Global warming theology.

[TennTradition]

What could we possibly be doing to cause climate change? We breathe out carbon monoxide and trees breathe it in. We have been cooling since 1998. Chicago has one of their coolest summers ever, I know here in Middle Tenn. there were days in July and August where we were wearing light jackets because it was so cool. Also there is a petition out there with I think 10,000 scientist saying climate change is a hoax.

BPV already pointed this out, but I'll say it again. Man's breathing out of CO2 and plants taking it in is not a forcing on climate. We get the CO2 we breath out by eating vegetation that we plant again (which then absorbs that CO2). That is and has been balanced out. We are also digging up massive amounts of previously sequestered carbon and pumping it into the atmosphere. CO2 is also a known greenhouse gas. This causes and upset in the balance and causes warming. The question of how much is not completely settled because it involves a lot of questions about feedbacks (both positive and negative) that can influence the final answer. But, AGW in this sense is no hoax. I have never fully bought into the idea of a "tipping point" and I think that there are many good debates to be had about how much temperature increase we can 'tolerate' .... but I don't see the need to debate the existence of some degree of global warming due to man's influence.

 

[g8terh8ter_eric]

It seems like every day now I see something by the same groups that always doubted AGW's existence saying something along the lines of "Yep, it's dead. See, it's destroyed. Yep, game over." I have yet to uncover (in the 'climategate' scandal) the type of information that would lead me to this same conclusion. When placed in context, there isn't a completely rosy picture painted of the folks at East Anglia (and some collaborators), but there also isn't a picture of mass-collusion to perpetrate some hoax. There are a lot of arms and legs that make up the animal that is climate change science....some stronger than others (and with more or less uncertainty)....and I think that this would be readily acknowledged most climate scientists.

Why can't people just accept that some years are hotter than others and some are colder than others?? It's really that simple, but instead of making it that simple they would rather divert tax dollars to study something that is going to happen to the Earth for the duration that it is around. Get over it for Pete's sake. It's all about the money, because if it was about the science then they would actually listen to the other side instead of using political figures to stir up doomsday scenarios.

 

[TennTradition]

Why can't people just accept that some years are hotter than others and some are colder than others?? It's really that simple, but instead of making it that simple they would rather divert tax dollars to study something that is going to happen to the Earth for the duration that it is around. Get over it for Pete's sake. It's all about the money, because if it was about the science then they would actually listen to the other side instead of using political figures to stir up doomsday scenarios.

It isn't that it is about controlling natural climate variability, but rather trying to avoid forced climate variation that could/would put considerable strain on animals' (including humans') habitats. Natural climate variability occurs within ranges that don't require sudden (over the course of 10s of years rather than 100s to 1000s of years) adaptation. The concern is that human-forced climate change could do that.

 

[g8terh8ter_eric]

It isn't that it is about controlling natural climate variability, but rather trying to avoid forced climate variation that could/would put considerable strain on animals' (including humans') habitats. Natural climate variability occurs within ranges that don't require sudden (over the course of 10s of years rather than 100s to 1000s of years) adaptation. The concern is that human-forced climate change could do that.

The concern is grant money. Don't sit there and give me the science speech TT, because you know as well as I do that the whole idea is to make people feel bad and then have them pay something to make them feel better. This is all over less than 1 degree, and for the most part that has corrected itself over the past 20 years. This is ALL about money, power, and control. Too many people stand to make a lick off of the supposed science. You also notice that every political figure that claims to be a democrat or liberal are all about making Green Jobs. Tell me, why is that?? What's wrong with other types of jobs?? Why just make Green Jobs?? You can't give me an answer that deviates from people making a ton of money off the private sector and the government sector. Obama himself said that the "Green Industry" is the next economic boom. It's all about the money, not the science.

 

[TennTradition]

The concern is grant money. Don't sit there and give me the science speech TT, because you know as well as I do that the whole idea is to make people feel bad and then have them pay something to make them feel better. This is all over less than 1 degree, and for the most part that has corrected itself over the past 20 years. This is ALL about money, power, and control. Too many people stand to make a lick off of the supposed science. You also notice that every political figure that claims to be a democrat or liberal are all about making Green Jobs. Tell me, why is that?? What's wrong with other types of jobs?? Why just make Green Jobs?? You can't give me an answer that deviates from people making a ton of money off the private sector and the government sector. Obama himself said that the "Green Industry" is the next economic boom. It's all about the money, not the science.

