TOO LATE? Why scientists say we should expect the worst

Originally posted by melatonin
Aye, it's a prequisite for a scientific career after a PhD...indeed, straight after viva TPTB ensure it is met.

Well I was inferring that the statement means very little as is. It sounds very convincing but actually says nothing unless you qualify and quantify it. But being a PhD I'm sure you knew that

It means that it does contribute to current climate change. So it is not something to ignore. Not negligible. Relevant. An issue in current climate change.

So my question would be "how much does it contribute? Is there an consensus?"

Can we not pay attention to more than one issue?

Apparently not or at least not in appropriate measure.

20,000+ children die each and every day from totally preventable hunger, which would cost a fraction of the amount to eradicate as is currently spent on an issue which is still speculative.
Drug companies continue to push toxic waste into our bodies and legislate against alternatives to maintain monopoly. Medical industry is now the biggest single killer in the US yet no-one in MSM even mentions it.
The level of child labor and human traficking today would make the old slave traders salivate, but almost no-one is even aware of it.
The majority of the world's fresh water system is contaminated with a cocktail of industry run-off, devastating delicate eco-systems .....

However, what do we see day after day on the tv news, in hollywood movies, in the papers, plastered all over? Global warming (and terrrorists).

Why is that?

There are surely hundreds if not thousands of issues which are far more prevalent, dangerous to human life, proven and immediate than global warming ( and terrorists ), yet not getting a fraction of the attention.

Smokescreen.

Originally posted by RogerTWell I was inferring that the statement means very little as is. It sounds very convincing but actually says nothing unless you qualify and quantify it. But being a PhD I'm sure you knew that

Of course! But it was presented after more detailed data about the position of a sample of climate scientists.

So my question would be "how much does it contribute? Is there an consensus?"

You can actually very roughly calculate the estimated contribution for the IPCC consensus: take the total forcing, divide by CO2 forcing (ABE: ca. 50%) - would give a number. Most agree, some think it's somewhat less (ABE: e.g., Pielke - ca. 30%), others more.

20,000+ children die each and every day from totally preventable hunger, which would cost a fraction of the amount to eradicate as is currently spent on an issue which is still speculative.

So, the solution to clear the speculation would be to spend more money on research on an issue which the vast majority of experts and scientific organisations agree on?

I agree that all the talking and stuff is a waste of time. So lets agree and act.

There are surely hundreds if not thousands of issues which are far more prevalent, dangerous to human life, proven and immediate than global warming ( and terrorists

), yet not getting a fraction of the attention.

I know we have problems paying attention to threats much slower than a Panzer, but it is an issue.

I've seen all kinds of rubbish in the papers about dangers to human life - for example, imaginary concerns about MMR and autism. That's what many papers do. They have decided that all objects in the world must be clearly separated into good and bad - for instance, those that cure cancer and those that cause cancer.

Smokescreen.

Non-sequitur.

[edit on 10-12-2008 by melatonin]

Not only that, this is a political agenda. The pollution and harm inflicted on mother earth is irrefutable, but the solutions have been here for so long that discussing this as a "problem" when its a crime and the criminals belong to the Bildenburg set is a joke. In addition, Obama has just decided climate concerns is now a matter of national security. So, this new tool has been put into "their" hands, the very wolves who have worked hard to destroy earth for their nefarious purposes, and make a killing doing it, so that "they" can do what? Attempt to put in more psuedo-laws to try and gut all democracies, to use climate as an agenda for war, to permanently establish poor serfdoms. I'm looking forward to "their" demise by the way. They literally have to take a hike. Off planet is too close for me.

My earlier statement was not to say that man shouldnt take care of the environment. It is sad to see the pollutions that happen and we should take care of what we have. I certainly do not want to sleep in a bed of filth. This world is a gift and should be taken care of. But to say is sole responsible for climate change, is utter nonesense.

It doesn't make any difference.

Either we will fix it ourselves, or the planet will fix it for us by eliminating the problem - namely, mankind.

There are millions of other civilizations out there in the universe that have to be better than the one we have created.

I doubt anyone will miss us.

Originally posted by Memysabu
I know for a fact we contribute, anyone who says we do not is in denial. I dont know that there are not cycles though. And the temp goes up and down on the planet. The Sun also changes. But then again our contribution could be directly causeing the changes in the oceans and releaseing more green house gases. Point made simple, Sue Blue soccer moms not giving up her SUV. So theres really no reason to even debate the issue, when people start getting microwaved when they step outside then theyll change. Until then its not their problem.

