Re: Global warming hoax

In article
<bobinnv-7670EF.10575118062006@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>,
"Bob B." <bobinnv@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:

In article
<timberwoof.spam-30D203.23055417062006@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>,
Timberwoof <timberwoof.spam@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:

In article
<bobinnv-CF2434.17250017062006@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>,
"Bob B." <bobinnv@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:

In article
<timberwoof.spam-0B835D.12061017062006@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>,
Timberwoof <timberwoof.spam@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:

In article
<bobinnv-CFEC40.09322517062006@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>,
"Bob B." <bobinnv@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:

In article
<timberwoof.spam-CC2DDE.20112716062006@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>,
Timberwoof <timberwoof.spam@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:

In article <me-13790C.17300516062006@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>,
Mike <me@xxxxxxxx> wrote:

In article
<timberwoof.spam-2C4D99.20052415062006@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>,
Timberwoof <timberwoof.spam@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:

Explain this graph:

http://www.koshland-science-museum.org/exhibitgcc/historical02.j
sp

It looks to me like there is a 100,000 year cycle of warming and
cooling.

Did you notice how current CO2 levels are higher than at any other
point
in that graph?

So what is the current "crisis" all about?

Oh, so did you finally pull your head out of the sand?

The looming crisis is that CO2 traps heat in the atmosphere and
that
with all that extra CO2, temperatures will become higher than is
good
for us.

How high is "higher than is good for us"? Looking at the graph, our
ancestors must have survived similar changes in climate. It has been
both hotter and colder than it is now, and humans have survived just
fine. Current conditions are not necessarily 'perfect' for humans,
they
are just what we are used to. Doesn't it make more sense to learn to
adapt to changing conditions than to make drastic changes to our way
of
life in an effort to stop what may actually be a partially or even
entirely a 'natural' process?

What environmental scientists fear is that the average temperature will
change faster than systems can adapt to it. And you're not considering
the scope of the changes that will occur if temperatures rise as
expected.

Actually, I'm questioning the scope of changes that will occur. Climate
changes all the time. If we were alive 10,000 years ago, our climate
would have been warming. Forests would be disappearing or changing. We
would have to adapt our lifestyles to the changes that were occurring.
Just like today. But today we can effect the way we live in very drastic
ways, and it isn't a good idea to close factories or start building
nuclear power plants if we don't absolutely have to.


Higher temperatures will change rainfall patterns: some places will get
wetter, others will get drier. Ethiopian drought is believed by some to
have been caused by fine particulates causing clouds to form with much
smaller droplets of water than normal. These clouds don't rain as
readily. Once North American and Europe cleaned up their emissions of
such pollutants, rainfall increased a little. However, the positions of
circulation patterns has changed, leading to drought in many places:
Darfur and Nigeria are examples of civil war happening because of
climate change.

When the Greenland and Antarctica ice caps melt, that water will cause
a
rise in sea level that will drown many coastal cities. Florida could
disappear. This might inconvenience Floridians, but it will be worse
for
the rest of us, who will have to adapt to the ways Floridians drive.
Not
only that, but the flooding of the Netherlands will send that whole
bunch all over Europe and the US, bringing their guttural language and
liberalism with them.

Forests can move ... but it takes generations. What happens is that
trees stop growing at one end of the forest and seedlings thrive and
grow at the other end. But that happens only if the climate change that
drives it is not too fast. "Too fast" means that the entire forest dies
and there's nothing left to reseed other latitudes where climate is now
suitable for that kind of forest.

So the temperature change is, so far, within normal bounds. But the
rate
of that change is potentially beyond what the ecosystem can bear.

It's the "potentially" part I don't like. Will the ice caps melt soon?
Are you sure? Is it wise to make drastic changes today for the worst
possible scenario, or it it better to get a more detailed understanding
of what will happen before doing something unneccessary?

What kind of evidence do you need?

The kind where scientists can say with a bit more certainty what will
happen with the glaciers in Greenland - will they melt 'soon', or in 500
years or in 1000 years? Will the oceans rise 4 inches or 20 feet?

Unfortunately, we don't know yet. The other year, when the Ross Ice
Shelf collapsed, it was preceded by the same phenomenon we now see on
top of the Greenland ice: lots of freshwater lakes. And then the ice
that was on the continent surprised everybody by beginning to flow into
the sea.

Look, scientists never pretended to be God; they never delivered all of
scientific knowledge in a nice book all wrapped up and ready to preach
from. There's stuff they don't know yet ... and they freely admit this.
However, what they do know is pretty alarming. So here's an economic
game for you: If you were working for a Fortune 500 company and needed
to scout a location for a new home office that had to serve for, oh, a
hundred years, would you buy land in Florida or Louisiana or any other
low-lying place?

You sound like a guy in the basement of a house where there's an
unidentified water leak. He refuses to shut off the water main until his
accountant (whom he doesn't trust) delivers exact figures on how fast
and how deep the water will inundate his basement.

Apparently we need do
nothing and it will reverse by itself, right? We're not even at
the
highpoint from the past!

You only have three "cycles"; that's not enough to determine
whether
we've peaked yet or not. And then there's all that extra CO2 that's
not
usually there.

So why is the current cycle "man made"? What caused the
previous
cycles?

No, the cycle is not man made; the realy high level of CO2 is.

You sort of sidestepped his question - the graph shows that this
cycle
of increased CO2 and higher temperature has happened before, without
any
help from humans. So how much of the current bump in CO2 is due to
humans?

Considering that there's a remarkable correlation between when the CO2
bump started and the Industrial Revolution, I'd say "all of it."