I'm not telling you that other drivers become involved, but I am telling you what the scientific view is. To pretend that it is not an extremely complicated (and intertwined/complex) political and scientific problem would be short-sighted. Those factors exist. I'm not in climate science, but I'm sure that the desire for grant money is there too. However, there is a real scientific basis and real concerns derived from that basis.

As for the 1 degree - that is one degree to date, but the issue of concern is related to the (anticipated) several degrees.

It seems reasonable to me that the truth lies somewhere between my points and yours.

 

[g8terh8ter_eric]

I'm not telling you that other drivers become involved, but I am telling you what the scientific view is. To pretend that it is not an extremely complicated (and intertwined/complex) political and scientific problem would be short-sighted. Those factors exist. I'm not in climate science, but I'm sure that the desire for grant money is there too. However, there is a real scientific basis and real concerns derived from that basis.

As for the 1 degree - that is one degree to date, but the issue of concern is related to the (anticipated) several degrees.

It seems reasonable to me that the truth lies somewhere between my points and yours.

They can't tell me if it's going to rain, for the most part, up to 7 days in advance. So, don't sit there and act like they got the science down for predicting future temperature. I got my bottom dollar on the fact that they have no clue if it will really get hotter, but it sure makes it easy to get that grant money. Climate Change science is in it's infancy, but there is no such thing as man made global warming. Just like man didn't cause Global cooling just 20 years ago. It's "Freak Out" politics to make money.

 

[gsvol]

It seems like every day now I see something by the same groups that always doubted AGW's existence saying something along the lines of "Yep, it's dead. See, it's destroyed. Yep, game over." I have yet to uncover (in the 'climategate' scandal) the type of information that would lead me to this same conclusion. When placed in context, there isn't a completely rosy picture painted of the folks at East Anglia (and some collaborators), but there also isn't a picture of mass-collusion to perpetrate some hoax. There are a lot of arms and legs that make up the animal that is climate change science....some stronger than others (and with more or less uncertainty)....and I think that this would be readily acknowledged most climate scientists.

AGW is a fig newton of your imagination.

Catastophic AGW is just a sort of a moon pie of a fig newton.

"Men occasionally stumble over the truth, but most of them pick themselves up and hurry off as if nothing had happened." ~Winston Churchill


Right, we know who the ink belongs to in the octupuses garden.

You may have missed this or just chose not to respond but I am serious about leaning more about those chemicals.

Oh and btw the temporary step down by the chief of the GRU may be a while, a head investigator has been chosen and he doesn't expect to initiate and investigation until next spring.

We know what that's all about, giving East Anglia enough time to hide the bodies and save their prestigious academic standing.

I don't seem to remember the IPCC mentioning any uncertainty about climate science whatsoever as recently as about two weeks ago.

 

[gsvol]

Global warming is man made all right,

and we have the burning smocks to rpove it.

 

[TennTradition]

GS - I couldn't follow the link about the chemicals...did it get merged somewhere?

As for the uncertainty, I assure you, that has always been stated. Scientific uncertainty has been a part of every prediction in the IPCC....take a look at the forcing ranges, for example.

 

[gsvol]

GS - I couldn't follow the link about the chemicals...did it get merged somewhere?

As for the uncertainty, I assure you, that has always been stated. Scientific uncertainty has been a part of every prediction in the IPCC....take a look at the forcing ranges, for example.

That is here in post #4.

The link is worth reading (and even discussing) but really by question is specific.

Things are always merging on the information highway.

Office management 101, if you are assigned to manage a new department, the first thing you do when you arrive is to have the staff rearrange the furniture, this establishes your authority so that there is no doubt as to who is boss.

In domestic situations, especially early on, the same thing may occur until some sort of understanding is reached, which doesn't explain how the golf car ended up next to the Escalade, next to the broken fire hydrant and the bruised palm tree and we have the huge scientific uncertainty of just what two clubs were in the golf car that the neighbors saw.

