Resisting Climate Hysteria

IFocus said:

trying not to be nasty but last time I checked they fu(ked the ecosystems needed to support life.......any life.

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If that's true, then by what miracle of nature can these species (sugar cane, palms) possibly still exist?!!

cynic said:

Mammalian respiration.

Humans and our mammalian livestock exhale CO2.

Did your learned scientists forget to take this factor into account in their measurements?

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So you don't dispute the increase of atmospheric CO2, just the cause?

Certainly ruminant livestock generate a lot of methane, around 100M tonnes a year, which converts to something like 2.5B tonnes of CO2 equivalent since it's a much more potent greenhouse gas. Growing rice generates even more emissions, and the mini ice age people love to talk about was possibly partly caused by the large reduction in rice production due to the black plague that eventually made it's way to Europe a couple of years later.

Compared to the 36B tonnes of CO2 released from burning fossil fuels last year I'm pretty confident in saying it's not the major cause of rising atmospheric CO2 levels. We're burning through over 80 million barrels of oil a day (around 11M tonnes), 7.8 Billion tonnes of coal a year, along with deforestation at increasing rates, growing desertification in many regions.

As for the learned scientists, they've been looking at ways to help reduce the amount of methane produced by livestock since at least the mid noughties, so yes they're certainly taken the issue on board. It's certainly been on the research agenda in Australia for quite some time, and they seem to be tackling the issue from a food point of view and also as a yield issue since the more gas expelled the less muscle formed. They've even tried providing probiotics to change the gut bacteria to help better digest the food they eat.

cynic said:

If that's true, then by what miracle of nature can these species (sugar cane, palms) possibly still exist?!!

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Probably because they replace the natural environment of the area. All the local flora and fauna are either eradicated or forced to migrate to another area if they can.

IFocus said:

trying not to be nasty but last time I checked they fu(ked the ecosystems needed to support life.......any life.

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sydboy007 said:

Probably because they replace the natural environment of the area. All the local flora and fauna are either eradicated or forced to migrate to another area if they can.

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Probably not!!!

The ecosystems may change in adaptation to the introduction of certain species, but, contrary to IFocus' outlandish assertions, life is still supported!

sydboy007 said:

So you don't dispute the increase of atmospheric CO2, just the cause?

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Correct!

Increases in CO2 levels can reasonably and logically be anticipated with our rising population irrespective of our choice of fuel!!

cynic said:

Mammalian respiration.

Humans and our mammalian livestock exhale CO2.

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This is just part of the carbon cycle with no net addition.

Growing of crops absorbs CO2, animals (including humans) then eat it and return the CO2 to the atmosphere where it came from with no net change assuming that we plant another crop each time one is harvested.

Smurf1976 said:

This is just part of the carbon cycle with no net addition.

Growing of crops absorbs CO2, animals (including humans) then eat it and return the CO2 to the atmosphere where it came from with no net change assuming that we plant another crop each time one is harvested.

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True. However you failed to notice the point that I am making!
The CO2 is in circulation, however, the amount in circulation must increase to support the larger populace, and it can be expected to impact our measurements!

cynic said:

Probably not!!!

The ecosystems may change in adaptation to the introduction of certain species, but, contrary to IFocus' outlandish assertions, life is still supported!

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So the extinction of dozens to hundreds of specifies of plants and animals had nothing to do with humans moving in and taking over? What humans do allows for little adaptation these days.

Levelling a few thousand square kilometres for broad acre monoculture provides little fod and shelter for the majority of displaced animals and plants.

cynic said:

Correct!

Increases in CO2 levels can reasonably and logically be anticipated with our rising population irrespective of our choice of fuel!!

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So you're saying:

• The increase in atmospheric CO2 is only due to there being more humans and animals on the planet?
• The burning of fossil fuels has no impact on atmospheric CO2 levels

A gallon of petrol has an energy content roughly equal to 400 human hours of labour. I'd say the fact there's 7 odd billion of us on the planet has something to do with the massive amounts of fossil fuels we're burning, but at the end of the day the burning of fossil fuels is releasing far larger amounts of CO2 into the atmosphere than humans ever will. A car churns out CO2 at a rate 11 times higher than a human. A kw/h of electricity in Australia will give you close to 1KG of CO2, roughly what you'll expire in a 24 hour period.

