Science a GoGo's Home Page Forums General Discussion Climate Change Forum Global Warming: Man-Made or Natural?

Please disregard my comments, also.

done-benny

Benny - given that we all seem to be on the same page re.the big question : "Is CO2 causing global warming ?", why are you so hostile to people who just question a dogma which is driving policy changes which will affect the quality of life of billions of people by removing their access to easy energy ....... all on the basis of an increasingly unproven (and alarmist) theory ?

And I'm not talking about people in the first world. As someone who lives a lot closer to those 'billions' than you ... I find it deeply disturbing that you can admit that CO2 might not be causing climate change but you still want to prevent vast swathes of humanity from achieving the quality of life you enjoy in Texas. Thats why you SHOULD give a "@#$%" what the government says !

No one denies your views on overall consumption and general pollution, but, seeing as it is not proven that CO2 causes climate change - do you object to China building coal fired power stations (at the rate of 1 per week), and if you do, what is YOUR alternative ?

Honestly, I'm surprised benny. Your previous post on this thread was much less angry. Even stating that we aren't that far apart. Then you come back with this diatribe.

I'll try to go through your post (knowing full well you'll probably disregard it)


You took my meaning too literally. I did not mean you specifically, but rather the pro-AGW side using the threat of 20 foot ocean level rises in order to bring about a sociological change.
And purposefully misspelling my name does not make you look intelligent.

I don't consider myself anymore intelligent than most people. I do think I have the capability of critical thought. From my observances, this is short supply these days. I would guess the majority of the population would not even know the meaning behind it.

You have no more a stake then anybody else on this planet. I have one, another on the way. I suppose your next comment would be that you must care about your children more than I. Nothing like tugging at the heartstrings eh?

Benny, we're focusing on climate change. Stop throwing everything into the same pot, and treating a question about one as an attack on all.
Contaminated water has nothing to do with climate change
Cancer rates have nothing to do with climate change
Allergy, asthma and immune problems have nothing to do with climate change.
Erosion of our topsoil has nothing to do with climate change.

Before somebody jumps out with some reference showing some of these issues may get worse with possible climate change, I'll put the caveat that climate change has had nothing to do with the historical occurrences of the environmental issues Benny listed.

Oh really? If it's not CO2 causing climate change, then please share what aspect of human activity is causing it.

This is absolutely false. Please show where I have said we shouldn't be living in a more sustainable manner. You are completely misrepresenting what I've said here, and feel. You want help preserving wetlands, replanting forests, reducing particulate emissions to our air, reducing waste discharges to our waters, reducing the amount of solid waste - then I am right there. And in reality, am already doing much of that - I work in an environmental consulting firm specializing in watershed management.
My issue is with GW taking much needed resources away from other critical, and more important areas.


This is the only part of your post in which you're correct.

An American is lecturing a Canadian on how wasteful Canadians are. If that's not funny I don't know what is.
I take it by your self-righteous attitude that you've given up all the "comforts" of the west. Sold your 3000 sq ft home and moved to a mud hut out in the desert, have you? I'm not sure how you're gaining access to the Internet - but I'm sure it must not be using a computer that has any parts built in developing countries (since that would be considered "cheap excess" which you so despise).
You want to know why I advocate the 3rd world developing? Birth rates, pure and simple. Every single environmental problem can be traced back to one thing - overpopulation. It doesn't matter how "sustainable" we become, with an ever increasing population, we're screwed. Now, numerous studies have shown that as a country moves from an agrarian society to a industry based society, a remarkable thing happens. Birth rates drop, and drop fast. If we want to get our environmental problems under control, there's one thing we need to do, stabilize and then gradually reduce our population. We can’t do that with birth rates that are above the replacement level, which is 2.1 (How many children do you have again? ) So as 3rd world countries develop, their populations stablize, and eventually start to decrease (as are the birth rates for every industrialized country on the plant)
But then that would be going after the root cause of the issue, rather than just slapping on a band-aid.


Ok, I was wrong, you got two points right in your post. These are the REAL issues - not CO2 caused global warming.