"forcing ranges" is the term I have a problem with, I maintain that "forcing" hasn't been determined scientifically, that is one hell of a huge assumption to make and that is a factor (erroneously I think) on which the computer climate models are based.

As one of the US representatives to the Nopenhagen climate control meetings has said; "Climate change to me is the four seasons in Tennessee!!!!"

 

[TennTradition]

What I meant by forcing ranges is the scientific attempt to dissect the total forcing (in watts per meter squared) into co2, water feedback, other gases, etc. These are not just assumed values. The error bars are a result of the analysis, not an input.

 

[gsvol]

What I meant by forcing ranges is the scientific attempt to dissect the total forcing (in watts per meter squared) into co2, water feedback, other gases, etc. These are not just assumed values. The error bars are a result of the analysis, not an input.

What is the number used in that equation??

How would PPM CO2 be of such an alarming value when we know that solar/celestial activity determines the value of the water vapor value and that is 98% of warming/cooling and precipitation effect and has no relation to CO2 numbers other than as a secondary effect???

Secondly, cocnlusions derived from the theoretical temperature rise aren't realistic if we look at the past and consider what things were like then.

 

[TennTradition]

What is the number used in that equation??

How would PPM CO2 be of such an alarming value when we know that solar/celestial activity determines the value of the water vapor value and that is 98% of warming/cooling and precipitation effect and has no relation to CO2 numbers other than as a secondary effect???

Secondly, cocnlusions derived from the theoretical temperature rise aren't realistic if we look at the past and consider what things were like then.

It isn't one equation, as far as I know. I'm sure that it has been backed out of global warming potentials as well as modeling. Obviously a big part of the debate over climate change is that you can't just go run a controlled experiment and get the number. The nature of it makes us rely on models, and as a modeler, I know that the only person who trusts the results of a model is the guy who made the model.

I suppose it depends on what you mean by alarming when you mention PPM levels. If alarming means we worry about the end of life on earth, then I completely agree. The earth's temperature, as you point out, is set by a few factors. The amount of solar 'heat' that gets to the earth is a celestial function. The amount of that heat that doesn't escape back out is an atmospheric effect. Water's properties are such that it will exist in fairly high concentrations in air. And, with water being a greenhouse gas, it traps a lot of the heat from getting back out to space and warms us. If it weren't for our atmosphere, we would be a very, very cold planet.

The reason that PPM levels of CO2 or other gases can matter is because these gases do a very good job of trapping in heat and a while they will not rival the warming of water because of its concentration, then can still certainly trap some additional heat it. They won't warm us up as much as water has warmed us up from a cold rock, but they can still warm. That warming would allow for more water to enter into the air, further warming the earth. This doesn't turn into a spiraling catastrophe because more water will also lead to more clouds, and eventually you reach a new balance at a higher temperature (where the clouds - and likely other negative feedbacks - are reflecting back enough heat to prevent the earth from spiraling up in temperature).

I don't buy into ideas of destroying the earth by emitting CO2. Very few reasonable people (or those who have taken the time to learn a bit about it) do think that. The concern is about stresses on people, animals, and plants that could be considerable and could be difficult to bear. Some areas may benefit, no doubt. But there are many areas that would not. If the warming is real, we could potentially choose to do nothing about it and just 'pay' our way out of it. We might have to deal with more world conflict as there are fights for land (as people move into new areas away from low-lying coastal areas) and fight for fresh water supplies as the volume of snow melt decreases.

I've gone on beyond the initial questions you raised and I'm sure I've given you some quotes that you'll want to key in on and address....but I was feeling verbose I guess.

 

[gsvol]

It isn't one equation, as far as I know. I'm sure that it has been backed out of global warming potentials as well as modeling. Obviously a big part of the debate over climate change is that you can't just go run a controlled experiment and get the number. The nature of it makes us rely on models, and as a modeler, I know that the only person who trusts the results of a model is the guy who made the model.

I suppose it depends on what you mean by alarming when you mention PPM levels. If alarming means we worry about the end of life on earth, then I completely agree. The earth's temperature, as you point out, is set by a few factors. The amount of solar 'heat' that gets to the earth is a celestial function. The amount of that heat that doesn't escape back out is an atmospheric effect. Water's properties are such that it will exist in fairly high concentrations in air. And, with water being a greenhouse gas, it traps a lot of the heat from getting back out to space and warms us. If it weren't for our atmosphere, we would be a very, very cold planet.

