Sometimes I find the whole Global Warming frenzy too much to bear. It's the essence of scientific scaremongering - take questionable data from only those sources which agree with your hypothesis, draw alarmist conclusions, and then use it as a pretext for trying to restructure society around the world to fit a suspect and self-serving social engineering agenda.
The basis of Global Warming theory is the belief that the earth's temperature has gradually been increasing since the beginning of industrialization in the 1700s, primarily because of increases in carbon dioxide emissions associated with industry, and that by the end of this century the temperature worldwide will reach a point where radical, catastrophic climate change will take place. The presumed danger point is when the average temperature world wide reaches 2 degrees centigrade above what it was in 1750.
Dr. Rajendra Pachauri, chairman of the UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change summed up the impact of this 2 degree rise in temperature like this:
- "Beyond the 2°C level, the risks to human societies and ecosystems grow significantly. It is likely, for example, that average temperature increases larger than this will entail substantial agricultural losses, greatly increased numbers of people at risk of water shortages, and widespread adverse health impacts. Exceeding a global average increase of more than 2°C could also imperil a very high proportion of the world's coral reefs and cause irreversible damage to important terrestrial ecosystems, including the Amazon rainforest. Above the 2°C level, the risks of abrupt, accelerated, or runaway climate change also increase."
"The possibilities include reaching climatic tipping points leading, for example, to the loss of the West Antarctic and Greenland ice sheets (which, between them, could raise sea levels more than ten meters over the space of a few centuries), the shutdown of the thermohaline ocean circulation (and, with it, the Gulf Stream), and the transformation of the planets forests and soils from a net sink of carbon to a net source of carbon."
Sure sounds grim. Basically the end of the world as we know it. We're all just walking corpses and don't know it yet.
Article comments
— go to most recent comments1 - jadester
"If it took us 1000 years to return to that peak temperature - which was less than 1 degree higher than the low temperature of the 1300s - why shouldn't it take us another 2000 years to gain that next 2 degrees they claim are coming our way?"
just to point out, this is a flawed argument. If CO2 does help to increase global temperatures, then the time it takes to gain the next 2 degrees should be exponentially smaller than the first 1000 years, as the world is becoming developed at an exponentially faster rate. Even in just the past 50 years, things have accelerated probably more than the preceding 250 years.
And whilst the effect of emissions on global warming is still disputed by some, quite aside from that, is the little matter of health. The pollutants most industries spew out at present have a rather adverse effect on the health of people subjected to them (let alone other animals). Not that they're the only culprits *cough*crap food*cough*
2 - Dave Nalle
>> If CO2 does help to increase global temperatures, then the time it takes to gain the next 2 degrees should be exponentially smaller than the first 1000 years, as the world is becoming developed at an exponentially faster rate. Even in just the past 50 years, things have accelerated probably more than the preceding 250 years.<<
This depends a lot on how much CO2 actually does and how much CO2 is actually being produced. As I pointed out, the CO2 humans currently produce is enormously less than the volcanic CO2 production which caused the last mini ice-age. Even if the small amount of CO2 has an impact it would be a fractional impact on the rate of acceleration of warming, not the primary determining factor in the rate of warming. So yes, in the worst case it might bump us down by a couple of hundred years per degree gained, but we don't have sound data to make even that projection, much less the crazy alarmist claims that we'll be up by 2 degrees in this century.
Dave
3 - Z.Z.Bachman
Many good points.... also consider the industrialization of Chindia. Fossil fuel consumption in that part of the globe is increasing rapidly (check out $53 oil due not just politics but spot market demand), couple that with the burning of forests in Brazil and other regions of Latin America... all we need to add is a few more volcanic eruptions. Is the ozone hole over Antartica miner's canary?
But not to worry... Have confidence in science. Within the next 100 years we will make advances in energy science. (Conjecture) Who knows mini "cold fusion" and other concepts thought to be things of science fiction have a funny way of becoming science fact. This all assumes of course that we have not already obliterate ourselves on this planet due to our human psycho-social flaws.
4 - Thad Anderson
A recent article on global warming that is not funded by the Competitive Enterprise Institute:
Ocean, Arctic Studies Show Global Warming Is Real
http://www.reuters.com/newsArticle.jhtml?type=scienceNews&storyID=7667385
5 - Dave Nalle
>>But not to worry... Have confidence in science. Within the next 100 years we will make advances in energy science. <<
Of course, if we could overcome the irrational hysteria over nuclear power this problem could be solved with current technology.