Take a great big, locked away store of anything.

Now dump that store into the surrounding environment be it air, land or water.

You don't need a science degree to work out that you'll now have more of that substance, whatever it is, wherever you dumped it. That applies to everything from coal to confetti. I can assure you there's a lot more confetti on the ground at a parade, concert or whatever after the event than there was prior to it being released from storage. Same with anything.

Whilst I have an open mind on the broad concept of human-induced climate change, there are a few things that are beyond reasonable doubt in my opinion.

1. Taking carbon from long term underground storage (coal, oil, gas), mixing it with oxygen and releasing it into the air as CO2 is going to lead to more CO2 being in the atmosphere than would otherwise be the case.

2. The climate is changing on a timescale that meaningfully affects both the natural environment and human activities.

The rest is contentious, but I don't see how anyone could really dispute either of those two points. It's like disputing that drinking a bottle of vodka will increase the concentration of alcohol in a person's blood or that the city of Melbourne is different now to how it was 50 years ago. Anything like that is just commonsense and beyond reasonable dispute in my opinion.

All that said, from a practical perspective I'm sure that humans don't fully understand the weather. Eg after years of research surrounding droughts in Australia it's only recently that a link has been made between rainfall in SE Australia and the Indian Ocean Dipole. So there's certainly a lot of things we don't understand.

What can be said with reasonable certainty however is that there has been a change since the 1970's. Runoff in to water storages in South-West WA has very sharply declined, I don't have the figures handy but it's a massive decline, and even in Tasmania it has dropped 15% since the mid-1970's (most of the drop occurring in Autumn in what I term a "rain hole" because that's how it appears on an annual chart) so that's a definite change of significance to humans and the natural environment. That said, land use change may be a factor as well as the actual weather so it's somewhat complex.

There is also an issue with how humans measure and perceive any change in climate. Eg a decrease in water runoff in WA wouldn't really matter if not for the city of Perth and agricultural activities. It's only because we're making such extensive use of the resource, based upon historical records and an assumption that the climate would not greatly change, that a change in the climate becomes relevant. If you use 1% of the available water and supply drops 50% then it doesn't matter, you still have more than you need and you're still only using 2% of the reduced available supply. But if you're using 100% to start with then even a slight change in runoff becomes a problem. The extent to which humans have developed natural resources has thus made us highly sensitive to any change in climate, far beyond the natural extent of change sensitivity.

sydboy007 said:

So the extinction of dozens to hundreds of specifies of plants and animals had nothing to do with humans moving in and taking over? What humans do allows for little adaptation these days.

Levelling a few thousand square kilometres for broad acre monoculture provides little fod and shelter for the majority of displaced animals and plants.



So you're saying:

• The increase in atmospheric CO2 is only due to there being more humans and animals on the planet?
• The burning of fossil fuels has no impact on atmospheric CO2 levels

A gallon of petrol has an energy content roughly equal to 400 human hours of labour. I'd say the fact there's 7 odd billion of us on the planet has something to do with the massive amounts of fossil fuels we're burning, but at the end of the day the burning of fossil fuels is releasing far larger amounts of CO2 into the atmosphere than humans ever will. A car churns out CO2 at a rate 11 times higher than a human. A kw/h of electricity in Australia will give you close to 1KG of CO2, roughly what you'll expire in a 24 hour period.

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Sydboy007,

You do have an unsavoury habit of misrepresenting my statements.

If you take the time to read my posts carefully, you should be able to recognise the inappropriateness of your efforts at misconstruance of same.

Smurf,
It is worth noting that rapid regional climate change is not unique to the post1970 period, and there isva strong case for rapid global changes also.

The Mayans experienced a regional change7 or 800 years aga that made their civilization unviable. Greenland has been mentioned several timesalso... etc.

What has been experienced in WA & Tas has most certainly beena regional change, but how that ties inwith the global scene is not certain and blaming co2 icreases for those particular changes is extremely tenuous, at best.

Smurf1976 said:

This is just part of the carbon cycle with no net addition ...

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And when I mentioned sharks, with tongue-in-cheek, I was also referring to a species on the increase.
But then you could argue that some species are on the decline.

wayneL said:

What has been experienced in WA & Tas has most certainly beena regional change, but how that ties inwith the global scene is not certain and blaming co2 icreases for those particular changes is extremely tenuous, at best.

