Climate Change Discussion

[Johnlodge]

Let's kick off the new climate change debate. Now with opinion poll!

[Bigb23]

Voted, is this ten character's ?

[gibran]

My opinion if we put things into any environment we create a change...or we exacerbateor excellerate a condition that exists currently..

[Flanders]

# 3

Finally a thread that the DYes resident board runner can pounce upon.

http://citymama.typepad.com/photos/uncategorized/2008/09/30/al_gore.jpg


:D

[ccbatson]

A thoroughly evil hoax whose goal is to extort money from individuals (all, not just the rich) to the government. Think this is an overreaction? Check out Obama's cap and trade proposal.

[d.mcc]

A thoroughly evil hoax whose goal is to extort money from individuals (all, not just the rich) to the government. Think this is an overreaction? Check out Obama's cap and trade proposal.

Obama wasn't the first to come up with a carbon trade/credit proposal

[Flanders]

Where are all the billions to be made through climate change? Is the climate change industry now bigger then oil and gas? Who are the climate change billionaires (or even millionaires)? Is there a climate change hoax industry organization? How can I get involved and cash in on all the money being made through pushing climate change?

I know that you were being sarcastic about becoming wealthy from advocating for climate change, but for those who really care, here is a link to add your voice and/or become active in the cause for stopping global warming and exposing the human factor involved in climate change:


http://www.stopglobalwarming.org/sgw_join.asp

http://www.climatecrisis.net/takeaction/becomeactive/

[ccbatson]

Al Gore, and the US government are the beneficiaries of the hoax. The government via punitive taxation and control/power over the citizenry, and recently industry.

[rb336]

A good basic outline of the actual facts, not the stuff put forrth by those on the payrol of big oil and big coal (Horner, the Heartland Foundation, etc)


http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn11462

[ccbatson]

And those scientist are justifiably afraid for their careers if they defy Gore and company...pick your bias Rb.

Gore still has enough cash after "donating" it back to increase his net worth from 5-8 million too over 200 million in about a decade. Without a real job, just extortion money.

[ccbatson]

You call extortion "extremely good investments"? Whatever helps you sleep at night.

[d.mcc]

You call extortion "extremely good investments"? Whatever helps you sleep at night.

You're the one who's so big on the Free Market...why do you bash someone for making the most of his opportunities?

[ccbatson]

Extortion is not an acceptable free market strategy.

Analogy....don't bash the bank robber, he is just making the most of his opportunities...Ummm...no.

[Flanders]

An ice bridge which had held a vast Antarctic ice shelf in place for hundreds of years at least shattered on Saturday and may herald a wider collapse linked to global warming, a leading scientist said. "It's amazing how the ice has ruptured. Two days ago it was intact," David Vaughan, a glaciologist with the British Antarctic Survey, told Reuters of a satellite image of the Wilkins Ice Shelf. "We've waited a long time to see this." The satellite picture, by the European Space Agency (ESA), showed that a 40-km (25 mile) long strip of ice believed to pin the Wilkins Ice Shelf in place had snapped at its narrowest point of about 500 meters wide off the Antarctic Peninsula. The break left a jumble of huge flat-topped icebergs in the sea. The loss of the ice bridge, which was almost 100 km wide in 1950 and had been in place for hundreds of years at least, could allow ocean currents to wash away more of the Wilkins."


"My feeling is that we will lose more of the ice, but there will be a remnant to the south," Vaughan said. The remaining shelf is about the size of Jamaica or the U.S. state of Connecticut. Temperatures on the Antarctic Peninsula, the which snakes up toward South America, have risen by up to about 3 Celsius (5.4 Fahrenheit) in the past 50 years, the fastest rate of warming in the Southern Hemisphere. "We believe the warming on the Antarctic Peninsula is related to global climate change, though the links are not entirely clear," Vaughan said. Antarctica's response to warming will go a long way to deciding the pace of global sea level rise. Nine other shelves have receded or collapsed around the Antarctic Peninsula in the past 50 years, often abruptly like the Larsen A in 1995 or the Larsen B in 2002 further north, and shrinking maps of the frozen continent. The trend is widely blamed on climate change caused by heat-trapping gases from burning fossil fuels. Vaughan landed on the narrow ice bridge, which jutted about 20 meters above the sea, in January with a group of scientists and two Reuters reporters. He predicted that it would snap this year.)