Dave
6 - Dave Nalle
>>A recent article on global warming that is not funded by the Competitive Enterprise Institute:<<
I'm not familiar with that organization, but here are a couple of articles which are also not funded by it, and are by one of the leading climate scientists in the world:
http://winnetou.lcd.lu/physique/global/STOTT_you_cant_control_the_climate.html
http://www.open2.net/truthwillout/globalwarming/global_stott.htm
Nice to see someone with academic credentials introducing some common sense into the debate.
Dave
7 - Expategghead
The normal Republican barking.
Try:
which uses:
Land based temperature measurements.
COADS sea temperatures.
IODP drilling program
Dendrochronology.
Pollen Analysis
PaleoClimate
taken from the last:
Most striking is the fact that each record reveals that the 20th century is the warmest of the entire record, and that warming was most dramatic after 1920.
8 - Dave Nalle
None of which contradicts what I've said. There's no question that global warming is taking place, the questions are whether man has any significant impact on it or if it's just part of a natural cycle. And the evidence, including what you reference is more than covered in the natural cycle concept.
As for 'more republican barking', the two articles I cite are not by a Republican or from a Republican source. They're from an actual scientist who is one of the growing number who are skeptical about the 'pick and choose' methodology of the ideologically motivated pseudoscientists who are pushing global warming as a tool for advancing a political agenda.
BTW, your link works about as well as most radical global warming models.
Dave
9 - Dean
No offense Dave, but the Competitive Enterprise Institute doesn't appear to be that credible a source...Looking at the site and the background and the qualifications of its board members...it reads less like an "independent" "non-partisan" think-tank then it does a lobby/spin group intended to nullify any efforts to legislate against energy use, emissions etc. Looking at their list of scholars etc., it's high on lawyers and economists but fatally low on climatologists. I would love to know where their funding comes from - lots of cash from the energy lobby I would expect.
I seriously recommend you expand your reading list.
10 - Dave Nalle
Dean, what the hell is the 'Competitive Enterprise Institute'? I've never heard of it. Both you and Thad reference it and seem to think I'm using it as a source, but it's not referenced in my article or any of my responses, nor have I drawn any material from it, nor have I ever even been to its website.
My information in the article is drawn primarily from the work of Prof. Philip Stott of the University of London - where I did graduate work, though that's not relevant here as it was in a different field. The hard data which I reference in the article is taken directly from the IPCC's report - their conclusions may not match mine, but their data is still usable - and from the section on global warming at the American Institute on Physics' website at http://www.aip.org/history/climate/
Are you suggesting that Prof. Stott and the IPCC and the AIP are fronting for energy companies or for this 'Competitive Enterprise Institute'?
>>I seriously recommend you expand your reading list.<<
And I seriously recommend that you actually READ my article before responding to it and sounding like an idiot.
Dave
11 - Dave Nalle
Having seen it references twice here I went and found the CEI website. There's not just stuff about global warming there, it seems to feature a lot of interesting policy analysis from a free-market standpoint. I didn't use it for research, and probably wouldn't - but it appears to be funded by donations and by a group of public interest organizations which contribute to its content. I never take anything at face value, but it looks like a valuable resource which runs counter to the anti-free-market hypemongering that dominates the media.
Dave
12 - Dean
Sorry Dave!
I made the mistaken assumption that the publication cited at the top of the story was the one you were referring to in your post, as you did not cite where you referenced your data from in your original post.
Apologies for the error!
13 - Dave Nalle
Wow, didn't even notice that the book I put at the top of the post was from the CEI. I just picked it up on an Amazon search so I'd have something to fulfill the BC Amazon link requirement, along with the 4 at the bottom. It got listed first more or less randomly. I guess that explains much.
Dave
14 - Purple Tigress
There's a Japanese saying that your title reminded me of: Gaikotsu no ue yosoote hanami kana. Roughly translated it means: A skeleton is dressed up and out flower viewing.
Of course, I think in Hollywood, this has been re-translated: Die young and leave a beautiful corpse.
As an editorial note, I guess the moral of the misdirected debate is to choose which book you list first wisely.
15 - sydney
You guys are idiots. Why not question why it is your so keen to disprove what many, or most, climatoligists are projecting? What's your motivation? Your apparently experts?
Forget global warming, what we do know for sure, and what no one is disagreeing with, is the fact that life on this planet is not sustainable given the amounts of pollutants we are putting into the air, the population increases and the amount of resources we are consuming. All of this, despite the fact that as you say, scientists may come to be wrong about the effects of global warming (though it seems unlikely given that everyone in the know, is suggesting we are accelerating the temperature rise). Good for you - your all brilliant.
