Global Warming - How Valid and Serious?

[Pat]

You haven't heard about Antarctica getting colder or southern ocean ice increasing because they don't want to tell you.

Who doesn't?
Why so much emphasis on it getting hotter? Because there is little evidence of cooling?

In all continents I have read of evidence of tempratures increasing. Europe, The America's, Australia, Asia and Africa. Deserts getting bigger, drought, melting ice etc. If the opposite can be seen, wouldn't scientists be jumping all over it?

IMO, It's been getting warmer for the last 10000 yrs or so. I've read the sea level has been alot higher. It is safe to say that the sea level would fluctuate from up there to down there.
To me, we're on an uptrend (trends do change). Human impact or not.

Why is it wrong to say GW is a reason to stop burning fossil fuels, polluting the planet???

 

[wayneL]

I read, a few days ago, that 80% of babies of one specie of penguin in the Antarctic have died by freezing to death. It does not usually rain there as it's too cold. But now these babies become wet, when their parents go to catch food, as they have not yet grown their water resistant feathers. Of course this freezes... 'They' suggested that in ten years this penguin will be extinct.

A strange and sad event to be sure. But this shows the delusional leaps of logic that people are making.

* One weather event does not prove or disprove anything. As we know from NASA, the Antarctic getting colder. Hell, it snowed in Melbourne in November one year not too long ago... meant nothing.

* There may have been incidences of precisely the same thing in the last 10,000 years that humans haven't been on the continent to observe.

* It may never happen again, or at least infrequently enough to have no long term effect

Yet "they", in a most unscientific leap of faith, will have the penguins extinct in ten years in order to sensationalize the story.

That's intellectual dishonesty of the most disgraceful variety and I thought you as a teacher would have seen right through it. Very bad show.

 

[wayneL]

Why is it wrong to say GW is a reason to stop burning fossil fuels, polluting the planet???

stop burning fossil fuels ==>> Good idea

GW ==>> wrong reason and a red herring

polluting the planet ==>> right reason

Wile everyone freaks about co2, they ignore all the other pollutants that are wrecking the place.

E.g. going back to penguins. Populations are in decline due to a bunch of other reasons nothing to do with climate and everything to do with pollution and habitat destruction. Yet these factors are ignored.

 

[Pat]

stop burning fossil fuels ==>> Good idea

GW ==>> wrong reason and a red herring

polluting the planet ==>> right reason

Wile everyone freaks about co2, they ignore all the other pollutants that are wrecking the place.

E.g. going back to penguins. Populations are in decline due to a bunch of other reasons nothing to do with climate and everything to do with pollution and habitat destruction. Yet these factors are ignored.

They've always been ignored. But GW opens up the opportunity for some real change. It has created more awareness of the surrounding environment for many. The GW debate has been a positive stimulus. I do not foresee any problems in pursuing the reduction of CO2 and other pollutants.
The "awareness" can only bring more positive change for the better of the environment.

 

[jtb]

What do you ponder jtb, when you see the ice melting? Any sense of loss?

FWIW it's kinda sad to see peeps writing off CC (possibly because they are self righteous lounge room asswholes) with no regard to what we may be losing. Ignorant?

There are more important reasons to change our ways, CC and GW just add to the argument.... "Why not change for the better???"

Or do some here think the human race is efficient enough?

Ouch Pat,

I don’t think I’ve ever been called a ‘self righteous lounge room asswhole’ before.

FWIW the case for GW/CC is a considerable portion of my tertiary studies and will result in a BSc (Sustainable Energy Management) .
My interest in geology many years ago morphed into a specific focus on astrobiology , not in small part due to the rise in awareness of CC.

I also made the point that I am not a sceptic.

My original post was directed to DJ in support of his feedback statements as alot of people are unaware (uninterested) in this phenomenon.

CO2 is regulated by the silicate-carbonate geochemical cycle and prior to the rise of life (pre-Cambrian) atmospheric CO2 levels were 20 times what they are today. It was actually the explosion of life (due to warming) that pulled it down to where we are today.
Very little carbon is actually carried in the atmosphere with a large portion banked in the ocean and the majority in rocks.
As atmospheric levels rise (get out of balance) warming exposes more rock/earth which leads to more weathering (and the production of carbonates) and also the propagation of plants which in turn capture more carbon which then reduces the atmospheric level.

My point regarding glaciers calving was bemoaning the sound byte driven misinformation that our society now unfortunately considers education.

Perhaps my mistake was taking the macro instead of the micro view.