RSOE Emergency and Disaster Information Service (http://hisz.rsoe.hu/alertmap/woalert_read.php?cid=21159&lang=eng)

[rb336]

Analogy....don't bash the bank robber, he is just making the most of his opportunities...Ummm...no.

exactly -- don't bash the robber barons who slashed working people's wages just to pad their own fat pockets

[ccbatson]

Robber barons? Slash wages that are only possible because of the owner's ambition and innovation coupled to the ability to compete successfully.

[rb336]

slash wages so the people making said product can not afford to buy them while the robber barons line their pockets. these guys are NOT entrepreneurs, they are leeches. there is a broad distinction between the two. Most entrepreneurs make less than $250,000/ year. these are people who never made a thing in their lives, never started anything and just want to suck the system dry to the detriment of millions (including stockholders) and the benefit of themselves

[ccbatson]

Rb...they made a company that brought a product to market, and employed people...that is productivity defined.

DSF....the ice thickness fluctuates over time....so what? That has nothing to do with causation, or detrimental (versus beneficial) consequences.

[d.mcc]

Rb...they made a company that brought a product to market, and employed people...that is productivity defined.

DSF....the ice thickness fluctuates over time....so what? That has nothing to do with causation, or detrimental (versus beneficial) consequences.

Mmmk...Well...I'm building an Ark...so...

[jams]

DSF....the ice thickness fluctuates over time....so what? That has nothing to do with causation...

It just appears randomly.

[jams]

So everyone who OWNS a company MADE that company? Strange, I haven't seen old Henry Ford around Detroit recently, yet his company still seems to be here.
New entry in the everchanging Official, but unpublished. Glossary of Batsonia

[ccbatson]

It does? Care to explain how? Please do not parrot Al Gore's hoax of man made global warming, it will make you look even more foolish if you do.

[rb336]

It does? Care to explain how? Please do not parrot Al Gore's hoax of man made global warming, it will make you look even more foolish if you do.

Perhaps YOU should have watched that "extreme ice" show. And the only one who looks foolish in these discussions is YOU who keep trumpeting your falacies with no back up except a thoroughly discredited book. in the old thread, you even mentioned checking into what the Skeptic said about anthropogenic climate change. after i did, and posted a link to their article calling YOUR sources pseudo-science, you fell quite silent on that thread for weeks

[ccbatson]

Ice melts...it does so cyclically and fluctuates widely over many years. Nothing about that observation gives any proof or support of causation, or even correlation to man made influences.

[Detroitej72]

Al Gore, truly a freind of real capitalists everywhere by making money the old fashion way... he earned it!!!

At least he puts his money where his mouth is- unlike so many of the neo-cons.

[Detroitej72]

Besides, most credible scientists were talking about climate change long before Big Al made it his life's cause.

[rb336]

Ice melts...it does so cyclically and fluctuates widely over many years. Nothing about that observation gives any proof or support of causation, or even correlation to man made influences.

Bats, flying blind in the face of facts once again. check out what NASA has to say, but, of course, you will say they are "in on it" without any proof of any conspiracy or any logical reason for it. then you will say "look at all this info spewed out by people on the payroll of the fossil fuel industry, people who clearly have no reason to lie and who clearly DON'T have the academic credentials (academia is part of the conspiracy). they obviously must be believed, even thougfh the vast majority of the info, including faux scientific forums, is organized by the same folks (Heartland Foundation) who brought us the "there is no scientific proof smoking is bad for you" arguments.

No, causation isn't proven, but correlation is extremely high. oops -- it's that damn factual information and its damn liberal bias again

[rb336]

and that petition was proven a hoax long ago, yet the deniers still trot it out

[gencinjay]

AGAIN, what we are seeing now has no historical precedent.

This is my problem with the whole issue. True there is no historical precedent, but we haven't been watching it long enough to determine what is truely cyclicle and what is not. Personally, I believe global warming is happening, but I am not thouroughly convinced it's due to man's effect on the world or that it will be as bad as some suggest. However, I would prefer to err on the side of caution and change the things we have the power to change. It doesn't take a scientist to know that there is some negative impact to the polution that we are spewing all over the world.

[rb336]

This is my problem with the whole issue. True there is no historical precedent, but we haven't been watching it long enough to determine what is truely cyclicle and what is not.

I suggest you look at ice core studies, which give climatologists 100s of 1000s of years to examine. the stuff that gets trapped in the ice gives a very clear picture of the climate. jst google "ice cores" and "global warming" avoid sites that have references to fraudulent groups like heartland, try to stick with the peer-reviewed stuff.

