Denialgate

Discussion in 'Off Topic Area' started by Slindsay, Feb 21, 2012.

  1. m1k3jobs

    m1k3jobs Dudeist Priest

    Ok John. I'm not looking for a scientific paper here, I am interested in your opinion. To me you are coming off as the issue is black and white. Sorry but I'm a shades of gray type of person.

    Do I think human behavior has an impact on our climate? Yes.

    Is it possible that fluctuations in solar output have had an impact on our climate? Yes.
     
  2. Slindsay

    Slindsay All violence is necessary

    First point, if you look at how climate denial groups work and leaked strategy documents you will see very little discussion of climate science. Instead, you will see calculated attempts to exploit the middle ground fallacy so anyone who takes an interest in the issue of climate change comes away with the impression that the science isn't settled yet.

    Second, I'm not really clear on your point, if your saying that making precise predictions about what exactly will happen in the future due to climate change is extremely hard then yes, I agree completely with you. These sorts of papers correcting previous knowledge or refining it are always going to be around and we're never going to be able to predict exactly what will happen in the future.

    However, if you are saying that we don't know enough to start to try to reduce our CO2 emissions yet then I don't agree. Just because there is uncertainty over some specific issue doesn't mean that it invalidates our ability to predict that Something Bad(TM) will happen. Purely for example, the NASA piece you linked to proposes three differing explanations for why we're observing what we are there. We may not know the exact interplay of the three potential factors they list but we can certainly model all 3 and know that it doesn't;'t matter which one is true because they aren't going to reverse the overall trend of sea levels rising.

    Another example, the nature piece you link to on ice cap and glacier melt doesn't disagree with the findings of commonly used models, it's just noting that the rates used aren't quite right according to some of it's research.

    The point is that there we can't get a really complete picture of this field without becoming experts in the domain ourselves, and we can't do that because we have day jobs. That's why we should listen to reputable professional bodies when they talk about climate change.
     
  3. John R. Gambit

    John R. Gambit The 'Rona Wrangler

    This breaks the article down a little more clearly:

    http://adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/2010EGUGA..1210904P

    Unfortunately I cannot find anything else citing it that either validates or invalidates this one article. I only found a single journal citing it and it wasn't really relevant. I no longer have access to academic logins to make this more efficient, so if anyone knows of a stellar way to search cited works without one lemme know and I'll do what my free time allows for running the data down.
     
  4. wrydolphin

    wrydolphin Pirates... yaarrrr Supporter

    If CO2 is the "culprit" of climate change, then how does that theory apply to previous shifts especially microshifts of climate? The Middle Ages were significantly warmer then current climate and the 1700's to 1800's were significantly cooler. Speaking personally, human interference has not sufficiently explained our current climate shift- or even seems to be a good indicator of what the climate shift will ultimately end up looking like. That said, humans obviously have greatly influenced the environment and, ergo, the climate.

    There is a tendency to dismiss questions about climate shift out of hand, but it does make me wonder just where human culpability ends and natural global processes begins. All of which, I admit, is idle curiosity and does not affect the fact that we obviously need to reduce our impact on the environment whole sale.
     
  5. Giovanni

    Giovanni Well-Known Member Supporter

    see the hockey stick
     
  6. aikiwolfie

    aikiwolfie ... Supporter

    The fact that CO2 causes climate change isn't the real issue in the climate change debate. It's where that CO2 along with other green house gases are coming from this time around.

    What I think the science has shown is that it really doesn't take much to trigger a rapid and significant change in climate. One of the issues climate scientists have to grapple with is the chain reaction that a warming of the climate triggers. As the Earth warms up, natural stores of green house gases are released from the permafrost in the polar regions and also from the ocean floor. Which makes it difficult to predict the effect of man made green house gases.

    Personally I feel the whole climate change debate misses the point somewhat. Pumping a whole crap load of waste into our atmosphere, oceans, rivers, lakes and burying it under the ground was never going to be a sustainable way to develop our societies. As people we've come to see ourselves as being separate from the world. Which just isn't true.

    By polluting our environment we risk our own health and our food supply. By 2050 there will be something on the order of 9 billion humans alive on planet Earth all competing for resources. We need to find better ways to live our lives now.
     
  7. wrydolphin

    wrydolphin Pirates... yaarrrr Supporter

    Excellent point, which I admit I had not considered. As I said, my musings come from idle curiosity as the fact of the matter is, even if you don't think that climate change is real the changes that would have to be enacted would have a beneficial effect on other environmental problems, that frankly, are too big to deny and that have been somewhat overshadowed by climate debate lately.
     
  8. holyheadjch

    holyheadjch Valued Member

    CO2 is a greenhouse gas.
    An increase in greenhouse gases cause an increase in the atmospheric infrared absorptivity
    An increase in infrared absorptivity will cause an increase in surface temperature

    To my knowledge, the above statements are uncontested facts.

    Anthropogenic emission of carbon = 7.3 billion tonnes per year.
    Total carbon in the atmosphere = 800 billion tonnes.
    So every year, we increase the amount of carbon in the atmosphere by 1%.

    Again, the above are uncontested facts.

    So would someone care to tell me how increasing atmospheric carbon by 1% per year, leading to an increase in infrared absorptivity wont lead to an increase in surface temperature in the medium term?