The reason that PPM levels of CO2 or other gases can matter is because these gases do a very good job of trapping in heat and a while they will not rival the warming of water because of its concentration, then can still certainly trap some additional heat it. They won't warm us up as much as water has warmed us up from a cold rock, but they can still warm. That warming would allow for more water to enter into the air, further warming the earth. This doesn't turn into a spiraling catastrophe because more water will also lead to more clouds, and eventually you reach a new balance at a higher temperature (where the clouds - and likely other negative feedbacks - are reflecting back enough heat to prevent the earth from spiraling up in temperature).

I don't buy into ideas of destroying the earth by emitting CO2. Very few reasonable people (or those who have taken the time to learn a bit about it) do think that. The concern is about stresses on people, animals, and plants that could be considerable and could be difficult to bear. Some areas may benefit, no doubt. But there are many areas that would not. If the warming is real, we could potentially choose to do nothing about it and just 'pay' our way out of it. We might have to deal with more world conflict as there are fights for land (as people move into new areas away from low-lying coastal areas) and fight for fresh water supplies as the volume of snow melt decreases.

I've gone on beyond the initial questions you raised and I'm sure I've given you some quotes that you'll want to key in on and address....but I was feeling verbose I guess.

Well I'm no climate scientist either but here are a few factoids that matter;

Never mind the verbosity, I can handle that, I'm no :cray: as some here are.

First let me state a few items that are scientific facts and which get lost or misrepresented in the global warming aka climate change so-called 'debate.'

Clouds have a net cooling effect on Earth.

The amount of clouds are determined by solar/celestial activity.

The mean temperature on Earth is mostly determined by sloar/celestial interaction.

The amount of clouds has no relationship with CO2 levels. The amount of CO2 has less than 2% of any warming/cooling of Earth's atmosphere.

CO2 is NOT a polutant. CO2 occurs naturally, human activity is also natural and CO2 output from human activity is nothing to be alarmed about.

Reasonable assesments of CO2 levels will in no way threaten life on Earth, that idea is bizarre!!

Earth has been in a warming trend for approximately four hundred years, warming causes the oceans to release CO2 into the atmosphere, not a bad thing as plants benefit from the higher levels of CO2, increasing crop yields etc etc etc.

You speak of stress which might bring about human conflict, well so far the solutions to the CO2 mental problem do far more to bring about real conflict than not acting at all would have.

Case in point, the ethanol mandate which is absolutely insane any way one looks at it.

Using ethanol for fuel does absolutely zero to lessen CO2 emissions, on the contrary using ethanol as fuel increases CO2 emissions while on the other hand it makes available food for those areas where people are litterally starving to death, harder to get!!!! That's insane. Not one good thing has been brought about by the ethanol mandate.

Trying to regulate CO2 IS the problem and NOT the solution to any problem.

This is being attempted under blatently false pretenses.

 

[TennTradition]

I would offer the following amendment to your points about ethanol. Using ethanol from corn for fuel does absolutely zero to lessen CO2 emissions. There are other sources of ethanol which can reduce emissions. There are other potential sources of ethanol that would not place burdens on food crops.

 

[gsvol]

I would offer the following amendment to your points about ethanol. Using ethanol from corn for fuel does absolutely zero to lessen CO2 emissions. There are other sources of ethanol which can reduce emissions. There are other potential sources of ethanol that would not place burdens on food crops.

Using food grains to produce ethanol for fuel is a crime against humanity and should be immediately outlawed.

As for using other plants to produce ethanol, it doesn't reduce CO2 emissions because more fossil fuels are used to produce it than would be used if we just avoided ethanol use entirely.

If ethanol could be produced economically (from non food supplies) on the free trade market without governmental subsidies, I would be all for that, however it cannot!!!

Even if it could be produced at fair market value, ethanol doesn't produce less CO2 than gasoline when used as fuel.

Any time the ethanol mandate is discussed 'environmentalists' harp on the 'end our dependence on foreign oil' slant.

