Global warming, no such thing.

[Mehen]

bah, so they had a warm september

I'm with the Doc on this one

[Dr Mordrid]

Read an AP post today that in certain parts of California they've found more greenhouse gasses being produced by herbivores than by all the cars & trucks in the area.

So....what do we do now, send the EPA out to measure cow and pig emissions?

Dr. Mordrid

[Tjalfe]

Read an AP post today that in certain parts of California they've found more greenhouse gasses being produced by herbivores than by all the cars & trucks in the area.

So....what do we do now, send the EPA out to measure cow and pig emissions?

Dr. Mordrid

don't forget the south pole.. chances are the penguins farting produce alot more greenhouse gasses than the people do .. at least in that particular place

[Marshmallowman]

Read an AP post today that in certain parts of California they've found more greenhouse gasses being produced by herbivores than by all the cars & trucks in the area.

So....what do we do now, send the EPA out to measure cow and pig emissions?

Dr. Mordrid

it used top be

normal amount of greenhouse gass(animal..etc) = amount of greenhouse getting fixed by trees...etc

now

normal amount of greenhouse gass(animal..etc) + amount produced by man >> (amount of greenhouse getting fixed by carbo sinks trees...etc)/ reduction in carbon sinks(deforestation ..etc)

net increase in greenhouse gas, which is actually now measurable globably, quite impressive for a 100 year carbon binge by man

You can choose to beieve what creditable scientific research has found out, or you can choose to believe lobby groups with large vested interests in keeping the greenhouse gas produceing operating as is to maintain there profits, and once they have pulled all their profits from getting away with such unsustainable behaviour they will dissappear up there own ass's with the profits...and do you think you have a chance in hell of getting them to fix it. These people are not doing you any favours, and the fact you are actualy trying to justify there behaviour is sad indication of the media bubble you live in.

I think you will find *eventually* that these scientists aren"t wacko's, but the people talking down global warming/ozone depletion are.

PS you actually did read the article about greenland didn't you, it actually supported the global warming scenario...

[Dr Mordrid]

Sounds more like the plot for "The Day After Tomorrow".

Look, I don't doubt that the Earth is warming....I just doubt that our contribution is as high as advertised vs. solar activity (the sun is a cyclical flare star), Earth axis procession, volcanic activity and many other factors much more powerful than us humans.

Fact is that many of these cycles have resulted in regular ice ages for hundreds of thousands of years, usually on two cycles: 20,000 years and 90,000 years +/-. Given the former intervals pattern we are late in a 20,000 year interglacial period and on a runup to another ice age. If global warming stays that off then IMO bring it on.

We've survived warmer climates in the past few thousand years....hell the UK had semi-tropical weather not that long ago.

I also find it interesting that the "global warming" temperature calculations are use the 1850's as a baseline, near the beginning of the Industrial Revolution. While this might seem logical it's also political.

If you go back to the period between 1300-1850 AD you find that Earth was in "the little ice age", a short term cooling (geologically speaking), which would throw off the calculations by showing that long term warming actually started when the little ice age began its decline ~1800 AD, well before large scale industrialization. Oops.



We may be adding a bit to the up-curve coming out of the little ice age, but IMO the cycle is more nature than our nurture.

Dr. Mordrid

[Marshmallowman]

Carbon dioxide levels are the highest for 650,000 years (in fact 27% higher)

http://www.physorg.com/news8475.html

Personaly when you are unsure about something as important as the planet you live on a bit of caution would be a very good idea.
In fact *you* have very little to lose making sure we deal with the problem now, its not you who will be payinbg for gass scrubbers etc on factories in fact you'll get cleaner air.

If you leave it until corps/govs think its profitable and you are going to be charged by them to clean it....simply becaues there is no way any corp/gov we pay themselves...they will just blame there predeccessors and funnel there money offshore. eg what the asbestos manufacturers did.

Saying its been warmer/colder in the past is just burying your head in the sand, go to you local university and ask a metrological or environmental science Prof about it....some one who knows

There is a chance that this climate change may turn the earth into a temperate paradise....but there is also good chance it will turn into frozen rock or boiling blob uninhabitable for us, why would you take the risk ?, and what is the risk if do something, oops it didn't get as hot but we accidentally made the earth/atomsphere a lot nicer to live/breath or oops we all need to wear oxygen masks and the estimated time between catostrphic tornadoes/storms is now 2 months...what kinda of choice is that.
every heard the saying "hope for the best, plan for worst"?

Why are you arguing?, do you like to breath smoggy air?, watching your kids grow up with allerigies?, asthama and skin cancer, watch large sections of fertile land dissapearing under oceans.

I know I ranted on a bit, but why not get companies to do things cleaner and clean up their mess while it still "relatively" easy to do, it a no lose situation. Why be an apologist for corps and govs who just don't give a shit.

[Umfriend]

I know I ranted on a bit, but why not get companies to do things cleaner and clean up their mess while it still "relatively" easy to do, it a no lose situation. Why be an apologist for corps and govs who just don't give a shit.