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No argument that it's a local change. However, it just so happens that the trend started after 1975, the same time that global temperatures started to rise. Association does not prove causation, but both WA and Tas experienced the declining runoff trend in line with a rise in global temperature which is at least an interesting point.

In the case of Western Australia, WA Water Corporation data shows roughly a 70% decline in runoff post-1975. That said, a complicating factor is the decline in groundwater levels, driven by land use change and water extraction by various parties including the Water Corporation itself. Some research suggests that the drawdown of groundwater may have amplified the affects of any change in climate.

In the case of Tasmania, Hydro Tasmania data shows two step change points, one after 1975 and the other after 1995 with both being downward. The total decline is about 15%, although it is heavily concentrated at certain times of the year. Compared to historic data, for January the decline is about 25%, February it's 45%, March it's 40% but for the rest of the year it's very close to previous figures, with the exception of May which has seen roughly a 20% increase. These figures are despite cloud seeding to increase rainfall, noting that there's a definite season for cloud seeding which just happens to correspond to the times of year when rainfall remains above or close to the previous average, with cloud seeding not done in Jan, Feb or Mar (since the required weather conditions don't occur at this time of year). Presumably, without cloud seeding the data would show a rainfall decline which extends beyond the first 3 months of the year.

A particularly notable point in Tasmania is that annual minimum inflows have not changed - the driest year on record is 1963, closely followed by 1967, 1950 and 1934. What has happened is that truly wet years have become far less frequent. Eg there were 14 very wet years between 1924 and 1975 versus only one truly wet year since (in 1995).

So overall it's a complex situation, but there is a definite association with post-1975 rising global temperature and a decline in streamflow in WA and Tas both in terms of the total volume and the pattern, with the reduction taking the form of a decline during the first 3 months of the year, plus a large reduction in the frequency of high inflow years. This does not, of course, prove anything other than that runoff has declined in WA and Tas - but it happened at a very interesting time to say the least.

cynic said:

Sydboy007,

You do have an unsavoury habit of misrepresenting my statements.

If you take the time to read my posts carefully, you should be able to recognise the inappropriateness of your efforts at misconstruance of same.

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Then spell it out for me because I truly have no idea what your point is

Smurf1976 said:

So overall it's a complex situation, but there is a definite association with post-1975 rising global temperature and a decline in streamflow in WA and Tas both in terms of the total volume and the pattern, with the reduction taking the form of a decline during the first 3 months of the year, plus a large reduction in the frequency of high inflow years. This does not, of course, prove anything other than that runoff has declined in WA and Tas - but it happened at a very interesting time to say the least.

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Other problem is that the generally warmer weather is also causing far less run off to occur since more water is absorbed into the ground before it can reach the dams.

http://www.climatechange.gov.au/cli...ence/climate-change-impacts/western-australia

Rainfall in south-west WA has already reduced by around 15 per cent since the mid-1970s. From 1911 to 1974 the average stream flow into Perth Dams was 338 gigalitres. From 1975 to 2000 average stream flow was almost half this value at 177 gigalitres. From 2001 to 2010 inflows again halved to approximately 75 gigalitres. There is evidence that greenhouse gases emitted by human activities are responsible for half the decline in rainfall in south-west WA.

I'd say a major cause is the cutting down of trees. Less trees less rainfall. The Anasazi saw the wiping out of their civilisation due in part to cutting down all the trees over a few hundred square kilometres. They turned an already tough environment into desert within 200 years.

http://www.nytimes.com/2014/01/24/s...spurs-action-on-climate.html?ref=economy&_r=0

“Increased droughts, more unpredictable variability, 100-year floods every two years,” said Jeffrey Seabright, Coke’s vice president for environment and water resources, listing the problems that he said were also disrupting the company’s supply of sugar cane and sugar beets, as well as citrus for its fruit juices. “When we look at our most essential ingredients, we see those events as threats.”

Nike, which has more than 700 factories in 49 countries, many in Southeast Asia, is also speaking out because of extreme weather that is disrupting its supply chain. In 2008, floods temporarily shut down four Nike factories in Thailand, and the company remains concerned about rising droughts in regions that produce cotton, which the company uses in its athletic clothes.

