Banning the term climate change won’t stop the reality

[Chu Gai]

Galcier ice exists in multiple regions of the planet and have been studied. The most extreme temperature variations that we've been recording happen at the polar extremes. You melt the ice, it doesn't reflect as much sun and the oceans absorb the heat and also get more acidic. It's a feedback loop and the causes are clear. NASA has been doing more than just studying temp. They've been studying glacial retreat, acidity levels in the oceans, atmospheric concentrations of CO2, etc. There is positive correlation.

I agree there is no clear solution but that doesn't make the science of manmade climate change untrue. There is a global consensus within the scientific community for the cause but there is no easy solution. Human nature makes us greedy. We want more energy, we want more stuff. We don't want to sacrifice our quality of life despite the fact that it's inevitable.

I firmly believe our lifestyle is not sustainable but admittedly I do very little to change on my own end (other than recycle and better insulate my home and use high efficient cooling). I still drive gas powered cars and use Class AB amps. But, I don't deny the science done by experts in the field with a strict peer review process that people seem to be ignoring and downplaying.

Again I point you to this link:
http://climate.nasa.gov/evidence/

If we can't trust NASA's data on the climate, how can we trust them to launch rockets into space and land on the moon? Seriously NASA is really the core institute of our country and I would think people should be proud of the science being done there.

As for the politics. Why is it there is one primary political party in our country that:

• denies manmade climate change?
• denies human evolution?
• attempts to confuse science with religion by giving Intelligent Design equal credence with human evolution?
• claims that educated people and universities are the "culturally elite"?
• attempts to repress rights for homosexuals and women and human reproduction?

Based on my observations of vocal majority of the Republican party, yes I conclude that they either don't have as good of a grasp of science as the other side or they are being deliberately deceptive.

I can only speak for myself. On your bulleted points...
I see a correlation but don't see it as 100%.
Evolution is clear to me.
I'm an atheist and I don't conflate beliefs with education.
I think we're educating a record number of baristas. I think universities are overly politically correct. Too much to say.
I think all people have a right to be equally miserable in unions. If you want an abortion I don't care. I'm puzzled how one can kill a pregnant woman and have it count as two instances though.

 

[Chu Gai]

Please don't distract us. We are trying to save the world here.

Now if you tried a different question, we might follow along. I have a modest suggestion:

• Bruce Jenner removes his primary & secondary male organs. The news media & public scorn him.
• Angelina Jolie removes her primary & secondary female organs. The news media & public adore her.

Talk amongst yourselves.

It's worth noting Jenner didn't have a car accident until he decided to be a woman.

 

[gene]

But, but.... that's exactly what you said about this article:http://scienceandpublicpolicy.org/images/stories/papers/originals/climate_money.pdf



Neither was Al Gore, he's was just another millionaire politician that's making even more millions promoting the Monetizing of Weather and profiteering from Carbon Credits.... which is what this game is all about.

Really so you're going to equate a right winger blogger who isn't a scientist with a panel of peer reviewed people that are just b/c the government funds them to exist? By your logic the only science that can be trusted is the one that has NO funding at all. Research costs money. People have to live to do their jobs. That doesn't corrupt the data or make it untrue. Science theory and data is independently tested in attempts to disprove it and improve our understanding. It evolves. This is how science works. Religion is the exact opposite. It is based on blind faith.

Ah and then we have to fall back to Al Gore again to discredit the science. While I am not an Al Gore advocate by any means, at least he raised awareness. Ironically many of the predictions in his movie were too conservative. They didn't account for permafrost melting and trapping more heat than CO2. The climate modeling has been greatly refined since then. That's the beauty of science. It's set out to disprove itself and better the understanding in the process.

 

[Swerd]

It's worth noting Jenner didn't have a car accident until he decided to be a woman.

Will Angelina Jolie now become a better driver?

Maybe we should alert auto insurance companies about this.

 

[gene]

I should have said:

It's abundantly clear that the Earth's atmosphere is warming because of increased CO2 levels. That much is beyond argument.

I meant to say that. There certainly is an excellent correlation between increased CO2 and atmospheric temperature.

What is less clear is whether the atmosphere is warming only because of man's burning carbon-based fuels. That, I think is what 3db is saying too.

