Global Warming - How Valid and Serious?

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So we have over-reproduced and are now engaged in a frantic and, according to Lovelock, futile exercise in damage limitation. All our low-watt light bulbs and electric cars are doing no good, and may aggravate the situation further.


"Bali (the latest international climate change agreement) may make things worse. One peculiarity is that when you burn coal and fuel you not only put CO2 into the atmosphere, which makes the Earth warmer, but you also put out a lot of dust and haze, which acts as a screen and cools the Earth."


So, if there is an economic downtown and there is less industry in China, global warming could worsen.


Meanwhile, Lovelock says: "European governments are doing daft things, investing huge sums in renewable energy which makes a hell of a lot of profit but does no good at all for our survival."

its a pretty good article actually. even if one is a sceptic.



http://www.dailymail.co.uk/pages/live/articles/news/news.html?in_article_id=541748&in_page_id=1770

 

[2020hindsight]

"Bali (the latest international climate change agreement) may make things worse. One peculiarity is that when you burn coal and fuel you not only put CO2 into the atmosphere, which makes the Earth warmer, but you also put out a lot of dust and haze, which acts as a screen and cools the Earth."

This is saying that you should make a lot of atmospheric pollution to keep us cool and/or counter the effects of the concurrent warming going on AND ACCUMULATING in the background. Such a genius proposal!

It's like arguing it's ok to keep drinking progressively stronger whisky to stay ahead of a hangover - trouble is one day you have to wake up with an empty wallet - and face the exacerbated consequences.

or burning the timber in the house to keep warm - ok till you run out of house.

 

[metric]

so called global warming is such a mish mash of conflicting science, i refuse to defend any of it.

russian scientists have stated that up untill the last 2 years, 50,000 sunspots per day flared on the sun. the last 2 years no more than 5 (?) per day have flared. they claim that this has decreased the earths temp by the same degree that GG has increased it in the last 70 years or some such. (i could find a link)..

also, it is said that the ice caps melting will cool the oceans, creating a ice age.

then we have james lovelock saying we are doomed in 30 years from now...etc.

seas are supposed to rise by 10cm per century......i thought they had been for thousands of years..wasnt there a land bridge to tassie??

to paraphrase mossad. "by way of deception, thou shall do business". someone is making money...

just my

 

[Smurf1976]

Speaking for myself ... it is hard to look beyond my lifetime, my own self importance, my own existence.To take responsability for the planet beyond my lifetime doesn`t come naturally and i need to be educated.To understand.

I look at the empty packaging of some food just consumed and visualise the rubbish dump ground that it goes to.At the dumping ground i see televisions, furniture, computers, plastic ... lots of plastic, rotting food .... the stench nauseating, toys ... no love anymore.Cover it over and make another rubbish collection place.

My presence as a human contributes to the rubbish in the world.I am only one!

All things considered, I would say that food is a bigger problem in landfill than plastic. Plastic is less polluting to produce, reasonably stable in landfill and doesn't create masses of methane. No excuse for anyone to be throwing out food IMO - why would you want to do that anyway?

 

[2020hindsight]

No excuse for anyone to be throwing out food IMO

smurf
fair point
why not recycle paper, glass, plastic, green waste etc in "the bin"
and bury the food scraps (and the prawnheads I guess?) in a compost heap out the back .
we do that at the moment, but not sufficiently "religiously" I suspect.
difficult for people who live in a condom -
inium.

 

[Wysiwyg]

No excuse for anyone to be throwing out food IMO - why would you want to do that anyway?

I`m sure no one eats every skerrick of food.Food outlets, butcheries, shopping centers and fruit/vegetable stores dispose of decomposing organics daily.

 

[metric]

the australian has put a bomb under the global warming religion, as has nasa.

http://nzclimatescience.net/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=233&Itemid=1

A great many founts of authority, from the Royal Society to the UN, most heads of government along with countless captains of industry, learned professors, commentators and journalists will be profoundly embarrassed. Let us hope it is a prolonged and chastening experience.

victims of ramping?