If that were the real motive then why not just drill oil domestically?????????????? Why not use bituminous coal to produce gasoline and other oil products and unlock the huge reserves of anthacite (low carbon) coal
we now have at our disposal. I think we have about 80% of the world's known coal reserves. (don't quote me on that number without looking it up, I think I'm in the right neighborhood with that figure though.)

Another drawback of the ethanol mandate is the fact that large swaths of Amazon forests have been cleared to grow crops to produce ethanol and that rids the planet of rain forests that abssorb CO2 in large quantities. That is just one of man examples of the down side of switching to ethanol.

(A 'Party' party slogan; "save the rain forests, make mental notes!!")

The real problem and heart of the matter is that CO2 is being considered a 'polutant', CO2 IS NOT A POLUTANT!

 

[TennTradition]

As for using other plants to produce ethanol, it doesn't reduce CO2 emissions because more fossil fuels are used to produce it than would be used if we just avoided ethanol use entirely.

If ethanol could be produced economically (from non food supplies) on the free trade market without governmental subsidies, I would be all for that, however it cannot!!!

Even if it could be produced at fair market value, ethanol doesn't produce less CO2 than gasoline when used as fuel.

...

The real problem and heart of the matter is that CO2 is being considered a 'polutant', CO2 IS NOT A POLUTANT!

The EROEI (energy return on energy investment) is near 1 or less than 1 for corn ethanol, which means that more fossil fuels are used to make it than the energy it gives back. So, in this case, you do not displace CO2. However, the EROEI for other ethanol sources is greater than 1. They do displace CO2. While burning the ethanol produces a similar amount of CO2 as burning gasoline, the source of the CO2 is important (the ethanol came from something that just pulled the CO2 out of the air, while the CO2 from the gasoline had already been sequestered as a fossil fuel).

As for the pollutant angle, I hear what you are saying. It is not a pollutant in the common sense. It is everywhere. It is kind of like viewing water as toxic, which it can be...but we also need it to survive. Too much CO2 is not necessarily a good thing, but it can't be viewed as a straight-up pollutant and regulated in the same was as SOx or NOx, for example. This is one reason why global cap and trades can actually work (from an emissions vs. effects standpoint), because CO2 is not a direct 'pollutant'. That doesn't mean it can't be regulated, but its regulation can be different than local pollutants.

 

[gsvol]

The EROEI (energy return on energy investment) is near 1 or less than 1 for corn ethanol, which means that more fossil fuels are used to make it than the energy it gives back. So, in this case, you do not displace CO2. However, the EROEI for other ethanol sources is greater than 1. They do displace CO2. While burning the ethanol produces a similar amount of CO2 as burning gasoline, the source of the CO2 is important (the ethanol came from something that just pulled the CO2 out of the air, while the CO2 from the gasoline had already been sequestered as a fossil fuel).

As for the pollutant angle, I hear what you are saying. It is not a pollutant in the common sense. It is everywhere. It is kind of like viewing water as toxic, which it can be...but we also need it to survive. Too much CO2 is not necessarily a good thing, but it can't be viewed as a straight-up pollutant and regulated in the same was as SOx or NOx, for example. This is one reason why global cap and trades can actually work (from an emissions vs. effects standpoint), because CO2 is not a direct 'pollutant'. That doesn't mean it can't be regulated, but its regulation can be different than local pollutants.

Questions:

1. What source(s) is (are) more efficient than corn?

2. Is the EPA in error then when it classifies CO2 as a polutant? (a no-brainer)

3. How much CO2 is 'too much?'

4. Why should governmental (international) regulation of CO2 be considered in the first place and what are the numerous downsides of such regulations and potential abuses of such high minded programs??

 

[lylsmorr]

I don't have a link, my source is my Ecology professor. However, he is saying that he read reports that there are emails among prominent Global Warming researchers claiming that they falsified and fabricated information. I believe we are just going through Climate cycling from everything i've heard...

 

[TennTradition]

I don't have a link, my source is my Ecology professor. However, he is saying that he read reports that there are emails among prominent Global Warming researchers claiming that they falsified and fabricated information. I believe we are just going through Climate cycling from everything i've heard...

There area couple of 'climategate' threads here that discuss this...you may want to check them out. I would suggest that the emails don't suggest out-right data fabrication...but do raise some questions that need to be hashed out and answered.

