Political Crossfire Forums

[Ch33kY]

ieatfood wrote: Bottom line--you people need to trust scientists

Fact #1: scientists know more about global warming than you
Fact #2: any "logical" argument that you can come up with against global warming is likely naiive and stupid, compared to what a scientist knows.
Fact #3: there is a scientific consensus that anthropogenic global warming occurs
Fact #4: there is no scientific consensus on what impact this global warming will have on humans
Fact #5: global warming may be disastrous or it may be not so bad--we just don't know

These are the facts. You can decide for yourself what your position is. But facts are facts. Sorry.

It would also be naïve to completely trust in 'scientists' that I have never met, nor have any experienced proof to determine they exist. Though I do accept they exist by weighing up the possibilities of mass conspiracy versus 'what the media tells me'. Naïve? For sure!

[bob.appleyard]

A.D wrote: bob.appleyard wrote: MLBrandow wrote: . . . silly nonsense calculations . . .

The water level will not change. Ice expands, but it will only displace the volume it took up when it was water. That's why it floats -- the excess volume pops out of the top. When it melts, it will displace the same volume. Seriously, check it out for yourself. This is elementary stuff, no need for silly calculations, which are based on totally flawed assumptions anyway.

water.....comming.......from......land? Not 'floating ice'..........

Yeah, MLB decided to get into a debate with me about floating ice. I had already talked about glaciers in a previous post.

They will make water levels rise, because that is water added.

[Citizendave]

Free Thinkr -

I'll skip any comments on Iraq except to say that I was unaware of the training camps. The 911 commission found no link between Sadam and Alqueda, and I confused that in my mind with Sadam's links to terrorism. You could still argue as many do...oh nevermind.

Quote: Most Americans would probably be all concerned about the rainforests in a similar poll. Does anything get done about it though? No. Why? Because when it gets right down to it, they don't care.

Public opinion does matter. Democrats are struggling to define themselves, and they could capitalize on this issue since many of the Republican leaders think erroneously as you do.

Quote: Baseless optimism paired with a bald assertion. I have no reason to believe any laws would make the development of such technologies any more likely. Believe me, the incentive is already there. It just happens to be damn hard to develop such energy sources.

My assertion is not bald, but rather woolly (as in hairy and virile). While I agree that a viable new energy source would be very profitable, when companies are this profitable, they have every motivation to just keep on doing what they are doing.

Quote:
Chevron first-quarter profit jumps on strong crude prices
Updated 4/28/2006 11:37 AM ET


SAN RAMON, Calif. (AP) — Chevron's (CVX) first-quarter profit soared 49% to $4 billion, joining the procession of U.S. oil companies to report colossal earnings as lawmakers consider ways to pacify motorists agitated about rising gas prices..

[url] http://www.usatoday.com/money/industries/energy/2006-04-28-chevron_x.htm?csp=24 [/url]



Quote: Look at the date in the lower right, and check out the graph.

http://denisdutton.com/newsweek_coolingworld.pdf



Thanks for the link, and I'm not being sarcastic here, I do like to read about the errors which climate scientists have made, and the disagreements they have had. But here is what I'm wondering about you : to what degree does a scientific mistake which was made over 25 years ago affect your opinion of climate science?

Also, you specifically told me to look at the graph. My understanding is that those temperature readings were correct. And they were going down for the reason which the scientists thought they were (aerosols). They just exaggerated the trend and therefore weren't interpreted correctly.

Quote:
Whatever Happened To Global Cooling?

By Susan Kruglinski

DISCOVER Vol. 27 No. 02 | February 2006 | Environment

Global warming skeptics often cite contradictory reports from a generation ago warning of global cooling. In 1975 Newsweek wrote of "ominous signs" that temperatures were dipping, and a year later National Geographic suggested the possibility of a worldwide chilling trend. Stephen Schneider, a climatologist at Stanford University, recalls those stories well. "I was one of the ones who talked about global cooling," he says. "I was also the one who said what was wrong with that idea within three years."

Schneider coauthored a 1971 article in the journal Science about atmospheric aerosols—floating particles of soil dust, volcanic ash, and human-made pollutants. His research suggested that industrial aerosols could block sunlight and reduce global temperatures enough to overcome the effects of greenhouse gases, possibly triggering an ice age. But he soon realized that he had overestimated the amount of aerosols in the air and underestimated the role of greenhouse gases.

"Back then this science was so new, so theoretical, it was really hard to sort it out," he says. He and other early climate researchers say they did not predict a global cooling trend but simply suggested the possibility. Evidence suggests that average worldwide temperatures did decrease between the 1940s and the 1970s. Some climatologists partially attribute the temporary cooling trend to industrial smog, which has since been overcome by the effects of growing greenhouse emissions and, ironically, by clean-air laws that have reduced atmospheric particulates.

"Science is a self-correcting institution," Schneider says. "The data change, so of course you change your position. Otherwise, you would be dishonest."

[url] http://www.discover.com/issues/feb-06/rd/global-cooling/ [/url]



So there is a little more insight into that mistake, perhaps there's room in your head for some other than your own.

Quote: You're talking apples and oranges. I never said that they were unaware that particles in the air could be a factor, I said they were wholly unaware to what extent they were a factor. Again, 20% at the surface. That is a huge amount. And they had no idea. That's incredible to me. It should be to you.

You're talking caca. I have gone back into this thread and re-read all of your posts.

Quote: Like I said in that other thread on the PBS show: I found it very interesting that the two scientists they interviewed were scoffed at by climatologists when they discovered that the solar intensity had decreased. How could climatologists, whose field is so utterly dependent on this data, have been unaware?

You just said it again:"They had no idea." That's wrong. They had SOME idea. If I say something wrong, I'll admit it. Being able to admit your mistakes is key to gaining further understanding. (Hint, Hint, Hint, Hint, Hint.)

And let's be clear about the nature of the underestimation: natural and man made aerosols are reflecting back more sunlight than previously understood, causing the level of warming to be understated. If your goal is to win this debate, I'm a little perplexed here.

Quote: Kinda calls their expert status into question.

OK, now I really need your guidance because I'm feeling all queasy and insecure suddenly. Since these scientists are no longer the experts, who are the experts? (If your boss has an off day week or month at your place of work, is he or she still your boss?) Here's my point: with Chevron saying things like this:

Quote:
Global Climate Change

One of the environmental concerns we all share is global climate change. We recognize that the use of fossil fuels has contributed to an increase in greenhouse gases - mainly carbon dioxide and methane
[url] http://www.chevron.com/social_responsibility/environment/ [/url]



WAKE UP! These are the scientists who we are going to live and die with on this issue. If anyone is going to discover that they are are wrong, it is going to have to be they themselves. Chevron has more pull than you, and they are no longer impeaching the science. Neither are many other different rich and powerful industries.

Quote: Yet in 20 years, the Earth will be little if any warmer, and you'll be scuttling to understand why.

Very wrong. If the scientists are currently wrong, they will adjust their predictions and understanding within the next 5 years or so. The fiction that you pluck from your self reinforcing fantasy world simply will not emerge.

Quote: Sometimes its easier to go with the flow. Like the tobacco companies.

Tobacco companies were not merely going with the flow. They forked over bushels of cash in an agreement with many State Attorneys General to reduce increased exposure to lawsuit. Public disinformation is protected free speech, but the first amendment is no inoculation to civil lawsuit. Similarly, now that the scientific consensus is so emphatic, large oil and other companies have left off muddying the Waters by sponsoring non-peer reviewed scientific opinion in 2003. (If anyone has a link showing that they are still funding it, I'd like to see.....)

Quote: You can talk about cutting CO2 all you like, but when it comes down to it, that entails massive lifestyle changes for Americans,

I agree completely. Envirnomentalists who claim we are going to experience some or other economic gain are looney. I also see people on this site who think they know something about economics and they claim this problem can be solved with sich and such tiny percentage of GDP. POPYCOCK! Either introducing new fuels or conservation is going to cause major economic disruption, and economics don't like disruption.

Quote: if what the doomsayers say is true, our energy would be better spent adapting to the changes, because realistically, we won't be avoiding them.

I disagree there. We might not be able to do all we need, but we can do some.

As I have read over your posts, I have tried to look for attitudes which are informing your mistaken opinion of GW. I'm wondering if you are aware of how quickly world climate can change?

Quote:

Early in the 1990s, further revelations startled climate scientists. The quantity, variety, and accuracy of measurements of ancient climates were increasing at a breakneck pace — compared with the data available in the 1970s, orders of magnitude more were now in hand. The first shock came from the summit of the Greenland ice plateau, a white wasteland so high that altitude sickness was a problem.....

....Early hopes for a new cooperative program joining Americans and Europeans had broken down, and each team drilled its own hole. An ingenious decision transmuted competition into cooperation. The two holes were drilled just far enough apart (30 kilometers) so that anything that showed up in both cores must represent a real climate effect, not an accident due to bedrock conditions. The match turned out to be remarkably exact for most of the way down. A comparison of variations in the cores showed convincingly that climate could change more rapidly than almost any scientist had imagined.(55).....

Swings of temperature that scientists in the 1950s believed to take tens of thousands of years, in the 1970s to take thousands of years, and in the 1980s to take hundreds of years, were now found to take only decades.

