My belief in Global Warming is getting shaky

[freeztar]

I agree with both of you.

 

Bottomline is that we are affecting the climate and should take action to mitigate our impact. The temperatures will likely go up regardless of what we do, but that is no excuse for inaction. I agree that we should not attempt to control the climate, at least not with our current understanding (sulfur schemes scare me). But we do need to focus on how much we are affecting things and how we can become more climate neutral as a species.

[Overdog]

In case anyone is wondering how I became convinced that my questioning of the accuracy of the climate models was wrong, I will try to explain.

 

When I jumped into the discussion, my belief was that the models were used to predict what the climate would do. But I have realized that isn't what the models are used for. Instead, what the models actually do is provide highly plausible “what if” projections of future climate that correspond to certain emissions scenarios.

 

This particular post was instrumental in persuading me that my critisisms of the models were not only unfounded, but were based on a false premise from the start.

 

Climate Feedback: Predictions of climate

[InfiniteNow]

That is a good link, and not one I'd seen before. Thank you for sharing it. I applaud the fact that you researched this also on your own, as opposed to just listening to the posts being shared by me and others in this thread.

 

 

From your link:

 

We will adapt to climate change. The question is whether it will be planned or not? How disruptive and how much loss of life will there be because we did not adequately plan for the climate changes that are already occurring?

 

 

 

 

 

It's truly humbling. :):) :)

[InfiniteNow]

Do you present data which has been proven false on purpose, or are you truly just badly uninformed on the topic?

 

 

The Great Global Warming Swindle" has been shown to have quite a few problems, and demonstrated that it is itself a swindle.

 

 

This link does a pretty good job of showing why:

 

The Great Global Warming Swindle Swindle - Features - The Lab - Australian Broadcasting Corporation's Gateway to Science

 

 

...and also here:

 

“The Great Global Warming Swindle” is itself a Fraud and a Swindle

 

 

I particularly like this study published in Proceedings of The Royal Society in June 2007 which speaks specifically against the root of the claims being used by the GGW Swindle (emphasis mine):

 

The Royal Society - Article

 

There are many interesting palaeoclimate studies that suggest that solar variability had an influence on pre-industrial climate. There are also some detection-attribution studies using global climate models that suggest there was a detectable influence of solar variability in the first half of the twentieth century and that the solar radiative forcing variations were amplified by some mechanism that is, as yet, unknown. However, these findings are not relevant to any debates about modern climate change.

Our results show that the observed rapid rise in global mean temperatures seen after 1985 cannot be ascribed to solar variability, whichever of the mechanisms is invoked and no matter how much the solar variation is amplified.

 

 

Check your sources, kids. Not all of them are valid.

 

 

I just needed a place to store this additional bit of data against the swindle swindle, so am putting it here.

 

 

Deltoid: I must be psychic

 

What's more, Bolt didn't base this on the decision itself, but on Steve McIntyre's spin.

 

Like me, Michael Tobis felt that McIntyre was blatantly spinning the decision...

 

 

 

Please, carry on. :eek:

[Eclipse Now]

The best line I ever heard about Martin Durkin's Great Global Warming Swindle was "Durkin's just jerkin his gherkin."

[goku]

As I assume your air is running right now... you could (if you were so inclined) go outside and feel the air coming off the AC unit. It's hot yes? The cold air inside exactly cancels the hot air outside give or take the heat the two fans and the compressor are making. So this is not a factor and a quick wikipedia or google search of air conditioning would verify this.

 

~modest

 

i have been thinking a long time on how it would be best to answer this,

you're right the two would cancel each other out, but only if they are both used in the equation.

[InfiniteNow]

Unfortunately, if the models are truly not accurate, then it appears very much that their inaccuracy causes them to under-represent what is actually happening. More below.

