, and that was much cleaner than the current mess in China. A friend stopped in Mexico City on a flight to Costa Rica and his wife was so disgusted with the air she wouldn't get off the plane. But even that doesn't compare with China.

Question, does "we" or "us" include Mexico??? I always considered "we" to be the successful western capitalist nations. Or are you perhaps in Mexico? I thought you were in Canada.

 

[Extrafire]

Nice try....there was no scientific consensous on Global cooling.

And there's no scientific consensus on global warming either.

 

[Extrafire]

No alarm bells were rung about global cooling....read the link I provided.

That's because the environmental activists didn't have much influence then.

It comes down to this, you either believe in the science or you don't.

I do.

:laughing8: Oh please!

 

[Extrafire]

We can and do fight mother nature, and many times we win.

And a good thing too. Mother nature is cruel and merciless and the more we are able to defeat her the better our lives.

 

[Extrafire]

Manmade signal in this case dwarfs the signal that leads to an ice age.

Utter rubbish! Manmade signal is virtually undetectable except for the effects of the Asian Brown Cloud or urban heat islands.

 

[Extrafire]

That would be consistent with food being less available after 1990. You don't eat much, you don't grow much. Polar bears cannot swim as fast as marine mammals, so they sit at blowholes and wait. No ice, no blowholes so the bear have to move to where they can find prey.

And no ice, then where do the marine mammals go to rest? That would be on land, where they can't move near as fast as the polar bear (which spends the vast majority of its time on land anyway.)

 

[Extrafire]

They can be. If a model gives results that are in accord with what's observed,

A model can be used in lieu of actual evidence. The real evidence is still "what's observed".

the model is evidence that the assumptions and processes it's built from have something to do with reality.

Hmmm, so the model would be a tool.

 

[Extrafire]

Yes, I do.

I can't believe you're serious. Please explain to me why a serious scientist would discard actual evidence and then try to build a case using fraud.

I met Paul Watson. He's a crackpot.

You sure got that right.

I also met Suzuki. He isn't so much of a crackpot. He's only a little extreme sometimes.

That's 'cause he has a political agenda he's promoting under the guise of environmentalism.

But, as much as I think alarmists have a plan, so do deniers, and I don't think all of them have their poop in a group either.
Most of the evidence I've seen are from people who should know, not politicians, bloggers, and whatnot and they give reasonable suggestions why the planet is warming. And it isn't as simply as radiation from the sun, volcanic activity, and other natural sources.

Yes and no. It is as simple as radiation from the sun, volcanic activity, and other natural sources. But they aren't simple.

And I didn't say that temperature was the only factor. You just assumed I did.

You certainly gave the distinct impression that you believed global warming was the cause of the beetle infestation. If you hadn't I wouldn't have had to go to all that trouble to explain how temperature wasn't likely a factor at all.

When we are done converting my Dakota to electric drive and synthetic lubes. I won't need petroleum. Those greedy bastards get my thumbed nose.

Good for you!:thumbleft: I'd like to do the same but electric doesn't work all that well in -30 and it's cheaper to just keep burning gas.

 

[Extrafire]

If models are tools, what is the model output?

Depends on what's being modeled. In the case of climate it's quite clear. The output is a forecast, a projection, a prediction. It isn't evidence.

A hammer is a tool, but the output is not.

It's evidence.

Really? 8O You must have a very unusual hammer. The output of my hammer is force, energy transfer to the nail.

What tool do you suggest should be used for gathering experimental data?

A very generalized question. It would depend on the field and the experiment in question. I'm not sure how that relates.

 

[Extrafire]

Probably not for 6 weeks straight though, which is what I meant but wasn't clear on. Check out the monthly mean temperature data (download the text file) for Prince George. Nothing close to -40°C. My point is that there was never a time when 100% mortality was reached.

No, my recollection is not much more than a week below -40. The rest of the time it would creep above that in the daytime.

 

[JLM]

" We can and do fight mother nature, and many times we win. "

Maybe the battle but certainly not the war.

 

[Tonington]

Depends on what's being modeled. In the case of climate it's quite clear. The output is a forecast, a projection, a prediction. It isn't evidence.

So, is it only evidence if it's confirmed by observational data?

Really? 8O You must have a very unusual hammer. The output of my hammer is force, energy transfer to the nail.

Not unusual at all. My hammers give the same output. The tool is the hammer, the strikes on the nail are not a tool. The finished product, made using the tool is something completely different. When used as an experiment, it's evidence....

A very generalized question. It would depend on the field and the experiment in question. I'm not sure how that relates.

Not a generalized question, and very related. How would you perform experiments in climate science? Do you have access to a climate somewhere that we can experiment on, besides the human experiment on Earth?

 

[big]

I'd never have guessed from your posts that you're a scientist. What's your field?

If you’d know science, you’d know there is only one.

 

[mabudon]

Oh man I can't wait to see what Dex might respond with, if he even bothers- I might not agree with him politically but the guy sort of knows a few things about stuff

Extrafire- I like how you use the tactic of posting several times in a row to drown out opposition, why can't you just put all your "thoughts" in one post, your "style" gives the impression that you have the attention span of a squirrel

 

[big]

Oh man I can't wait to see what Dex might respond with, if he even bothers- I might not agree with him politically but the guy sort of knows a few things about stuff

The stuff of science cannot be cut into fields.

 

[Tonington]

Utter rubbish! Manmade signal is virtually undetectable except for the effects of the Asian Brown Cloud or urban heat islands.

Simply proclaiming this to be true doesn't make it so. I'm sticking with the studies that have data to back up conclusions, over your examples of the Dunning -Kruger effect.

 

[Tonington]

Or maybe not.

No, not maybe not. Anna said that increasing carbon dioxide will affect the oceans, and that study clearly indicates that it does. One study where the 7/18 organisms built more shell does not in any way equate to maybe not. The majority of the organisms studied did not increase shell growth. Tipping the balance in nature to favour some species over others isn't a good idea anyways. As if we haven't already done that...

Also, keep in mind that the animals in laboratory conditions are well fed, nutrients are all in excess, and there are no other environmental pressures except for the imposed conditions. That makes the portability of these results low, which is why the author cautions against drawing conclusions from his study. What his study shows, is that there is still considerable uncertainty at the organism level to the dissolved carbonic acid response in calcifying organisms.

Did Watts post this portion of the ScienceDaily article:

"It's hard to predict the overall net effect on benthic marine ecosystems, he says. "In the short term, I would guess that the net effect will be negative. In the long term, ecosystems could re-stabilize at a new steady state.


"The bottom line is that we really need to bring down CO2 levels in the atmosphere."

I bet he didn't. It's not very convenient when you're cherry-picking studies.

 

[big]

Utter rubbish! Manmade signal is virtually undetectable except for the effects of the Asian Brown Cloud or urban heat islands.

"Virtual" has become an important physics concept precisely because physicists suspect subjectivity is well hidden somewhere.

 

[L Gilbert]

And a good thing too. Mother nature is cruel and merciless and the more we are able to defeat her the better our lives.

Foolish talk. Nature does not have human characteristics.
The better idea would be to quit trying to dominate nature (or at least quit messing with it) until we know how without hurting ourselves.