Sun Causes Climate Change Shock

Tea Party is a sect of the Republican party.

Gallup Poll - Tea Party Supporters Overlap Republican Base

I am not a "member" of the Tea Party but do agree with much of what they seem to stand for. I do believe we need to be good stewards of the Earth but not to extent of limiting my freedom ,light bulbs for example.

You are the one who posted data claiming more the fault belongs to the Republicans and the Clinton's administration should get credit for reducing the debt.

This thread is probably as much to do with data interpretation as whether global warming is caused by man or not. While the data you presented is indeed correct, it's misleading in that your conclusion was that Republican presidents were more responsible than Democrat presidents. I presented a more complete data set....not choosing one that fits my desired conclusion, but the only one that does not tilt the conclusion in one direction or another.

If we started a discussion 50 years ago by saying what should we monitor to compare debt against political power in Washington I think it would be easier to get agreement on Total National Debt as opposed to only public debt (leaving out intra-governmental borrowing).

My presentation of a complete data set refutes your position Clinton reduced the debt (and is backed up by a complete data set from the US Treasury).

Furthermore, I then made an observation that, if anything, the data shows a democratic Congress has a stronger corrolation with national debt increases than a Republican president. It's the same data from the Treasury. I am not choosing data sets to create that result.....it's the same data for all of my statements (total debt compared against party in power in two of the 3 branches of government).

If you want to say that doesn't make sense to compare, I would argue it makes as much or more sense than comparing US GDP against world GDP or debt vs. GDP.

I am not saying that debt vs. GDP isn't a meaningful measure (certainly if GDP is high, total debt isn't as difficult to manage). But when you state "debt increases the most during Republican administrations and actually decreased during the Clinton administration" you imply it's the Republicans fault and you are being disingenuous not pointing out that most of the past 50 years the Democrats have controlled the check book of the US (granted with presidential approval of some of their spending). You are either being naive or intentionally deceitful if you are not able to acknowledge that total debt is a more accurate measure for comparison.

Personally, I blame both parties and the American public for not being more in touch with what our elected officials are doing in Washington.

Back to how this relates to the OP.....research is done using data....someone has to collect the data and someone has to interpret it. The more open that process, the better the research and I would think the easier it would be to eventually reach a true consensus. When engineers and scientists disagree on data as simple as high level economic data for the country, then truly something else is going on inside their heads.

Thank you! I now see my path more clearly.

I did imply that the Republicans were to blame... but I did not state that the Republicans were to blame. (I probably made a subconscious implication, you will have to take my word that it was not intentional.) Anyone who works with me knows that I'm a big believer in the "Freakenomic" mantra that correlation does not mean causation. It is so easy to jump to conclusions and to talk at cross purposes when it comes to politics that I understand why the CR4 administration frowns upon political discussions. My intended point of the three plots that successfully transferred and the one that did not was that the bashing of our president for the economic mess we are in today is unjustified. On the point of our present economic mess, I fully admit that the efforts to date to improve our economy have done nothing much more than stabilize or marginally improve our situation. Since most of the world is in the same situation, I suspect that no country's leader could do better. I did not hide the basis of my comments by just espousing my opinion without any support, all four data sets were linked to their origins. I did not "make out of whole cloth" as others have repeatedly done here this data to suit my opinion.

I am frankly getting very disgusted with the repeated, relentless bashing of one US political party or the other that has happened on CR4 lately. I mean this for all political parties and points of view. For those who maybe unclear of my personal political position, I am a New York Democratic from the Republican bastion of Long Island that was once called Crookhaven. The town politicians earned the name for a good reason. I do have a liberal bias but I recognize that my region and country is better off having both liberals and conservatives debating to a compromise. When any one political bias or party gets to dominate a region for far too long it ultimately harms us all. I believe that the greater good happens when people with divergent opinions are free to express themselves.

I have repeatedly tried to halt this political side topic because I believe it does not help CR4 or the original topic. Yet I keep getting called to explain my politics or to have the slightest presumed misconception corrected. I've now twice explained in minutia my position. I see that this will continue unless I act.

Right now I do not know when or if I will be back to this thread or CR4.

Good Bye.

relax

don't do a Mighty Penguin Hunter [Roger Pink] on us

we'll turn the page on this sucker

I'm a few days behind, moving & all
should we start a farewell Redfred thread?

I'd suggest you guys pay attention to the stalking horse rather than the straw man. ....Ed Weldon

Yes, I agree with everything you wrote. The article that started this entire thread is a perfect example of how bias and emotion rule this debate and not any real verified information. There is one thing you wrote that I'd like to offer a reply.