As I’m sure you know many glaciers are also expanding around the world and yet the deep ice core drilling at Vostok station (Russia) shows clearly that we are in an unnaturally extended warm period (hence the rise of civilisation) and the ices historical record shows that a drop of 8 deg C is overdue when considering the previous four interglacial events (approx ever 100,000yrs).

Hence the earth has lost control of its CO2 balance all on its own , 4 times in the last 400,000 years.

Which coincidently displays as a parabolic rise in temperature each time (Very similar to 2020’s chart) followed by an extended period of ice building.

Our return of captured carbon to the atmosphere is obviously outside of the natural system however its not outside of natural cycles.

Considering the city of Seattle (USA) was under 1600m of ice only 15 thousand years ago, I simply find it incomprehensible that humans are so ego-centric that they forget the planet is a dynamic, extreme ‘wondrous machine’.
I imagine the mammoth hunters were damn glad to see the glaciers recede.

As to a sense of loss, after spending many years living remotely (in a swag) amidst our wonderful outback my sense of loss, although at first magnified (Alpine forests are now the the goldfields) was tempered by scales of time and the magnitude of the landscape.
What magnificent things our previous generations have already lost or destroyed.

I wonder what our continent and fauna would have looked like prior to being put to the torch by the indigenous tribes?

Glory in the present

I can’t agree more with your statement ‘there are more important reasons to change our way’s’- the impact of man on biodiversity is a far greater threat than any other imo.

That we should all do our best to lighten our load goes without saying.

Sorry 2020, you seem to have missed my point entirely.

If we compress the entire history of the planet into a 12 hour period then the recorded history of mankind would inhabit a colossal 1/10th of a second.

To fret over a 3 degree rise/fall in a couple of hundred years (and don’t get me started on quality of data) is a bit like taking your car to a mechanic with a blown diff and telling him to have a look at the headlights.

Anyway, me and my ignorance are off to the loungeroom

Cheers

J

 

[It's Snake Pliskin]

Perhaps a realisation of "We don't know but lets try to do better anyway" would be good for all.

I agree with Waynel that we haven't been here long enough and 10,000 years could be a short time for a celestial change which may just be the cause of what we have labeled global warming.

Should Earth orbit the sun in a perfect circle each time? What if it is off by a few hundred thousand kms? Colder hotter perhaps.

 

[wayneL]

jtb

Fantastic post. Thanks for your erudite and balanced view.

They've always been ignored. But GW opens up the opportunity for some real change. It has created more awareness of the surrounding environment for many. The GW debate has been a positive stimulus. I do not foresee any problems in pursuing the reduction of CO2 and other pollutants.
The "awareness" can only bring more positive change for the better of the environment.

Pat,

I don't think it does.

E.g the British gu'mint. Shoves AGW down our throats at every opportunity and spends mot of its time dreaming up new environmental taxes.

Yet, it is building a new runway at Heathrow and adding a few lanes to the M25, both to facilitate additional carbon reliant travel. Eh???

Meanwhile, it is up to non-AGW focused folk to campaign against general pollution, litter and the preposterous level of supermarket packaging that clogs up our bins and landfill.

I think the AGW agenda detracts from real sustainability issues. It is anecdotal I realize, but it's what I observe

 

[Doris]

You see thats just the media taking things out of context.

How so? Do a google on 'penguin chicks dying+antarctica'
I got 9440 sites!

You haven't heard about Antarctica getting colder or southern ocean ice increasing because they don't want to tell you.

Tens of thousands of newly-born penguins are freezing to death as Antarctica is lashed by freak rain storms.

Scientists believe the numbers of Adelie penguins may have fallen by as much as 80 per cent – and, if the downpours continue, the species will be extinct within ten years.

Temperatures on the Antarctic peninsula have risen by 3C over the past 50 years to an average of -14.7C and rain is now far more common than snow.

Adelie penguins are born with a thin covering of down and it takes 40 days for them to grow protective water-repellent feathers. With epic rains drenching their ancestral nesting grounds, their parents try to protect them. But when the adults leave to fish for food, or are killed by predators such as seals, the babies become soaked to the skin and die from hypothermia.

‘Everyone talks about the melting of the glaciers but having day after day of rain in Antarctica is a totally new phenomenon. As a result, penguins are literally freezing to death,’ said Jon Bowermaster, a New York-based explorer who has recently returned from Antarctica.

‘It is all very well talking theoretically about how the ice cap could disappear – but watching penguins walking among the skeletons of their young is the most powerful evidence of climate change I have seen.’

Biologist Professor P. Dee Boersma, of the University of Washington in Seattle, has published a study in the magazine BioScience in which she says that the warming climate is also threatening the Emperor penguin.

