Global Warming

[saggyjones]

I am afraid that you are way off base there. The average mean temperature of the earth now is positively chilly compared to the average global mean of the history of the earth. Here is a simple (but accurate) graph showing the temperature cycles that the earth has gone through over the past 600 million years or so. Atmospheric CO2 concentrations are also shown.

You will note that the average mean temperature of the earth across its history is so warm that ice did not exist at one or both of the poles. You will also note that our atmospheric CO2 concentrations of 400 ppm make the present atmosphere seem positively CO2 starved when compared to past concentrations during both warm and cold cycles.

The fact is that the earth warms and the earth cools and we don't have a clear understanding of the mechanics. We have been exiting the present ice age for a very long time and to date, I haven't seen one whit of evidence that would suggest that we are exiting this ice age in a different manner than the past ice ages.

The problem is we are adding to the already naturally rising CO2/temperature with our own output. Of course there has been more CO2 and higher temperature in earth's history, but humans have only been around for about 150,000 years and could not live in those times. To maintain life as we know it we need to start using nuclear power (safe, efficient, and clean) and keep progressing with hydrogen power for cars. Also we need to help third world countries develop and move toward these technologies. If it turns out that this warming is not affected by humans then at least we have clean air and inexhaustible energy sources. And if we all die from a natural warming, well at least we tried. So there's really no point in arguing this subject except for the sake of arguing, because I'm sure we can all agree we need to move toward alternative energy.

 

[USMC the Almighty]

You didn't answer my question. What is causing the warming?

No one honestly knows, but I'll offer you my view:

The first, an obvious one being solar variance:

2. natural earth phenomena: lightning, earthquakes, volcanoes, etc.
including the accompanying fires
3. meteorites impacting the atmosphere [including the comets time to time, and space dust]
4. precession of the earth on its axis : the "wobble"
5. the fact that the moon is gradually moving away from us
6. human activity
7. animal activity
8. entropy

Again, let me reiterate, I am much more concerned about global cooling then warming.

 

[USMC the Almighty]

The problem is we are adding to the already naturally rising CO2/temperature with our own output. Of course there has been more CO2 and higher temperature in earth's history, but humans have only been around for about 150,000 years and could not live in those times. To maintain life as we know it we need to start using nuclear power (safe, efficient, and clean) and keep progressing with hydrogen power for cars. Also we need to help third world countries develop and move toward these technologies. If it turns out that this warming is not affected by humans then at least we have clean air and inexhaustible energy sources. And if we all die from a natural warming, well at least we tried. So there's really no point in arguing this subject except for the sake of arguing, because I'm sure we can all agree we need to move toward alternative energy.

Or maybe we should do all we can to heat up the earth before we enter into the next ice age.

 

[palerider]

You didn't answer my question. What is causing the warming?

What caused the warming and cooling cycles that have been going on since the earth came into being? THIS ISN"T ROCKET SCIENCE!!! The people who are using science that you don't understand to scare you are the moral equivialant of the high priests of old times who had figured out when solar and lunar eclipses were going to happen, and how to read the signs of coming monsoons and floods and used that knowledge to set themselves above the people and demand sacrifices of both blood and treasure.

The same is true today and the poorest nations are paying the blood sacrifices while the richest are paying in treasure.

Have you noticed in the past couple of years that the term used by the envirowackos is no longer global warming but climate change? Do you know why that is? The fact, saggyjones, is that since 1998 the average global mean temperature has been falling. They can't keep switching from warming to cooling and back to warming with every natural temperature fluctuation so they coined the term "climate change" so that they could point to whatever happens and claim the sky is falling and fully expect people like you, who don't have the slighest idea whether it is true or not to eat it up like ice cream.

 

[palerider]

The problem is we are adding to the already naturally rising CO2/temperature with our own output.

Do just a bit of research saggyjones, the entire CO2 output of the human race, worldwide, isn't even enough to overcome the natural deviation, from year to year, of the earth's own CO2 making machinery. Think about it just for one second. CO2 has risen from 280 parts to 380 parts PER MILLION. You are going to sit there and tell me that you believe that a gas that comprises THIRTY FIVE ONE THOUSANTHS of the total atmosphere is causing the earth to warm because it has increased by a factor of 100 PARTS PER MILLION? Get a grip guy.