I do not have an attitude of indifference. My field of work is dedicated to managing our water resources. What are you doing? Oh, that’s right, having more children than the replacement level.

You're not making too much sense here, but I gather you're saying who cares how we get people to change their ways, as long as it gets done.
Well, let me tell you - people that are concerned about the integrity of science are concerned.

Already passing the buck are you? Let me ask you again - what are you doing to combat global warming?

You're rambling at this point, and I'm having trouble following.
Benny, you sound that you are very passionate about our environment. You and I are not that much different (if you'd just breath, relax, and read my postings). We shouldn't need to "trick" people into changing our ways. Other people should see we're screwing up the earth, and need to change our ways. What can we do (other than tricking them with false science), to make them see this?

Canuck:

"Every single environmental problem can be traced back to one thing - overpopulation."

Are we all agreed on that? I pretty much agree with the rest of your post too.

Do we also agree that overpopulation is exacerbated by the 3rd world living conditons ??

Post transition fertility theory tells us that once society has achieved a certain increase in economic prosperity, fertility rates decline ....... and if economic prosperity is linked to energy consumption then the last thing we should be doing is limiting the 3rd worlds access to easy energy ..... true ? Any views ?

Now that's an interesting perspective. Unfortunately things are never actually simple. At present energy companies are going flat out to gain monopolies on technology so there will be only a few people who benefit from any increased energy consumption in the 3rd world.

Thats a different angle ....and you very well may be right.

I think the point I was trying to make is that in order to get control on the population problem (which we have agreed is the root cause of every single environmental problem), we have to bring as much of the world as possible to increased levels of economic prosperity and improved living standards. And that is going to require a lot more energy ..... is that a good thing or a bad thing ? And is that good thing or a bad thing if most of that energy is hydrocarbon generated ?

In other words, what's more important - reducing population growth or limiting CO2 emmissions ?

If there is warming (let's agree there is) and if heat = energy (that seems established) and there is a debate on whether warming (heat) is caused by human activity or solar influence (fair enough) then.... We should acknowledge that the amount of energy reaching the Earth every day should allw some excess heat (energy) to be harnessed for third world development.

I realise it isn't this simple, but the debate is at times a bit ironic.

Here's a catch all reply

Yup, I think we're all agreed - overpopulation is the issue we have to deal with.

Now, as far as ImranCan's idea that overpopulation is exacerbated by 3rd world living conditions – I would mostly agree, but with a slight clarification.

I don't think it's because there is no running water(specifically), that people are having 6 kids. I think it's because in agrarian economy, children are either seen as ways to increase family income, or as retirement funds. As you move away from an agrarian economy to an industrial one, children don't have the same affect; in fact they become more of a financial liability. Additionally, in an industrial economy women can have a greater positive financial impact to the family, by getting a job outside the home, rather than having children. Working women yields educated women, which we all know leads to even greater reductions in birthrates.

So I guess, I'd rather say “the lack of industrialization in the 3rd world is exacerbating the global population issue.”

So what is stopping industrialization from occurring in many 3rd world countries. Here's a list of the top of my head (won't be complete)
1) Transportation networks - rail, road, ports. Need to move goods
2) Water/waste water infrastructure. Need plenty of clean water
3) Electricity, and electricity distribution networks. Industry lives on power
4) Intellectual property and physical property rights. No industry is going to set up shop, if it's going to be stolen from them (Venezuela?)
6) Extensive financial rulesets - try to stop corruption
7) Biggest one (I think). Access to 1st world markets. They have to have somebody to sell their "stuff" to. This is why trade tariffs should come down. Any political party that is protectionist is enemy #1 in my books.

One final requirement - and this is something I haven't totally fleshed out. But I'm beginning to think it would be very tough for any 3rd country to make the leap to a capitalistic democracy without having some portion of the transition period being ruled by an authoritative government (aka dictator). There's probably too many difficult decisions to make in that transition, while still worrying about being elected. This is just a thought however.