But temperatures started rising before the Industrial Revolution. And
the graph you cited shows that there have been previous instances of
increase in both temperature and CO2 levels that had nothing to do with
humans.


The graph makes it look like there was going to be an increase
with or without human help. Even if we stopped producing CO2 today,
the
graph makes it look like the current cycle would continue. So the
question you sidestepped - if CO2 levels have repeatedly increased in
the past without human intervention, what caused that to happen, and
how
are we sure that isn't happening again now? - is pretty important.

It's not hard to calculate the amount of extra CO2 that humans are
putting out through industry, farming, and burning. It's pretty
straightforward to then calculate the expected effect on atmospheric
CO2
levels. And guess what.

Don't think that you're the only person who has asked those questions.
Good science means coming up with all kinds of questions that poke
holes
in your own hypothesis. You've got to think of all the things that may
be wrong with your own hypothesis because your colleagues and rivals
are
sure to do the same thing, and if anyone comes up with an obvious flaw,
you'll look foolish. And scientists are looking at each others' work
all
the time, and sometimes they find obvious blunders. That's how science
works.

You realize of course that everything you say here applies to those who
think GW is occurring, right? I have noticed a tendency in GW
"supporters" to not be very tolerant of dissent.

Are you talking about scientists or lay people?

I am glad that you are holding GW supporters to a higher standard than
what GW detractors are held to. There have been all kinds of things said
by the doubters, mostly impugning the honesty and ethics of
environmental scientists.

I don't see where I have done what you accuse me of. Can you give me an
example of where I held 'supporters' to a higher standard than
'detractors'?

Sorry, that may be my mistake. You said "I have noticed a tendency in GW
"supporters" to not be very tolerant of dissent.". Since you didn't also
mention the attitude of some detractors around here, I concluded that
you didn't mind their bull*** as much.

Interestingly, your questions have all been considered.
Nevertheless, it is the overwhelming consensus of climatologists that
something's going on, the consequences could be catastrophic, and we'd
better do something about it now.

So tell me ... you have something akin to a scientific hypothesis here:
current levels of CO2 in the atmosphere are well within norms; the rate
of increase is not excessive; recent record temperatures are within
expected variations; the rate of change is also normal; humans are not
contributing all that much to global atmospheric CO2 levels; the ash
from burning coal and oil isn't that much of a problem; we will somehow
be able to adapt to whatever happens.

Have you taken the time to find the obvious flaws and holes in your
beliefs? Is what you're doing good science or just wishful thinking?

No, I believe what I said was more like: we seem to be in a warming
period. There have been similar warming periods in the last 300,000
years. In fact if you graph them, they look a lot like the current one.
Because these warming periods have happened without human intervention,
and climate varies greatly as time goes by, I want to see some really
good data to show the current warming isn't just another 'natural'
warming, probably enhanced by human activity.

Yes, we're in an interglacial period. And yes, the temperature is
probably being enhanced by human activity.

Earlier you said ALL of the warming was caused by human activity.

To the extra CO2 or the extra warming I probably said "all of it."

Now
you say warming was "probably" being enhanced by human activity. So you
are not sure?

If you want absolute certainty, then become a priest. There is precious
little absolute certainty in science. But there is "really really sure
and if it were my money, here's what I'd do..."

And I also don't want to
start taking drastic actions until we really understand what is going
on.

Some people think they already understand it well enough. What is your
test for "really understand"?


If human activity only accounts for a small portion of the current
warming, then drastic cutbacks won't help that much.

How do you know? If you don't believe that environmental scientists have
enough data to back their claims, then how can you have enough to back
yours?

I'm not really making any claims, I'm questioning yours (you know, thats
how you said science works - you keep questioning your data and
conclusions). I'm pointing out that our understanding of climate change,
and its effects, is not very complete, so I question how much action we
should take based on incomplete knowledge.

Fair enough. I'm suggesting that our knowledge is complete enough and
that the risks are too great.

Consider a similar sort of risk on a smaller scale. Let's say you had
property downstream of a dam ... and somebody consistently burned all of
the grass that was growing on it. It could be that that would increase
erosion on the dam, and so far, there are some channels being dug into
it by rainwater. But forcing the grass burner to change his habits is
just too expensive, and not all the data is in yet. You don't *know*
that the dam will fail because of this...

If the warming is
mostly not human induced, then we should be focusing more on things like
moving cities away from coastlines, and adapting to the changing climate
like our ancestors did.

Maybe you could do some economic studies to see how much that would
cost, compared to the alternatives already being proposed.

Just promise me that when the ocean levels do begin to rise, you won't
turn around and lynch the scientists for not having warned you.

The ocean levels have already been rising, and I would expect them to
continue to rise. You didn't know that? Climate changes all the time.
The question is how much will they rise? And what should we do about it?

Yes, those are the questions. "How much will the oceans rise" is really
a question in time, better asked, "How much will oceans rise next year,
next ten, next hundred?" And that depends on how sensitive the Greenland
and Antarctica ice caps are to global temperatures and on how sensitive
the atmosphere is to CO2 trapping heat and thus on how much extra CO2
we're putting into the atmosphere. What we should do about it depends on
how much we trust climatologists' models of these questions and on
economists' estimates of much the various options will cost.

What bothers me is how ready people who don't really understand science
are to dismiss all of it for specious reasons starting withAl Gore
having lied about inventing the Internet and ending with
college-educated climatologists not knowing ***-all about the weather.

--
Timberwoof <me at timberwoof dot com> http://www.timberwoof.com
.