From what I have gathered about the Tea Party is that they are a disjointed group of individuals that are fed up with government representatives that do not represent the will of the people and particularly with gross overspending of tax payer funds.

I realize that you are stating your perception of what Tea Party members feel here. I also agree that this is what many Tea Party followers believe. You may or may not also feel this way about government representatives. I will reply to this often stated concept by Tea Party followers that government does not represent the will of the people.

Hogwash! Just because a politician does not embrace anyones far right, left, populous, libertarian, upper middle, or slightly silly agenda doesn't mean that they ignore the will of the people. There are people of many political persuasions in this great country. We all have a right to choose our own political preference. We do not have the right to force a political perspective on anybody. This is tyranny. The desire to force a political agenda, to never compromise to the point of governmental gridlock is nothing less than tyranny.

We do not have the right to force a political perspective on anybody. This is tyranny. The desire to force a political agenda, to never compromise to the point of governmental gridlock is nothing less than tyranny.

Just for clarification, who are you saying is doing this?

68% of the populace did not support the Health Care bill, but congress rammed the legislation through the House and Senate actually advising constituents not to read it before voting on it.

Do you remember the election of 2010? It was an upset for Democrats, who controlled both House and Senate.

Just look at the congressional approval ratings over the last several years. And, according to current CNN polling, 84% of those polled do not approve. 14% approve of their job.

You claim that they are representing our interests? Hogwash.

We as a nation were founded upon the ability of any individual to speak what is on his/her mind and the way we speak our mind to politicians is to vote. The election of 2010 is a very clear indicator of how we, the populace, view what our politicians are doing. We, as a whole, voted out 700+ beauracrats who thought that government should continue on unabated. This isn't a Demo or Repub issue, it is a liberal ideology idea.

How this applies to the OP is that people in Washington respond to situations that come up with legislation that affects how our economy operates. If they have wrong information they can't make good decisions. It is crucial that the information and advice they get is correct. Otherwise we wind up with programs detrimental to our welfare as a country and our local communities.

GA AH,

The Global Warming theory is just that, a theory, without any conclusive evidence that we as mankind are responsible for raising the global temps. This group that is pushing this farcical idea of manmade global warming is the same group who just a few years ago were hysterical about a coming ice age. They were wrong about that just as they are wrong about global warming. They have now changed the terminology to say climate change. That way they can be ambiguous and still be "correct" in whatever statement they make, either "warming" or "cooling".

Even if temps are rising a bit, who is to say that it is a bad thing? We seem to forget that we as mankind are just a tiny speck of sand in the big picture of our universe. We aren't that big that we will throw everything out of whack. We're not that consequential in the big picture of things. Our earth in the universe were designed for us to occupy and be stewards of. We still need to improve in how we take care of what we have been entrusted with. We can do a much better job of that. But it isn't to be at the expense of our livelihood.

There certainly are vastly different philosophical opinions in how the environment is viewed, but we do need to use some common sense when searching for solutions. Let's not just jump into drastic steps that don't really have any scientific basis. Like I have said before the facts of nature and ecology are the same for everyone. How they are interpreted will be affected by the philosophical viewpoint that we hold.

If we are looking at the motivation for why different groups of people want to push the idea of global warming we have to look at who they are and what they would gain by certain legislation, etc. that is being pushed down our throats.

The liberals, Republicans and Democrats alike, want to grab even more control of our daily lives and the commerce that needs to take place in a free-enterprise economy. They don't want to see us operating without their say so and therefore seek to enact even more restrictive legislation. They do this on the idea that it is for "the good of the world", but it is anything but such. What is good for us as a country economically will be good for the world because we are a good people, overall. We still have enough of our originating character to still do good and be a good influence in our world. We aren't perfect by any stretch of the imagination, but we are still the best country in the world. Contrary to what our nefarious leader in the White House would have us and the rest of the world believe.

The conservative ideology seeks to govern by allowing the populace to operate freely with as little legislative governance as possible.

Comments:

"The Global Warming theory is just that, a theory, without any conclusive evidence that we as mankind are responsible for raising the global temps."

"Conclusive" definition from Webster: "decisive; final". Perhaps we lack conclusive evidence of a significant anthropogenic contribution to global warming. Blame that on the problem's complexity and the practical limits of scientific observation and analysis. But you cannot deny the preponderance of circumstantial evidence. The latter commands at least a limited response to the problem. There is no logical basis for denial of the problem's existence save a desire to retreat from reality behind an emotional screen.

"Even if temps are rising a bit, who is to say that it is a bad thing?"

Depends a lot on where you live or own property. Ask the people who endured this summer's heat waves how they feel about rising temperatures. We can't prove a connection of one weather incident directly to climate change. But think about how continuous life under those weather conditions might be like. It's not a nice picture.