 

 

Recent Climate Observations Compared to Projections -- Rahmstorf et al. 316 (5825): 709 -- Science

 

Recent Climate Observations Compared to Projections

 

"We present recent observed climate trends for carbon dioxide concentration, global mean air temperature, and global sea level, and we compare these trends to previous model projections as summarized in the 2001 assessment report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). The IPCC scenarios and projections start in the year 1990, which is also the base year of the Kyoto protocol, in which almost all industrialized nations accepted a binding commitment to reduce their greenhouse gas emissions. The data available for the period since 1990 raise concerns that the climate system, in particular sea level, may be responding more quickly to climate change than our current generation of models indicates. "

[questor]

So let's assume the human factor is indeed contributing to or is the major cause of global warming, what is the remedy?

1. Cut down on emissions by burning less fossil fuels? What would this do to the world economy? How do we force India and China ( non-signers of the Kyoto Treaty ) to cut back? They will quickly surpass the US in carbon emissions.

2. Must America become a totally agrarian nation? Only farms, no factories?

Don't forget, the rest of the world wants it's day in the sun.

3. America goes totally green, uses wind, solar, nuclear while the rest of the world uses up the remaining fossil fuel.

We don't control the world and in the next 25 years we will probably lose whatever influence we now possess.

The best solution would be for the world to reduce it's population. There are now 6 billion people in the world, all using oxygen, producing CO2, human waste, plastics, water, et cetera.

 

World population

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

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Map of countries by population—China and India, the only two countries to have a population greater than 1 billion, together possess more than a third of the world's population. (See List of countries by population.)

Population by continent as a percentage of world population (1750–2005)The world population is the total number of living humans on Earth at a given time. As of July 2008, the world's population is estimated to be just over 6.684 billion. In line with population projections, this figure continues to grow at rates that were unprecedented before the 20th century, although the rate of increase has almost halved since its peak of 2.2 percent per year, which was reached in 1963. The world's population, on its current growth trajectory, is expected to reach nearly 9 billion by the year 2042.[1][2]

 

What happpens as we approach 2050? This is the real underlying problem in global warming/ global destruction.

[Zythryn]

So let's assume the human factor is indeed contributing to or is the major cause of global warming, what is the remedy?

1. Cut down on emissions by burning less fossil fuels? What would this do to the world economy? How do we force India and China ( non-signers of the Kyoto Treaty ) to cut back? They will quickly surpass the US in carbon emissions.

 

It would do very little damage to the world economy. As a matter of fact, it may very well help it grow. A number of areas in Texas are undergoing a virtual renaisance due to the influx of taxes and lease payments due to wind generators.

I still don't get when 'more efficient' meant 'damage to economy'. Perhaps damage to the pocketbooks of energy companies that don't expand into renewables??

2. Must America become a totally agrarian nation? Only farms, no factories?

No, no need to do that. As a matter of fact, it would be better if we didn't (enviornmentally that is).

 

3. America goes totally green, uses wind, solar, nuclear while the rest of the world uses up the remaining fossil fuel.

It isn't the use of fossil fuels, it is the RATE of that use.

Even IF nobody else cut their fossil fuel use we would slow the increase of CO2 in the air, cut our pollution dramatically and as a society be much healthier. The slower the damage to the climate, the better we can adapt to it.

 

The best solution would be for the world to reduce it's population. There are now 6 billion people in the world, all using oxygen, producing CO2, human waste, plastics, water, et cetera.

 

Agreed, this would be a great solution. How do you propose doing it?

As I see it, increasing our efficiency and moving to new sources of power is far easier than 'reducing our population'. If you have a suggestion as to how to do this, that is easier than being more efficient, I would be happy to hear it.

[REASON]

Agreed, this would be a great solution. How do you propose doing it?

As I see it, increasing our efficiency and moving to new sources of power is far easier than 'reducing our population'. If you have a suggestion as to how to do this, that is easier than being more efficient, I would be happy to hear it.

 

How about promoting the responsible use of various birth control methods worldwide that includes the benefits of a personal philosophy of abstinence.

 

Unfortunately, promoting birth control is counter to many dogmatic religious ideologies, such as among Catholics and Evangelicals.

[Zythryn]

How about promoting the responsible use of various birth control methods worldwide that includes the benefits of a personal philosophy of abstinence.

 

Unfortunately, promoting birth control is counter to many dogmatic religious ideologies, such as among Catholics and Evangelicals.