My point is this. Why not spend half the energy you spend in these arguments, actually doing something to reverse the damage were doing to our environment? I just don't get it. The many, unrelated, corollary benefits to reducing greenhouse emissions and preventing global warming, are just as important as the controlled climate benefits. So quit bitching, and lend your support.
16 - Dave Nalle
I think the point, Sydney, is that the evidence really isn't conclusive to support the theory of human-generated global warming. When I made the original post I was trying to point out that the people screaming about global warming are alarmists who have blown the issue out of proportion of what the real evidence actually supports. With such a public consensus supporting global warming it's important to make people aware that there's more to the story and that the people promoting global warming may be pushing a political/social agenda which has nothing to do with actually solving the problems of pollution.
I don't know how old you are, but do you remember how polluted our air and water were in the 1970s and the amazing progress we've made since then? You can fish and drink the water from rivers that were too poisonous to even swim in 50 years ago. Remember smog alerts and acid rain? Seen much of that recently outside of a few isolated areas? We've made amazing progress. There are no longer poisonous clouds of sulpher dioxide lingering in the streets of London killing people the way there were in the 1890s. A lot of those problems are long gone.
As for what I'm doing about the ecology, I've got 14,000 kw of solar power generation and have a windmill on order, with the objective of energy independence by the end of the decade. That's a hell of a lot more productive than whining about a global warming theory which just isn't supported by any kind of definitive evidence.
You tell me to 'quit bitching and lend my support'? Support to people who want to destroy American industry to the benefit of China and India? Support to people who want to use environmental alarmism to destroy American sovereignty? Support the Kyoto accords which at this time apparently only ONE of the signatories (England, much to my surprise) has any chance of actually complying with on schedule?
I bet I can find better uses for my time.
Dave
17 - Brad Arnold
What I'm about to say is so unbelievable that I will cite two articles at the bottom of this letter.
The rising temperatures that are now melting the glaciers and ice sheets are caused by the greenhouse gases belched into the atmosphere years ago.
In other words, even in the unlikely event mankind would stop emitting greenhouse gasses into the air, we are locked into this global warming pattern for decades.
Furthermore, even in the unlikely event that the US would decrease their discharge of carbon dioxide, China and India (both with more than 4 times the population) will almost certainly continue to increase their emissions.
There are two catastrophic consequences of global warming-the acidification of the oceans and the halting of the Gulf Stream.
First, the oceans are now becoming more acidic due to the simple chemical reaction: water combined with carbon dioxide produces carbonic acid. As the oceans inevitably become more saturated with carbon dioxide, they will become even more acidic, killing most of the aquatic life.
Since the beginning of the Industrial Revolution the oceans have absorbed an estimated half of the 800 billion tons of carbon dioxide emitted, but acidification of the oceans will cripple the "lungs of the planet."
Second, the Gulf Stream is an ocean current that brings a estimated million billion watts of heat to the Northern Atlantic. It is powered by a "salt engine" south of Greenland that is threatened by desalinization caused by melting in the Arctic.
Already, the Gulf Stream is flowing 10% slower, and when it halts temperatures will dramatically fall, making agriculture extremely difficult in Europe and North America.
How can we prepare for the dying of the oceans, or an ice age in the US and Europe?
If we can't reasonably stop our carbon dioxide discharges or prepare for the consequences of global warming, I suggest we engage in environmental engineering to remove the excess carbon dioxide.
There are many forms of life on earth that naturally perform this task, but we are overwhelming their ability to cope.
I submit that the only reasonable course of action is to improve by about ten times the ability of nature to remove excess carbon dioxide from the atmosphere and oceans. Biotechnology must be used to design genetically modified organisms that we will seed into the environment.
The alternative is catastrophe. We need that carbon dioxide removed yesterday, and it will only get worse-much worse.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/climatechange/story/0,12374,1403798,00.html
http://education.guardian.co.uk/higher/sciences/story/0,12243,1405900,00.html
Brad Arnold
3033 Monterey Av
St Louis Prk, MN 55416
USA
dobermantmacleod@aol.com
(952)924-0076
18 - Dave Nalle
>>What I'm about to say is so unbelievable that I will cite two articles at the bottom of this letter.<<
Well, you do cite The Guardian, so right off sensible people are disinclined to believe you, since The Guardian mostly prints loony speculation passed off as news.