‘These penguins are sentinels who are showing we really are looking at big changes in the world’s climate.’

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/wor...-penguins-frozen-death-freak-rain-storms.html

 

[Pat]

Ouch Pat,

I don’t think I’ve ever been called a ‘self righteous lounge room asswhole’ before.

Sorry mate, you haven't yet. That was not directed at you (It wouldn't make sense for me to say that). Nor any other poster.
I suppose I've heard enough from people who don't care. To me GW is an opportunity for change. It's frustrating, very frustrating that some ignore the fact we should be living with the earth.
Yet to read your post, a few more beers and its bed time. Till tomorrow :bier:

 

[jtb]

Sorry mate,
Yet to read your post, a few more beers and its bed time. Till tomorrow :bier:

No worries mate, sounds like a plan

 

[2020hindsight]

It is now time to cease your intellectual dishonesty of misrepresenting... no, downright lieing about the position of others that disagree with the fraud.

Cut it out 2020, fair warning.

so I post something put out by the UK met bureau
a graph in answer to your claims about rectal origins etc
and you claim it's fraud.


or are you saying you didn't post this in answer to "is it ok to jest about global warming?"..

Hey if you want to rephrase that, clarify what you really meant, we'll understand.

Considering it has about as much validity at the flying spagetti monster, it would be wrong to not make fun of it.

On the other hand, taking it seriously is resulting in psychosis, as detailed on the other thread.

 

[2020hindsight]

I read, a few days ago, that 80% of babies of one specie of penguin in the Antarctic have died by freezing to death. It does not usually rain there as it's too cold. But now these babies become wet, when their parents go to catch food, as they have not yet grown their water resistant feathers. Of course this freezes... 'They' suggested that in ten years this penguin will be extinct.

exactly - but the deniers will twist that to say that the penguins are freezing to death, so let's warm things up a bit

Wayne says that the polar bears aren't drowning - well, true - the two that made it to Iceland (oops)recently didn't (like, swam 300km of ocean to do so.

Trouble is that they can't catch seals in open water. It's not that they are drowning because they can't swim per se. That is a plain misrepresentation. (sure they tire after a while - see the video). It's that they like to catch seals at their breathe holes, and when the ice doesn't form , or only forms for a shorter winter than normal, then sure - they die.

Here's where the NRDC took Bush to court on the matter....

On Thin Ice: Polar Bears and Global Warming

NRDC's lawsuit forced the Bush administration to start facing facts about global warming.

Have a look at this starving female
Starving Polar Bear

PS a few more island hops, they'll be able to swim to Scotland

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/wor...and-15-years-shot-dead-police-sightseers.html

 

[2020hindsight]

This is what it boils down to Pat!

The problem is though, that the IPCC at the end of the day simply have a model.

All scientific models have restricted applicability, they should be thought of as representations of reality, not reality itself!

It should be the goal of the IPCC to find flaws in their model, this will highlight the areas where we need a better understanding...and I don`t think this can be denied when dealing with such a chaotic system.
They have made predictions ...lets see where the break down.

As for sickness running it`s course..... Whats happened to this system already can`t be changed.
As dj pointed out the earth is in feedback mode where every input produces an output which in turn becomes an input to the system again.
Inevitably (whenever that may be) this will lead to a phase change....our 2 nearest neighbours are testament to this.

spooly , you say that "It should be the goal of the IPCC to find flaws in their model".
Sure they should constantly check and improve their model.

But hey, if their model is telling them something pretty alarming - then are you suggesting that , just because it's alarming, they should ignore it?

I 100% disagree with you if that is what you are saying - from scientific, or philosophical take on it - or just life experiences, but I won't go into detail. Sufficient to say that sometimes the messenger is right.

 

[2020hindsight]

http://www.news.com.au/story/0,23599,23879662-23109,00.html

Second polar bear spotted in Iceland
June 17, 2008 06:29pm

A POLAR bear has been sighted in northern Iceland having apparently made a journey of several hundred kilometres to get there, the second bear to make the trip in two weeks.

A 12-year-old girl on a farm near the town of Saudarkrokur, on the Skaga fjord, spotted the bear yesterday and alerted authorities, news agencies reported.

Two weeks ago the first polar bear seen in Iceland in 20 years was shot dead by police and footage of its death was posted on the internet.

The bear, an adult male weighing around 250kg, was presumed to have swum some 300km from Greenland or from a distant chunk of Arctic ice to Skagafjordur in northern Iceland.

It was planned to sedate the animal and move it back to Greenland but the police decided it was safest to kill the bear immediately.