    Oh yeah, and an increase of surface temperature leads to an increase of water vapour in the atmosphere (another greenhouse gas) which will further increase the surface temperature leading to more water vapour leading to...do I hear positive feedback loop anyone?

    If someone would like to point out a flaw in the facts or the reasoning in this post, knock yourselves out.
     
  9. Knight_Errant

    Knight_Errant Banned Banned

    It's actually even worse than you're suggesting, when you consider that methane also acts as a greenhouse gas, and the amount of methane locked up in the permafrost...
     
  10. aikiwolfie

    aikiwolfie ... Supporter

    Methane is at least twice as potent as CO2 as a green house gas. The methane locked up in the polar regions is just the tip of the iceberg. There are massive quantities of methane locked up in the ocean floor. Enough to kill off most ocean life if it were to be released in massive quantities.

    However another huge source of methane is livestock farming. Asia is entering the middle class consumerist world in a big way now. That is going to drive up demand for meat and as a result meat prices. More demand leads to more production. Which leads in turn to even more methane we can't stop entering the atmosphere. I'm pretty sure nobody has figured out how to stop pigs and cows farting.
     
  11. aikiwolfie

    aikiwolfie ... Supporter

    I said pretty much the same thing here on MAP a few years ago. 2050 isn't that far off. 38 years. I'll be 69 years old when we have to admit we've failed to deal with this issue.
     
  12. wrydolphin

    wrydolphin Pirates... yaarrrr Supporter

    I think I recall that conversation, now that you say something.

    As far as getting cow and pigs to not fart, its true that you can't stop them. However, not feeding them grains would go a long way to solving that. If feed lots were no longer around, ranchers would once again be the primary source of meat- which reduces the CO2 footprint and increases biodiversity as ranch lands also support a wide variety of wildlife. However, the current farming and ranching system is so subsidized and industrialized that it would be virtually impossible to break the system in the current climate. And rather then farting around debating whether or not climate change is real, we could be talking about the contamination of the water table, the sudden and significant reduction of ground water (some areas will be without water in a matter of years) which even drought conditions cannot explain, and the reduction of food quality and the system that virtually guarantees that people from a lower socioeconomic background do not have access to healthy foods and, thus, bear the majority of preventable illness in all industrialized nations.

    Bah. The whole thing is interconnected with everything that is wrong with our current society but all we do is sit around and debate climate change. As far as I can tell, the longer that people hold on to this argument the longer the powers that be can continue to bow to lobbyists that have large corporations interests in mind.
     
  13. aikiwolfie

    aikiwolfie ... Supporter

    Unfortunately in places like Brazil livestock farming reduces bio diversity because they have to clear rain forest to make room for the cattle herds. Traditional methods aren't going to feed the planet in 2050. A whole new approach to food production is needed. And we're so far off behind in finding it and implementing it.
     
  14. LilBunnyRabbit

    LilBunnyRabbit Old One

    My point is that hysterical overreactions will cause more harm than good - and that covers most of what governments are proposing (either that, or a failure to address the situation at all. The consequences of different mitigation strategies need to be considered and weighed up.

    More importantly we need to be prepared for coping with the predicted climate changes, whichever way they might go. Yes - bring in renewable energies and so on, but let's have some tidal barriers ready to be deployed and construction capacity for sea and flood defenses ready.

    I would love to listen to reputable professional bodies on the matter.

    Okay.

    An increase in water vapour in the air helps reflect more heat from the earth. An increase in temperature, as you've said, leads to more water vapour in the air.

    I'm not trying to say that our actions do not have a consequence, but that we need to be ready for all possible cases. The assumption that the earth will become uninhabitable due to carbon dioxide levels has some flaws, in that carbon dioxide levels have been high in the past and show a natural fluctuation over time.

    So yes, we should try to cut emissions, find better technologies and ways of producing energy (I'm still in favour of microwave satellites) and be ready to deal with whatever the coming climate change deals us - what we shouldn't do is panic and cripple ourselves by hysterical overreaction to the situation.

    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Co2-temperature-plot.svg

    Most importantly, the armageddon scenarios that are put forward (admittedly with less regularity now) should be treated with a pinch of salt. There are plenty of good reasons to mitigate our impact on climate - trying to bludgeon people with a future image of a desert earth is unnecessary, and somewhat counterproductive.
     
  15. holyheadjch

    holyheadjch Valued Member

    There have been natural fluctuations in carbon content, true. But we are now faced with those natural fluctuations plus our own contributions.

    Will the earth become uninhabitable - no. Not solely as a result of global warming, at least, but the science of climate change is not complicated.

    Predicting exactly how much temperatures will rise is difficult, but coming to the conclusion that burning fossil fuels = increased temperatures is not.
     
  16. LilBunnyRabbit

    LilBunnyRabbit Old One

    Just in case you missed it, I'm not disagreeing with that. See below:

     
  17. Polar Bear

    Polar Bear Moved on

    We've been studying climate change for two hundred years. Since WATERLOO! We know for a fact that human induced climate change is happening. To say we know very little is frankly insane. It is massively documented in thousands of papers and research materials.Yet a few dozen studies saying it isn't happening are widely reported on every media station.

    If 99 people say it's raining outside and one guy who hasn't even looked out the window says it isn't. Why are you listening to the one guy?

    The Bear.
     

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