Tell me, do you know what the most important greenhouse gas is and how much of it there is relative to how much CO2 there is? You are being led around like a sheep because you don't know.

Also, while the global trend for the past 8 years or so has been a very slight cooling trend, the overall trend is slightly warmer. After all, we are still exiting an ice age, what would you expect? Were you aware that when ocean water warms, it releases CO2? Were you aware that about 80% of that 100 parts per million that you are so terrified of has come from the ocean?

Of course there has been more CO2 and higher temperature in earth's history, but humans have only been around for about 150,000 years and could not live in those times.

Where do you get this stuff? Do you just make it up? That may work with most who you talk to, but not with me. I have a science education and you aren't going to scare me with grim fairy tales. The first mammal fossils date back about 135 million years. You will note from the chart that at that time, the atmospheric CO2 concentration was over 2000 parts per million. No mammal has ever existed that could breathe atmosphere that we couldn't. For that matter, there is no reason to believe that we couldn't have breathed the atmosphere during the Devonian period some some 400 million years ago.

Kindly direct me to some credible science that suggests that we could not have breathed the atmosphere from the time of the first land reptiles and survived just fine.

To maintain life as we know it we need to start using nuclear power (safe, efficient, and clean) and keep progressing with hydrogen power for cars. Also we need to help third world countries develop and move toward these technologies.

We may want to do these things, but it is not a matter of "we need" to. Third world countries need to start out with hydroelectric to work their way into technology. You don't put people who are barely past the neolithic age in a position upon which they are dependent on nuclear energy. They need to work their way towards more advanced technology (with our help) at their own speed.

If it turns out that this warming is not affected by humans then at least we have clean air and inexhaustible energy sources.

When it turns out you mean. And we will have inexaustable energy sources when it becomes profitable to develop them, and not before.

And if we all die from a natural warming, well at least we tried. So there's really no point in arguing this subject except for the sake of arguing, because I'm sure we can all agree we need to move toward alternative energy.

Far from dying saggyjones, our quality of life will improve considerably on a warmer earth. You really haven't looked at this subject beyond what the "high priests" of global climate change have told you have you? We know for a fact that the people who were living during the medieval warm period between 800 and 1300 AD (which by the way was considerably warmer than today) had an easier, more productive, and more abundant life than those who lived on either side of it until the age of machines began.

A warmer earth will have more rainfall, it will cost less to heat, more of the earth will become arable and in turn, open up vast areas of land to food production that produce nothing now. Historically, (in earth terms) life flourishes at a rate that we have never seen during the warm periods and both plants and animals struggle during the cool periods and with one notable excepetion at the end of the permian (due to volcanic activity on a massive scale) major dieoffs of species have happened during cold periods.

Sell your snake oil to someone who will buy it. Genuine science (not to be confused with the consensus of the high priests) doesn't support your doom and gloom tales.

 

[USMC the Almighty]

^ That's gonna leave a mark.

 

[palerider]

^ That's gonna leave a mark.

Nah. He is a true believer. No interest in knowing whether he is being lied to or not. Folks like him need crisis and impending doom. And folks like that need for the crisis and impending doom to be caused by human beings. The self loathing is a tragic aspect of modern liberalism. They are unable to believe in the transcendent so they replace the higher power with man and make him the pinacle of existence. Man, being what he is, can't help but dissapoint so they are left with an empty space left by the failure of man to live up to the godhood they expect of him and that void is quickly filled with misery and self hate.

Unfortunate, but unavoidable when one tries to make man, and what he wants the ultimate good.

 

[USMC the Almighty]

Well, I was speaking more metaphorically. I didn't expect him to actually consider your argument and allow it to influence his views -- rather, I wouldn't be surprised if he avoided this thread/topic like the plague after your post.

And concerning the "impending doom" -- why is the left so much more prone to hysteria than the right? When you think about it, how many times has this "the world is doomed" scenario arisen? You've got global warming, SARS, Y2K, Avian Bird Flu, cancer from 3 Mile Island, West Nile virus, mad cow disease -- we quickly forget and move on to the next lefist alarming.

They also see the PATRIOT Act and NSA's terrorist surveillance as incipient facism, drilling in ANWR as major environmental despoliation, opposition to gay marriage as an imminent Christian theocracy.