....Meanwhile, in the late 1980s and early 1990s, improved carbon-14 techniques gave the first accurate dates for sediments containing pollen and other carbon-bearing materials at locations ranging from Japan to Tierra del Fuego. Good dates finally allowed correlation of many geological records with the Greenland ice. The results suggested that the Younger Dryas events had affected climates around the world. The extent and nature of the perturbation was controversial. But scientists were increasingly persuaded that abrupt climate shifts could have global scope, even if they affected different places differently — colder here and warmer there, wetter here and drier there

[url] http://www.aip.org/history/climate/rapid.htm#L000 [/url]



Now I'm wondering : do you accept the historical record of rapid climate change, and might you just possibly see anything new regarding the threat we face?

[Free Thinkr]

Citizendave wrote: Free Thinkr -

I'll skip any comments on Iraq except to say that I was unaware of the training camps. The 911 commission found no link between Sadam and Alqueda, and I confused that in my mind with Sadam's links to terrorism. You could still argue as many do...oh nevermind.
Yes, nevermind; though this is certainly an important topic, it's best relegated to other forums.

Quote: Quote: Most Americans would probably be all concerned about the rainforests in a similar poll. Does anything get done about it though? No. Why? Because when it gets right down to it, they don't care.

Public opinion does matter. Democrats are struggling to define themselves, and they could capitalize on this issue since many of the Republican leaders think erroneously as you do.
Not really. I was actually thinking about this as I went to sleep after posting last night; most are familiar with the term "put your money where your mouth is." This is the problem with global warming, and environmentalism in general. When polled, everyone seems to be very concerned with environmentalism. The problem is when it comes to actually putting their money where their mouths are. The Democrats can try to run on GW, but in order to do so, they must have a plan; but what? Any plan is going to require Americans to put their money where their mouths are; more taxes, less energy use, etc. And when it comes right down to it, they will not do it.

I'm a Cubs fan. When you talk with a lot of Cubs fans, you'll all the time hear blind optimism: "the Cubs are finally going to do it this year." But ask one to put his money where his mouth is: "oh yeah? Let's make it interesting. $100 says they don't win the Series." What people say and what they truly believe are very often two different things. When you poll people, yes, they want something done about GW. But you'll find they are unwilling to make the 'necessary' sacrifices.

Quote: Quote: Baseless optimism paired with a bald assertion. I have no reason to believe any laws would make the development of such technologies any more likely. Believe me, the incentive is already there. It just happens to be damn hard to develop such energy sources.
My assertion is not bald, but rather woolly (as in hairy and virile). While I agree that a viable new energy source would be very profitable, when companies are this profitable, they have every motivation to just keep on doing what they are doing.
Some companies are profitable, but say I'm an investor who has no interest in said companies; I know that if my money goes toward the investment in a technology that would replace the profitable company's means of profit, I would get their wealth instead. There's plenty of investors out there, and no doubt many are interested in supplying the means by which we would free ourselves from oil dependence. Oil comapnies are not god; they may not spend their own money developing alternatives, but they can do little to stop others from doing so. The reason alternatives aren't arising is simply that alternatives are very hard to come by.

If you discover an alternate power source, you will likely be richer than Bill Gates. Good luck with that, though.

Quote: Quote: Look at the date in the lower right, and check out the graph.

http://denisdutton.com/newsweek_coolingworld.pdf

Thanks for the link, and I'm not being sarcastic here, I do like to read about the errors which climate scientists have made, and the disagreements they have had. But here is what I'm wondering about you : to what degree does a scientific mistake which was made over 25 years ago affect your opinion of climate science?
Well, it shows the reliability of working with trends, the very method you advocated for earlier. There is a current warming trend. Many extrapolate that into doom. Many extrapolated a cooling trend in the seventies into doom, and we now see the error in their reasoning. Hindsight is always 20/20 though.

Quote: Also, you specifically told me to look at the graph. My understanding is that those temperature readings were correct. And they were going down for the reason which the scientists thought they were (aerosols). They just exaggerated the trend and therefore weren't interpreted correctly.
Right.

Quote: Quote: Whatever Happened To Global Cooling?

By Susan Kruglinski

DISCOVER Vol. 27 No. 02 | February 2006 | Environment

Global warming skeptics often cite contradictory reports from a generation ago warning of global cooling. In 1975 Newsweek wrote of "ominous signs" that temperatures were dipping, and a year later National Geographic suggested the possibility of a worldwide chilling trend. Stephen Schneider, a climatologist at Stanford University, recalls those stories well. "I was one of the ones who talked about global cooling," he says. "I was also the one who said what was wrong with that idea within three years."

Schneider coauthored a 1971 article in the journal Science about atmospheric aerosols—floating particles of soil dust, volcanic ash, and human-made pollutants. His research suggested that industrial aerosols could block sunlight and reduce global temperatures enough to overcome the effects of greenhouse gases, possibly triggering an ice age. But he soon realized that he had overestimated the amount of aerosols in the air and underestimated the role of greenhouse gases.

"Back then this science was so new, so theoretical, it was really hard to sort it out," he says. He and other early climate researchers say they did not predict a global cooling trend but simply suggested the possibility. Evidence suggests that average worldwide temperatures did decrease between the 1940s and the 1970s. Some climatologists partially attribute the temporary cooling trend to industrial smog, which has since been overcome by the effects of growing greenhouse emissions and, ironically, by clean-air laws that have reduced atmospheric particulates.

"Science is a self-correcting institution," Schneider says. "The data change, so of course you change your position. Otherwise, you would be dishonest."

[url] http://www.discover.com/issues/feb-06/rd/global-cooling/ [/url]

So there is a little more insight into that mistake, perhaps there's room in your head for some other than your own.
Well, I see a lot of post-hoc apologies. The bottom line is this: they worked with a small sample size and assumed certain trends, only to be proved wrong. Did they learn from this error and exercise more caution in the future? Nope. Same old doom-mongering.

Quote: Quote: You're talking apples and oranges. I never said that they were unaware that particles in the air could be a factor, I said they were wholly unaware to what extent they were a factor. Again, 20% at the surface. That is a huge amount. And they had no idea. That's incredible to me. It should be to you.

You're talking caca. I have gone back into this thread and re-read all of your posts.
Whatever. I refuse to engage in semantic battles.

Quote: Quote: Like I said in that other thread on the PBS show: I found it very interesting that the two scientists they interviewed were scoffed at by climatologists when they discovered that the solar intensity had decreased. How could climatologists, whose field is so utterly dependent on this data, have been unaware?

You just said it again:"They had no idea." That's wrong. They had SOME idea. If I say something wrong, I'll admit it. Being able to admit your mistakes is key to gaining further understanding. (Hint, Hint, Hint, Hint, Hint.)
Again, more semantics. They did not have any idea that the sunlight had dropped 20%; they were so unaware as to scoff when the idea was presented. If you wish to argue that, because they were aware that sunlight could possibly be reduced by pollutants, they were "somewhat aware," go right ahead; but know that you're engaging in semantics. The only purpose I can see is to try to score petty debate points.

Quote: And let's be clear about the nature of the underestimation: natural and man made aerosols are reflecting back more sunlight than previously understood, causing the level of warming to be understated. If your goal is to win this debate, I'm a little perplexed here.
That's the theory, anyways. But then, the theory is being put forth by climatologists that were unaware of such a fundamental issue.

It's like my sister working on an engine, only to discover it never had any oil in it all along; yeah, she found out it has no oil, but she's not about to fix the engine, as she has little-to-no understanding of internal combustion engines in the first place.

Quote: Quote: Kinda calls their expert status into question.
OK, now I really need your guidance because I'm feeling all queasy and insecure suddenly. Since these scientists are no longer the experts, who are the experts?
No one's the experts. Climatology is simply not understood well enough for anyone to make any accurate predictions.

Quote: (If your boss has an off day week or month at your place of work, is he or she still your boss?) Here's my point: with Chevron saying things like this:

Quote:
Global Climate Change

One of the environmental concerns we all share is global climate change. We recognize that the use of fossil fuels has contributed to an increase in greenhouse gases - mainly carbon dioxide and methane
[url] http://www.chevron.com/social_responsibility/environment/ [/url]

WAKE UP! These are the scientists who we are going to live and die with on this issue. If anyone is going to discover that they are are wrong, it is going to have to be they themselves. Chevron has more pull than you, and they are no longer impeaching the science. Neither are many other different rich and powerful industries.
That link states an indisputable fact: if you assume CO2 and methane are "greenhouse gasses," there can be no debate that fossil fuels contribute to an increase in said gasses. That's a certainty, given their chemistry.

Quote: Quote: Yet in 20 years, the Earth will be little if any warmer, and you'll be scuttling to understand why.

Very wrong. If the scientists are currently wrong, they will adjust their predictions and understanding within the next 5 years or so. The fiction that you pluck from your self reinforcing fantasy world simply will not emerge.
You're right; it will fade away, and scientists will "adjust" their predictions. Onward and upward! What will be the next doomsday prediction, I wonder?

Quote: Quote: Sometimes its easier to go with the flow. Like the tobacco companies.

Tobacco companies were not merely going with the flow. They forked over bushels of cash in an agreement with many State Attorneys General to reduce increased exposure to lawsuit. Public disinformation is protected free speech, but the first amendment is no inoculation to civil lawsuit. Similarly, now that the scientific consensus is so emphatic, large oil and other companies have left off muddying the Waters by sponsoring non-peer reviewed scientific opinion in 2003. (If anyone has a link showing that they are still funding it, I'd like to see.....)
Well, I'd point out that in a court of law, your climatologists do indeed pass as "experts." Sort of limits their options, no?