There appears to be a growing body of resignation to the eventuality of global warming that will command serious adaptive efforts by humans if not to simply survive then at least to maintain a reasonable standard of living. The more we push a contrary view of dubious scientific efficacy the less we will do to adapt. I have a lot of trouble seeing that as any more than a wholly self-serving position.

We should all caution against creating broad scale policies at high organizational levels (political, cultural or enterprise) that are based on any scientific absolute. To do so blinds the ability to observe and process relevant new information. (the OP is an example). This specifically applies to climate science. But at the same time it is imperative that we put genuine scientific facts in the proper perspective. They have become "fact" as a result of a process based on logic, repeatability, peer review, and consensus. Belief systems of necessity must fall below that level because have only limited ability to guarantee future results.

Ed Weldon

"The conservative ideology seeks to govern by allowing the populace to operate freely with as little legislative governance as possible." ......... Sounds like Somalia

Well said, Ed.

Well, as per Nova's history lesson on the ascension of humans last night, climate change (and very dramatic ones at that) were responsible for our being here in the first place.

Change brings opportunity and the ability to grow and adapt. No species has performed that as well as we.

We will sort through this just like every other turn in the road of our history.

You also wrote, "Sounds like Somalia". Um, have you had your ears checked lately? :)

"Perhaps we lack conclusive evidence of a significant anthropogenic contribution to global warming. Blame that on the problem's complexity and the practical limits of scientific observation and analysis. But you cannot deny the preponderance of circumstantial evidence. The latter commands at least a limited response to the problem."

No one has ever said there isn't a problem with pollution and the generation of other types of contaminates in our environment. The problem is with the interpretation of that anecdotal evidence and how impactful it may or may not be. I come down on the side of a creation that is very durable and responsive to the conditions that it encounters, whether by natural causes (volcanoes, oil flows from the ocean, etc.) or manmade. Our environment is very complex and in that complexity also lies the resiliency to respond to potentially damaging conditions. We know very little about the dynamics of our Earth and the Universe. Therefore we have a tendancy to put man's limitations on it and think we have a fragile system. Our earth isn't fragile. It was made to sustain it's inhabitants along with their faulty, limited thinking and actions.

I said, "Even if temps are rising a bit, who is to say that it is a bad thing?"

You said, "Depends a lot on where you live or own property. Ask the people who endured this summer's heat waves how they feel about rising temperatures."

Isn't the thinking of evolutionists to "adapt" to conditions? Nobody says that conditions where anyone lives will remain stagnant. Why should we expect that climates should stay the same? Over the thousands of years that we have in recorded history there are many instances where conditions have changed. People either change how they exist or they move to an area where the conditions are what they want. This happens in farming all the time. Some periods of time have less moisture so the farmers adapt and change what they plant.

The conditions of the last year or even the last several years are no indicator of a warming globe. Those kind of things of determinations after the analyzing data collected over decades, not a couple of years. We don't know what the "norm" should be so how can we make a determination that we should be warmer or cooler. We are trying to be in control of something we can't control. Mankind isn't that great!

"We should all caution against creating broad scale policies at high organizational levels (political, cultural or enterprise) that are based on any scientific absolute. To do so blinds the ability to observe and process relevant new information. (the OP is an example)." You are accepting the premise that the OP is correct. There is no new "evidence" that supports the global warming hoax.

"They have become "fact" as a result of a process based on logic, repeatability, peer review, and consensus." So, you are saying "the majority is always right", is that correct? The majority is seldom right, that's why pure democracies don't work. Look at the financial mess we have in this country because a slim majority of the people voted for some clown who is as ignorant as a mud fence about economic, social and business issues. But, thankfully that is changing because Barack Hussein Obama's approval rating in his handling of the economy is down to about 35%. People are finally becoming aware that we can't stay doing the same things we have done, especially for the last 2 1/2 years.

"The conservative ideology seeks to govern by allowing the populace to operate freely with as little legislative governance as possible." ......... Sounds like Somalia

Somalia isn't free, it is anarchy (no law). Conservative ideology doesn't lead to lawlessness, it leads to people being governed by clear moral guidelines and people of character who want the best for those being governed.

I really took my time to answer this one. I really did.

It really takes an intellectual from Bayside California to look down that hard over his intellectual nose at the rest of us Somalians. In that case I am a proud Somalian. Count me in.

What and not a cast iron bath? What a surprise.

What about the effect of the wobble in the orbit around the sun. Change the orbital pattern a little bit with a few huge dams and suddenly all kinds of global weather changes kick in. It has happened in the past due to other geologic events. So, the last guy to build a big dam gets the blame? Likely to happen but wrong.