One of my arguments I have made many times is this:

If it IS as bad as some worst-case scenarios say and we do nothing, what is the end result?

If we do something, we may never know what was averted, but the end result is cleaner air, more efficient use of resources, etc.

[gencinjay]

You misunderstood what I was saying. The melting ice has no historical precedent because its never happened before. While throughout history, there were layers upon layers of ice in the arctic built up over man centuries, now its a thin layer of new ice. Not only a thin layer, but the entire ranger covers hundreds of thousands of square miles less area than it was historically.

I did understand you I just didn't think we had enough long term factual evidence to back it up since we've only relatively recently started studying that area of the world. I'll be the first to admit I'm no scientist and have not looked into the core sample studies that were posted above. I'll check it out for sure, but as I said I'd rather err on the side of caution anyway. Let's change what we can and benefit by having a cleaner environment.

[gencinjay]

Also, which Hearland group are people talking about here? There seem to be a great deal of organizations with that name.

[Ray1936]

Just spent five days back in Detroit. A little global warming wouldn't hurt the place a bit. Froze my friggin' butt off.

[ccbatson]

And it sounds like you are confusing Al Gore's mythic tale of doom with reality.

[ccbatson]

Consensus is not science or fact (especially when gained under extreme duress).

10000 mathematicians agree that 2+2=9 when lined up in front of a firing squad commanded by a demented math enthusiast who got Cs in undergrad math courses. Is 2+2 now 9?

[rb336]

Consensus is not science or fact (especially when gained under extreme duress).

10000 mathematicians agree that 2+2=9 when lined up in front of a firing squad commanded by a demented math enthusiast who got Cs in undergrad math courses. Is 2+2 now 9?

once again, you claim this duress but offer no proof, and also, yet again, show that you have very little understanding of the scientific process, of which consensus is a part. your comment that it is "not science or fact" is the equivalent to saying that the steering wheel is not driving. technically true, but driving would nnot be possible without it

[ccbatson]

Consensus is at best irrelevant in establishing fact/science. At worst? have you met Al Gore?

[rb336]

Consensus is at best irrelevant in establishing fact/science. At worst? have you met Al Gore?

Bats, why do you insist on broadcasting your ignorance on this matter? here are the three generalizations of science (from the publisher of Skeptic):

Hypothesis -- a testable statement accounting for a set of observations
Theory -- a well-supported and well-tested hypothesis or set of hypotheses
Fact -- a conclusion confirmed to such an extent that it is reasonable to offer provisional agreement, otherwise known as concensus

[ccbatson]

Just an opportunity for Al Gore to restructure his arguments to fit.

THAT IS WHAT WE MUST LEARN ABOUT GLOBAL WARMING/MANMADE CLIMATE CHANGE.

[rb336]

Here's an interesting chart from the Japanese counterpart to NASA.

http://www.ijis.iarc.uaf.edu/en/home/seaice_extent.htm

It shows the arctic sea ice extent in chart form for the years 2002 onward. As of 4/26, the arctic ice is melting more slowly, and there's more ice than any of the years in the dataset.

actually, what it shows that it is right in the middle of the sea ice levels for the last 6 years, and that there was a much colder-than average arctic March this year

take a look at these NASA sea ice maps, showing not only the extent of the ice, but the age:

http://www.popsci.com/environment/article/2009-04/nasa-study-shows-thinning-arctic-sea-ice

[ccbatson]

Remember when this was material for cloistered climatologists that nobody else cared on iota about? That was the proper perspective to have.

[ccbatson]

I appreciate what you are trying to do King Rex, and agree...however, on some level, we lend credibility to the subject undeserving of any by arguing against their nonsensical fictitious and biased material/claims.

[rb336]

I appreciate what you are trying to do King Rex, and agree...however, on some level, we lend credibility to the subject undeserving of any by arguing against their nonsensical fictitious and biased material/claims.

Bats, the climate discussion has reached the point where scientists are in agreement. YOU have the burden to show that they are wrong, and you have failed.

the lack of sea ice when the Skate surfaced at the North pole is unsurprising - ice flows on the open ocean aren't particularly stable, winter or summer. the Skate also recorded stronger than usual ocean currents in the Arctic. regardless, an open area of ice does NOT make it an "open water" period. the arctic was not navigable by surface vessels at the time

[mjs]

If we were camping next to each other on a river and I dumped my waste upstream while you were getting your drinking water, would you drink the water until you got sick or would you want me to stop right away even though it meant more work for me?