Penny Wong's climate mega-portfolio will suddenly be as ephemeral as the ministries for the year 2000 that state governments used to entrust to junior ministers. Malcolm Turnbull will have to reinvent himself at vast speed as a climate change sceptic and the Prime Minister will have to kiss goodbye what he likes to call the great moral issue and policy challenge of our times.

um, i remember saying something like this...

Duffy: "Is this a matter of any controversy?"

Marohasy: "Actually, no. The head of the IPCC (Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change) has actually acknowledged it. He talks about the apparent plateau in temperatures so far this century. So he recognises that in this century, over the past eight years, temperatures have plateaued ... This is not what you'd expect, as I said, because if carbon dioxide is driving temperature then you'd expect that, given carbon dioxide levels have been continuing to increase, temperatures should be going up ... So (it's) very unexpected, not something that's being discussed. It should be being discussed, though, because it's very significant."

Duffy: "It's not only that it's not discussed. We never hear it, do we? Whenever there's any sort of weather event that can be linked into the global warming orthodoxy, it's put on the front page. But a fact like that, which is that global warming stopped a decade ago, is virtually never reported, which is extraordinary."

to read the whole article, go to link at top.

 

[wayneL]

Nice find metric.

Now we get to see cognitive bias in action. (Actually, we have all along, it just wasn't so blinkin' obvious)

 

[2020hindsight]

Summary :- First impression, I guess I should have allowed another option in the poll
“Global Catastrophe is gonna happen, and there’s no need to act because it’s too late anyway.” – but (imo) just because we’ve been living in blissful ignorance for the last 20 years, doesn’t mean we can not use that excuse to say – ahh gee, we let the chance to act go by and now it’s too late”

metric, this is from your post from "WWIII" thread
Trust I can reply to it here.

and it’s a particularly great find! – if totally defeatist. (- because his warnings have been ignored too long - or perhaps he’s trying to jolt us into some action? maybe?). I mean he points out that the last time we were this hot (55 million years ago), it took the effects of 2 million million tons of oil to cause the temperature rise - and we’ll be equivalent to that in 20 years. ! (he arguably leaves the door slightly open).

We will have put that much into the atmosphere within the next 20 years or so. We know what happened last time, we know how long it lasted. It hung around for about 200,000 years."

You suggested that the next world war would be started by global warming (together with environmental refugees) - conceded, world wars are not out of the question, as the likes of China scrambles to find unpolluted territory to house it’s billions.

(so much for ferret’s proposal to encourage population growth in the interests of short term profits according to some economics 101 lecture)

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/pages/live/articles/news/news.html?in_article_id=541748&in_page_id=1770
Global Warming will start next war ..
.....He (Lovelock) passionately wants "the best of our species" to survive, and is philosophical about the majority who won't.

...It will bring the most awful problem for our people and our Government.

"At some point, we are going to have to say Britain is a lifeboat. If any more people come on board then we will sink.

"If we get it wrong, you will have ghastly encampments like Darfur. People will be smuggling their way in and setting up camps. Ethnic communities will want to help them and civil war will start."

,,,,,,,,
"By 2040, China will be uninhabitable." Lovelock believes that the Chinese, because of their high levels of industrial activity, will be the first to suffer, with the death of all plant life.

"So I think the Chinese will go to Africa. They are already there,

"This is not science fiction.

You don't need much of a sea level rise to wipe Bangladesh off the face of the Earth."

Australians have enough land and resources to stay put. Lovelock sees Americans moving to Canada. Americans have the natural advantage of being born migrants.

He also says :-

Crackpot or visionary, the fact is that more and more people are paying attention to Lovelock, and that he, himself, supports the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) - the influential group who shared the Nobel Peace Prize with former American vice president Al Gore for their campaigns on global warming.

He has been proclaiming his Gaia Theory for a generation. This states that the Earth is a living, self-regulating system and that by filling its atmosphere with CO2 (carbon dioxide emissions) we have destroyed the balance and overheated the planet. We are in the phase when the thermometer suddenly shoots up.

Lovelock believes it is too late to repair the damage. Government targets are "futile". Britain contributes such a tiny amount of emissions compared with countries such as China that our self-regulatory measures are pathetic.
"Everyone could burn coal all day and drive around in 4x4s and it would not make a scrap of difference," he says.