And once we set a wobble into motion, how do we cancel it out.....

If it comes to that, I think I'll move underground.

It would be good if everyone on the planet, especially politicians and their families, had the opportunity to spend a year in Tijuana, Mexico or Shanghai, China, breathing the air and drinking the water. Then would they concede that carbon pollution is not causing a problem.

in those places the problem is not CO2, it is Soot, Sulfur, and VOC's which ironically COOL the local climate by acting as nucleation sites for water vapor. It might be difficult to breathe, but it won't cause an increase in heating which is an entirely different thing.

And don't forget the big one; corruption.

well, yeah, that is usually the root cause....=b

GA!

"I think what most advocate is that if global warming is not due to human activity,...."

Big "if". The vast majority of scientists who have credibilty in this field have said human activity affects this episode of climate change. So much for "if".

And please don't repeat the silly mantra about thousands of climate scientirst engaged in some great self serving conspiracy..........

Why the ongoing debate? If you own a stock in an energy company then do what you need to do to defend your position and increase your returns. But please quit wasting our time with fairy tale nonsense and get on with doing something about the future of our children and grandchildren.

Ed Weldon

TA - for terrible answer!

I don't own stock in an energy company (unless it rolled into my 401k shares).

It may be a big 'if'. However, since when did a majority of scientists make what they support correct? Most of those scientist have as much stake (as in receiving funding) in their position as someone who owns energy stocks would have in an opposing position.

Too much suspicious evidence has come out (read data manipulation) to make me trust what they say completely. Do I think they are wrong....not exactly....I just don't know that I believe they are right or unbiased to a point of us spending billions at the supposed problem.

By the way, I wouldn't say ....let's see how did you put it...."don't plan any long term coastal investments"? Or something along those lines.....If someone wants to buy property on the coast....go for it. I just don't think the rest of us should have to bail them out (pardon the pun) should sea level rise and ruin their investment.

Ah ha!! We have an OT sprinkler here. Getting desperate; are we?

So cosmic rays will save us after all? ........ Regardless of the legitimacy of these research findings there is a whole lot of science to be done before we 'll see a major paradigm shift.

So get on with your ghost dance if it makes you feel any better.

Ed Weldon

I'm not sure what they would be desperate about. Regardless, I voted you back on topic.

Desperate? No, there is no TA button for terrible answer so I gave you OT.

Falling back on the rants or talking points faithfully committed to memory doesn't make much of a discussion.

You wrote, "I think that is pretty obvious to all."

It is obvious that climate changes and we are witness to that now.

Where things get murky is where is the trend going to lead to, when will that trend change (and to where), and what are the root causes for the observed changes.

Without those answers it is hard and perhaps foolish to apply liberal doses of medication to a problem we don't understand.

Much of the argument is subjective. It is a hot topic (no pun intended) and our awareness has been raised. It is like that fear when you find out you have just had contact with someone that has come down with the flu. All of a sudden you are cognitive of every ache and pain you feel and you think you may have contracted that flu. Then, days later nothing happens.

Every weather event we have now is casting doubt in our minds. Is this due to Global Warming? We think back and try to recall from our experiences how this event compares.

The news sensationalizes everything. We are more connected than at any point in our past and we start to fear that it is true because we simply hear more stories about weather than we remember. You may well be hearing more stories, but that is not quantitative data, just a raised awareness.

Compounding the problem is the politics that have hijacked the science. It simply isn't clear what is really happening and in this fog the only thing that is really clear (or obvious to use your word) is that we don't really know what we should do or if we should do anything.

"Regardless of the cause of global warming should we not take all reasonable steps to mitigate the change and damage if we can."

You can't solve a problem without first identifying it! If you have a problem with the braking on your car, you don't change the transmission. You do some checking and you find that the rotors are warped. You then work on them. Replacing the transmission first is similar to what is being done with this so-called "global warming" issue. There may be some warming, but it isn't known exactly what manmade cause there may be, if any. So, do the research without bias or without regard to where the money is coming from for the research. Identify the problem and then work on a solution that is viable. Don't just go off half-cocked and expect good results.

Doing some of the things that have been proposed, carbon credits, electric cars, cap and tax, etc. are all things that don't address the real issue, which we may not be able to do anything about anyway. The "transmission" is being changed when the brake system is the problem. The earth has survived us for thousands of years and will survive many thousands of more years of us inhabiting it, "warts" and all.

"The earth has survived us for thousands of years and will survive many thousands of more years of us inhabiting it, "warts" and all."

Isn't that exactly what the neanderthals said?