At first sight, I'd agree with you, and prolly on second as well. Just bear in mind one thing. There is no way one can make companies pay without making "us" pay (unless you effectively would tax shareholders of companies alone). If companies need to produce cleaner, marginal cost of produce will increase, prices will increase and we all get to consume less. Not that I think that that shows it is a bad idea mind you.

Similarly, if we want our food to be grown more responsibly (whatever that may mean), food prices will increase and that will leave less of your income to spend on luxury items. Again, I am not convinced that that makes it a bad idea per se.

[KvHagedorn]

There is no leadership which can make this happen, Marshmallowman. The corporations really run the world and their officers are bound in their behavior to be disinterested in all but profit or be fired and truly have no power. Governments are their lackeys. The only way anything positive could be done is with a progressive despot, and there hasn't been one of those since Frederick the Great. So just forget it. We're doomed.

btw, surely you noticed your chart there doc.. the hot half is 1/10th the scale of the cold half, making the little ice age look like more than it was. Its only real effect was to stop viking trips to this continent. Lower latitudes weren't too badly affected. And the real jump there occurs in the middle of the 1800s, when industrialization was taking off and populations were beginning their dramatic increase.

Global warming is real, and now probably irreversible without a major culling of the human population. Now, if we had stayed under a billion and not cut down most of the trees in the Amazon and southeast Asia, we might have had a chance to work things out and produce sustainability. But that didn't happen. It was actually better when we were using our instincts to kill each other than to make "civilized" stock trading the method of satiating our desire for conquest. A river of blood is better than a bursting dam.

[Umfriend]

Are we sure about the graph? It say -0.5 and +5 but also -1 and +1....might the +5 just be a typo in mean +0.5 instead?

Although I will admit that natural cycles will cause varying tempratures, the point is that we do have high CO2 level atm which we did not have 1000-1300 AD. So either CO2 should not matter or it causes the earth to be warmer now that it would have been without, regardless of what the effect of other factors are.

Another reason why we use 1850 is becuase arounf that time we actually started to measure, isn't it?

[Mehen]

they can figure out CO2 levels and such from old, dead plant matter (or even really old living plants); just like looking at the rings of a tree to see how old it is, they can use the "old rings" and other plant matter dated from that time to figure out CO2, nitrogen, etc. levels in the atmosphere or soil from specific times. As well as levels of certain chemicals, with enough study and arduous calculations they can most likely figure out temperature (and I'm sure thats how we have all these figures we have today, because I really doubt we can trust temperature readings taken down from thousands of years ago )

think that made sense, been up 21 hours, wrote 2 finals today, and then started drinking

[Brian Ellis]

It is the natsayers who deny climate change that will kill off sustainable life on this planet. Even the US Administration is beginning to realise that it is for real and IS man-made. The recent conference in Montreal ended in a note of jubilation when the US Delegation finally admitted that they will participate in the post 2012 talks extending Kyoto, after 2+ weeks of extended negotiation. Unfortunately, we have increased the CO2 content of the atmosphere from 280 ppm to about 400 ppm over the last 150 years (mostly in the last 25 years) by the indiscriminate burning of fossil fuels - and no one can deny that. We have more than doubled CH4 content in the same period because of increased rice paddy culture, ruminant culture and, above all, using fossil natural gas, despite extensive marsh drainage and tropical forest devastation - no one can deny that, either. No serious atmospheric scientist is in any doubt that the changing chemistry of the air we breathe is having some effect on the global climate (note that I say global climate and that means neither weather nor what is happening where you live: note also I use climate change and that can include negative as well as positive effects, unlike the obsolete term "global warming").

And I can assure you that the scientists' modelling DOES include all the natural cycles, both short and long term. The unfortunate thing is that if we wait until all the naysayers wake up to the truth, it may be too late for us to do anything about it. In the meanwhile, we are causing immeasurable suffering and death by using up what is left of our meagre fossil fuel reserves like there was no tomorrow, whether there will be one or not.

[Jon P. Inghram]

It is the naysayers who deny climate change that will kill off sustainable life on this planet.

So you're saying life didn't exist on the Earth when the climate was warmer and wetter in the past?

[ZokesPro]

Look, I don't doubt that the Earth is warming....I just doubt that our contribution is as high as advertised vs. solar activity (the sun is a cyclical flare star), Earth axis procession, volcanic activity and many other factors much more powerful than us humans.

Fact is that many of these cycles have resulted in regular ice ages for hundreds of thousands of years, usually on two cycles: 20,000 years and 90,000 years +/-. Given the former intervals pattern we are late in a 20,000 year interglacial period and on a runup to another ice age. If global warming stays that off then IMO bring it on.

Dr. Mordrid

Now there's something I totally agree with.

[Nowhere]

So you're saying life didn't exist on the Earth when the climate was warmer and wetter in the past?

Heard about massive extintions? Such things happened...who knows what can trigger them.

[Nowhere]

Now there's something I totally agree with.

Whatever makes you happier...