When you really think about it, it's no wonder that they suck up this global warming alarmism. You said it best:

Folks like him need crisis and impending doom. And folks like that need for the crisis and impending doom to be caused by human beings. The self loathing is a tragic aspect of modern liberalism.

 

[saggyjones]

No one honestly knows, but I'll offer you my view:

The first, an obvious one being solar variance:

2. natural earth phenomena: lightning, earthquakes, volcanoes, etc.
including the accompanying fires
3. meteorites impacting the atmosphere [including the comets time to time, and space dust]
4. precession of the earth on its axis : the "wobble"
5. the fact that the moon is gradually moving away from us
6. human activity
7. animal activity
8. entropy

Again, let me reiterate, I am much more concerned about global cooling then warming.

Global cooling is a product of greenhouse gases, if you didn't know. But like you said no one knows for sure and we'll have to wait it out and see who's right.

 

[saggyjones]

What caused the warming and cooling cycles that have been going on since the earth came into being? THIS ISN"T ROCKET SCIENCE!!! The people who are using science that you don't understand to scare you are the moral equivialant of the high priests of old times who had figured out when solar and lunar eclipses were going to happen, and how to read the signs of coming monsoons and floods and used that knowledge to set themselves above the people and demand sacrifices of both blood and treasure.

The same is true today and the poorest nations are paying the blood sacrifices while the richest are paying in treasure.

Have you noticed in the past couple of years that the term used by the envirowackos is no longer global warming but climate change? Do you know why that is? The fact, saggyjones, is that since 1998 the average global mean temperature has been falling. They can't keep switching from warming to cooling and back to warming with every natural temperature fluctuation so they coined the term "climate change" so that they could point to whatever happens and claim the sky is falling and fully expect people like you, who don't have the slighest idea whether it is true or not to eat it up like ice cream.

Wow, great metaphors! You sure are at good spewing out bull**** that just takes up space and really doesn't represent anything.

Back to the point, the pattern of climate change has been climbing. A few years of cooling doesn't eliminate the overall warming trend. Also, I don't know where you get the cooling, can you provide a source? Here's one of mine:

 

[saggyjones]

Do just a bit of research saggyjones, the entire CO2 output of the human race, worldwide, isn't even enough to overcome the natural deviation, from year to year, of the earth's own CO2 making machinery. Think about it just for one second. CO2 has risen from 280 parts to 380 parts PER MILLION. You are going to sit there and tell me that you believe that a gas that comprises THIRTY FIVE ONE THOUSANTHS of the total atmosphere is causing the earth to warm because it has increased by a factor of 100 PARTS PER MILLION? Get a grip guy.

Yes, I am. You obviously have never studied the climate, because even change that appears small can have a huge impact.

Tell me, do you know what the most important greenhouse gas is and how much of it there is relative to how much CO2 there is? You are being led around like a sheep because you don't know.

It's water vapor, and there's much more of it. Water vapor levels are also a problem, although CO2 has had the most drastic change and is the most effective on most people.

Evaporated H2O is a known greenhouse gas—a gas that absorbs and re-emits infrared radiation in Earth's atmosphere, thereby increasing temperatures.

http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2005/11/1110_051110_warming.html

Also, while the global trend for the past 8 years or so has been a very slight cooling trend, the overall trend is slightly warmer. After all, we are still exiting an ice age, what would you expect? Were you aware that when ocean water warms, it releases CO2? Were you aware that about 80% of that 100 parts per million that you are so terrified of has come from the ocean?

We aren't debating that the earth is warming and that CO2 is rising, we're debating whether humans are causing it or not.

Where do you get this stuff? Do you just make it up? That may work with most who you talk to, but not with me. I have a science education and you aren't going to scare me with grim fairy tales. The first mammal fossils date back about 135 million years. You will note from the chart that at that time, the atmospheric CO2 concentration was over 2000 parts per million. No mammal has ever existed that could breathe atmosphere that we couldn't. For that matter, there is no reason to believe that we couldn't have breathed the atmosphere during the Devonian period some some 400 million years ago.

Kindly direct me to some credible science that suggests that we could not have breathed the atmosphere from the time of the first land reptiles and survived just fine.

I was wrong, and I admit you are right about this part.