It is hubris, he argues, to believe we can prevent the inevitable consequences of mankind's actions. Lovelock reminds us - in case it has slipped our memory - that the Earth has gone through exactly the same correction before.

"It was last as hot as this 55 million years ago. There was a geological accident in the North Sea, near where Norway is. A volcanic layer of lava came up underneath one of the large petroleum deposits. It vaporised the whole lot, putting into the atmosphere about two million, million tons of crude oil.

We will have put that much into the atmosphere within the next 20 years or so. We know what happened last time, we know how long it lasted. It hung around for about 200,000 years." ……..

"Everything moved to the North," Lovelock explains. "The Arctic Ocean was tropical, the sea temperature was 23C (73F). You could find the remains of crocodiles in the sediments."

Such a residue of the past has guided Lovelock through his decades of investigation. The prophet of doom is a distinguished scientist, who was made a Companion of Honour and who has a great invention to his name.
He perfected the Electron Capture Detector which sought out poisons in the atmosphere and discovered CFCs puncturing the ozone layer, as well as pesticides.

….He does not look like a man willing our extinction. Yet he says he welcomes the next evolutionary step - even if he is a victim of it.

 

[metric]

i posted all of that fools quotes as an example of the rabid fanaticism of the global warming religion. a point only you missed.

if you want to learn the truth about GW. i suggest you research my earlier post.

you are a FOLLOWER...

Summary :- First impression, I guess I should have allowed another option in the poll
“Global Catastrophe is gonna happen, and there’s no need to act because it’s too late anyway.” – but (imo) just because we’ve been living in blissful ignorance for the last 20 years, doesn’t mean we can not use that excuse to say – ahh gee, we let the chance to act go by and now it’s too late”

metric, this is from your post from "WWIII" thread
Trust I can reply to it here.

and it’s a particularly great find! – if totally defeatist. (- because his warnings have been ignored too long - or perhaps he’s trying to jolt us into some action? maybe?). I mean he points out that the last time we were this hot (55 million years ago), it took the effects of 2 million million tons of oil to cause the temperature rise - and we’ll be equivalent to that in 20 years. ! (he arguably leaves the door slightly open).

You suggested that the next world war would be started by global warming (together with environmental refugees) - conceded, world wars are not out of the question, as the likes of China scrambles to find unpolluted territory to house it’s billions.

(so much for ferret’s proposal to encourage population growth in the interests of short term profits according to some economics 101 lecture)




He also says :-

 

[2020hindsight]

1. i posted all of that fools quotes as an example of the rabid fanaticism of the global warming religion. a point only you missed.

2. if you want to learn the truth about GW. i suggest you research my earlier post.

3. you are a FOLLOWER...

1. well this fool happens to be the bloke who permitted the hole in the ozone layer to be detected and corrected. - Do you give him any points for that ?
hang on - You don't believe in the ozone layer as I recall. (back a few posts now).

2. mmm - brave statement in these uncertain times. Even IPCC talks of 95% confidence ( and a number of scenarios)

3. Yep , I guess I follow the best opinions I can find out there. I had the cheek to agree with the IPCC that we should try to reduce CO2 by 1.9% per annum starting now, and so hold temperature increase to 2 degrees.

and EVEN IFF I'm wrong, a lot of good will be done for cleaning up pollution and developing new efficient technology.

It's still a gr8 opportunity to invent some efficient energy systems, I think you'd agree. Solar, wind etc. (or would you prefer to stay with oil and coal?)

And if these people are embarrassed, then I will happily join ranks with em again. - and totally relieved because a right royal mess has been avoided.

If Marohasy is anywhere near right ..... A great many founts of authority, from the Royal Society to the UN, most heads of government along with countless captains of industry, learned professors, commentators and journalists will be profoundly embarrassed.

btw, you and the blokes at the local pub will be proven right. - right all along. We never should even have analysed the situation.

btw, that paragraph continues ...

Let us hope it is a prolonged and chastening experience.