"There was fog up in the hills and we took the decision to kill the bear before it could disappear into the fog”, said police spokesman Petur Bjornsson.

Caution graphic footage: A video of the polar bear's death was posted on the internt by a news channel.

Polar bears were recently listed as a threated species by the US because its Arctic sea ice habitat is melting due to climate change.

US government scientists have predicted that two-thirds of the polar bear population of 25,000 could disappear by 2050.

POLAR BEARS AREN'T DROWNING as the Al Bore imbecile foisted on a gullible and concerned public.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/wor...and-15-years-shot-dead-police-sightseers.html

The receeding ice at the North Pole is jeopardising their future existence. As the ice breaks up, so their hunting and mating grounds go with it.
A spokesman for PolarWorld, a German group dedicated to the preservation of the polar regions and the creatures which inhabit it, called the bear’s death ...

'an avoidable tragedy...another great day for mankind'.

 

[2020hindsight]

someone said (cynically), if you want the truth, then follow the money ... how about Exxon funding $23 million during 1998 - 2006 .

http://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=The+Denial+Machine&search=Search

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3hINSwCueXY

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VHzPzLS7Ppc&feature=related

 

[2020hindsight]

But , to be fair, 2020 is not alone in this misrepresentation.

lol, asteism alert !

asteism - "Genteel irony; a polite and ingenious manner of deriding another"

A backhanded compliment ..asteism.. an insult disguised as a compliment. It is generally used to belittle or condescend, or often one uses a backhanded compliment when one wants to insult someone in a subtle way.

An example of a backhanded compliment would be to tell a woman "I like your dress very much. It does wonders for your figure." This statement would seem on the surface to compliment the woman's choice in clothing, and perhaps even her figure, but closer examination reveals its true meaning: that the woman's figure is unattractive and needs improvement from clothing. This statement is not a compliment to the woman, but to the garment's ability to slenderize.

Backhanded compliments are not always intentional. The speaker may intend to pay a compliment, but in so doing accidentally reveal uncomplimentary feelings. For example, on the August 22, 2007 episode of The Daily Show, guest Barack Obama responded to the question of whether there were any Republicans he could agree with by saying "I think some of these folks are decent people," to which Jon Stewart responded with "Worst backhanded compliment ever."
or ...
"I want to be just like you when I get old";

 

[Julia]

2020, my post was a direct response to Wayne's comment about your repeated misrepresentation and simply pointed out that you were not the only one doing this.

Very straightforward, really.

No subtle messages implied.

Interesting new word, however.

 

[Julia]

jtb: thanks for your informed and interesting post. Really appreciated.

 

[2020hindsight]

Wayne, I believe your facetious comment above in actual fact represents the philosophy of much of the population.
And then there's another large group of people, myself included, who just don't know what to believe. I lack the scientific background to be able to properly evaluate all the screeds of urgings by both sides, and find that my innate suspicion of all things hysterical (which is what a lot of it comes across as to me) just turns me off.

Like many other things, e.g. fluoride, I am reminded of how powerless I am as an individual to have any say anyway, despite what I might believe.
So I just sigh and hope someone with wisdom sorts it all out.

It's a bit like the AA mantra about changing the things you can, accepting the things you can't, and having the wisdom to know the difference.

In the meantime, I hardly use my car, rarely fly, and have a green garden.

Keep walking to the pub. If nothing else, it's good for your health!

Julia
I enjoyed this post of yours...

However, As for my alleged repeated misrepresentations, examples please

I mean, Wayne says the graph is nonsense - I post the link to UK Met Bureau - he goes quiet .
Now
should I wait around for an apology? - or go for a run

(PS see ya)

 

[Temjin]

So much emotion here!

Let's be realistic here fellows. I may be a skeptic of the whole GW b---****, but LET'S assume once that it is true and indeed CO2 is the SOLE REASON for destroying the human civilisation if we don't reduce it in the future.

What can we do?

Ask the Chinese and Indian to stop growing? They would probably point their guns at you to mind your own @%@$% business. Then what? Start a war against them to stop emitting more CO2? Don't be so naive here, the political world is far more complicated than you would think. Just because by supporting Australia to "take the first step", we would make a great example and other countries will soon follow. It ain't going to happen with the other big polluters. And definitely wouldn't happen to those who are in power and in control of the world.

Regardless, I would avoid taking evidences FROM THE MEDIA as the source for your argument. It's pointless because it is impossible for anyone to verify the truth or the true intention behind the message.

A news article on two polar bear accidentally made it across the ocean on ice and get shot by police is NOT an evidence that global warming is killing them. It's just a simple tragic story hyped up by the media.