We may want to do these things, but it is not a matter of "we need" to. Third world countries need to start out with hydroelectric to work their way into technology. You don't put people who are barely past the neolithic age in a position upon which they are dependent on nuclear energy. They need to work their way towards more advanced technology (with our help) at their own speed.

Isn't that what I said? We need to move toward these energy sources and help 3rd world countries develop, as I said. Why are you arguing with me and agreeing on this?

When it turns out you mean. And we will have inexaustable energy sources when it becomes profitable to develop them, and not before.

We need to create incentives for companies to move toward nuclear power and hydrogen-powered cars. The technology is nearly here; all we need to do is guide our economy in the right direction.

Far from dying saggyjones, our quality of life will improve considerably on a warmer earth. You really haven't looked at this subject beyond what the "high priests" of global climate change have told you have you? We know for a fact that the people who were living during the medieval warm period between 800 and 1300 AD (which by the way was considerably warmer than today) had an easier, more productive, and more abundant life than those who lived on either side of it until the age of machines began.

A warmer earth will have more rainfall, it will cost less to heat, more of the earth will become arable and in turn, open up vast areas of land to food production that produce nothing now. Historically, (in earth terms) life flourishes at a rate that we have never seen during the warm periods and both plants and animals struggle during the cool periods and with one notable excepetion at the end of the permian (due to volcanic activity on a massive scale) major dieoffs of species have happened during cold periods.

Sell your snake oil to someone who will buy it. Genuine science (not to be confused with the consensus of the high priests) doesn't support your doom and gloom tales.

I guess you didn't catch the sarcasm in that part. I don't really think we're all going to die anytime soon, I just think global warming is going to cause undesirable living conditions.

Also more rainfall and unpredictable storm systems will wreak havoc on agriculture in places like Africa. The crops there are already at their warmest point possible to grow. But this would probably only be short term and you're right, agriculture would benefit. But there are other problems, like flooding due to the ice caps melting.

 

[saggyjones]

Nah. He is a true believer. No interest in knowing whether he is being lied to or not. Folks like him need crisis and impending doom. And folks like that need for the crisis and impending doom to be caused by human beings. The self loathing is a tragic aspect of modern liberalism. They are unable to believe in the transcendent so they replace the higher power with man and make him the pinacle of existence. Man, being what he is, can't help but dissapoint so they are left with an empty space left by the failure of man to live up to the godhood they expect of him and that void is quickly filled with misery and self hate.

Unfortunate, but unavoidable when one tries to make man, and what he wants the ultimate good.

LOL that's one of the most ridiculous posts I've ever read. I'm glad someone as insightful about human nature as you can read my personality so well, I think I'll see a therapist and try to change my self-loathing ways.

 

[saggyjones]

Well, I was speaking more metaphorically. I didn't expect him to actually consider your argument and allow it to influence his views -- rather, I wouldn't be surprised if he avoided this thread/topic like the plague after your post.

You know, you haven't replied on the increased min wage thread for a while.

And concerning the "impending doom" -- why is the left so much more prone to hysteria than the right? When you think about it, how many times has this "the world is doomed" scenario arisen? You've got global warming, SARS, Y2K, Avian Bird Flu, cancer from 3 Mile Island, West Nile virus, mad cow disease -- we quickly forget and move on to the next lefist alarming.

Because we're liberals and tend to overreact, as conservatives tend to under react (in my opinion).

But just for the record I, and most intelligent people I know, never believed in any of those epidemics. The Y2K thing was just silly.

They also see the PATRIOT Act and NSA's terrorist surveillance as incipient facism,

I just don't like them violating the constitution, but if it really has helped our country then so be it.

drilling in ANWR as major environmental despoliation

It's a ****ing wildlife refuge, of course people are going to oppose it. Why not drill in the grand canyon? Or in Yosemite? How about Yellowstone? Would you support that? (If there was oil there of course)

Opposition to gay marriage as an imminent Christian theocracy.

I just think they deserve to get married, but this argument is for a different thread. But I don't think it's an imminent Christian theocracy.

When you really think about it, it's no wonder that they suck up this global warming alarmism. You said it best:

We won't know until it happens, will we? It's like the boy who cried wolf (pretty stupid simile I know). These hypes are bound to be true sometime and if everyone just ignored it we wouldn't be able to prevent the real ones.