On a related issue, I want to vote more than once based on my premises. Climate change is natural and man made. Climate change is a problem. Man can't control natural climate change. Man can control man made climate change. Therefore, I say Man should control the man made portion and let God control the natural portion.

[Ray1936]

I'm far from convinced about all the fears over global warming. However, it does give me satisfaction that my home is 3,000 feet above sea level........:rolleyes:

[Gistok]

I'm far from convinced about all the fears over global warming. However, it does give me satisfaction that my home is 3,000 feet above sea level........:rolleyes:

.... and luck for all of us here in Michigan we are all above the Niagara Escarpement (580+ feet above sea level)... :cool:

[rb336]

Those "stronger than usual currents" you rushed past were the changes in the ocean currents I mentioned. We've known about the Pacific one for longer, the El Nino and La Nina. The Atlantic appears to have the same sort of oscillation, but our knowledge of it is so new it doesn't have a catchy name.

Those two oscillations have their own frequency, and the two oscillations together may have another frequency. It's amazing to me that mankind can live next to these two bodies of water, heck even rely upon them for our very lives, for millenia, yet only now have the faintest glimmer of how they work.

I think the sunspot record goes back further than the data on the oceans, and that's how many millions of miles away?! And that's another separate issue...the sun cycle. How complex can that be, the star without which mankind dies?

sunspot activity has been ruled out as a source in these cases, as i linked to in the old forum. the fact is that an isolated (yes, it was only an isolated area where the Skate observed lower ice levels) open spot in the arctic is a far cry from what we have seen occur over the past 10-12 years, and especially the last 5

[rb336]

KingRex, the following has one interesting graph and a bunch of links to peer-review material on the whole "solar forcing" issue

http://www.skepticalscience.com/solar-activity-sunspots-global-warming.htm

[gibran]

Guess there is no sense of debating Global Warming now....;)

[rb336]

that is a cool site. wish i had time to really play with it

[rb336]

What ever you do, be careful when you open it. It's one of the greatest time wasters I've come across in a long time.

i can see that it could get addicting

[ccbatson]

Is Rb starting to come around to the right side of this issue? All I can say is "welcome", and it took you long enough.

[ccbatson]

Are those the CRs emitted by larger SUV's?? Didn't think so.

[Detroitej72]

Don't forget most of the pollution comes from all those factories in third world countries where we get most of our manufactoring from now. They are the largest source of harmfull waste, but hey, we'll still buy all their products.

[rb336]

Is Rb starting to come around to the right side of this issue? All I can say is "welcome", and it took you long enough.

been on the right side morally and factually from the get go.

[ccbatson]

Odd, until now, I had no idea you were a skeptic of man made global warming. In fact, I distinctly remember your use of the argument that we should go green in case the sham was actually science in the long run (an impossibility, by design of big Al Gore).

[rb336]

David H Douglass is a regular contributer to the Heartland Institute, which, as mentioned previously, is funded by the fossil fuel industry and big tobacco (and was behind all those "scientific studies" showing that tobacco smoking was not harmful). Sonja A. Boehmer-Christiansen, editor of Energy & Environment is on the Advisory forum of The Scientific Alliance, a group founded by the British Aggregates Industry that has teamed with the Exxon Education Foundation (http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Exxon_Education_Foundation&action=edit) funded George C Marshall Institute on several anti-cw papers. John R. Christy is also on the payroll of Heartland, and the Competitive Enterprise Institute - another fossil fuel industry front. He co-drafted the AGU statement on climate change which reads, in part: "Human activities are increasingly altering Earth's climate, and that natural influences alone cannot explain the rapid increase in surface temperatures observed during the second half of the 20th century" then says there is no way we can tell or not.

[ccbatson]

Your (the green's) arguments are fading fast Rb. But not to worry, Al Gore/Obama and company are prepared to change their story while their looting of our private property (most recently contributing to the death of the American auto industry...funny how Al Gore identified the Auto as Man's worst enemy, isn't it?).

[rb336]

first, Bats, you couldn't be further from the truth.

second, kr, when an article comes from someone with a clearly vested interest (heartland institute and the fossil fuel industry), and when it is published in an advocacy journal (the company that publishes it was created by mining interests) rather than a scientific journal, it is thoroughly rational to point that out and it isn't about "personalities."