I do hear arguments that say if scientists can't all agree on the cause, then we can't believe them. I certainly do not agree with that! That's a false straw-man argument promoted by the fossil fuel industry.

Again there is a scientific consensus on the cause. There is no majority disagreement among qualified climate scientists on this.

Yes the primary cause is manmade increase in CO2. you can compare the PPM CO2 rise and see the correlation of recent temperature increases.

Watch this little video by Neal DeGrasse:

 

[Jeff R.]

Really so you're going to equate a right winger blogger who isn't a scientist with a panel of peer reviewed people that are just b/c the government funds them to exist? By your logic the only science that can be trusted is the one that has NO funding at all. Research costs money. .

Why does the government have to fund this? Why can' the free market do this? If the industry of alternative energy is viable and necessary the free market and private investors can drive this component of development and research. Once again follow the money....if it made sense and could be done in a profitable fashion then the investors would be lining up...but they are not. I personally don't care if people want to study it and come to conclusions and then use those conclusions to convince private investors to put their money behind it, just don't do it with my tax dollars.

 

[Rickster71]

Really so you're going to equate a right winger blogger who isn't a scientist with a panel of peer reviewed people that are just b/c the government funds them to exist? By your logic the only science that can be trusted is the one that has NO funding at all. Research costs money. People have to live to do their jobs. That doesn't corrupt the data or make it untrue. Science theory and data is independently tested in attempts to disprove it and improve our understanding. It evolves. This is how science works. Religion is the exact opposite. It is based on blind faith.

Ah and then we have to fall back to Al Gore again to discredit the science. While I am not an Al Gore advocate by any means, at least he raised awareness. Ironically many of the predictions in his movie were too conservative. They didn't account for permafrost melting and trapping more heat than CO2. The climate modeling has been greatly refined since then. That's the beauty of science. It's set out to disprove itself and better the understanding in the process.

Well maybe a Left Winger can answer an earlier posters question?

Have the scientists ever figured out why the planet was warmer a 1000 years ago than it is now?
Has this fact ever been used in determining whats causing global warming other than mankind? I don't think it has.

 

[Rickster71]

Despite receiving around $4 billion per annum in funding, NOAA doesn't’ do large scale site checks to make sure their temp sensors meet required standards.
The majority of NOAA temperature sensors are sited near air conditioning exhaust outlets, black top parking lots, black tarred roofs and other artificial sources of heat.
Of the 800 sensors checked, 89% fail to meet NOAA's own placement requirments.

 

[Swerd]

Well maybe a Left Winger can answer an earlier posters question?

Have the scientists ever figured out why the planet was warmer a 1000 years ago than it is now?
Has this fact ever been used in determining whats causing global warming other than mankind? I don't think it has.

We can be certain that 1000 years ago, it wasn't caused by burning fossil fuels. However, that may have nothing to do with what's going on now.

 

[Swerd]

Why does the government have to fund this? Why can' the free market do this? If the industry of alternative energy is viable and necessary the free market and private investors can drive this component of development and research. Once again follow the money....if it made sense and could be done in a profitable fashion then the investors would be lining up...but they are not. I personally don't care if people want to study it and come to conclusions and then use those conclusions to convince private investors to put their money behind it, just don't do it with my tax dollars.

The free market has never voluntarily supported external research for new science or technologies. Private industry will only invest in something if they own the rights to it in advance. That leads to short-term progress, but not to new or major break throughs.

In pharmaceuticals, the major clinical trials testing the safety and effectiveness of new medications are paid for by the drug companies. But they only do that because they are required by law to prove that their new products work and are safe. Without such laws, you don't see major industry conducting anything like that level of research. Other than that, most if not all of the science and technology advances of the 20th century were paid for by various federal agencies in health care, communications, physics, space exploration, computer technology, and defense industry.

If you don't want to spend your tax dollars on that, you are 75 years too late. You'd have to go back to pre-1940 technology.

 

[gene]

Why does the government have to fund this? Why can' the free market do this? If the industry of alternative energy is viable and necessary the free market and private investors can drive this component of development and research. Once again follow the money....if it made sense and could be done in a profitable fashion then the investors would be lining up...but they are not. I personally don't care if people want to study it and come to conclusions and then use those conclusions to convince private investors to put their money behind it, just don't do it with my tax dollars.