By your logic we would still be looking at increasing killer smog (remember that word) in our cities and massive devistation of our forests and water systems due to acid rain. While neither of those problems have been eliminated they have both been greatly reduced because some action was taken. We have given ourselves some breathing room (pun intended) to further study the problem and better understand all the interacting aspects of it. And most of that action was taken only after laws were passed and corporations were forced to toe a new line.

The world is warming. All indicators tell me that if this continues unchecked it won't turn out well for us. We should (IMHO) do something...anything to buy us the time to do your studies and investigations. Does increased CO2 warm the planet? then lets try and reduce our emissions NOW.

"We should (IMHO) do something...anything to buy us the time to do your studies and investigations." What do you shoot for if you can't see the target? Why would you get in your car to travel without first having a destination? That is why we should identify the problem first.

I'm not saying that we don't work on solutions to problems, like smog. In that case there were observable conditions, industrial exhaust, etc. that we could and did do something about, with favorable results. I'm all in favor of taking action to remedy problems. You still have to identify what the problem is before you can fix the problem.

If you're out hunting a particular kind of game you use a particular kind of weapon that will get the results you want. If you're going lion hunting you don't take a shotgun. The results would be disatrous for you. The same thing holds true here with "global warming". We can take all kinds of action but if they do more damage to us (economically) than what we gain, we have lost the battle and we are farther behind than if we hadn't done anything at all. Our capacity to meet the challenge would have been lessened and we are even less capable of getting the results we want.

Identify the problem, come up with possible remedies and choose which ones have the greatest change for success and implement them. Until the problem is identified, no action is better than misdirected efforts which only eat up resources that are better used elsewhere.

The eco nuts say "the sky is falling, the sky is falling!" The sky is not falling and there is no crises. A problem, yes. Not a crises that demands a "shotgun" approach.

You wrote, "Isn't that exactly what the neanderthals said?"

Hard to say since they did not have a texting plan.

However, Neanderthals survived for about 400,000 years, which is far longer than any other species of humans.

You wrote, "then lets try and reduce our emissions NOW."

Actually, we have been doing something and our rate of growth has been curbed. Unfortunately, China (as an example) has done next to nothing and has now surpassed us as a polluter.

While there is more we can do, there is little consensus among all nations to do the same.

Added further reductions in emissions will help clean up our little corner of the planet, but it will also drive the cost of our products and services up here and abroad. At some point more outsourcing and less exports will further cripple our stagnant economy. Why? Because other countries will not be playing fair.

It's not as simple as just turning a valve off. Everything has its price and it is very complex.

I'm willing to concede the global warming argument. Fine, CO2 is going to wipe us all out.

I, for one, would rather die at the top of the heap, than die as a has been, laughing stock, clueless, debtor nation.

Do we really feel superior to everyone else, that we we still consume as we always have, but everything that we consume is now imported?

What a silly bunch we are. It's really becoming a joke.

Yes! GA

_{(Finally somebody has returned to the pivotal topic and not wallowed in the "he said, she said" finger pointing of party politics.)}

Artificial economic burdens like taxes and carbon credits are nothing more than lip service political mumbo jumbo that pisses off developing countries while briefly placating those who see a problem but see no answer. It is far more important to look at how and where we can really improve our global life in the face of whatever global warming will happen while permitting others to also grow.

Thanks red. I've been having this conversation with myself on here for about 2 years. I just figured that since I wasn't yelling at someone, I was being ignored, which is fine too.

Since when do you have to accurately identify a problem before you can solve the problem. Most problems I've identified the root cause were found by solving the problem. When there's more than one plausible root cause that can create the same symptoms it is often very important to fix and test only one at a time so that you can identify which was the root cause.

Looking for absolute proof of a root cause before doing a repair just leaves lots of things broken.

The problem has been identified. It consists of natural environmental factors we may have some minor control over and at least two significant factors of anthropogenic origin (CO2 and CH4) which we can control albeit at some serious expense.

The root cause of the anthropogenic factors is the innate traits of human occupants of the Earth. They desire to reproduce themselves and achieve ever higher standards of living at the lowest possible cost. There are various ways to deal with the former, the most efficient of those being morally distasteful as a minimum.

There are numerous barriers and challenges to altering use of those boosters of living standards which directly affect the chemical/physical composition of the atmosphere in a manner that adds to general atmospheric temperature increase.

An immediate challenge is gaining a consensus of the human residents of the Earth on the subject of action needed. An important impediment to that consensus is the many influential human leadership figures who refuse to accept the science surrounding this subject. Whether their positions are based on ignorance, distrust, selfishness, religious belief or clinical psychosis they will continue to present a threat to the long term future of human civilization as we know it. Until they can become credible participants in executing solutions important parts of the world community will avoid taking critical steps to ensure the survival of our kind.