Quote: Quote: You can talk about cutting CO2 all you like, but when it comes down to it, that entails massive lifestyle changes for Americans,

I agree completely. Envirnomentalists who claim we are going to experience some or other economic gain are looney. I also see people on this site who think they know something about economics and they claim this problem can be solved with sich and such tiny percentage of GDP. POPYCOCK! Either introducing new fuels or conservation is going to cause major economic disruption, and economics don't like disruption.
You seem to understand the problem then. That's mighty realistic of you (seriously). So what of it, then? You know that any legislation will be a grandstanding, do-nothing, compromise. Might as well prepare for the inevitable, IMO.

Quote: Quote: if what the doomsayers say is true, our energy would be better spent adapting to the changes, because realistically, we won't be avoiding them.

I disagree there. We might not be able to do all we need, but we can do some.
If it does no good, what's the point? How are we to know what, if any, good it will do?

Therein lies the rub, my friend.

Quote: As I have read over your posts, I have tried to look for attitudes which are informing your mistaken opinion of GW. I'm wondering if you are aware of how quickly world climate can change?

Quote: Early in the 1990s, further revelations startled climate scientists. The quantity, variety, and accuracy of measurements of ancient climates were increasing at a breakneck pace — compared with the data available in the 1970s, orders of magnitude more were now in hand. The first shock came from the summit of the Greenland ice plateau, a white wasteland so high that altitude sickness was a problem.....

....Early hopes for a new cooperative program joining Americans and Europeans had broken down, and each team drilled its own hole. An ingenious decision transmuted competition into cooperation. The two holes were drilled just far enough apart (30 kilometers) so that anything that showed up in both cores must represent a real climate effect, not an accident due to bedrock conditions. The match turned out to be remarkably exact for most of the way down. A comparison of variations in the cores showed convincingly that climate could change more rapidly than almost any scientist had imagined.(55).....

Swings of temperature that scientists in the 1950s believed to take tens of thousands of years, in the 1970s to take thousands of years, and in the 1980s to take hundreds of years, were now found to take only decades.

....Meanwhile, in the late 1980s and early 1990s, improved carbon-14 techniques gave the first accurate dates for sediments containing pollen and other carbon-bearing materials at locations ranging from Japan to Tierra del Fuego. Good dates finally allowed correlation of many geological records with the Greenland ice. The results suggested that the Younger Dryas events had affected climates around the world. The extent and nature of the perturbation was controversial. But scientists were increasingly persuaded that abrupt climate shifts could have global scope, even if they affected different places differently — colder here and warmer there, wetter here and drier there

[url] http://www.aip.org/history/climate/rapid.htm#L000 [/url]



Now I'm wondering : do you accept the historical record of rapid climate change, and might you just possibly see anything new regarding the threat we face?
I believe there are few certainties in this respect.

[Citizendave]

Quote: The Democrats can try to run on GW, but in order to do so, they must have a plan; but what? Any plan is going to require Americans to put their money where their mouths are; more taxes, less energy use, etc. And when it comes right down to it, they will not do it.

Astute point! And I think I realize more fully now why Dems have not embraced GW as a means of differentiating themselves from Republicans. If the Dems push GW, they have to push a solution, and we agree, the solution to GW will be painful. Real quick here - I've had an idea over the years that the EPA, which does have legislative powers, might be the ones to impose law regarding CO2 regulation, since the political process may not have the strength of character to address what is happening.

Quote: I have no reason to believe any laws would make the development of such technologies any more likely.

Going back to your original statement and side stepping any complicated wiggle waggle reasoning, your statement is just unreasonably pessimistic. By altering the economics through taxes, subsidies and grants, government can augment research already underway and foster other research.

Quote: There is a current warming trend. Many extrapolate that into doom. Many extrapolated a cooling trend in the seventies into doom, and we now see the error in their reasoning.

Sorry, seeing a trend and predicting isn't bad reasoning. You might have bad data (which they didn't) or a bad formula (which they were way off - and they went public - and people like you have never gotten over it) but the reasoning of seeing a trend and trying to predict where conditions are going is definitely not bad reasoning. I really wonder how those words got into your post. Guess you wrote 'em!

Quote: The bottom line is this: they worked with a small sample size and assumed certain trends, only to be proved wrong. Did they learn from this error and exercise more caution in the future? Nope.

Anyone who would let a scientific mistake which was made over 25 years ago affect his opinion of current climate science is an idiot, and even more so when you consider the nature of the mistake.

Quote: Here is an opinion from Bill O'Reilly -
[interview with 60 minutes]:

"Global warming is here. All these idiots that run around and say it isn't here. That's ridiculous. "

[url] http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2004/09/23/60minutes/main645202.shtml [/url]

Not that I'm a huge fan of Bill O'Reilly, but he and I do happen to share an opinion about you.

Quote: Same old doom-mongering.

I've been frustrated too with the media over the years plenty of times. Killer bees, the latest medical "break though" which cures mice, California is drying up, etc. Robert Bazell on NBC giddy with glee in 1987 saying that superconductive materials would render energy costs minuscule since energy would be able to be transferred anywhere in the world without Resistance. Does the media have credibility with me? Not much.

Quote:

Andy Goes Back To The Future

CBS News has a good library of old film and tape. Just for fun, we got out the CBS Evening News broadcasts for 20 years ago this week to see what was happening in 1986. Well, we ran into something we weren’t looking for. They did a five-part series predicting what things would be like in 15 years – in 2001.


"They predict by 2001 the Russians could land on Mars," Dan Rather said.

....."Los Angeles will be the nation's largest metropolis in 2001," another prediction went. Wrong. New York is still the largest.

......"By 2001 we could be producing cows the size of elephants and pigs five feet tall," was one prediction.

....."The car will be commanded by the operator's voice. And you could sit back and the ask the car to start and it will start," one prediction said.

......"By 2001, Mexico City could well be the world's largest with perhaps 35 million," it was predicted. Wrong. It's 2006 and Mexico City is still only 20 million.

......"Prediction, Americans will work just six hours a day just 30 hours a week," another prediction went.

......."The experts predict by the year 2001, 108,000 Americans will live to be at least 100," was another prediction. There were only 55,000 people a 100 old last year.

[url] http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2006/04/27/60minutes/rooney/main1553237.shtml [/url]

And all of that is a side issue. We have to be able to take the blinders off at the right moment. This is the right moment. Global Warming is happening, and we have the biggest problem on our hands since WWII. (Which by the way, kicked up so much dust that it informed climate science.)

We now have the highest level of CO2 going back for 650,000 years. World economy is poised to increase that. If a viable replacement for oil is discovered, it's going to take many years to switch over to it! Anyone who would can't see that we have a huge problem on our hands is an idiot.

Quote: I never said that they were unaware that particles in the air could be a factor, I said they were wholly unaware to what extent they were a factor......Whatever. I refuse to engage in semantic battles.

....score petty debate points.

It isn't petty and I do engage in them and here’s why: if someone doesn't have the integrity to admit that they said something incorrect, that's a valuable test of who I'm debating with. There is a major world problem, and you are blinded to certain aspects of the nature of the problem we face. You may have an inability to admit it when you are wrong. I have gone back for a third time and read what you did say:

Quote: ....The bottom line is this: these so-called "climatologists" were wholly unaware that the sun's intensity at the surface had gone down. They had no idea.

It's not about what you were thinking when you wrote it, child. It's what you wrote. I'm not going to call you a liar (you might be, but I have no knowledge of your other dealings in life) but on this point, you are lying to me, and losing credibility with anyone looking over our shoulders at this debate. You need to buck up and admit that you misrepresented the point. And after that, you might realize that your opinion of GW is way, way off. Face it dude, you are losing this debate, and if you want to start winning, you need to bring it.

Quote: Climate Change Position

ConocoPhillips recognizes that human activity, including the burning of fossil fuels, is contributing to increased concentrations of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere that can lead to adverse changes in global climate. While the debate continues over the extent of human contributions and the timing and magnitude of future impacts, we are committed to taking action to expand our business planning processes to address greenhouse gas emissions and to develop greenhouse gas targets for our operations

[url] http://sd.conocophillips.com/climate_position.htm [/url]


I'd like to make another point: skeptics and deniers like to paint climate scientists as a group which does not disagree. I've been reading more about the arguments that they have and the doubts and checking that they do on each other's reasearch. You said:

Quote: They did not have any idea that the sunlight had dropped 20%; they were so unaware as to scoff when the idea was presented.

True, but now they have tested and accepted the 20% (approx) figure. (It's like you are handing me points in this debate guy.)

Quote: ....little-to-no understanding of ....

You are asserting that these scientist have little to no understanding of climate change to the degree that they are just like your sister working on a car engine. That's a laugh. Major corporations are rolling onto their backs like puppies because of the persuasive scientific nature of the findings.

Saudi Aramco wrote: Symposium Set on Carbon Issues

First Regional Symposium on Carbon Management
Environment & Safety

DHAHRAN, April 29, 2006 -- Saudi Aramco will sponsor the First Regional Symposium on Carbon Management in Dammam, Saudi Arabia, from May 22 to 24, 2006.

"Therefore," he added, "meeting energy demand while addressing potential climate change issues presents challenges and opportunities for the oil industry...."