Remember though - economics is not a zero sum game, for every winner, there does not have to be a loser. Yes, energy companies will profit from increased energy consumption. There will be some that profit enormously. But where would the developed world be (and in reality, all of humanity), if we consumed no energy? I don't care to live in the Middle Ages



Let me phrase this question a different way - we can industrialize the 3rd world, drastically bringing up their standard of living. Stop the 3-5 million deaths per year that are caused by improper sanitation/drinking water supplies. Stop the starvation. Connect the 4-5 billion people with the developed world, and tap into that massive pool of human ingenuity to tackle issues of today (and tomorrow). Greatly reduce war and other humanitarian disasters (compare the locations of such occurrences with how well "connected" the locale is). And generally create a much more "just" and "equal" world. But live with increased CO2 emissions.

Or, we could drastically cut CO2 emissions, convert all transportation to hydrogen based, mothball every coal fired plant in the world, put a halt on any new ones, and only allow nuclear/hydro/solar/wind plants. (How many solar panels do you think you'd need to run a steel foundry? How many nuclear plants do you think Bangladesh can afford?). All in hopes of stopping CO2 caused global warming, which is a hypothesis based on a 25 year warming trend seen in data collected from a spatially(and temporally) heterogeneous monitoring network placed in changing land covers, with changing operation techniques.

I'll need a much better reason than GW to sentence the developing world to the status quo.

I think this discussion has moved to a much more positive level. For me, even if I believed that CO2 was causing global warming (which I don't), there is no point telling evryone to fly less or drive samller cars unless you address the fundamental needs of most people on the planet. Where is there energy going to coe from ? The growth in energy consumption in most parts of the world is huge - just go and visit China .... I lived there in 2003-4. These are much more important questions than whether the troposphere is warming or not, beacsue if you can't find solutions to that then whether you sell your SUV or not won't make any difference.

interesting discussions over these forums...I would say quickly that the anthropogenic signal in today's warming trends have been well documented, and there is no denying that increased CO2 causes higher temperatures because of its chemcial and radiative nature. The lack of other natural forcings, as well as the simple physics behind what you get with a 100 ppmv increase in CO2, is strong evidence- but the topics have been studied in great detail with focus on climate, paleoclimate, geology, biology, ecology, astronomy, etc and has developed over decades. This paradigm has shown to have remarkable predictive power and explanatory with high confidence. Science does not "prove" things, so this word should stop being used so lightly over the topics.

For anyone who wishes to propose natural warming mechanisms from 1950 onward, or show why more CO2 would not increase temperature scientifically, it would be a fun debate. However, such statement like modellers don't account for atmospheric convection or it is a hypothesis 25 years old on a few unreliable sites should probably be disregarded because they are simply wrong. Every major scientific organziation now accepts the realities of AGW, and the silly arguments outlined in, say, the GGWS will not change that. I would advise people to read the relevant primary literature rather than wingnut sites which not only generate bad science, but demonstrate a poor understanding of climatic modelling, and the enormous amount of literature, measurements, and study given to any subtopic in the topic of climate change.

Chris

Chris,
You are buying into Al Gore's religious experience. There is no legitimate study that validates AGW. It is nothing more than Al Gore talking to God.

CO2 IS Al Gore religion. Watch this clip. I can't believe what I'm seeing here! Talk about theater! Watch as Al Gore's silhouette walks into the circle of light as he says in a preacher like tone...At 3 minutes into the video.

"What is unusual is I had the privilege to be shown this, as a young man. It's almost as if a window had been opened through which the future was very clearly visible. "See that?" he said, "See that?" "That's the future in which you are going to live you life."

I didn't know that God or a male Oracle had talked to Gore and took him on a vision quest! Sheesh! Now, the man is a prophet! CO2 is a religion with the wildest "doomsday predictions" from "prophets" who "see" the future. Sound familiar? Pay attention, notice the church bells right after Gore made his claim. Too much! LOL

Did everyone hear that Europe was going to start auctioning off carbon credits to the highest bidder? LOL, What a scam!

Rise above for Big Al...
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=...h&plindex=4

observing such a fundamental dispute about global wamring and considering scietific methods and evidence, one tend to wonder which evidence is there to support or refute both sides.

