How Global Warming Really Works

[Sean Renaud]

Bullshit? It's called science, and of course I believe it. Even scientists who are concerned about global warming believe it. It's been proven by satellite observation, and it should come as no surprise to anyone. It's long been known that plants love CO2.

No scientists don't. You found an article by someone who's hardly qualified making that claim. 17% greener? That would be something people would be screaming about all day, why is it only effecting deserts? Our crop yields should be way up if this was true.

Trust me, this is bullshit.

 

[haurni]

And we may lose vast areas of the planet that are currently used for growing food. Most crops grow under very specific conditions and the conditions that give us access to Antarctica may very well rob us of access to North America.

This is a very important point. Changing climatic conditions alter the length and timing of growing seasons and patterns of rainfall (thus increasing erosion), while warming increases the severity of storms, meaning significant likelihood of crop failures for a variety of reasons. Some areas may become more accessible to growing certain crops, but at the same time as we are losing other areas. As well, the soils in these new areas may not be suitable, given that they are adapted to different conditions - e.g. shifting the grain belt north pushes it up into the Canadian Shield, which has very thin and acidic soil (where there isn't bare rock). You also need to move all your farming infrastructure along with it. Native animal and (especially) plant species are also unlikely to migrate (spread) as fast as the climate changes, unbalancing the ecosystems and accelerating the trend toward monoculture, which in turn increases the vulnerability of our food supply to pests and blights. Warming the arctic may make new land arable at the cost of releasing all the CO2 that's contained in the permafrost, accelerating the warming trend. Not to mention the social catastrophe caused by all the people living in equatorial regions and those being flooded by rising sea levels moving into other regions.

Past climate changes have typically occurred over thousands of years and have always resulted in some species becoming extinct and others flourishing. When you compress that into a couple of hundred years, you're looking at even greater upheaval. Yes, the earth will survive, but it will be significantly changed and whether or not our society will survive those changes is an entirely different question. To my mind, the fact that global changes of this magnitude might happen is reason enough to act, but humans are particularly stubborn that way. Look at all the people who live in Tokyo and L.A. or around volcanos or low-lying areas that are susceptible to flooding and tsunamis. There's some serious wishful (i.e. irrational) thinking going on with the 'business as usual' approach. In essence, it works out to "I'm going to get what I can while I can and hope that I don't have to deal with the problem".

 

[Sean Renaud]

^^^ Well said.

Though as a Californian I find the frequency and intensity of earthquakes plus our precautions to be good enough that it's still worth the constant sunshine. I'd rather an earthquake every couple of decades that may or may not hit my part of the state than live in a part of the country that has Hurricane SEASON every fucking year and it's not a matter of if, it's a matter of how many and how bad.

 

[unregistered]

 

[toubab]

No scientists don't. You found an article by someone who's hardly qualified making that claim. 17% greener? That would be something people would be screaming about all day, why is it only effecting deserts? Our crop yields should be way up if this was true.

Trust me, this is bullshit.

Now you're talking bullshit. Professor Ranga Myneni of Boston University, Department of Earth & Environment, is highly qualified, for example, to make the claim. And it's not only deserts that are being affected. I suggest you take an hour or so to watch this video lecture by Professor Myneni in order to further your understanding of what is actually occurring on the planet:

https://ecocast.adobeconnect.com/_a...?launcher=false&fcsContent=true&pbMode=normal

Knowledge is a valuable thing. Pursue it.

 

[StrangeLife]

This is a very important point. Changing climatic conditions alter the length and timing of growing seasons and patterns of rainfall (thus increasing erosion), while warming increases the severity of storms, meaning significant likelihood of crop failures for a variety of reasons. Some areas may become more accessible to growing certain crops, but at the same time as we are losing other areas.

But who says that what we have right now is the ideal? Who says it can't be better? Wouldn't it be an amazing coincidence if this exact time in the 3 billion year history of our climate represents the optimal combination?

That's a pretty presumptuous attitude. Change is not necessarily bad.

 

[Sean Renaud]

But who says that what we have right now is the ideal? Who says it can't be better? Wouldn't it be an amazing coincidence if this exact time in the 3 billion year history of our climate represents the optimal combination?

That's a pretty presumptuous attitude. Change is not necessarily bad.

Change is necessarily change however. We've got a pretty good deal going right now. If your not sure what you're doing is going to improve the situation not touching anything is highly advised.

And no it wouldn't be an amazing coincidence if this exact time in the 3 billion year (isn't it 4.5?) history of our climate represents the optimal combination. It would fit fairly well with common fucking sense. It's optimal and that's why we're here. If it wasn't we'd have gone extinct or failed to evolve in the first place. What's ideal for dinosaurs is not ideal for humans, is not ideal for plants, is not ideal for sharks so on and so forth.

 

[trysail]

^^^ Well said.

It's not "Well said."

It's complete bullshit. It's using a scary story in an uninformed and blatant attempt to frighten people into behaving stupidly.

It represents a complete misuse and/or a profound lack of knowledge of probability/statistics.