 

Good points on both parts.

So Questor, do you believe we could easier change the dogma of the Catholic and other religions view on birth control, or work towards better efficiency?

Personally, I think greater efficiency will be easier, and will also come around much faster. I don't believe we could cut down our population as quickly as we could improve efficiency.

 

Your thoughts?

[Eclipse Now]

Birth control to Catholics? Hard.

Birth control to evangelicals? Easy. I'm one of them.

 

The thing is the various environmental challenges we face, from global warming to peak fossil fuels to peak fisheries to peak water to peak arable land to peak metals and other rare earths... basically 'peak everything' all starting in the next decade; these crisis could either cause us to fight it out over the remaining resources, or unite under various new international regimes. (EG: Kyoto might just be the beginning.)

 

Imagine something like the EU growing across the world as Africa forms their own USA. Imagine the governments of the world finally providing democratic stability and the ability for the citizens of the WORLD to vote on global issues. Imagine western democracies providing education, freshwater, basic nutrition and housing and healthcare and all the basic human needs to everyone in Africa and China.

 

That's a recipe for a worldwide 'demographic transition'. The main ingredients for solving world overpopulation are:-

1. Meeting basic human needs (so that peasant farmers don't have 15 kids in case 10 of them die!)

2. Educating women (UN says every 3 years of female education = roughly 1 less child).

3. Some basic economic security in old age (if we guarantee peasants won't starve to death in old age, then they don't feel like having 12 labourers to work the farm and look after them in their old age.)

 

So... peak oil? Global Warming? Scary?

 

We can solve these threats in a variety of ways, but primarily by political agreements that prevent conflict over these things. Then we can get on with the "Picken's Plan" of wind power through the central USA as someone posted above.

 

Lastly, the reason I can campaign for population control — even as one of the infamous "Sydney Anglican's" —*is because these individual measures that make up the 'demographic transition' are worth doing in and of themselves.

For more, see my page at:

Eclipse Now: Reduce population growth

[questor]

Unfortunately, I can't envision the many countries of the world cooperating on anything. This has never happened so far. Probably a fourth of the world is illiterate and unreachable by current communications. While some of the developed nations are reducing their carbon output, many others will be increasing theirs, leading to continued degradation of the atmosphere. A good book to read on this subject is ''The Population Bomb'' by Paul Erlich.

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

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The Population Bomb

Author Paul R. Ehrlich

Country United States

Language English

Subject(s) Population

Publisher Ballantine Books

Publication date 1968

Pages 201

''The Population Bomb (1968) is a book written by Paul R. Ehrlich. A best-selling work, it predicted disaster for humanity due to overpopulation and the "population explosion". The book predicted that "in the 1970s and 1980s hundreds of millions of people will starve to death", that nothing can be done to avoid mass famine greater than any in the history, and radical action is needed to limit the overpopulation''

This book created quite a stir when written, but now everyone is worried about global warming. I think the population problems will kill many more people and cause more global distress sooner than global warming.

[Zythryn]

With that in mind Questor, what is your method of reducing the population?

You said it was the best solution. How do you propose achieving that goal?

[freeztar]

I think the population problems will kill many more people and cause more global distress sooner than global warming.

 

I agree, but I don't think that we should abandon action on our pollution. We need to be tackling all of these world-wide problems together, concurrently.

 

The population problem is indeed something that needs to be addressed in some way. There's a great thread on the subject of population growth and what to do about it here:

 

http://hypography.com/forums/social-sciences/14857-world-population.html

[questor]

I have no proposal to reduce population. People will not act to solve this problem until it is to late, they are too busy acting on global warming. A solution for population control would undoubtedly reduce carbon emissions and may actually solve that problem, but no one is talking about it. One thing that will surely happen is starvation, the other probability is war over arable

land and water supplies.

[Zythryn]

Questor, since you have no suggestions as to how to lower the population, I would reiterate that we should then return to the idea of lowering the amount of CO2 we pump into the atmosphere as we know how that can be done.

 

As for population being an issue in and of itself, Freeztar's link goes to a great thread about that topic.