A new look on global warming

Remove all ads!

Especially since enough warming might weaken the Gulfstream, leading to a localized cooling - i.e. in most of Europe. Anyway, I loved the way "Senate Report Debunks "Consensus"" was on its own separate line. Almost as if the Senate, by its august wisdom, decided scientists are not worth their attention. Yeah, I know the overall title reads differently, but still I found it hilarious.

@NOG, regarding your comment "Together with that, however, is a massive increase in habbitable and farmable land, an increase in plant size due to increased CO2 in the atmosphere, and faster and more growth due to increased nitrates (the limiting factor in the ecosystem today)."

Where did you get that information from? I've seen a few sources that say global warming, per se, will likely lead to desertification. In fact, there was quite a few written about the possible change in the arable land condition in Mediterranean countries like Greece (which doesn't have that much prime-quality land to begin with).

Of course, there is the matter of when the next Ice Age may hit, and that some factors are beyond our control, but I find the "No worries, everything's fine" argument a little lacking, at times.

 

Drew, where is this massive consensus you're talking about? I've provided proof of at least 500 scientists disagreeing. The only formal listing of scientists that I know of agreeing with man-made global warming is the IPCC report, which had a disturbingly small number of scientists on it, several of whom are actually in the former list of dissenters. Now I'm sure there are more advocates than just the IPCC report, but how many is more? 25? 250? 2500? My point here is to claim that the consensus has changed, or at least, has ceased to be a consensus. If we took a poll of the climatological community and weighed it against the accuracy of their predictions, how many would actually be on each side? I'll agree that the issue needs to become completely de-politicised, but you have to admit that both sides suffer from this, not just one or the other.

Blackthorne, the point of choosing a baseline is almost always convenience, not to display relative difference. The difference between 15 and 10 is the same as between 10 and 5 or 3 and -2. Unless there is a specific natural baseline (sea level, absolute zero, etc.) there is no reason to pick one baseline over others than to keep your numbers small.

Thank you!!! I've been saying this for years, but everyone keeps pointing to the same decade or two of warming and having a hissy fit!

Shaman, I was actually referring to the UN analysis of it. Remember, Siberia would become farmable, as would Greenland, and Alaska. These three areas by themselves are a massive increase.

 

NOG: I'm not playing any more. The IPCC has over 2000 members. In 2007, the national science academies of the G8+5 nations issued this statement.

So...yeah, more than just the IPCC supports the consensus position. If you want to go and argue that we shouldn't impose limits on our greenhouse gas emissions despite their warnings, knock yourself out. I, however, am done wasting my time on this bull****.

 

Drew, you're still playing games. How many of them were actual climatologists. The IPCC was mostly political, with a relatively small number of actual scientists and, as we see in the links I've provided, not even all of them agreed with the statements issued by the IPCC.

You're standing example of a scientific consensus isn't even a scientific consensus.

Additionally, a thought recently occured to me, and I decided to pursue it. Drew, you've said that the consequences of us obeying the global warming alarmists, even if they're wrong, amount to nothing more than less air pollution. I would like to sit down and really analyze this.

On the local scale, and assuming that ethanol becomes the new fuel standard, the vast majority of the oil and gas tankers driving down the highway would be replaced with ethanol tankers. The rest would slowly disappear. Now, that means that the vast majority of oil spills on the highway would be replaced with ethanol spills. An ethanol spill is much worse than an oil or gas spill. An ethanol spill makes an oil or gas spill look like a walk in the park on a sunny day.

On the larger scale, assuming you all live in nations with a noticable food surplus, that food surplus would be converted into ethanol to either make or suppliment the ethanol traded internationally. This means that world food supplies would dwindle, leaving the many nations that rely on food handouts (and maybe even some that can currently buy food) on their own, starving. This would be a number of nations in Africa and I believe several in Asia. Further more, the lack of reliance on oil would rather quickly collapse OPEC (no tears shed there) and probably collapse the economies of several of its member nations (ok, tears shed) making them perfect breeding grounds for more terrorists. Imagine a repeat of Afganistan crossed with Iraq played out in Iran, Kuwait, or the UAE. That's not all though. You see, while the US, EU, Japan, and probably most if not all of South America would comply, I seriously doubt China and India would, and Russia may well not. Assuming that global warming alarmism continues, this would leave 'us' relying on 'safe' but expensive energy sources like ethanol, biodiesel, wind, solar, etc. while 'they' get to rely on the cheap, 'globally dangerous' fuels we all use today. Needless to say, international relations would be strained.