Ed Weldon

We'll survive as a species.

The ever higher standards of living are a major part of the problem. We've become spoiled, insolent brats. The poor in the US live like kings and queens compared to the norm just 150 years ago.

Quality of life and standards of living are relative. The less we have, the less it takes to make us happy. I live a fairly uncluttered life and don't aspire to own fancy, expensive things. I like it that way...............I'm still spoiled compared to my great grandparents.

I suspect that at some point in our future, before CO2 kills us, something is going to come along and drastically reduce the number of humans on the planet. I'm hoping that those of us that are left will realize, that as a species, we overplayed our hand.

I'm just rambling along Ed, not trying to take part in the current argument.

Kramarat (and anyone else for whom I still have credibility) -- Happiness vs. standard of living in humans is not a function with a continuously positive slope. But it is hard to convince most people at the level of middle class USA of that kind of relationship. And then there are plenty among us who get themselves into a situation where their H vs SOL function has nasty steps. (If my pay drops by 25% I won't be able to pay my mortgage, health insurance, cell phone bill or whatever).

But you are right. Cultural anthropologists have studied this relationship and have found plenty of examples of cultures which have much lower SOL than us are happier.

One reasonably credible future scenario of our planet undergoing a warming event similar to what researchers have uncovered in our planet's ancient history goes something like this:

Air temperatures at high latitudes eventually melt permafrost releasing its content of methane. Likely sometime in the later part of this century at the rate we are moving today. My two sons and their wives will be dead. But the grandchildren?

Methane has many times the "warming effect" of CO2; but also rapidly reacts with oxygen. Current models suggest persistence of methane is in the range of a few years while CO2 lasts hundreds or thousands of years. The rapid release of methane raises global temperatures in temperate regions turning much of the arable land into deserts and making climate temperatures too hot for any human habitation that isn't supported by substantial technology. This will be the most painful period for humanity and substantial conflict will occur as people fight for access to remaining usable land or perish from starvation.

Planet history shows massive species extinction in such periods. But humans will have the benefit of technology and substantial resources to enable moderate numbers of them to establish and refine living conditions and agriculture at high latitudes. It is certainly probable that the remaining human communities will persist in relative isolation and under a substantially reduced set of available material and energy resources. It is also reasonable to assume that population groups that survive and evolve in the centuries and possibly millennia it takes for the Earth to start cooling will lose most of the previous world's history, culture and technology. Some losses will come from a lack of need and others will suffer at the hands of self induced "dark ages" born of retreat from science and logic into some kind of religious framework for living that chooses to destroy trappings of a lost past.

But in general it's reasonable to expect some human groups to survive and repopulate a cooling Earth albeit lacking many of the mineral resources that fueled the first blooming of human civilization. What will these second cycle human beings be like? Interesting point of conjecture.......Ed Weldon

I'll always enjoy your point of view Ed.

I try not to worry too much. We know that stars don't last forever....................our sun is a star.

We know that we live on a finite speck of dust somewhere in an endless universe where no other signs of life seem to exist.

Why worry?

The only thing that drives us is our ego and our insistence that we go on forever.

Every other species on the planet, but us, has adapted and survived................or not. We have become preoccupied with arguing, fighting and killing each other.............................we deserve whatever we get. It's been hard earned.

This is thinking for a distant future - GA.

The restart will be with iron and steel - readily available on many places.

Primitive furnaces for reduction need a bit of knowledge and a group of 3 to 4 to erect, dry and load with ore and charcoal. Plus some cooling time.

But there may be something happening that is much more devastating than pure warming and coastline drowning:

If the oceans warm sufficiently then the accumulated Methane-Hydrate will melt and come up in a rush.

This will trigger a big jump in temperature with largely unknown consequences.

I do not see this as a real danger but it is speculated about.

Maybe the last time this happened was near 300 million years back at the end of Permian and beginning of Triassic period.

I would not spend any money in CO2 capture as long as we do know nothing if we will have a considerable effect and if we can afford this and if it is useful.

What is done today is like in Don Quixote the last knight that did fight against windmills.

RHABE

Ed you're trying for a home run

if we simply concentrated on increasing the efficiency of energy use & the reduction of harmful emissions, the rest would take care of itself [get on base]

focusing of co2 makes for a nice sound bite & as we see precludes any informed opinion or discussion

similarly the current political climate is one of diversion, anything to avoid the hard work of increasing the efficiency of government,

it is not realistic to continue indulging the tea party pipedream of dismantling government, which would be a homerun in their estimation. we see the rebuke of this nonsense in wisconsin & ohio, not to mention the harm the political theater of the manufactured debt ceiling crisis has done to the markets.

the tactic trying to bring back the cold war by painting anyone who opposes the party of no a communist is a classic

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This "discussion" have devolved to the point of useless drivel, and insults.