 

[gsvol]

I don't have a link, my source is my Ecology professor. However, he is saying that he read reports that there are emails among prominent Global Warming researchers claiming that they falsified and fabricated information. I believe we are just going through Climate cycling from everything i've heard...

You may find these two threads interesting:

Short tutorial on CO2 and Earth's climate.

and

Climategate goes into high gear.

Also:

Oops, lost the link for the quote below. :mega_shok:

By its very nature, climate changes. That means it sometimes gets warmer and sometimes gets cooler. And some places get warmer while others get cooler. It all changes over both time and geography. The question is, what is it doing on balance?

And to know that, we need to look at all the data. Instead of being forthcoming and presenting all the data, the alarmists cherry pick: they show us only the warming data. The north ice cap, but not the Antarctic ice cap. Greenland's melting land ice, but not Antarctica's growing land ice. The warm temperatures from 1980 to 2000, but not the warm temperatures from 1920 to 1940, or the cooler ones since 2000. The apparent warming since 1850, but not the even warmer medieval period.

The result is that you, the public, your children in school, are getting only half, or less than half, the picture: the glass half-empty half. The warming half. In this way, the popularizers of man-caused global warming can tell the "truth" while presenting the bigger lie.

US Navy submarines "Seadragon" and "Skate" surface to rendevous at the North Pole, August, 1962.

There area couple of 'climategate' threads here that discuss this...you may want to check them out. I would suggest that the emails don't suggest out-right data fabrication...but do raise some questions that need to be hashed out and answered.

It has been proven the New Zealanders fabricated data for their models because unlike the English, they didn't destroy their raw data!!!

The leaked emails from the Climatic Research Unit in England alone are a gold mine for those who want to challenge the science underlying the theory of manmade global warming.

The agency (EPA) derives its authority to regulate pollutants from the Clean Air Act. To use that law to regulate greenhouse gases, the EPA has to prove those gases are harmful to human health (thus, the endangerment finding). Put another way, it must provide "science" showing that a slightly warmer earth will cause Americans injury or death. Given that most climate scientists admit that a warmer earth could provide "net benefits" to the West, this is a tall order.

Then there are the rules stemming from the finding. Not wanting to take on the political nightmare of regulating every American lawn mower, the EPA has produced a "tailoring rule" that it says allows it to focus solely on large greenhouse gas emitters. Yet the Clean Air Act—authored by Congress—clearly directs the EPA to also regulate small emitters.

But here's what’s undeniable:

If a divergence exists between measured temperatures and those derived from dendrochronological data after (circa) 1960, then discarding only the post-1960 figures is disingenuous, to say the least. The very existence of a divergence betrays a potential serious flaw in the process by which temperatures are reconstructed from tree-ring density. If it's bogus beyond a set threshold, then any honest man of science would instinctively question its integrity prior to that boundary. And only the lowliest would apply a hack in order to produce a desired result.


And to do so without declaring as such in a footnote on every chart in every report in every study in every book in every classroom on every website that such a corrupt process is relied upon is not just a crime against science, it’s a crime against mankind.

Indeed, miners of the CRU folder have unearthed dozens of e-mail threads and supporting documents revealing much to loathe about this cadre of hucksters and their vile intentions. This veritable goldmine has given us tales ranging from evidence destruction to spitting on the Freedom of Information Act on both sides of the Atlantic. But the now-irrefutable evidence that alarmists have indeed been cooking the data for at least a decade may be the most important strike in human history.


Advocates of the global governance/financial redistribution sought by the United Nations at Copenhagen in two weeks, and also those of the expanded domestic governance/financial redistribution sought by Liberal politicians, both substantiate their drastic proposals with the pending climate emergency predicted in the reports of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). Kyoto, Waxman-Markey, Kerry-Boxer, EPA regulation of the very substances of life -- all bad policy concepts enabled solely by IPCC reports. And the IPCC in turn bases those reports largely on the data and charts provided by the research scientists at CRU -- largely from tree ring data -- who just happen to be editors and lead authors of that same U.N. panel.


Bottom line: CRU's evidence is now irrevocably tainted. As such, all assumptions based on that evidence must now be reevaluated and readjudicated. And all policy based on those counterfeit assumptions must also be reexamined.