I'm sorry to say this, Drew, but your rosy global-warming-free future doesn't look so rosy to me. Now I'll be the first to admit that the above is far from a guaranteed consequence, and it isn't even close to the best reasonable outcome, but it is also far from the worst reasonable outcome and well within the real of possibility.

 

Ok, so why 1951? Why not 1967? The best baseline for comparison of global temperatures would be 'ideal conditions'. Would 1951 count as 'ideal climate conditions'? Was the average global temperature in 1951 'idea'? The reason I say convenience is because it is more convenient to write ".2 degrees C" than "342.9 K".

And my point on this whole issue was that a current global temperature above that baseline does not discount global cooling, or a plateau effect, it just means that, relative to the baseline we are still at a higher value. If this high value was lower than the one before it, and that one was lower than the one before it, and that one was lower than the one before it, then that amounts to global cooling. If this high value is the same as the one before it, and that one was the same as the one before it, and that one was the same as the one before it, then that amounts to a global temperature plateau.

This is only true if you take it out of context. Yes, a current global temperature average of -.6 is different from one of +.2, but the -.6 relative to yesterday's temperature may not be different from the +.2 relative to 1951 at all.

 

Drew, if there is concensus among the 2,500 hundred scientists at IPCC, why are some of those also members of ICEPAC?

 

When I said I was done, I meant it, folks.
Global warming denial.
list of scientists opposing the consensus view.

I'm not wasting my time on this.

 

@ Drew,

I hate to drag you back in, but....

I don't understand your posting. By posting a list of scientists who do not agree with the consensus view, does that mean you are accepting that there isn't a consensus? Or was there something significant about that list that I'm just not understanding.

 

Nah. I'm inviting people to research who exactly is against the consensus, what parts of the consensus they disagree with, and where they get their funding. While hardly authoritative, wikipedia tends to be a good place to start because of the exhaustive list of sources for which they tend to provide links at the bottom of their articles. I trust anyone who doesn't already believe a priori one way or the other regarding climate change to objectively come to their own conclusions.

I've seen lots of talk about the letter sent to the UN, but what I haven't seen people asking a few important questions. The letter references a few (unspecified) studies which are critical of existing models. Which studies? What does the rest of the community feel about those studies? How many were there? Have they been replicated? How many times? Has the community posted any rebuttals or criticisms of them? How many? What does the rest of the community feel about the letter written to the UN? Have they responded to it? Do they plan to? Until we've started to answer these questions, this just isn't news.

 

Well, if you start talking about biofuels, I guess I gots ta' throw in my 2 cents as well.

As it stands today, biofuels will never be able to replace the fossil fuels. Even if you were to use all arable land for biofuel production, you'd still not be able to produce enough to replace fossil fuels. It's a product you blend into the fossil fuels, no more.

Both India and China are undertaking projects to start up biofuel production, actually. What you seem to forget is that the production of biofuels means that an extra market is opening up for farmers to grow crops for. This can be a major boost to farmers, especially with subsidies in place and increasing market prices. This is actually one of the reasons why Germany started to push for biodiesel production in their country.

Now, don't get my wrong, I'm not a big fan of biofuels. I just felt I needed to point out some of the fallacies in the idea you were going to go with.

To react to the actual topic, I'm not entirely certain how much of the global warming trend is caused by humans, nor am I convinced that this is a bad thing. Bigger temperature changes have happened in the past, and most people seem to forget that the climate isn't a steady state thing.

That being said, I agree with Drew that reducing noxious emissions is never a bad thing. And reducing CO2 is a good way to use what's left of the fossil fuel supply more efficiently, making it last longer.

/edit

I'm sure the people in New Orleans could keep their dikes at the current level and start learning to breath water. While I know that my country is famous for its dikes, it's not like we're the only ones currently living partially below sea level. And dikes aren't used everywhere. In fact, while we have the option to raise our dikes, many others don't and would simply have to live with surrendering their land to the sea.

 

Perhaps I'm a fool, but there's been doomsayers for thousands of years warning us all that the sky is falling. Maybe this time they are right. But I doubt it. There will always be changes, and I'm all for making reasonable changes in my behaviour to moderate the effects of other changes, but I cannot take a lot of the proposed alterations to my lifestyle (the ones put forth by the radical greens) seriously.

At the same time, I wish that governments would step in a bit and curtail some of the industrial practices that are truly heinous. I believe it could be done in such a way as to not throw thousands / millions out of work. Nothing will make the radical greens happy except for all of us reverting to the Stone Age, but something could be done.