[edit on 9-12-2008 by Memysabu]

are you living on the same planet here mate? it has everything to do with the sun and nothing to do with Co2. hell, nothing could have survived without it. (co2) i agree we may contribute to harming the environment, but i cannot even begin to believe that we are RESPONSIBLE for warming of the earth. if you believe that then you might as well believe there are fairys at the end of the bloody garden.

funny how even though there is no conrete evidence to suggest we have casued it all - out come the grants, tax credits and the rest of it - - SCAM written all over it.

say something long enough, loud enough and the masses will believe it.

Originally posted by arcnaver
My earlier statement was not to say that man shouldnt take care of the environment. It is sad to see the pollutions that happen and we should take care of what we have. I certainly do not want to sleep in a bed of filth. This world is a gift and should be taken care of. But to say is sole responsible for climate change, is utter nonesense.

i couldnt have put it better myself!

Originally posted by RogerT
There are surely hundreds if not thousands of issues which are far more prevalent, dangerous to human life, proven and immediate than global warming ( and terrorists

), yet not getting a fraction of the attention.

Smokescreen.

Because you cannot tax multiple nations and hold them responsible for those issues.

The only reason Global warming/climate change gets so much attention is because there's a profit to made from it by governments, people would kick up a fuss if they just increased taxes so they bring out a scam saying you're all to blame so we're going to charge you for it and most just lap up all the propaganda because they think the governments are there to serve the people forgetting it's actually there to control the people

It is the cosmic cycles that drive cooling /warming. Plain and simple.

We are coming out of an extended solar minimum...the sun is on its 26,000 journey around the galaxy...events to come CAN NOT possible be known nor guesstimated.

spaceweather.com...

CME BUBBLE: On Dec. 8th, something exploded on the far side of the sun. The blast propelled a huge bubble of magnetized plasma over the sun's western limb where the Solar and Heliospheric Observatory (SOHO) photographed it expanding into space.

The bubble (a coronal mass ejection or "CME") is heading in the general direction of Saturn and will not hit Earth. Nevertheless, it does merit attention. After a long spell of eerie quiet, the sun is showing signs of life, raising hopes that solar minimum is coming to an end. The months ahead will likely bring more CMEs, and not all of them will miss. Stay tuned for space weather.

Mankind's time scales are but a few flutters of a butterfly's wings...how can we make any conclusions just looking at data a few meager decades in age?

Thales of Miletus stated that "all things are water."
I take it as fluidity...time flows...energy flows.

Can't we as MANKIND learn to let our ideas flow, instead of having them stagnate in these forums?!

reply to post by purplemer

Sunspots don't fly. The sun cycles every 12 years. Ice Ages come in a range of 11k, to hundreds of thousands. There is little if any correlation.

The temperature of the solar system is not an indicator either. Considering all we have is a few microscopes and a little bot on Mars, is hardly enough evidence that to base the future of mankind on.
We can barely decide on the source and normal levels of CO2 levels here, much less understand what is going on, on Venus.

That is like me taking a three year old from a pygmy tribe in
Africa to determine the future of technology for mankind.

This is a desperate attempt.

Just like the apple helped Newton find gravity. The apple ISN"T gravity. Maybe CO2 is just a debatable symptom, not the source of problem. There is a whole hell of a lot of other garbage we put out there other then CO2.

We need to settle this ignorant tidbit of information right now. Someone getting record snowfall in Tibet, Siberia, Arizona, or anyplace else, is not a sign there is no global warming.

GW screws with the local weathers. In fact, record anything is a sign of problems.

Five feet of snow in the mojave desert or Los Angeles, is a sign of serious trouble, not to be ignored. It means something way off.

If next year we have record high winters, what excuse are you going to use?

Like I always ay, you get chills when you get a fever don't you?

Im wondering why I just dont care. Seriously, if someone would say that tomorrow is the last day humans will walk the earth, I would just accept it and think ive had a decent life so far.

God knows humans dont deserve this planet.

And Im not some depressed guy sitting alone in a basement. I just dont have much hope for a better tomorrow when it comes to human beings I guess. Might as well end it now.

[edit on 10-12-2008 by Copernicus]

reply to post by melatonin

In answer to your ridiculous question about whether global warming is causing humans to burn fossil fuels, the answer is of course not! I never said any such thing nor did I imply it. What I said is that there are natural processes that both add CO2 and in some cases absorb CO2 and the increase in CO2 that we see is the NET change from all those processes including of course human produced CO2. But it is impossible to prove that all of the increase in CO2 is due to human sources. If we are the cause of global warming, then what caused the three spikes in CO2 levels hundreds of thousands of years ago?