B/C the free market is driven by profit not by protecting us or our environment. There is far more profit in keeping the Status Quo then to completely revamp our energy production. The funding you are talking about is peanuts compared to the major expenditures of our government.

 

[gene]

Well maybe a Left Winger can answer an earlier posters question?

Have the scientists ever figured out why the planet was warmer a 1000 years ago than it is now?
Has this fact ever been used in determining whats causing global warming other than mankind? I don't think it has.

http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn11644-climate-myths-it-was-warmer-during-the-medieval-period-with-vineyards-in-england.html#.VRMky44eruc

 

[Steve81]

I firmly believe our lifestyle is not sustainable but admittedly I do very little to change on my own end (other than recycle and better insulate my home and use high efficient cooling). I still drive gas powered cars and use Class AB amps.

No solar panels? No Chevy Volt or Nissan Leaf? I'm disappointed Fortunately in MD, you can pick your energy supplier, so my home has been (at least nominally) wind powered for years. I still drive a gas powered car, but I barely put 5000 miles/year on it, and it's an economy car not a Hummer. I reckon I'm ahead of the curve.

 

[KEW]

Modeling climate means taking a lot of of factors, studying their individual impacts, their interactive impacts, with ultimately developing some kind of an equation that has the ability not only to predict what will happen, but what has happened. So you need data and that includes historical data. The thing with historical data is that the further back you go, the fuzzier it gets. Record keeping wasn't anywhere as encompassing as it is today. Some information needs to be inferred and back calculated, adding uncertainty which needs to become part of the model.

Then a model is released, refined but then we find it's unable to explain this pause we seem to be having with global temperatures having stagnated. For how long, who knows? Will it pick up with more ferocity or diminish, who knows? But we do know the model needs to be revised. Somehow something(s) were missed. It may be a term, a factor that may not act independently but something that onteracts with the other factors.

A concern I have is that there can be an inherent danger in forcing the equation to fit the observation. Let me illustrate by example. Back in the day I ran a chemical analytical lab supervising chemists and techs. Among other things we would be required to determine the concentrations of elements and metals. upper management became sold on a software package that would be capable of data analysis, report generation, and all the good things that ran on 386 and 486 computers.

One chemist, Wayne, had been charged with determining the concentrations of various solvents by gas chromatography. So, freed from having to use a scientific calculator, Wayne ran his calibration curves, ran his sample, and used the new software.

I looked over all reports, examined the data, and questioned when appropriate. So Wayne comes back with the results and I asked what the error was? None was the reply. Ummmmm...really? How was the calibration curve? Perfect, I used the new software program. Keep in mind, Wayne is a degreed chemist. What he'd done is taken his calibration data, amount vs. response, dumped it into the program and selected a best fit which spit out a 5th order polynomial. The thing is, the detector, within its limits, is a first order response. Wayne just wasn't thinking and his data, which wasn't that good looking for a first order fit, suggested there was a problem somewhere. I forget if it was standard preparation or something else but after addressing the usual suspects he then had a decent first order response that could be mathematically fitted. Not perfect but entirely reasonable.

I recount the above because IMO, this climate change mathematical modeling still has a way to go. This doesn't mean I don't believe there are issues going around climate wise. Sea levels have been creeping up and some islands are going to disappear, coast lines are going to be reshaped and so forth. Carbon credits, taxes or whatever punitive measures can be thought of don't strike me as smart or effective. Planning does. Changing where we grow certain crops sounds reasonable. Better mpg and other efficiencies sounds like a good idea. Growing government maybe not so much. Politicians by and large are whores looking to divide, segment, and exploit what's trendy.

Your instance highlights the value of having a consensus.
One man mis-applied or accepted the computer model without scrutiny. You looked at the result and saw the discrepancy.
The fact is we have a consensus. However, you will note that the statement was along the lines of "Global warming is likely to be caused by man". They are not saying it absolutely is.
There are plenty of people who will accept a computer based result as gospel, but among the the kind of people who end up working for institutes like NASA are people who know that a program is only as good as the info used to develop it. They do scrutinize and do their best to find the mistakes before it costs lives.

But as Alex pointed out earlier, does it really matter if we caused it or not?
If we knew a meteor was heading for possible collision with earth would we ignore it (or ban astronomers from speaking of it) because we did not cause it?