>>The rising temperatures that are now melting the glaciers and ice sheets are caused by the greenhouse gases belched into the atmosphere years ago.<<
By that you mean the incredibly tiny increments of temperature increase over an enormously long period of time? I will agree about the age of the greenhouse gasses. But it's not that they were generated long ago, it's that they have gradually reasserted themselves after being suppressed during the mini-ice-age. We're not moving into an unprecedented era of warming, we're returning to a higher but still normal temperature.
>>First, the oceans are now becoming more acidic due to the simple chemical reaction: water combined with carbon dioxide produces carbonic acid. As the oceans inevitably become more saturated with carbon dioxide, they will become even more acidic, killing most of the aquatic life.<<
Evidence only shows increased acidity in some parts of the ocean, and there's no indication that this will lead to any kind of mass die off of ocean species. In the past they've adapted to equally altered conditions and many of those species are still around.
>>Second, the Gulf Stream is an ocean current that brings a estimated million billion watts of heat to the Northern Atlantic. It is powered by a "salt engine" south of Greenland that is threatened by desalinization caused by melting in the Arctic.<<
If there's desalination, doesn't that mean that the acid level is going down? Isn't salt acidic?
>>Already, the Gulf Stream is flowing 10% slower, and when it halts temperatures will dramatically fall, making agriculture extremely difficult in Europe and North America.<<
The temperature difference on land caused by the Gilf Stream is less than 4 degrees centigrade, and some of that would be offset by the overall rise in world temperature.
Think about countries on the same latitude as those impacted by the Gulf Stream which are not warmed by it? Is Poland uninhabitable? Can no one grow crops in Oregon or Washington state?
Dave
19 - Steve S
If it took us 1000 years to return to that peak temperature - which was less than 1 degree higher than the low temperature of the 1300s - why shouldn't it take us another 2000 years to gain that next 2 degrees they claim are coming our way?
I missed this post, I'll have to read it more in-depth tomorrow. Global warming isn't my strong point, but the above sentence caught my eye. Are you factoring in the increase in population and therefore the increase in things that cause global warming? How many people are born every year worldwide? Multiply that by 2,000 years and if we haven't hit a peak yet where earth can't sustain any more people, then we're still left with a lot more people who are using/needing whatever it is that's causing global warming.
I would think.
20 - Dave Nalle
Good point Steve. The thing is, we just don't know what impact humans are having. The data that environmental activists are putting out is very selective, and the statistical data is inconclusive. It seems reasonable to assume that more people and more industry may be accelerating the process a bit, but all our industrial output this century is less than a couple of good volcanic erruptions, and the earth has survived plenty of those in the past.
What bothers me is the extreme alarmists who are talking about imminent doom when they really don't have hard data to back it up. I think it's irresponsible to talk about the extinction of the human race without something pretty damned substantial to base your conclusion on.
Dave
21 - Tom Rees
Anthropogenic co2 emissions far exceed volcanic sources . Volcanic eruptions cause a short-term net cooling, btw.
22 - JR
The second is that only now, after 400 years of warming have we reached the same global temperature we enjoyed in the year 1000. If it took us 1000 years to return to that peak temperature - which was less than 1 degree higher than the low temperature of the 1300s - why shouldn't it take us another 2000 years to gain that next 2 degrees they claim are coming our way?
You need to see the rest of that paragraph to see how illogical it really is. First he says there was 400 years of warming to regain that 1 degree, then he rephrases it to say it took 1000 years. And he conveniently chose the larger figure to extrapolate any future increase.
Of course, as pointed out in Comment 1 and again in Comment 19, assuming a linear increase, either in atmospheric CO2 or in temperature, is completely unjustified.
The logical flaws in this post are legion. The bottom line is that the vast majority of climate scientists agree that global warming exists and is to a significant extent driven by human activity. You gonna listen to them or a politically partisan calligrapher?
23 - Dave Nalle
>>You need to see the rest of that paragraph to see how illogical it really is. First he says there was 400 years of warming to regain that 1 degree, then he rephrases it to say it took 1000 years. And he conveniently chose the larger figure to extrapolate any future increase.<<
Wow, you can't even read now? It took 1000 years to go from temperature X and then return to temperature X. That included a period of cooling followed by a period of rewarming that lasted for about 400 years. What is unclear about that? The 1000 year span included a cooling phase followed by a warming phase of 400 years.
Dave
24 - JR
If the warming phase (a gain of about one degree) took 400 years, why did you project that it should take 2000 years to gain two more degrees? 2 x 400 = 800, no?
25 - JR
(crickets chirping)