[url] http://www.saudiaramco.com/bvsm/JSP/content/articleDetail.jsp?BV_SessionID=@@@@2025577134.1146475838@@@@&BV_EngineID=cccladdhilimheecefeceefdfnkdfhn.0&datetime=04%2F30%2F06+15%3A23%3A16&SA.channelID=-1073750274&SA.programID=1073762939&SA.contentOID=1073766191 [/url]

Qatar Petroleum wrote:

Our immediate strategic HSE objectives are to:

Achieve zero gas flaring to minimize waste and reduce carbon dioxide emissions ......
[url] http://www.qp.com.qa/qp.nsf/Environment?ReadForm [/url]

Amerada Hess wrote:

Global Climate Change and Atmospheric Emissions

We believe that reasonable, economically sound steps should be taken to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. We also believe that any regulations relating to atmospheric emissions should take into account the cost and supply of energy to consumers, the long-term economic impacts of energy cost, and flexible market-based mechanisms to distribute these costs equitably.

We have taken numerous actions company-wide to reduce our atmospheric emissions:

We established new air emission targets for greenhouse gases, VOCs, SOx, and NOx, based on achieving a 5% reduction for our 2001 asset base on a normalized basis by 2005. Additionally, we will establish aggressive targets for new operations as we expand our asset base.
Links to our company-wide air emissions data are included below.
Greenhouse gases (table, chart)
Criteria Pollutants (table, SO2 & NOX charts, VOC chart)
[url] http://www.hess.com/ehs/performance.htm [/url]

Quote: No one's the experts. Climatology is simply not understood well enough for anyone to make any accurate predictions.

Very sorry. It's like you've been hitting the lithium too much this week. There is a percentage chance that the experts are incorrect, but they are still the experts. If experts researching cancer can only cure 50% of the cancers out there, they are still the experts. I'm starting to wonder how you make it through your day.

Quote: That link states an indisputable fact: if you assume CO2 and methane are "greenhouse gasses," there can be no debate that fossil fuels contribute to an increase in said gasses. That's a certainty, given their chemistry.

And considering that Chevron was fighting the idea of human induced GW for years, and now they accept the premise as reality, it is a very significant statement. There is very little economic motivation for Chevron to say, "We recognize that the use of fossil fuels has contributed to an increase in greenhouse gases - mainly carbon dioxide and methane...."

Quote:

Free Thinkr wrote: Sometimes its easier to go with the flow. Like the tobacco companies.

Citizendave wrote: Tobacco companies were not merely going with the flow. They forked over bushels of cash in an agreement with many State Attorneys General to reduce increased exposure to lawsuit. Public disinformation is protected free speech, but the first amendment is no inoculation to civil lawsuit. Similarly, now that the scientific consensus is so emphatic, large oil and other companies have left off muddying the Waters by sponsoring non-peer reviewed scientific opinion in 2003. (If anyone has a link showing that they are still funding it, I'd like to see.....)

Free Thinkr wrote: Well, I'd point out that in a court of law, your climatologists do indeed pass as "experts." Sort of limits their options, no?

The scientists who know GW is happening it would swear it under oath. The execs of the big oil companies now apparently do not have that level of commitment to the opposite side of the issue. If they honestly thought GW was not happening, they would not be knuckling under as so many of them have, and writing what they are writing on their web sites. Profitable companies DO NOT WANT increased government regulation and these statements leave the door open to that.

Quote: You know that any legislation will be a grandstanding, do-nothing, compromise. Might as well prepare for the inevitable, IMO. If it does no good, what's the point? How are we to know what, if any, good it will do? Therein lies the rub, my friend.

I disagree. Cast your mind forward 60, 100 years. Lower levels of CO2 are better. We have to try. The earth does have the capacity to consume more CO2 than it naturally puts out. At this point, we haven't even issued a call for voluntary conservation among our nations populace. That is an easy preliminary step that we should try.

Quote:

Quote: ....Meanwhile, in the late 1980s and early 1990s, improved carbon-14 techniques gave the first accurate dates for sediments containing pollen and other carbon-bearing materials at locations ranging from Japan to Tierra del Fuego.
[url] http://www.aip.org/history/climate/rapid.htm#L000 [/url]


I believe there are few certainties in this [scientific] respect.

Are you saying that you deny carbon-14 dating techniques? Because if you say you do, that will do more to convert skeptics and deniers reading this debate than anything I have to say.

[Free Thinkr]

Citizendave wrote: Quote: The Democrats can try to run on GW, but in order to do so, they must have a plan; but what? Any plan is going to require Americans to put their money where their mouths are; more taxes, less energy use, etc. And when it comes right down to it, they will not do it.

Astute point! And I think I realize more fully now why Dems have not embraced GW as a means of differentiating themselves from Republicans. If the Dems push GW, they have to push a solution, and we agree, the solution to GW will be painful.
Right. The difference is, I'm realistic, whereas you're determined to ignore reality. The reality is, there is no way we are going to gamble on the painful measures 'required.' To say otherwise is to ignore reality. There will never be the recommended CO2 reductions. Even if we managed to do so here in the states, the world-wide CO2 output would remain way beyond the recommendations of scientists. That's a fact, and one that you might as well prepare for.

Quote: Real quick here - I've had an idea over the years that the EPA, which does have legislative powers, might be the ones to impose law regarding CO2 regulation, since the political process may not have the strength of character to address what is happening.
Not if the EPA wants to remain in existence, it won't.

Quote: Quote: I have no reason to believe any laws would make the development of such technologies any more likely.

Going back to your original statement and side stepping any complicated wiggle waggle reasoning, your statement is just unreasonably pessimistic. By altering the economics through taxes, subsidies and grants, government can augment research already underway and foster other research.
That doesn't guarantee results. There is such a thing as return on investment, which you seem to ignore.

Quote: Quote: There is a current warming trend. Many extrapolate that into doom. Many extrapolated a cooling trend in the seventies into doom, and we now see the error in their reasoning.

Sorry, seeing a trend and predicting isn't bad reasoning.
Yes it is, when you're understanding is very limited. Imagine a scientist discovering that bacteria multiply very quickly and extrapolating that into a single culture of bacteria over-running the Earth in a year. You need to understand all the variables, something that climatology has proved incapable of doing.

Quote: You might have bad data (which they didn't) or a bad formula (which they were way off - and they went public - and people like you have never gotten over it) but the reasoning of seeing a trend and trying to predict where conditions are going is definitely not bad reasoning. I really wonder how those words got into your post. Guess you wrote 'em!
LOL. Yeah, we should just get over it. Never mind that if we had followed their predictions of doom back then and made all sorts of regulations it would have been wasted money; that's an inconvenient fact that we should all just ignore.

Quote: Quote: The bottom line is this: they worked with a small sample size and assumed certain trends, only to be proved wrong. Did they learn from this error and exercise more caution in the future? Nope.

Anyone who would let a scientific mistake which was made over 25 years ago affect his opinion of current climate science is an idiot, and even more so when you consider the nature of the mistake.
Ah, well, name-calling is certainly a fantastic way of making your point. Why should I have any more confidence in the accuracy climate science now than climate science 25 years ago? Because they're louder now?

Quote: Quote: Here is an opinion from Bill O'Reilly -
[interview with 60 minutes]:

"Global warming is here. All these idiots that run around and say it isn't here. That's ridiculous. "

[url] http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2004/09/23/60minutes/main645202.shtml [/url]

Not that I'm a huge fan of Bill O'Reilly, but he and I do happen to share an opinion about you.
In other words, yes, because they're louder now. Lots of people say it, so it must be true! In similar news, I'm now convinced that Scientology is the one true faith. If you were wondering, Tom Cruise was the straw that broke the camel's back; I'm not a huge fan of Cruise, but he and I do happen to share an opinion on the validity of L. Ron Hubbard as the true profit.

Quote: Quote: Same old doom-mongering.

I've been frustrated too with the media over the years plenty of times. Killer bees, the latest medical "break though" which cures mice, California is drying up, etc. Robert Bazell on NBC giddy with glee in 1987 saying that superconductive materials would render energy costs minuscule since energy would be able to be transferred anywhere in the world without Resistance. Does the media have credibility with me? Not much.
And global warming is the holy grail of doom mongering; unlike killer bees or Cali drought, global warming effects everyone, and there's basically no limit to the amount of doom that can be extrapolated from current measurements (adjust the figures in the models a bit, and you can get anything from a half a degree change to Kevin Costner's water world).

Quote: And all of that is a side issue. We have to be able to take the blinders off at the right moment. This is the right moment. Global Warming is happening, and we have the biggest problem on our hands since WWII. (Which by the way, kicked up so much dust that it informed climate science.)
Why is now the right time, exactly? Also, how do you know that it's such a huge problem? There are several different issues:

1. is it happening
2. is it human-induced
3. assuming 'yes' to 1 & 2, how big a threat is it

Even if you assume 1 & 2 are definite a 'yes,' it doesn't necessarily follow that it's a huge threat. That depends totally on factors that we really don't understand very well.

Quote: We now have the highest level of CO2 going back for 650,000 years. World economy is poised to increase that. If a viable replacement for oil is discovered, it's going to take many years to switch over to it! Anyone who would can't see that we have a huge problem on our hands is an idiot.
Explain to me why this is such a huge problem. Because models predict it might be?

Quote: Quote: I never said that they were unaware that particles in the air could be a factor, I said they were wholly unaware to what extent they were a factor......Whatever. I refuse to engage in semantic battles.