Now I found that a fraction mmm - let's say - revealing of a possible underlying bias.

 

[metric]

my biggest concern in the environment that affects me, is that my bush full of big green chillis in the garden would hurry up and turn red!

my second environmental concern was the methane being created at the local pub.....thats how i discovered truely good beer at the 'spotted cow' bottle shop!!!

"Whenever there's any sort of weather event that can be linked into the global warming orthodoxy, it's put on the front page. But a fact like that, which is that global warming stopped a decade ago, is virtually never reported, which is extraordinary." - Op-ed in The Australian

and thats my third concern, and why i think someones making money.....

 

[2020hindsight]

metric - happy hour comment ok?
As for all those "countless captains of industry, scientists, learned professors" etc all being completely wrong -
stranger things have happened !

PS everyone should watch this youtube once a week at least (imo).

Speed Skating 1,000 Meters - Steven Bradbury 2002 Olympics

 

[metric]

watch it whenever one feels down!!!! lol, i was cheering!!!

 

[2020hindsight]

lol - the end justifies the routines?

"routine around" for 990 metres lol
and the incredulous voice of the commentator "and stephen bradbury wins !!!" - ava good one.

PS just to stay on thread - no doubt we'll be able to monitor the earth's temperature next year - or in 2012 or whatever (tomorrow is a bit meaningless ) I've still got $5 on that 2012 will be hotter that 2008 ok?

 

[Smurf1976]

"Whenever there's any sort of weather event that can be linked into the global warming orthodoxy, it's put on the front page. But a fact like that, which is that global warming stopped a decade ago, is virtually never reported, which is extraordinary." - Op-ed in The Australian

Of course the facts aren't being reported. Are they in any major issue?

Climate change is, in practice, and emotional and economic debate rather than a scientific one. That's not to say it doesn't exist and isn't a threat, just that rational scientific discussion on the subject ended several years ago as far as the general public, industry, politicians and even many scientists are concerned.

Much like rational discussion on pulp mills, roads, dams, factories or anything else where there are environmental issues ends the day someone announces the proposal to build one.

If you look at the history of environmental debates in Australia then winners use emotion and photos whilst losers use science and engineering. In this case however the coal industry etc is having real trouble finding a workable emotional argument against cutting CO2 emissions - hence reducing emissions will win the debate no matter what the science says from now on.

 

[noirua]

University of Adelaide, "Paydirt's 2008 Uranium Conference" - Global Warming and Uranium: A green dilemma.
Professor Ian Plimer, Professor of Mining Geology, University of Adelaide - Boardroom Radio: http://www.brr.com.au/event/43876

 

[metric]

http://infowars.net/articles/march2008/240308Singer.htm

an interesting quote from the linked article....

As we have consistently pointed out, energy companies stand to gain from inflated prices caused by the fear of global warming and their representatives have been actively pushing the man made global warming mantra.

 

[spooly74]

University of Adelaide, "Paydirt's 2008 Uranium Conference" - Global Warming and Uranium: A green dilemma.
Professor Ian Plimer, Professor of Mining Geology, University of Adelaide - Boardroom Radio: http://www.brr.com.au/event/43876

Cheers noirua, interesting talk and I`d agree somewhat on the Co2 emisions although there was no mention of other pollutants. Frozen methane stored in the ocean floor could have drastic effects on temp.

The wobbles that he mentioned have the virtue of making a definite prediction. Setting aside all effects of human activity on climate, Earth should be currently on a temperature downslope, growing ever cooler in the next 5,000 or 10,000 years.

They are called Milankovitch Cycles and relate to 3 factors as he mentioned.
1. Orbital Variace
2. Obliquity (change in axial tilt)
3. Precession

Technical advances made it possible for geologists to study deep-sea sediment cores that contain a climate record going back millions of years. This climate record shows remarkably regular variations, which correlate with Milankovitch`s figures.

 

[Smurf1976]

Frozen methane stored in the ocean floor could have drastic effects on temp.

Just wait until we use all the conventional natural gas trying to cut emissions from power stations then end up mining methane, losing most of it to the atmosphere in the process, to make motor fuel, plastics and fertilizer.