As for the sea level argument, I think even a small increase in sea level would spell disaster for the people in Southeast Asia -- they don't have dikes and even without global warming they suffer when even the most miniscule changes occur. Most of the people who live by the coasts are poor and would likely have few recourses should the water levels change much at all. Correct me if I'm wrong.

 

So what happens in about 100 years time when all the fossil fuels have run out? Do you want to move to the unconventional oil sources such as Tar Sands or Kerogen Shales - creating hugh quantities of CO2 during the processing, polluting vast quantities of water, and destroying 1000's of acres of prisitine wilderness? Or should we actually be finding alternatives to fossil fuels?

 

Drew:
How about, insead of asking questions that imply there are problems without actually saying anything, you answer them instead.

Henkie:
Yes, I did know that about biofuels, but they seemed a less disasterous solution to me than the alternatives. At least with them, there's no one to replace the UAE in fuel power.

Carcaroth:
The most reasonable alternative as I see it is to turn to hydrogen fuel cells. The two problems there are where to get the electricity and where to get the water, as both are quickly turning into resources that cannt meet demand today.

 

I'm not suggesting any such thing. I'm just pointing out that at this point in time, biofuels are not producable in such quantities as to be able to replace fossil fuel. Maybe this will be the case in the future, for instance if they manage to use algae to produce biodiesel, which can supposedly give huge yields per acre.

This is not reality yet, and won't be for the next 10 years or so, and even after that time it'll most likely need subsidies to be competitive with fossil fuel. Or the government simply makes it mandatory to blend in certain amounts of the stuff. As oil prices continue to rise, it'll become increasingly attractive to switch to this kind of fuel, especially since the diesel that is refined from the oil the algae produce is essentially synthetic diesel, which is ideal diesel, basically.

As for tar sands and shales, the key word here is energy neutrality. At the moment, the amount of energy it costs to produce oil from these sources is almost as much as you can get out of it in the end. I'm just making up the numbers here, but this means that if you manage to produce 100 barrels of oil from tar sands, you would need maybe 90 of those barrels to power the machinery which produces the oil. Not overly efficient, and therefore not very economical.

And, at least in Europe, substantial effort is made by the governments (the EU) to set up rules to make sure that biofuels are won in a sustainable manner. I'm sure it won't be too much of a problem to ensure that other sources for fuels are won in a sustainable manner as well.

 

My questions are not being made to imply that there are problems without saying anything. They were posed to reveal that, right now, we don't have enough information. I found no response to the letter from the scientific community, which doesn't mean that there hasn't been one or that one is not forthcoming, but have no way of answering why one way or the other. I don't know which studies were referred to in the letter and, therefore, have no way to determine what the response (if any) of the community has been to the studies, I don't have the time (or the access) to review every study published in peer reviewed literature since 2005 to find them, and I certainly can't explain why or why not the community responded or hasn't responded the way they did (or did not).

Sure, I could spend a week calling think tanks and pulling research together, but I do have a full time job.

 

Ah. That explains things much better. From your previous statements on this topic, I was afraid you felt these were valid reasons to disregard everything I had presented in this topic. I am glad this is not the case. I, too, have limited time due to job and school, however I will try to find something.

 

I should copy and paste this for every argument with Drew....

 

T2: You should no by now that, in the absence of sufficient information, I always prefer to err on the side of caution. Where you and I differ is not on how we see information, but where we place the burden of proof. You appear (at least to me) to think it's more important to prove absolutely and completely the reality of man-made climate change than it is to dis-prove it when it comes to deciding how government will act. You appear to believe that it is more important to prove that capital punishment absolutely and completely does not deter more crime than life in prison before choosing to discard it.

I believe that the burden lies with dis-proving our widely held notions about climate change and that it is more important to prove absolutely that the benefit to society from capital punishment (if there is any benefit at all) outweighs the cost of the innocents that will occasionally be executed. It's a difference of world view. That said, you can keep your snark to yourself.

I wouldn't bother, NOG. I checked around for about 2 hours and couldn't find anything. It's likely that the scientific community at large simply hasn't responded to the letter and that the studies referred to didn't really cause a wave. The question is why. Sooner or later, a reputable scientific journalist who, you know, actually gets paid for this sort of thing will do the research or the greater community will formulate a response. Sadly, given the increasingly shallow nature of our media (it's a hell of a lot easier to just report on what somebody said than it is to gather all the facts and, I think we can all agree that the real bias of our media is laziness), my mad money is on the latter. After all, drafting a response that a 1000+ scientists would be willing to sign would require quite a bit of back and forth. These things take time.