....score petty debate points.

It isn't petty and I do engage in them and here’s why: if someone doesn't have the integrity to admit that they said something incorrect, that's a valuable test of who I'm debating with. There is a major world problem, and you are blinded to certain aspects of the nature of the problem we face. You may have an inability to admit it when you are wrong. I have gone back for a third time and read what you did say:

Quote: ....The bottom line is this: these so-called "climatologists" were wholly unaware that the sun's intensity at the surface had gone down. They had no idea.

It's not about what you were thinking when you wrote it, child. It's what you wrote. I'm not going to call you a liar (you might be, but I have no knowledge of your other dealings in life) but on this point, you are lying to me, and losing credibility with anyone looking over our shoulders at this debate. You need to buck up and admit that you misrepresented the point. And after that, you might realize that your opinion of GW is way, way off. Face it dude, you are losing this debate, and if you want to start winning, you need to bring it.
I stick by what's quoted. I don't care how you interpret it. They were unaware that the sun's intensity at the surface had gone down. Period. That's a fact. You can talk all you wish about how they had measured periodic decreases during volcanic activity, but the bottom line is that they were unaware that the sun's intensity had gone down on a global level, actually to the point that they refused to acknowledge it at first because it seemed to contradict GW. You can call me a liar (which you certainly implied, your dancing is fooling no one) or a child all you like, but my statement remains true, and your semantics remain petty.

Quote: Quote: Climate Change Position

ConocoPhillips recognizes that human activity, including the burning of fossil fuels, is contributing to increased concentrations of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere that can lead to adverse changes in global climate. While the debate continues over the extent of human contributions and the timing and magnitude of future impacts, we are committed to taking action to expand our business planning processes to address greenhouse gas emissions and to develop greenhouse gas targets for our operations

[url] http://sd.conocophillips.com/climate_position.htm [/url]


I'd like to make another point: skeptics and deniers like to paint climate scientists as a group which does not disagree. I've been reading more about the arguments that they have and the doubts and checking that they do on each other's reasearch. You said:

Quote: They did not have any idea that the sunlight had dropped 20%; they were so unaware as to scoff when the idea was presented.

True, but now they have tested and accepted the 20% (approx) figure. (It's like you are handing me points in this debate guy.)
Yeah, so? It's pretty impossible to ignore those findings. I find it intriguing that they weren't aware of them, and that they were initially hostile. After all, we're not talking about some moderately-tangental finding: we're talking about something that is absolutely central to climatology. They were, quite literally, in the dark about the nature of the very climate of which they purport to be experts.

Quote: Quote: ....little-to-no understanding of ....

You are asserting that these scientist have little to no understanding of climate change to the degree that they are just like your sister working on a car engine. That's a laugh. Major corporations are rolling onto their backs like puppies because of the persuasive scientific nature of the findings.
So your entire positions is: lots of people believe them, therefore they know what they're talking about. Hilarious.

Quote: Saudi Aramco wrote: Symposium Set on Carbon Issues

First Regional Symposium on Carbon Management
Environment & Safety

DHAHRAN, April 29, 2006 -- Saudi Aramco will sponsor the First Regional Symposium on Carbon Management in Dammam, Saudi Arabia, from May 22 to 24, 2006.

"Therefore," he added, "meeting energy demand while addressing potential climate change issues presents challenges and opportunities for the oil industry...."

[url] http://www.saudiaramco.com/bvsm/JSP/content/articleDetail.jsp?BV_SessionID=@@@@2025577134.1146475838@@@@&BV_EngineID=cccladdhilimheecefeceefdfnkdfhn.0&datetime=04%2F30%2F06+15%3A23%3A16&SA.channelID=-1073750274&SA.programID=1073762939&SA.contentOID=1073766191 [/url]

Qatar Petroleum wrote:

Our immediate strategic HSE objectives are to:

Achieve zero gas flaring to minimize waste and reduce carbon dioxide emissions ......
[url] http://www.qp.com.qa/qp.nsf/Environment?ReadForm [/url]

Amerada Hess wrote:

Global Climate Change and Atmospheric Emissions

We believe that reasonable, economically sound steps should be taken to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. We also believe that any regulations relating to atmospheric emissions should take into account the cost and supply of energy to consumers, the long-term economic impacts of energy cost, and flexible market-based mechanisms to distribute these costs equitably.

We have taken numerous actions company-wide to reduce our atmospheric emissions:

We established new air emission targets for greenhouse gases, VOCs, SOx, and NOx, based on achieving a 5% reduction for our 2001 asset base on a normalized basis by 2005. Additionally, we will establish aggressive targets for new operations as we expand our asset base.
Links to our company-wide air emissions data are included below.
Greenhouse gases (table, chart)
Criteria Pollutants (table, SO2 & NOX charts, VOC chart)
[url] http://www.hess.com/ehs/performance.htm [/url]

Quote: No one's the experts. Climatology is simply not understood well enough for anyone to make any accurate predictions.

Very sorry. It's like you've been hitting the lithium too much this week. There is a percentage chance that the experts are incorrect, but they are still the experts. If experts researching cancer can only cure 50% of the cancers out there, they are still the experts. I'm starting to wonder how you make it through your day.
What have climatologists ever 'cured?' Get a hold of me when they get any results of any kind.

Quote: Quote: That link states an indisputable fact: if you assume CO2 and methane are "greenhouse gasses," there can be no debate that fossil fuels contribute to an increase in said gasses. That's a certainty, given their chemistry.

And considering that Chevron was fighting the idea of human induced GW for years, and now they accept the premise as reality, it is a very significant statement.
Actually, no they don't. They simply no longer fight it. Bad press.

Quote: There is very little economic motivation for Chevron to say, "We recognize that the use of fossil fuels has contributed to an increase in greenhouse gases - mainly carbon dioxide and methane...."
Sure there is. No one wants to be the target of bad press. Sheep such as yourself would like nothing more than to have a Chevron to beat when exemplifying GW opposition. "Look at how Big Oil tries to deny GW! We should nationalize them so their money can no longer go to opposing obviously-true scientific fact."

Quote: Quote: Free Thinkr wrote: Sometimes its easier to go with the flow. Like the tobacco companies.

Citizendave wrote: Tobacco companies were not merely going with the flow. They forked over bushels of cash in an agreement with many State Attorneys General to reduce increased exposure to lawsuit. Public disinformation is protected free speech, but the first amendment is no inoculation to civil lawsuit. Similarly, now that the scientific consensus is so emphatic, large oil and other companies have left off muddying the Waters by sponsoring non-peer reviewed scientific opinion in 2003. (If anyone has a link showing that they are still funding it, I'd like to see.....)

Free Thinkr wrote: Well, I'd point out that in a court of law, your climatologists do indeed pass as "experts." Sort of limits their options, no?

The scientists who know GW is happening it would swear it under oath. The execs of the big oil companies now apparently do not have that level of commitment to the opposite side of the issue. If they honestly thought GW was not happening, they would not be knuckling under as so many of them have, and writing what they are writing on their web sites. Profitable companies DO NOT WANT increased government regulation and these statements leave the door open to that.
They could say all they like, and the regulation would happen anyways. This media campaign has no effect at all on any possible regulation. If anything, the regulation would be more lax because they could "self-impose" regulation on themselves, which would give them greater control of their own destiny.

Quote: Quote: You know that any legislation will be a grandstanding, do-nothing, compromise. Might as well prepare for the inevitable, IMO. If it does no good, what's the point? How are we to know what, if any, good it will do? Therein lies the rub, my friend.

I disagree. Cast your mind forward 60, 100 years. Lower levels of CO2 are better. We have to try.
No, you simply assert that lower levels of CO2 are better.

Quote: The earth does have the capacity to consume more CO2 than it naturally puts out. At this point, we haven't even issued a call for voluntary conservation among our nations populace. That is an easy preliminary step that we should try.
What exactly would that mean?

Assuming that what you say is true, any CO2 production would be problematic. Nothing short of eradicating humanity would please you.

Quote: Quote: Quote: ....Meanwhile, in the late 1980s and early 1990s, improved carbon-14 techniques gave the first accurate dates for sediments containing pollen and other carbon-bearing materials at locations ranging from Japan to Tierra del Fuego.
[url] http://www.aip.org/history/climate/rapid.htm#L000 [/url]


I believe there are few certainties in this [scientific] respect.

Are you saying that you deny carbon-14 dating techniques? Because if you say you do, that will do more to convert skeptics and deniers reading this debate than anything I have to say.
What the hell are you talking about?

[perdidochas]

ieatfood wrote: Bottom line--you people need to trust scientists

Fact #1: scientists know more about global warming than you
Fact #2: any "logical" argument that you can come up with against global warming is likely naiive and stupid, compared to what a scientist knows.
Fact #3: there is a scientific consensus that anthropogenic global warming occurs
Fact #4: there is no scientific consensus on what impact this global warming will have on humans
Fact #5: global warming may be disastrous or it may be not so bad--we just don't know

These are the facts. You can decide for yourself what your position is. But facts are facts. Sorry.

#1--Maybe, but that doesn't mean that they are correct about anthropogenic global warming. Until the 1960s, everybody thought that the continents were pretty much static in the positions they are today.
#2--Not really. Global climate cycles is a fairly new science. Models from the late 1970s said we were about to go into an ice age..... Who knows what models from the 2030s will say....
#3--There was a scientific consensus in the 1950s that said continents didn't move. The consensus is based on current opinion.
#4--True
#5--True

[perdidochas]

Citizendave wrote: There is a substantial problem associated with melting sea ice, and here is an easy to read description of it.