Both Nike and Coke are responding internally: Coke uses water-conservation technologies and Nike is using more synthetic material that is less dependent on weather conditions. At Davos and in global capitals, the companies are also lobbying governments to enact environmentally friendly policies.

cynic said:

Are plants really that fussed about where their CO2 comes from?

CO2 is CO2 regardless of its origins. How can the plants tell one identical molecule from another?

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cynic said:

Mammalian respiration.

Humans and our mammalian livestock exhale CO2.

Did your learned scientists forget to take this factor into account in their measurements?

Click to expand...

cynic said:

Probably not!!!

The ecosystems may change in adaptation to the introduction of certain species, but, contrary to IFocus' outlandish assertions, life is still supported!

Correct!

Increases in CO2 levels can reasonably and logically be anticipated with our rising population irrespective of our choice of fuel!!

Click to expand...

I believe that my earlier posts were sufficiently succinct for those willing to temporarily suspend their jaundiced perspective and I fail to see any need for retranslation or reinterpretation!

cynic said:

I believe that my earlier posts were sufficiently succinct for those willing to temporarily suspend their jaundiced perspective and I fail to see any need for retranslation or reinterpretation!

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I think you are hinting at reduced procreation?
Vegetarianism?
Possibly eugenics?

Culling mammals?

Am I getting close yet?

I have to water my garden, there is a heatwave coming!

P.S. The average lawn is a net-producer of Oxygen, sufficient for the average family

burglar said:

I think you are hinting at reduced procreation?
Vegetarianism?
Possibly eugenics?

Culling mammals?

Am I getting close yet?

I have to water my garden, there is a heatwave coming!

P.S. The average lawn is a net-producer of Oxygen, sufficient for the average family

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I believe sugar cane is a type of grass! (You could kill two molecules with one blade!)

Imagine that!

A lawn of sugar cane!!!

But you'll need to upgrade your mower!

cynic said:

... you'll need to upgrade your mower!

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Sugar Cane Harvester:



Made in China, of course!

burglar said:

I think you are hinting at reduced procreation?
Vegetarianism?
Possibly eugenics?

Culling mammals?

Am I getting close yet?
...

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Almost!

My posts were aimed at drawing attention to the need for increased levels of CO2 to support our current populace.

From what I can discern of the incessant blathering of climate alarmists (whom appear to be intent on catalysing a global panic) is that this angle hasn't been given adequate (if any) consideration!

I'd be interested to know if any of the thousands of "peer reviewed papers" of "relevant scientists" have even gone so far as to quantify the minimum amount of atmospheric CO2 required to support our current global ecosystem!

sydboy007 said:

Rainfall in south-west WA has already reduced by around 15 per cent since the mid-1970s. From 1911 to 1974 the average stream flow into Perth Dams was 338 gigalitres. From 1975 to 2000 average stream flow was almost half this value at 177 gigalitres. From 2001 to 2010 inflows again halved to approximately 75 gigalitres. There is evidence that greenhouse gases emitted by human activities are responsible for half the decline in rainfall in south-west WA.

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A complicating factor is the natural ratio of runoff versus rain falling into the catchment.

For example, if you have a situation where 80% of the rain falling onto the ground runs off and ends up in a river, then river flow is basically a function of rainfall.

But if you have a situation where only 20% runs off and the other 80% evaporates due to agriculture or other land uses in the catchment, relatively low rainfall and also temperature factors then it becomes a very different situation. Drop the rainfall 30% and you'll have basically nothing actually getting into the river, significant runoff only occurring either in an unusually high rainfall event or toward the end of the wet season in a relatively wet year once the ground is saturated.

So in short, river flow volumes will amplify any change in rainfall and this probably explains the difference in the extent of decline in WA versus Tas. With one exception, the catchments in Tas generally have a high ratio of runoff relative to rainfall whereas the reverse is true in WA thus amplifying any change in rainfall and temperature.

South-West WA and Tasmania aren't exactly right next to each other, so I do find it interesting that there's a similar trend in both areas. Especially given that WA also seems to have experienced two "step changes" at about the same time as Tas although they were of far larger magnitude in WA. To me, that suggests that the cause isn't likely to be local and relates either to the oceans, wind, or something happening on land somewhere outside of Australia.