I keep trying to get the doubters to post something relevent that ISN'T from someone tied to Big Energy. so far, there isn't anything

Gore is NOT a scientist, he is a politician. the VAST majority of scientific evidence supports the anthropogenic climate change hypothesis. the fact that the only evidence against it comes from those sucking at the teet of the fossil fuel industry should be telling to any rational person. yet those same people who keep trotting out the energy industry crap keep saying that all those thousands of scientists on the other side are involved in some kind of conspiracy, which, of course, they can not define.

kr, I was a gw skeptic for a long time. i was at my most skeptical when I read Crichton's book. it was in searching out the sources he provided that i found out that virtually all of them were from people in the pocket of the energy industry. I found that most of the articles had been debunked by actual climatologists.

what it boils down to is this:

if we act as the vast majority of evidence suggests and get away from fossil fuels and they were wrong, what is the result? cleaner air, less dependence on unstable and hostile areas for our energy needs, etc. if we pretend the evidence is wrong, what is the result if it isn't? I am taking the truly conservative stance here - i prefer to err on the side of caution

[ccbatson]

Thanks for the compliment Rb...What compliment? Well, whenever a person has no counter argument, they simple blurt out that they think I am wrong, without explanation...A sure sign that my arguments are compelling and irrefutable.

[rb336]

Thanks for the compliment Rb...What compliment? Well, whenever a person has no counter argument, they simple blurt out that they think I am wrong, without explanation...A sure sign that my arguments are compelling and irrefutable.

like you did when you said "Your (the green's) arguments are fading fast Rb" or, in fact, what you have done pretty much throughout the history of this discussion both here and on the DY1

[ccbatson]

Fading fast given that science is never consensus (particularly when under duress), new evidence shows cooling trends, Al Gore changes the phraseology from manmade global warming to manmade catastrophic climate change....all of which I have pointed out repeatedly....but you choose to ignore.

BTW, this argument that you make (erroneously) that 2 wrongs make a right is an admission of your guilt.

[rb336]

Fading fast given that science is never consensus (particularly when under duress), new evidence shows cooling trends, Al Gore changes the phraseology from manmade global warming to manmade catastrophic climate change....all of which I have pointed out repeatedly....but you choose to ignore.

BTW, this argument that you make (erroneously) that 2 wrongs make a right is an admission of your guilt.


you are funny bats. i wasn't in the wrong in any way, shape or form. merely pointying out your blatant hypocrisy. you keep making these claims that it is "fading fast" and that "new evidence shows cooling trends" yet you fail to provide any links to the science (real science, not advocacy "science" from heartland) that backs up your claim.

[rb336]

btw, Skeptic Magazine vol 14 no 1 does a fairly good job of debunking you debunkers

[ccbatson]

I would be shocked if Skeptic took any such position, but I will check it out.

[ccbatson]

The frustrating thing is that we are forced to expend time, money and energy in combating a hoax.

[rb336]

Let's apply Hume's Maxim here:

is it more likely that 1000s of climatologists would fudge their data because they are part of a "hoax" or some totally undefined and unsubstantiated conspiracy, as Bats claims, or that a small bunch of "gw skeptics" with proven ties to the fossil fuel industry would skew their papers, which they publish only in advocacy magazines and not scientific journals?

Skeptic is, as Schermer has stated, "skeptical of the skeptics"

[ccbatson]

Look at the government incentives and subsidies for "Green" activities....the dollars are astronomical. Now do you get it?

Regarding scientists, it isn't just greed and aspirations of power, it is survival and their careers at stake.

[rb336]

Look at the government incentives and subsidies for "Green" activities....the dollars are astronomical. Now do you get it?

Regarding scientists, it isn't just greed and aspirations of power, it is survival and their careers at stake.


Bats, you still have yet to post anything but extremely vague "conspiracies" govt subsidies to big oil and coal are still higher.

you're done.

[Detroitej72]

I am still trying to figure out how people are supposedly making "billions of dollars" on warning about global warming. It seems to me that the people that stand to make the most money are the polluters. I believe that all the money ever made selling books about global warming would probably not add up to one day of Exxon's profits.

The righties here should take note.

Big Al has poured much of his own money into the cause, and channels all the profits from his books and lectures back into the cause. Whether you like Gore or not shouldn't be the issue, its the message thats important.

Neo-cons like to spout on about scientists being under duress, but as shown, never give any proof to back up their claims.

Meanwhile, most credible scientists have been warning us for many years, (Gore is merely the most prominent) spokesperson that the problems wont go away, and they are far from being "a big scam" as the righties would have you believe.

[ccbatson]

Well...as an aside, I agree that there is no reason to subsidize any of these industries.