Bye Bye.

I must have missed it....where were the insults?

You wrote, "Will humanity survive climate change?"

I think so. We have been doing just that for over 3 million years and those changes have been very drastic!

We either will............or we won't. I don't think the earth cares if we do or not.

Some major events in which man played no role.

Assuming that climate change is caused by humans, it's not going to stop. So arguing about it is kind of pointless.

I've been reading along this thread, and noticed that all of the posts, from both sides of the issue, are coming from the westernized world. It's funny.

Do we really think we'll be able to say to the countries that are now growing and manufacturing..............that they can't? Yeah right.

We had an industrial revolution that made us rich.......................you can't.

We have been driving cars for 100 years....................you can't.

We burned ourselves to prosperity.......................you can't.

We've contributed to global climate change................you can't..........you must find a clean way to do everything that we used to do.

Ain't gonna happen. Learning to adapt to a changing climate, regardless of the cause, is what is ultimately going to happen. I think attempts to reverse any changes are folly. Manufacturing, fossil fuel power generation, etc. are going to be happening somewhere on the planet...............for a long time. We just happen to all share the same atmosphere. Tough luck!

Not responding to you specifically AH, just piggybacking on your post.

What should we do if we know that the climate will drift towards warm:

what if towards cold:

this may change pretty fast, nobody knows.

In total there will not be a coordinated action nor there will be enough money to support this action.

So be prepared to move either north or south.

Our early ancestors 4 million years ago likely were forced to leave their paradise by the re-watering of the Mediterranean sea , that had been dry for millions of years, generating a huge heat-trap with salty deserts 4000 meter down!

The next big move was as our big-brained more modern ancestors were driven from their habitats by the first of the modern ice-ages some 1.2 million years ago.

Any of the 7 or so ice ages and interglacials renewed the necessity to move.

Many of the smaller excursions we do only know from history.

Why did the Doric people leave their unknown origins and conquered Greece 2000BC? Climate

Why did the sea-people leave their lands and devastated the then known world 1200 BC? -Likely volcano Santorin explosion.

What did drive German and Gallian and Celtic and Helvetic tribes to unknown new frontiers and battle with Cesar and others: climatic change.

So this will continue.

You have small (?) chance to survive at your present locality and an equal (?) small chance to thrive at a new locality. This is nature and natures principle of survival of the fittest (i doubt?, see Steven Cunnanes book: Survival of the fattest).

I know minimum 20 causes of climatic change or influence some direct some inverse some with large time-constants. Don't tell me that these can be simulated with any degree of confidence.

Better think about an action that is much more powerful than burying CO2. Seeding SO2 into the higher atmosphere for cooling mother Earth? Spoiling glaciers with soot to achieve warming? Tiling complete Tibet with highly reflecting aluminum to change Earth's albedo by near 5%?

Strain your brain! It may be useful!

RHABE

It's interesting that if you want to 'controversial' - particularly to get Americans excited - you use the antiquated term "warming". The 'thermo' part, sans the 'dynamics'.

I note the link uses the more modern - not so misdirecting term - "climate change" and the writer uses the 'flat earth' version in quotes initially.

Much of the above makes me wonder if science understanding froze at some point in American party politics about 20 years ago. I'm surprised this 'warming' knee-jerk can still be tweaked with such a 'go for the throat' result.

Amusing - fun thread

It is amusing.

I was wondering today who it was that first coined the term, "Man made global warming".

I think it's, "man made", and "anthropogenic", that gets everyone so excited.

I was also wondering if the argument would be so heated if those terms were left out.

I mean, why can't the climate change scientists, Al Gore, and the rest, just name the theoretical culprit.........................Carbon Dioxide (CO2)?

Oh, that's right. Someone must be blamed. Someone must pay. Someone must be taxed.

Plus it would be pretty boring speech if they were to stand up and just say:

"That's right kids. The same colorless, odorless gas that makes bubbles in your soda pop is going to destroy the planet. Yep, the same gas we exhale is going to eventually cause catastrophic planet wide mayhem. Thanks for listening. End of story."

The reality is even Al doesn't actually understand science (or math). Couldn't grasp that CO2 is part, not all, of the phenomena. Nor that it would manifest 'dynamically' a long way ahead of 'thermally'. Ironic as it's said Roger Revelle got him interested in the whole 'cause'. And this may answer you question.

Al Gore believes he was abducted by Aliens from Alpha Centari...and subjected to repeated anal probing. They were looking for his brain....and finally found it. He had been sitting on it.

