Global Warming: The Third Viewpoint

I don't see the effect on vegetation by increasing CO2 levels as anything new....Robust growth and drought resistance is well documented and has been discussed on here many times.....The graphs from the studies are merely confirmation that this is occurring as suspected...Further the effects of global warming predictions have been revised from time to time as studies have been completed and data analyzed...The dire predictions of catastrophic change were predicated on the temperature rising rapidly, which has not been the case, depending on your perspective of time.....All in all all he is doing is announcing what is currently known or predicted at this time, which is consensus thinking...I think we can all be grateful that the temperature isn't rising as fast as it could have been....Lord Ridley seems to be taking great pleasure in pontification of his conservative views and now considers himself vindicated for refusing to face what could have been possible...Like he says, nobody can predict the future....Worst case scenarios rarely play out, but when they do, it's usually devastating....

So you aren't one of those mid western doomsday fanatics with a stockpile of food and ammo enough to last 25 years?

Nope. I deal with life as it comes and try not to waste too much of my time and energy concerned about anything that isn't happening right now or within my immediate and predictable future.

''Deal with what actually happens'' as the primary basis for conducting human affairs is a troublesome concept for we Eagle Scouts. But the world with American ''leadership'' is on the cusp of such an epoch, a modern re-run of human affairs from the 1930's. Maybe CR4 should consider having a real time link: http://thebulletin.org/doomsday-dashboard.

Well, since he has been viciously attacked in the press and online, he does seem to enjoy his opportunity to defend his statements and reply to his critics.

Aside from describing the surprising amount of greening that has occurred, he makes a number of other points that I have rarely seen made anywhere - here on CR4 or anywhere else.

Beginning at about the 26 minute mark he discusses the 'multiplier effects' on the global warming predictions. I'd heard of this, but the way it is used in the models is not well known, I suspect.

He discusses the inabilities of the models to simulate the effects of clouds, and how cloud modelling they've used contradicts NASA's data. He also discusses the 'RCP8.5' modelling (the Representative Concentration Pathways) which attempts to model CO2 due to population growth and the net effect this has on warming. His discussion of this reveals information that (I bet) almost no one is aware of, outside the narrow field of climate modelling.

I think the tipping point on the science is already here but those with strongly entrenched opinions will hold their positions for months to come. with the new administration at the controls we can expect significant change in their approach to the issue.

try arguing with this guy.....I can't

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ieKJicXUVrM

IMHO, global warming is a cyclable happening. Although humans help by contributing Co₂ to the atmosphere, their contribution amounts to a miniscule amount. I just don't believe humans can go up against nature in any way to alone destroy the planet.

Haha.... have you even seen a herd of 6 billion people? They can pretty much destroy anything and everything in their path....

I don't happen to think 50% is a minuscule amount, but that is just my opinion.

Would you be a little more specific about humans not being able to destroy the planet? Does that include sterilizing it? It is pretty clear that humans turned the Fertile Crescent and Australia into desert, and that was was before nuclear weapons.

I don't believe that humans will destroy the planet. I don't believe that humans will do extinct. I just have doubts that civilization will survive global warming, and the process of going from over 7 billion people to a sustainable number may be painful.

Really Australia was turned into desert by the people? Where did that come from?

I rechecked my facts. Apparently the origins of the desert has been revised since I last read about it. They probably resulted from the Ice Age that occurred about 10,000 years after the aborigines arrived. The original idea was that firestick farming changed the environment to desert. It probably had less drastic effects, including removing the open woodlands and replacing them with savannah.

It still seems to be the case that the megafauna was driven extinct by the aborigines, probably by the changes introduced by firestick farming.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fire-stick_farming

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_Indigenous_Australians

My apologies for citing research that was out of date.

The Fertile Crescent is still known to have been turned to desert by irrigation by humans.

Expect the narrative in DC to change rapidly once adults are back in charge.

The adults in charge will then be commissioned to babysit the narrative.

I like the word you used here. It kind of pulled me up short to think our representatives in Washington are there "on commission." That puts a new perspective on things.