Your comment about CO2 being IR wobble-crazy is irrelevant. CO2's ability to absorb heat and re-emit that energy as infra-red radiation is logarythmic, not linear. That means that if you have twice as much CO2, you DON"T get twice the greenhouse effect. Half of all the warming impact of CO2 is caused by the first 20 parts per billion (ppb), the remaining 360 ppb accounts for the other half of the warming impact, which by the way is estimated to be 2-3 degrees C compared to the roughly 20 degrees C impact that water vapour(ie. humidity) has. But getting back to CO2 being logarythmic, it was estimated by chemists(who measure these things in the laboratory) that you would need CO2 levels above 10,000 ppb in order to double the total greenhouse impace of CO2.

reply to post by Copernicus


Those who still deny global warming are like the people who used to say the earth was flat and the planets orbit around the sun. Global warming is real. The data is real, the data shows an OBVIOUS correlation between rising CO2 and rising METHANE levels in the atmostphere and rising global temperature.

Yes, there are other factors. Yes, we dont know everything. The thing that scares me the most that others seem to just blatantly ignore, even scientists, is that the human race has only in the last few hundred years begun to do more damage to our seas, forests, swamps, atmostphere, water...the list goes on and on, then has ever been done before in the history of mankind.

A few hundred years to the planet would compare to a few microseconds to a human being. Imagine if suddenly almost instantly your veins were poisoned (water), your hair and skin partially harvested(trees, minerals), and your glandular secretions and hormones were suddenly sucked up(oil) you would still be alive for awhile, in fact you would not start dying for relatively a long time. Now picture the earth as yourself, the earth is alive. We have not even begun to see the consequences of our actions, and when we do it is going to be too late. I personally do not want children just because i fear that it would be so cruel to bring them into a world that is only going to progressivly get worse. I am not a pessimist. But we are so very stupid for thinking we know how to solve everything. We are facing a problem now that we have never faced before, and I fear that the lesson we will learn will be the hardest lesson ever. If we survive that is.

I have witnessed in my short 20 years on the planet rivers becoming polluted, streams drying up, fish dissapearing, bee's dissapearing, animals going extict. And that is just 20 years. Sadly mankind does not easily see these long slow changes, but we are going to regret everything we have done as our great great grandchildren curse us and kill each other for what little clean water and food there is left for them.

reply to post by nixie_nox

Sorry but you're wrong about sunspots not being correlated with temperature. If you look at the 20th century you'll see an almost perfect correlation between sunspot activity and temperature. Your assertion that sunspots cycle every 11 years and therefore can't be correlated to ice age cycles is so simplistic that it's mindboggling. For most of the time, there appears to be an 11 year sunspot cycle but sometimes there isn't and even when there is, there's also a larger trend underlying the 11 year cycle. That cycle was dormant for almost half a century during the Maunder Minimum that occurred a few hundred years ago, which was called the little ice age. Lately there have been NO sunspots at all. That's something that is very unusual. Why is record highs evidence of global warming but records lows aren't evidence of global cooling? The average global temperature since January of 2007 has dropped by more than all the increase in temperature during the entire 20th century(0.8 degrees C versus 0.7 degrees C). The hotest year on record for average global temperature is STILL 1998. So average temperatures haven't made any new highs overall during the last ten years. Get your fact straights. Do your homework! Some(not all I grant you ) glaciers are growing again. Last winter's arctic ice cap was 30% larger than the year before. Even though ice at the edges of the south pole are breaking off, the thickness of the ice over the Antarctic continent has been and is still increasing. The notion that the ice at the south pole is melting is just dead wrong.

I was once an avid National Geographic subscriber. In recent years however, I have noticed a dynamic change in their articles concerning the Earth's climate. I canceled my subscription because of the blatant political overtones.

I sometimes wonder who lies at the bottom of their incoming finances. Just think of the number of schools & the vast number of impressionable minds that are subject to NatGeo's deepening depression. The next generation of children that take the helm are already brainwashed with this gloom & doom fomented by the likes of Al Gore & his army of minions.

I strongly believe in recycling, conservation, etc. but please, this whole issue has turned into a fundamentalist politico-cash-in for those who know how to make a lot of bucks from trash & smoke.

Originally posted by Anonymous ATS
Listen people!!!

Global warming does not exist! simply because ALL the hot air escapes by the HOLE IN THE OZONE LAYER. Notice how they never mention it?
. . .

This is just funny.
If our air was pouring out into space through the hole in the ozone layer our ancestors would all have died of asphyxiation.
- presuming Earth was ever able to gather an atmosphere in that situation ...

Originally posted by Studenofhistory
reply to post by melatonin

 

In answer to your ridiculous question about whether global warming is causing humans to burn fossil fuels, the answer is of course not! I never said any such thing nor did I imply it.

I only haz ur words...