Quote:

Donald Perovich has studied sea ice for thirty years....

....Perovich’s particular area of expertise, in the words of his crrel biography, is “the interaction of solar radiation with sea ice."

....An ideal white surface, which reflected all the light that shone on it, would have an albedo of one, and an ideal black surface, which absorbed all the light, would have an albedo of zero. The albedo of the earth, in aggregate, is 0.3, meaning that a little less than a third of the sunlight that hits it gets reflected back out. Anything that changes the earth’s albedo changes how much energy the planet absorbs, with potentially dramatic consequences.....

At one point, Perovich asked me to imagine that we were looking down at the earth from a spaceship above the North Pole. “It’s springtime, and the ice is covered with snow, and it’s really bright and white," he said. “It reflects over eighty per cent of the incident sunlight. The albedo’s around 0.8, 0.9. Now, let’s suppose that we melt that ice away and we’re left with the ocean. The albedo of the ocean is less than 0.1; it’s like 0.07.

“Not only is the albedo of the snow-covered ice high; it’s the highest of anything we find on earth," he went on. “And not only is the albedo of water low; it’s pretty much as low as anything you can find on earth. So what you’re doing is you’re replacing the best reflector with the worst reflector." The more open water that’s exposed, the more solar energy goes into heating the ocean. The result is a positive feedback, similar to the one between thawing permafrost and carbon releases, only more direct. This so-called ice-albedo feedback is believed to be a major reason that the Arctic is warming so rapidly.

[url] http://www.wesjones.com/climate1.htm [/url]



In 1979 satelite data showed 1.7 billion acres of perennial sea ice. These days, it is more or less 250 million acres. Of course, if you were a hard core skeptic or denier, you could just say,"well, for the majority of earth's existence, there was no ice at either pole, so this just doesn't matter to me. I trust in God and the good judgement of George Bush."


Where do you get the above data?

It doesn't match this data:

www.arctic.noaa.gov/images/ice_extent.gif

[Headrattle]

perdidochas wrote: #1--Maybe, but that doesn't mean that they are correct about anthropogenic global warming. Until the 1960s, everybody thought that the continents were pretty much static in the positions they are today.
That is because the evidence didn't support it. Then the evidence did and their opinions changed. The same is true of Global Warming. The evidence supports it, and new evidence continues to support it.

So, you see, it doesn't matter who supported continental drift or who supports Global Warming. The simple fact is that the scientists are going to go with the evidence.

[Free Thinkr]

Headrattle wrote: perdidochas wrote: #1--Maybe, but that doesn't mean that they are correct about anthropogenic global warming. Until the 1960s, everybody thought that the continents were pretty much static in the positions they are today.
That is because the evidence didn't support it. Then the evidence did and their opinions changed. The same is true of Global Warming. The evidence supports it, and new evidence continues to support it.

So, you see, it doesn't matter who supported continental drift or who supports Global Warming. The simple fact is that the scientists are going to go with the evidence.
Absolutely, and there's nothing wrong with that. Proposing wholesale changes to the way we live our lives based on predictions made on this, however, is problematic. Climatology is in its infancy, and I think it's seriously premature to panic and buy into all these doomsday scenarios. In fact, I think it's premature and irresponsible to be making them.

[perdidochas]

Free Thinkr wrote: Headrattle wrote: perdidochas wrote: #1--Maybe, but that doesn't mean that they are correct about anthropogenic global warming. Until the 1960s, everybody thought that the continents were pretty much static in the positions they are today.
That is because the evidence didn't support it. Then the evidence did and their opinions changed. The same is true of Global Warming. The evidence supports it, and new evidence continues to support it.

So, you see, it doesn't matter who supported continental drift or who supports Global Warming. The simple fact is that the scientists are going to go with the evidence.
Absolutely, and there's nothing wrong with that. Proposing wholesale changes to the way we live our lives based on predictions made on this, however, is problematic. Climatology is in its infancy, and I think it's seriously premature to panic and buy into all these doomsday scenarios. In fact, I think it's premature and irresponsible to be making them.

Thank you for reiterating my point. In the late 1970s, some of the same climatologists were warning us about the next Ice age...... I think it's too early to realize as of yet what's going on.

[Citizendave]

perdidochas -

Excellent catch! You have caught me in a misstatement of fact:

Quote:

.....In 1979, the satellite data show, perennial sea ice covered 1.7 billion acres, or an area nearly the size of the continental United States.....

......By now, though, the perennial sea ice has shrunk by roughly two hundred and fifty million acres, an area the size of New York, Georgia, and Texas combined.....

Munch Munch! (The sound of Citizendave eating crow.) I appreciate your providing links and being concerned with the facts, unlike Free Thinkr who primarily "has an approach" in mind and "a manner of addressing the issue." This is being reflected by the derth of links he's putting up.

I went and looked at your graph and could not unnastand it. But I found this off the same site:

Quote: The recent years represent a unique event because they show a year-to-year persistence of minimum ice extents (graph below). Sea ice area is now about 18% below the level of the 1980s and earlier.

[url] http://www.arctic.noaa.gov/detect/ice-seaice.shtml [/url]

[Citizendave]

perdidochas -
Quote: Models from the late 1970s said we were about to go into an ice age.....

You too? Oh well, I've known this was a very popular and entirely stupid argument that deniers and skeptics cling to. It just reveals how little they actually have to offer. My recommendation? Drop it from your debate arsenal, because it is entirely superfluous, especially when you consider the specifics of the error committed.

Free Thinkr -
Quote: The difference is, I'm realistic, whereas you're determined to ignore reality. The reality is, there is no way we are going to gamble on the painful measures 'required.'

Silly you! Reductions are already underway. At this point it is voluntary, and when a company starts self regulation, they open the door to having it "required." Companies which were not even keeping track of CO2 just a few years ago are reporting what their output is.

American Forest and Paper wrote: Greenhouse gas emissions come from the burning of fossil fuels used to make the products and provide the services we all use everyday. The forest products industry is doing its part to reduce greenhouse gas emissions by minimizing fossil fuel use.

..... The members of AF&PA have undertaken a series of programs through which they are collectively committed to trying to meet the President's intensity reduction goals. These programs include inventorying and reporting on greenhouse gases.....

[url] http://www.afandpa.org/Template.cfm?Section=Policy_Issues&template=/TaggedPage/TaggedPageDisplay.cfm&TPLID=6&OriginalID=2&InterestCategoryID=269&ExpList=2,265 [/url]


You are just all up inside your own brain on this issue, you just don't know where it's at. (HINT: UPDATE, UPDATE, UPDATE!)

Quote: Not if the EPA wants to remain in existence, it won't.

Spoken like a real blowhard. It probably won't come to the EPA imposing regulations, since companies and society are coming slowly along, but my point is that the EPA does have emergency legislative authority, and you'd have to abolish the Supreme Court while you were at it in your little conservative Disneyland since the EPA's authority is based in law. (And don'tcha know? Lawyers work there!)

Quote: That doesn't guarantee results. There is such a thing as return on investment, which you seem to ignore.

Swing and a miss! The American government is increasing their research dollars spent on researching climate change. This is an urgent problem which any government would be foolish to ignore.

Quote: Federal funding for climate change increased from $2.4 billion in 1993 to $5.1 billion in 2004 (116 percent), as reported by OMB, or from $3.3 billion to $5.1 billion (55 percent) after adjusting for inflation. During this period, inflation-adjusted funding increased for technology and science, but decreased for international assistance.

.....OMB reported that 12 of the 14 agencies that funded climate change programs in 2004 increased such funding between 1993 and 2004,

[url] http://www.gao.gov/docdblite/summary.php?rptno=GAO-05-461&accno=A34460 [/url]

Citizendave wrote: Sorry, seeing a trend and predicting isn't bad reasoning.

Free Thinkr wrote: Yes it is, when you're understanding is very limited. Imagine a scientist....

Even in your own example, the error isn't in the reasoning. The idea of seeing a trend and predicting is scientifically and logically valid. The basic reasoning that aerosols affect climate is correct, and maybe even accepted by your illustrious self.

Quote: Never mind that if we had followed their predictions of doom back then and made all sorts of regulations it would have been wasted money; that's an inconvenient fact that we should all just ignore.

Quoting from the 1975 article which has left you and others emotionally scarred:

Quote: "our knowledge of the mechanisms of climatic change is at least as fragmentary as our data," concedes the National Academy of Sciences report. "Not only are the basic scientific questions largely unanswered, but in many cases we do not yet know enough to pose the key questions."

Yes, the article makes bold and incorrect statements, but that doesn't sound to me like an organization poised to make a policy recommendation on global cooling.

Quote: Why should I have any more confidence in the accuracy climate science now than climate science 25 years ago?

The question is goes past childish and into the waiting arms of "demented."

Quote:
Report backs global warming
April 29, 2005
By Joyce Howard Price
THE WASHINGTON TIMES

NASA scientists working with diving robots to measure ocean temperatures disclosed yesterday that they have found evidence they call a "smoking gun" in validating dire global warming predictions....