The rub is, if a person owned a lot of land in Miami, that person would really prefer to downplay the possibility of rises in water level until they could cash in.

 

[gene]

But as Alex pointed out earlier, does it really matter if we caused it or not?
If we knew a meteor was heading for possible collision with earth would we ignore it (or ban astronomers from speaking of it) because we did not cause it?

Yes it does matter to know the cause of it so we can at least try to change our behavior to lessen its impact. We have the science to easily determine the cause. But as Neil deGrasse pointed out, we are still in the denial phase.

 

[gene]

With the exception of the last point on female and gay rights, the others are not in the GOP platform, they are just the opinions of profoundly uneducated and close-minded individuals. Nonetheless, the GOP platform document is full of references to God and assertive conclusions about what God intends humans to do, and the whole thing sounds like one of those Sunday morning television preachers from Orange County.

There's an odd choice we get in this country, the social liberals who mostly want to redistribute my income through taxation, or the religious fanatics who want to control my thoughts and actions according to their religious beliefs, but want to let me keep more of my income, of course while they let people destroy the environment for personal gain. (Like clear cut the national forests, which is in the platform.) Sometimes it amazes me that we are as successful as we are.

Agreed extremism on both sides is bad and sadly Big Corp is really the ones running the show and dictating policy. The Citizens United ruling (a Republican idea) just makes it that much easier and less transparent. Of course once something is put into practice by either side, it rarely gets revoked.

Ironically the Republicans of just a few decades ago were a much different party before they were taken over by Religious dogma. A Republican named Nixon formed the EPA. That would never happen in their platform today.

 

[gene]

Irvrobinson;

Sorry man I saw a double of your last posting and went to delete one as duplicate and it friggin deleted both of them.

Here is your post.

With the exception of the last point on female and gay rights, the others are not in the GOP platform, they are just the opinions of profoundly uneducated and close-minded individuals. Nonetheless, the GOP platform document is full of references to God and assertive conclusions about what God intends humans to do, and the whole thing sounds like one of those Sunday morning television preachers from Orange County.

There's an odd choice we get in this country, the social liberals who mostly want to redistribute my income through taxation, or the religious fanatics who want to control my thoughts and actions according to their religious beliefs, but want to let me keep more of my income, of course while they let people destroy the environment for personal gain. (Like clear cut the national forests, which is in the platform.) Sometimes it amazes me that we are as successful as we are.

 

[3db]

Again there is a scientific consensus on the cause. There is no majority disagreement among qualified climate scientists on this.

Yes the primary cause is manmade increase in CO2. you can compare the PPM CO2 rise and see the correlation of recent temperature increases.

Watch this little video by Neal DeGrasse:

So how long are you going to ignore the fact that there have been proven cyclical warming and cooling patterns in earth's existence? How many of these so called qualified scientists have taken this into account? These qualified scientists by ignoring the past have predictions whose qualities reflect the title of this thread.

 

[gene]

So how long are you going to ignore the fact that there have been proven cyclical warming and cooling patterns in earth's existence? How many of these so called qualified scientists have taken this into account? These qualified scientists by ignoring the past have predictions whose qualities reflect the title of this thread.

Wrong again. The slope of the change has never been so steep since we've been dumping CO2 into the atmosphere. The kind of change we are seeing in a 100 year period normally takes 10s of thousands of years or a mass extinction event as I stated earlier.

Nobody is arguing climate variation over time but it's a great skeptics point for someone that can't understand reading And interpreting data in a graph.

 

[Chu Gai]

I think it was in the book, SuperFreakOnomics, that it was postulated that a relatively inexpensive way that one could cool the earth would be to burn sulphur, in effect turning it into sulfuric acid and shooting it into the upper atmosphere. The reasoning behind it is that during recent volcanic eruptions, the earth experienced a temporary cooling which was correlated with specific sulfuric acid concentrations in the atmosphere. It's a reversible process since the acid gradually dissipates. Further, the environmental impact was believed to be minimal. The idea here, is that one could do this on a short term basis while other alternatives to fossil fuel were developed - more efficient solar and wind generation, improved batteries, algae, reforestation, or whatever. Call it a buying time thing but one that doesn't have to impose onerous economic penalties.

Now I don't know what the unintended consequences would be. After all it might affect the quality of French wines.