Higher CO2 emissions are a result of global warming, not the cause

CO2 is both chicken and egg. It will be released by excessive oceanic warming, it will warm the oceans.

If we release it, it will alter radiative balance.

What I said is that there are natural processes that both add CO2 and in some cases absorb CO2 and the increase in CO2 that we see is the NET change from all those processes including of course human produced CO2. But it is impossible to prove that all of the increase in CO2 is due to human sources. If we are the cause of global warming, then what caused the three spikes in CO2 levels hundreds of thousands of years ago?

I'm not too sure which spikes you are referring to. You are making a false dichotomy here, there are both natural and anthropogenic impacts, it's not either-or.

If you are saying that warming oceans will eventually release CO2, then certainly. Increase temperature, decrease solubility of gases.

The vast majority of the CO2 increase is from human activity. I would possibly even say that it is currently the totality, but I'll agree with 99% as a compromise.

You even get close to it yourself:

The southern and northern oceans are absorbing less CO2 because they're getting warmer and the reason they're getting warmer is the sun, not air temperature

The oceans are still a carbon sink. They absorb more than they emit. The same is true of terrestrial sinks. They absorb more than they emit.

And the sun issue is a questionable interpretation. In fact, solar activity cannot suitably account for the warming of the last 30 years.

Your comment about CO2 being IR wobble-crazy is irrelevant. CO2's ability to absorb heat and re-emit that energy as infra-red radiation is logarythmic, not linear. That means that if you have twice as much CO2, you DON"T get twice the greenhouse effect. Half of all the warming impact of CO2 is caused by the first 20 parts per billion (ppb), the remaining 360 ppb accounts for the other half of the warming impact, which by the way is estimated to be 2-3 degrees C compared to the roughly 20 degrees C impact that water vapour(ie. humidity) has. But getting back to CO2 being logarythmic, it was estimated by chemists(who measure these things in the laboratory) that you would need CO2 levels above 10,000 ppb in order to double the total greenhouse impace of CO2.

I think you mean ppm. It isn't linear. We know that. So we measure the effects as climate sensitivity. For each doubling of CO2, we get a best estimate of 3'C (range 2-4.5) warming.

So, from 280-560ppm = +3'C

for 560-1120ppm = +3'C.

etc etc.

Certainly not irrelevant, considering we currently think we're being hopeful aiming to keep CO2 levels below 650ppm, nevermind 450ppm.

Not sure on the 2-3'C vs 20'C. Don't sound right. Estimates range up to 26% of GE for CO2 alone.

[edit on 10-12-2008 by melatonin]

reply to post by melatonin


Rather than derail the thread, as I'd love to take up some of the other stuff with you, I'd appreciate your expertise in understanding some of this global warming stuff.

If you're willing, we could take some of the more provocative points and address them from both sides.

Here's one example quote from the anti AGW:

"Al Gore likes to say that mankind puts 70 million tons of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere every day. What he probably doesn't know is that mother nature puts 24,000 times that amount of our main greenhouse gas -- water vapor -- into the atmosphere every day, and removes about the same amount every day. While this does not 'prove' that global warming is not manmade, it shows that weather systems have by far the greatest control over the Earth's greenhouse effect, which is dominated by water vapor and clouds."

This one appeals to 'common sense' so we need either more informaiton or a more scientific view on this. Now, as someone who likes to think he's capable of thinking, my first thought would be "ok, so how do CO2 and water vapor compare as greenhouse gases?" If they are equally significant, then a 100% increase in CO2 would be offset by a 0.004% decrease in water vapor?

Originally posted by RogerT
This one appeals to 'common sense' so we need either more informaiton or a more scientific view on this. Now, as someone who likes to think he's capable of thinking, my first thought would be "ok, so how do CO2 and water vapor compare as greenhouse gases?" If they are equally significant, then a 100% increase in CO2 would be offset by a 0.004% decrease in water vapor?

The first questions would be:

What is the half-life of water vapour.

What is the half-life of CO2.

For example, if I released 10,000 tonnes of water vapour, what would happen to it? If I release 10,000 tonnes of CO2 what would happen to it?

Care to guess? Essentially we have two cycles - the hydrologic and the carbon.

reply to post by melatonin


OK, so please enlighten me? I'm actually wanting to learn and form an informed opinion, I don't want to guess and parrot ignorance.

Throwing questions about half-life's and vague statements of cycles doesn't help me, or any of the other uninformed people I'd guess.

Be sure that I am not going to 'roll over' and swallow any line if it sounds 'scientific enough' or 'over my head', although I doubt that is your intention in this case. However, I am willing to stretch myself to try to understand the science/sense behind the theories you are supporting/promoting.

[edit on 10/12/08 by RogerT]