.....The 15-member research team, comprising specialists from NASA, Columbia University and the Department of Energy, determined that for every square meter of surface area, the earth and its oceans are absorbing nearly a watt more of the sun's energy than is being radiated back to space as heat.

http://www.washtimes.com/national/20050428-115517-5464r.htm



Quote: I'm now convinced that Scientology is the one true faith. If you were wondering, Tom Cruise was the straw that broke the camel's back; I'm not a huge fan of Cruise, but he and I do happen to share an opinion on the validity of L. Ron Hubbard as the true profit.

OK and you started out your previous post by saying,"The difference is, I'm realistic, whereas you're determined to ignore reality."

If you are going to bring up Tom Cruise and Scientology to prove that GW is not happening, that's just pathetic. Face it, you have a gut instinct response, and you are ruminating in your vacuous mind, putting forth emotion based postulations.

If I were a skeptic or denier on this site, I would seriously consider sending you a personal message saying,"Please get the hell out of the debate you are having with Citizendave, because you are embarrassing those of us who happen to be on your side of the issue."

Quote: And global warming is the holy grail of doom mongering;

Yes, and you can prove it without providing a link too!

Quote: Also, how do you know that it's such a huge problem? ....it doesn't necessarily follow that it's a huge threat

America will be enacting regulations in the next few years. Study will continue and more stringent regulations will in all likelihood follow, and people such as yourself will be quite properly elbowed aside. Big problem, serious problem, huge problem, doom, Uranus, whatever.

Quote:
Published on Friday, May 20, 2005 by the Los Angeles Times

As Climate Shifts, Antarctic Ice Sheet Is Growing

Increased snowfall on the central icecap partly offsets effects of melting glaciers, researchers say.

by Robert Lee Hotz

.....the central icecap of Antarctica has been steadily growing for 11 years, partially offsetting the rise in seas from the melt waters of global warming, researchers said Thursday.

...."It is an effect that has been predicted as a likely result of climate change," said David Vaughan, an independent expert on the ice sheets at the British Antarctic Survey in Cambridge, England.

In a region known for the lowest temperatures recorded on Earth, it normally is too cold for snow to form across the 2.7 million square miles of the ice sheet. Any additional annual snowfall in East Antarctica, therefore, is almost certainly attributable to warmer temperatures, four experts on Antarctica said.
[url] http://www.commondreams.org/headlines05/0520-08.htm [/url]


Quote: Explain to me why this is such a huge problem. Because models predict it might be?

Gosh I'm just so sorry you're not convinced!

Quote: You can call me a liar (which you certainly implied, your dancing is fooling no one)

A person who tells one lie is not necessarily a liar. I'm sorry you can't make the distinction. You are the one who is tap dancing, child, feeding off of your inner philosophies, fantasies and fears. I am researching, and that's why I'm winning this debate.

You misrepresented a fact on the previous page and now you won't admit it. Why don't you grow up a little and admit it?

Quote: They were, quite literally, in the dark about the nature of the very climate of which they purport to be experts.

That's a lie, you are repeating your lie. If someone is "in the dark" that means they are totally unaware. The scientists weren't totally unaware of aerosol behavior. And they've overcome their initial hostility, which you apparently cannot do the same. By the way, you mean "figuratively" not "literally." You said earlier

Quote: Unlike liberals, I mean what I say and say what I mean.

Don't be such a donkey. Did the lights go out in the lab during the time that you imagine?

Quote: Quote: Major corporations are rolling onto their backs like puppies because of the persuasive scientific nature of the findings.
So your entire positions is: lots of people believe them, therefore they know what they're talking about. Hilarious.

You are quite literally missing my point, but that doesn't surprise me. PART of my position is that I believe in GW is happening because large companies, who were initially hostile to the idea of climate change, are more accommodating. People with money on the line will have studied the situation.

Quote: What have climatologists ever 'cured?'

I know one who used to cure beef jerky in his bathroom! Look, are you asking if they've ever predicted anything correctly?

Quote: In 1991 Mount Pinatubo in the Philippines exploded. A mushroom cloud the size of Iowa burst into the stratosphere, where it deposited some 20 million tons of SO2, more than any other 20th-century eruption. Hansen's group saw an opportunity in this "natural experiment." It could provide a strict test of computer models. From their calculations they boldly predicted roughly half a degree of average global cooling, concentrated in the higher northern latitudes and lasting a couple of years.(84) Exactly such a temporary cooling was in fact observed.

http://www.aip.org/history/climate/aerosol.htm#L_1988

Quote: Quote: And considering that Chevron was fighting the idea of human induced GW for years, and now they accept the premise as reality, it is a very significant statement.

Actually, no they don't. They simply no longer fight it. Bad press.

You could put an elephant in a nutshell! The bad press comes from the reality of the situation, it isn't just "bad PR." I'm wondering if you live in the house made of straw, sticks or bricks!

Quote: Global Climate Coalition
From SourceWatch
The Global Climate Coalition (GCC) was one of the most outspoken and confrontational industry groups in the United States battling reductions in greenhouse gas emissions. ......disbanding in early 2002...

In 1989, the United Nations created the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). ...... The Global Climate Coalition was created in 1989, shortly after the IPCC's first meeting.

The GCC operated until 1997 out of the offices of the National Association of Manufacturers. Its early members included Amoco, the American Forest & Paper Association, American Petroleum Institute, Chevron, Chrysler, Cyprus AMAX Minerals, Exxon, Ford, General Motors, Shell Oil, Texaco, and the United States Chamber of Commerce.

GCC activities have included publication of glossy reports, aggressive lobbying at international climate negotiation meetings, and raising concern about unemployment that it claims would result from emissions regulations. It distributed a video to hundreds of journalists claiming that increased levels of carbon dioxide will increase crop production and help feed the hungry people of the world.....

The GCC disbanded in early 2002, explaining that it "has served its purpose by contributing to a new national approach to global warming. The Bush administration will soon announce a climate policy that is expected to rely on the development of new technologies to reduce greenhouse emissions, a concept strongly supported by the GCC." After years spent denying that greenhouse emissions were a serious environmental problem, the organization's parting shot at history combined a tacit admission that it had been wrong all along, along with an endorsement of the George W. Bush administration's proposal for ineffective "voluntary" industry measures to address the problem.

According to the Los Angeles Times (December 7, 1997) the GCC spent $13 million on its 1997 anti-Kyoto ad campaign, an amount roughly equivalent to Greenpeace’s entire annual budget.
http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Global_Climate_Coalition


Quote: Quote: There is very little economic motivation for Chevron to say, "We recognize that the use of fossil fuels has contributed to an increase in greenhouse gases - mainly carbon dioxide and methane...."

Sure there is. No one wants to be the target of bad press.

I think big oil companies have been quite comfortable being unpopular and rich as hell over past decades. I've provided a link on the demise of the GCC, which died off because rich companies changed their approach GW. Now I'm just a waitin' to see how you tap-tap dance around that-that. (Can ya gimmie a LINK???? Instead of only what ya THINK????)

Quote: They could say all they like, and the regulation would happen anyways. This media campaign has no effect at all on any possible regulation. If anything, the regulation would be more lax because they could "self-impose" regulation on themselves, which would give them greater control of their own destiny.

YES! And now you win!!! (Coz I can't understand ya!)

Quote: Quote: The earth does have the capacity to consume more CO2 than it naturally puts out. At this point, we haven't even issued a call for voluntary conservation among our nations populace. That is an easy preliminary step that we should try.

What exactly would that mean? Assuming that what you say is true, any CO2 production would be problematic. Nothing short of eradicating humanity would please you.

The earth produces X. And has the capacity to consume Y. X is less than Y. Therefore, we don't need to eradicate humanity. I think we can get away with just eradicating the GW skeptics and deniers.

Quote: Quote: Are you saying that you deny carbon-14 dating techniques? Because if you say you do, that will do more to convert skeptics and deniers reading this debate than anything I have to say.

What the hell are you talking about?

Let's just do half of this for the moment: Are you saying that you deny carbon-14 dating techniques?

[perdidochas]

Citizendave wrote: perdidochas -

Excellent catch! You have caught me in a misstatement of fact:

Quote:

.....In 1979, the satellite data show, perennial sea ice covered 1.7 billion acres, or an area nearly the size of the continental United States.....

......By now, though, the perennial sea ice has shrunk by roughly two hundred and fifty million acres, an area the size of New York, Georgia, and Texas combined.....

Munch Munch! (The sound of Citizendave eating crow.) I appreciate your providing links and being concerned with the facts, unlike Free Thinkr who primarily "has an approach" in mind and "a manner of addressing the issue." This is being reflected by the derth of links he's putting up.

I went and looked at your graph and could not unnastand it. But I found this off the same site:

Quote: The recent years represent a unique event because they show a year-to-year persistence of minimum ice extents (graph below). Sea ice area is now about 18% below the level of the 1980s and earlier.

[url] http://www.arctic.noaa.gov/detect/ice-seaice.shtml [/url]


Well, the graphs I showed indicated roughly a 20% change (just guestimating based on looking at it). All the graph shows is the extent of sea ice at different times of the year (different lines) through the period of time. Note that the ice isn't constant.

My main point was that it was greatly different from the 1.7 billion down to 250 million. That seemed excessive compared to what I've read before.

I don't doubt that global warming is occurring--I think we are still coming out of the "littel Ice Age." I'm mainly uncertain about the human contribution to it.

[liford]

I'm not concerned with global warming as a result of pollution as much as I am with the health risks caused. We're not sure at this point if global warming is actually ocurring. Even if pollution isn't causing melting ice caps, something else may be. We don't know. It still doesn't mean we should just ignore pollution-limiting initiatives.