 

[USMC the Almighty]

Wow, great metaphors! You sure are at good spewing out bull**** that just takes up space and really doesn't represent anything.

Back to the point, the pattern of climate change has been climbing. A few years of cooling doesn't eliminate the overall warming trend. Also, I don't know where you get the cooling, can you provide a source? Here's one of mine:

And it's exactly this warming trend that should have you concerned about cooling. We are currently in the midst of a Modern Maximum, an unusually long period of years in which each 11-year warming period has started up more abruptly and gone into higher sunspot activity than previous eras except for the Medieval Maximum, and the 11-year cooling periods have never cooled down to previous minima levels. So what you see is a spikey chart showing the maxima and minima in an rising slope, but the bottom of the spikes never reaching prior levels of coolness. It started approximately around 1950, and could be confusing the global warming issue to a considerable degree, given that sunspot minima have been associated with such events as the Little Ice Age (Maunder Minimum) and a sunspot maximum like the current one is associated with the Medieval Warm Period. The Little Ice Age/Maunder Minimum and the Medieval Warm Period/Medieval Maximum are very strong indications of a good case for a solar cause.

At any rate, the earth's climate is cyclical, and since we are at the top of the curve right now (as, according to NASA, we are right now peaking out in terms of warmth as indicated by the sun's magnetic field flipping [http://science.nasa.gov/headlines/y2001/ast15feb_1.htm]) it is inevitable that the temperature will continue its well-established pattern and begin cooling: http://www.smeter.net/propagation/sunspots/current-sunspot-cycle.php

If NASA is right, we can expect global temperatures to fall for the next 25 years, at least.

Indications are that we are entering another Little Ice Age. Following the climate patterns of the last 9,000 years, we can expect the coming Little Ice Age to be colder and longer than the last one (which lasted 400 years).

If atmospheric CO2 had a greenhouse warming effect, which sadly it doesn’t, it would be a good idea to inject as much CO2 into the atmosphere as we can. Warmer is decidedly better than cooler, and that is obvious when the entire Holocene and Pleistocene are considered.

 

[USMC the Almighty]

You challenged me to rebut your post -- but didn't even make an argument, so I'm not exactly sure what I'm supposed to rebut.

I guess you didn't catch the sarcasm in that part. I don't really think we're all going to die anytime soon, I just think global warming is going to cause undesirable living conditions.

Harvard astrophysicist Sallie Baliunas says added carbon dioxide in the atmosphere may actually benefit the world because more CO2 helps plants grow. Warmer winters would give farmers a longer harvest season.

And I'll kindly repost my friend palerider's remarks that you ignored: "...our quality of life will improve considerably on a warmer earth. You really haven't looked at this subject beyond what the "high priests" of global climate change have told you have you? We know for a fact that the people who were living during the medieval warm period between 800 and 1300 AD (which by the way was considerably warmer than today) had an easier, more productive, and more abundant life than those who lived on either side of it until the age of machines began.

A warmer earth will have more rainfall, it will cost less to heat, more of the earth will become arable and in turn, open up vast areas of land to food production that produce nothing now. Historically, (in earth terms) life flourishes at a rate that we have never seen during the warm periods and both plants and animals struggle during the cool periods and with one notable exception at the end of the Permian (due to volcanic activity on a massive scale) major die offs of species have happened during cold periods."

Also more rainfall and unpredictable storm systems will wreak havoc on agriculture in places like Africa.

"If the models are correct, global warming reduces the temperature differences between the poles and the equator. When you have less difference in temperature, you have less excitation of extra-tropical storms, not more. Claims for starkly higher temperatures are based upon there being more humidity, not less--hardly a case for more storminess with global warming."

-- Richard Lindzen, Alfred P. Sloan Professor of Atmospheric Science at MIT

But there are other problems, like flooding due to the ice caps melting.

This doesn't really make sense to me, but then again, I'm not a scientist. How would melting ice caps won't overflow the oceans anymore than melting ice cubes overflow an already full glass of water?

And further, global warming could actually be causing certain glaciers to grow contend numerous sources. Glaciers are growing in Norway, New Zealand and even the United States. The U.S. Forest Service reports that the Hubbard Glacier in Alaska's Tongass National Forest is advancing so rapidly, it threatens to close off a major fjord. In addition, evidence so far suggests that the Greenland ice sheet is actually growing on average.