This opposition is really interesting when one compares the new summary for policy makers with the independent summary for policy makers, using the same information, getting to a completely opposite opinion about evidence, proof and future projection.

Perhaps it's not only science but also psychology / sociology. problem is that the physical truth has no consideration whatsoever for what we like to be true.

Of course, climate change is man made, that's settled science. We know that the climate sensitivity is about 3 °C per doubling of CO_2 concentration, we know how much CO_2 we've put in the atmosphere and we can directly measure the increase oin CO_2 concentrations and temperature. It all fits the theory (based on elementary physics) reasonably well.

The only people who dispute this are a handful of scientists most of whom have have no solid background in physics. There is the odd economist who criticises the Hockey Stick, even though that criticism is irrelevant. This is similar to biology where you have a handful of scientists who do not believe in evolution. They waste their time criticising Paleontologists who made minor mistakes. Even if true, it doesn't prove that evolution is false and that God created the Universe in 7 days.

What matters in the end is that none of the criticisms are published in the leading journals like Science or Nature. These journals will not hesitate to publish a breakthrough that completely overturns the conventional wisdom.

Given that this scientific forum spends most of the time discussing this very question, I find this to be a very polarising remark. This is the kind of position which is driving some very unhealthy behaviours - see attached article for what I mean.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2007/03/11/ngreen211.xml

I would disagree on a couple of points - i don't think the destruction of the 'hockey stick' viewpoint is irrelevant. It has been significantly discredited and ignoring this is just like saying you ingnore the data you don't like.

Additonally I want to raise a question about the so called "elementary physics" - isn't it true that ALL models based on this "elementary physics" predict that the troposphere will show the greatest degree of warming ? However data shows there has been no temeperature change whatsoever. So is this data irrelevant or are the models wrong ?

Global warming is dangerously close to becoming a religion.
When people are attacked for not agreeing with the "herd", it's not science.
When people are told "the debate is over", it's not science.
When people say "yes, there's some errors in it, but don't worry, they're don't impact the results", it's not science.
When the 'leading experts' in AGW have absolutely no background in climate science, it's not science (Tim Flannery has recently got a lot of press for his calculation that showed CO2 equivalent-whatever that is-is already over 450 ppm. Flannery is a mammologist and a palaeontologist, incidentally he's also selling his book "The Weather Makers: How Man Is Changing the Climate and What It Means for Life on Earth")

Science is what is published in peer reviewed journals and presented at conferences. What is not science is to make allegations of errors and not follow up on that with peer reviewed publications, conference presentations etc.

Now, I'm not an expert in climate scince, so I can't give a detailed response to problems raised by skeptics. But it is up to the skeptics to make their point in the scientific community. So far they haven't so their criticism of global warming theory is definitely not science.

I think this statement is complete rubbish. Any proponent of any scientific proposal (including AGW) must be completely open to challenge and analysis from any quarter. That is the only way to ensure credibility. If someone postulates something, it isn't up to the rest of us to prove the opposite and get published in a journal as part this. A very good example is the recent case of the 0.15 degree error that was found in the ground based US temperature reading post 2000. These were simply pointed out by a Steve McKintyre .... and I may be mistaken .... but I don't think his observations were peer reviewed or published in any journal. And that was science at its very best.

The adjustment to the temperature record was not significant, see here. Anyway, in science everything is peer reviewed. Of course, one can always contact a scientist and discuss some issue. That can then eventually lead to a peer reviewed work.

AGW has already been proven to the satisfaction of the climate scientitist. There have been many thousands of peer reviewed articles on this subject. So, it is established science. It is effectively challenged all the time when scientists do new investigations. These investigations always lead to scientific articles that confirm AGW. So, it isn't a mere postulate anymore.

In case of some untested postulate you could indeed say that the proponents of that postulate should invest some time to respond no non peer reviewed criticisms. However, in case of AGW, we have long passed that stadium. It is really similar to Evolution vs. Creationism, where the scientists do not respond to every criticism raised by creationists against evolution.