[perdidochas]

liford wrote: I'm not concerned with global warming as a result of pollution as much as I am with the health risks caused. We're not sure at this point if global warming is actually ocurring. Even if pollution isn't causing melting ice caps, something else may be. We don't know. It still doesn't mean we should just ignore pollution-limiting initiatives.

IMHO, it depends on which pollution.

[Free Thinkr]

Citizendave wrote: Quote: The difference is, I'm realistic, whereas you're determined to ignore reality. The reality is, there is no way we are going to gamble on the painful measures 'required.'

Silly you! Reductions are already underway. At this point it is voluntary, and when a company starts self regulation, they open the door to having it "required." Companies which were not even keeping track of CO2 just a few years ago are reporting what their output is.
Reductions, perhaps, but like I already (correctly) said, nowhere close to the levels deemed necessary by your doomsayers.

From here on out I will simply delete all your irrelevant links you seem intent on posting for no apparent reason. In the future, I suggest you not bother wasting your time.

Quote: You are just all up inside your own brain on this issue, you just don't know where it's at. (HINT: UPDATE, UPDATE, UPDATE!)
Yeah, I think for myself. That's kinda the point.

Quote: Quote: Not if the EPA wants to remain in existence, it won't.

Spoken like a real blowhard.
Ooooh, more ad-homs. Should I start the ad-hom count? It's pretty obvious you have no argument, when you constantly resort to such petty name-calling. Your hand is showing.

Quote: It probably won't come to the EPA imposing regulations, since companies and society are coming slowly along, but my point is that the EPA does have emergency legislative authority, and you'd have to abolish the Supreme Court while you were at it in your little conservative Disneyland since the EPA's authority is based in law. (And don'tcha know? Lawyers work there!)
Push comes to shove, the EPA will not be able to do anything. Trust me, if they enact some sort of emergency legislation that bypasses rule of law, they will find themselves non-existant in a hurry. Believe me, there will be no EPA power play; to think otherwise is ridiculous.

Quote: Quote: That doesn't guarantee results. There is such a thing as return on investment, which you seem to ignore.

Swing and a miss! The American government is increasing their research dollars spent on researching climate change. This is an urgent problem which any government would be foolish to ignore.
The American government pork-barrels funds toward all sorts of things. Big deal. The bottom line is that there is no evidence whatever that the money spent on such endeavors renders any benefit.

Quote: Quote: [quote="Citizendave"] Sorry, seeing a trend and predicting isn't bad reasoning.

Free Thinkr wrote: Yes it is, when you're understanding is very limited. Imagine a scientist....

Even in your own example, the error isn't in the reasoning. The idea of seeing a trend and predicting is scientifically and logically valid.
I never said it wasn't. What I disagree with is taking these conclusions as fact, and regulating world-wide industry based on them.

Quote: The basic reasoning that aerosols affect climate is correct, and maybe even accepted by your illustrious self.
Of course aerosols affect the climate; to what degree is the question. Any effort made to "correct" for any degree of change needs to be demonstrated to have actual value, otherwise you're pissing in the wind.

Quote: Quote: Never mind that if we had followed their predictions of doom back then and made all sorts of regulations it would have been wasted money; that's an inconvenient fact that we should all just ignore.

Quoting from the 1975 article which has left you and others emotionally scarred:

Quote: "our knowledge of the mechanisms of climatic change is at least as fragmentary as our data," concedes the National Academy of Sciences report. "Not only are the basic scientific questions largely unanswered, but in many cases we do not yet know enough to pose the key questions."

Yes, the article makes bold and incorrect statements, but that doesn't sound to me like an organization poised to make a policy recommendation on global cooling.
Many organizations official lines read similarly today; that doesn't stop them from making all sorts of doomsday predictions and recommending all sorts of ultra-intrusive legislation.

Quote: Quote: Why should I have any more confidence in the accuracy climate science now than climate science 25 years ago?

The question is goes past childish and into the waiting arms of "demented."
That's mature. So let's see; because the scientists today claim to be more sure, I should unquestioningly consider them to be dispensers of inerrant fact. I see.

Quote: Quote: I'm now convinced that Scientology is the one true faith. If you were wondering, Tom Cruise was the straw that broke the camel's back; I'm not a huge fan of Cruise, but he and I do happen to share an opinion on the validity of L. Ron Hubbard as the true profit.

OK and you started out your previous post by saying,"The difference is, I'm realistic, whereas you're determined to ignore reality."

If you are going to bring up Tom Cruise and Scientology to prove that GW is not happening, that's just pathetic.

I'm not, I'm pointing out the fact that your entire case is based on "argument from authority" and "argumentum ad populum" fallacies. The fact that you keep posting articles on global warming rather than working with actual reasoning is a result of that fact.

Quote: Face it, you have a gut instinct response, and you are ruminating in your vacuous mind, putting forth emotion based postulations.
Ah, another ad-hom! Couldn't help yourself, I suppose. I mean, if I were getting bent over a barrel like you, I suppose I'd be irritated too; I wouldn't resort to so many ad-homs, of course, but I'd be irritated. :lol:

Quote: If I were a skeptic or denier on this site, I would seriously consider sending you a personal message saying,"Please get the hell out of the debate you are having with Citizendave, because you are embarrassing those of us who happen to be on your side of the issue."
LOL. I like how you resort to emotional appeals to try and convince me into abandoning my position and just accepting your little religion. I've had many theists use similar tactics "if I were an atheist...."

Face it: your entire approach is pointing out that lots of people think global warming is true. Too bad for you, I'm already aware of that fact, and I'm not swayed by it in the least.

Quote: Quote: And global warming is the holy grail of doom mongering;

Yes, and you can prove it without providing a link too!
Why would I need a link to point out the obvious fact that global warming can be used to make any number of unverifiable doomsday scenarios? You know it to be true every bit as much as I do.

Quote: Quote: Also, how do you know that it's such a huge problem? ....it doesn't necessarily follow that it's a huge threat

America will be enacting regulations in the next few years. Study will continue and more stringent regulations will in all likelihood follow, and people such as yourself will be quite properly elbowed aside. Big problem, serious problem, huge problem, doom, Uranus, whatever.
Ah, so in other words, you don't. Be a man next time and just say so.

Quote: Quote: Explain to me why this is such a huge problem. Because models predict it might be?

Gosh I'm just so sorry you're not convinced!
Once again, no attempt is even made.

Quote: Quote: You can call me a liar (which you certainly implied, your dancing is fooling no one)

A person who tells one lie is not necessarily a liar. I'm sorry you can't make the distinction. You are the one who is tap dancing, child, feeding off of your inner philosophies, fantasies and fears. I am researching, and that's why I'm winning this debate.
What are you researching? Why, if you are winning the debate, do you resort to such childish ad-homs (ironically, you use child, again, above :lol:)?

Quote: You misrepresented a fact on the previous page and now you won't admit it. Why don't you grow up a little and admit it?
I did not, that's why. You have repeatedly attempted to equivocate and twist what I said; I am having none of it, which has reduced you to a petty ad-hom machine. You're simply embarrassing yourself at this point.

Quote: Quote: They were, quite literally, in the dark about the nature of the very climate of which they purport to be experts.

That's a lie, you are repeating your lie. If someone is "in the dark" that means they are totally unaware. The scientists weren't totally unaware of aerosol behavior.
Ugh. And your little equivocation maneuver rears its ugly head once more. Once again, and I'm starting to get irritated at having to repeat this so many times, I never claimed that they didn't understand the behavior, but that they were unaware at the extent to which it was a factor: wholly unaware. Unaware to the point that they initially disputed it.

Quote: And they've overcome their initial hostility, which you apparently cannot do the same.
I like how you make it sound like they're some sort of saints for acknowledging indisputable fact.

Quote: By the way, you mean "figuratively" not "literally." You said earlier

Quote: Unlike liberals, I mean what I say and say what I mean.

Don't be such a donkey. Did the lights go out in the lab during the time that you imagine?
:roll:

Quote: Quote: Quote: Major corporations are rolling onto their backs like puppies because of the persuasive scientific nature of the findings.
So your entire positions is: lots of people believe them, therefore they know what they're talking about. Hilarious.

You are quite literally missing my point, but that doesn't surprise me. PART of my position is that I believe in GW is happening because large companies, who were initially hostile to the idea of climate change, are more accommodating. People with money on the line will have studied the situation.
No, I get your point; I simply find it unconvincing.

Quote: Quote: What have climatologists ever 'cured?'

I know one who used to cure beef jerky in his bathroom! Look, are you asking if they've ever predicted anything correctly?
I want any sort of benefit. Biologists have provided actual benefit to cancer patients; since you decided to compare climatologists to doctors, I want to know what benefits climatologists have provided. What have they cured?

Quote: Quote: Quote: And considering that Chevron was fighting the idea of human induced GW for years, and now they accept the premise as reality, it is a very significant statement.

Actually, no they don't. They simply no longer fight it. Bad press.

You could put an elephant in a nutshell! The bad press comes from the reality of the situation, it isn't just "bad PR." I'm wondering if you live in the house made of straw, sticks or bricks!
Actually, it is bad PR. Once again, I'll point out people like yourself are just itching to have a company to use as your whipping boy. By making nebulous concessions, these companies totally avoid that. It gets the public and the government off their back, which is probably the cheaper route.

Quote