Al Gore is a master con man....look at how many people he suckered into believing this stuff.

Clear proof he thinks its really a crock. You don't see him curbing his life of wretched excess do you?

Pretty wild stuff. The entire climate change/global warming story plays out like a made for TV movie.....................and continues to.

Maybe some day someone will write a book. It will include the entire cast of characters from both sides of the debate, what lies were told and what is scientifically accurate, etc.

It would be a good read. Other than that, the real world debate rages on, and it looks and sounds a lot like this thread.

So what about those of us in the third party of this issue? That is those of us who want a warmer planet.

Who is looking out for our wants and needs?

Who cares about our reasonings for why we think a warmer planet is a good thing?

Just asking before I go out and light my tire pile and most recent pickup load of assorted plastics on fire!

I think this "debate" is seeing to your needs perfectly. By all means, enjoy your fires while you can. It's a bit hard to know if folks will be able to have such entertainments much past ~2040.

Of course one issue with your warmer planet just might be the reduction in liveable "dry" land should there be a serious melt down of the glaciers. The Netherlands just might cease to exist and Manhattan might be a much smaller island. The outer banks off North Carolina and Long Beach Island off New Jersey as well as the state of Florida might just become memories. Then as the one post pointed out there could again be fighting over available land all due to climate changes.

Bring on "Water World"

do we get gills too?

Table 1. Estimated potential maximum sea-level rise from the total melting of present-day glaciers.

[Modified from Williams and Hall (1993). See also http://pubs.usgs.gov/factsheet/fs50-98/]

Figure 3. Red shows areas along the Gulf Coast and East Coast of the United States that would be flooded by a 10-meter rise in sea level. Population figures for 1996 (U.S. Bureau of the Census, unpublished data, 1998) indicate that a 10-meter rise in sea level would flood approximately 25 percent of the Nation's population.

Worse than I thought according to this website.

This is beyond funny. You obviously don't realize multiple meters of ocean rise is a massive math bungle - based first in ignorance that floating ice displaces water, then 'salvaged' by numbers done on a Mercator projection - which truly equals 'flat earth'.

Lack of ocean rise is one of the reasons "Climate Change" is held as BS in many circles. All you are doing by raising this erroneous journalistic alarm-ism, is undoing your own position/credibility and feeding the opposition.

But by all means, carry on - it's great fun.

There are problems with the calculation of ocean water rising from glacier and antarctic ice melt but it has nothing to do with ice being less dense than water. The arctic ice cap lies mostly over an ocean and will not change water levels. (Polar bears will have to adapt to land but that's a different problem.) The antarctic ice cap and by definition all glaciers are on land and are not displacing ocean water levels.

And the true scale of 'fresh water' volume to the ocean surface area is ....?

I did this much earlier here at CR4 but since you want to see it again....

The surface area of the Earth's oceans is about 3.6 E 8 km squared. From Spinco's citation the total volume of frozen fresh water is 3.23 E 7 km cubed. You calculate this ratio and you get about a 90 meter rise.

Now the real problems with this simple calculation is that the weight of the antarctic ice causes the land mass to sink. Releasing this pressure will clearly change the effective volume of the ocean and ice melt. Also erosion from melting will simultaneously fill the ocean with more silt, but more to the point erosion will widen the ocean area as will flooding low level lands. Lastly global warming is not expected to raise the temperatures at the poles above water's melting point for all days of a year. So some water will always be trapped as land bound ice/snow somewhere.

I fail to see how you take issue with my posting. I did not try to evoke humor out of the situation. I simply stated what I took to be a major concern of global warming which is the melting of polar icecaps and glaciers and the attendant rise in sea level. I would think that you meant to take issue with post #160 and "water world" or post 133 with a desire for a warmer climate. If you care to review my post 161 in response to "water world' I do take the matter seriously and since I reside in coastal New Jersey I am very much concerned about any rise in sea level. I believe you meant to post against one of them.

__________________________________________

"Before you embark on a journey of revenge, dig two graves."
- Confucius

"A grudge often harms the one who carries it more than the one to whom it is against" -Confucius

No - sorry - but wet feet and real estate values are zip compared to what will happen when the oceans run out of floating ice.

I simply find it funny, that people would argue about oceans rising, given that is just about money and money will be the least of the problems.

It's as if no one has noticed the storm that just ran up the coast of the US 'precedes' ocean rise. Where is the sense of 'dynamics' in the perspective? Where is the appreciation of energy, time lines and order of events.

Why on earth would you assume your house will exist by the time the alleged ocean rise reaches it, to me, is frankly comical.

But think of all the new ocean front property that will become available to those who were never able to afford it before..