​

The Precautionary Principle in the absence of quantified risks is equivalent to Pascal’s Wager. It means that the decision is determined entirely by the scariness of the hypotheses being offered rather than the strength of the evidence. Usually a false dilemma is being offered – two scenarios, one scary, one not, when there are many more scenarios possible (and more likely). A better approach to uncertain risks is to develop more flexible resources ready to jump the right way when more information becomes available. Be an adaptable generalist. Creating economic prosperity for the poor would therefore seem to be the priority, as it is applicable to many different problems and scenarios, rather than only one.

The analogy is fairly straightforward. The Precautionary Principle as commonly applied to climate change says that even if you’re not fully convinced that it will definitely happen, if you accept that it might happen, the costs are so high (e.g. Ted Turner’s cannibal scenario) that it’s still the only rational choice to act to prevent it. Pascal’s Wager applied to the Christian afterlife mythology says that even if you’re not fully convinced that it will definitely happen, the costs (eternal torment versus eternal bliss) are so high that the only rational choice is to believe. The distinctive features of the argument are that it offers only two alternatives with the putative costs embedded the hypothesis, and the conclusion arises from the hypothesised costs alone, not the evidence.

http://judithcurry.com/2011/05/28/uncertainty-risk-and-inaction/

Turning Uncertainty into Certainty – Reinventing the Precautionary Principle
by Ben Pile

...the application of the precautionary principle passes weak theoretical risk off as certainty; it turns possibility into story lines, about which ‘something must be done’...

http://www.climate-resistance.org/2012/06/reinventing-precaution.html

It ( cancer ) is, of course, a false analogy but insidiously seductive because of the invocation, manipulation and influence of emotion. When their back is to the wall, desperate polemicists invoke the spectre of catastrophe notwithstanding a total inability to identify a probability. Carrying this to a reductio ad absurdum, no one should ever get on a airplane because of the possibility that the airplane might crash. No one should ever drive an automobile because of the possibility of an accident. Even these examples do not fully convey the absurdity of CAGW analogies of doom because the current state of climatology does not allow even a SWAG estimate of either catastrophic outcomes or the probabilities thereof.

" ...Wrong information is usually worse than no information. If you have no information about the stock market, you may not bet. If you have wrong information about the stock market, you’ll lose a bundle. If you don’t know if a snake shaking its rattle is poisonous, you’ll back off. If you have wrong information about snakes, you’ll get bit... "

 

[phrodeau]

Say eighty years ago, there was a Terraforming Party with candidates promising a greener, warmer nation with the applied science of greenhouse gas emissions. Not one of you would have voted for them. Yet here you are supporting the direct results of a century of industrial pollution as a great thing for mankind.

And trysail wants to discuss scare tactics? Let's start with the ones foretelling total economic collapse if we ban incandescent light bulbs.

 

[thør]

And trysail wants to discuss scare tactics? Let's start with the ones foretelling total economic collapse if we ban incandescent light bulbs.

A boon for the light bulb manufacturers!

 

[toubab]

Say eighty years ago, there was a Terraforming Party with candidates promising a greener, warmer nation with the applied science of greenhouse gas emissions. Not one of you would have voted for them. Yet here you are supporting the direct results of a century of industrial pollution as a great thing for mankind.

I'm not supporting adding additional CO2 to the atmosphere, and I'm not supporting subtracting CO2 from the atmosphere. I'm merely pointing out the main result, so far, of adding CO2 to the atmosphere has been greening of the planet.

 

[StrangeLife]

Change is necessarily change however. We've got a pretty good deal going right now. If your not sure what you're doing is going to improve the situation not touching anything is highly advised.

And no it wouldn't be an amazing coincidence if this exact time in the 3 billion year (isn't it 4.5?) history of our climate represents the optimal combination. It would fit fairly well with common fucking sense. It's optimal and that's why we're here. If it wasn't we'd have gone extinct or failed to evolve in the first place. What's ideal for dinosaurs is not ideal for humans, is not ideal for plants, is not ideal for sharks so on and so forth.

The climate had nothing to do with the extinction of the dinos and the subsequent emerging of the mammals. As far as we know, it was based on pure coincidence (one dominant species was killed off by an extinction event just as another was ready to take over).

Humans can thrive in all climate zones, but physiologically we tend to deal better with heat than cold. We would probably had done well in the jurassic climate... if we could have avoided getting eaten.

 

[phrodeau]

I'm not supporting adding additional CO2 to the atmosphere, and I'm not supporting subtracting CO2 from the atmosphere. I'm merely pointing out the main result, so far, of adding CO2 to the atmosphere has been greening of the planet.

Yes, it's called "the greenhouse effect", and a greenhouse is where plants grow very well. But if you've ever worked in a greenhouse, you know how uncomfortable they can be.

 

[toubab]

Yes, it's called "the greenhouse effect", and a greenhouse is where plants grow very well. But if you've ever worked in a greenhouse, you know how uncomfortable they can be.

Not nearly as uncomfortable as being in freezing weather with no way to get out of it. And yes, I've been there.

 

[thør]

Not nearly as uncomfortable as being in freezing weather with no way to get out of it. And yes, I've been there.

Did you die?

 

[toubab]

Did you die?

Only a little.

 

[Saint Peter]

Humans will be gone by 2040.

Yeah, we fucked it up that bad.

 

[thør]

Humans will be gone by 2040.

Yeah, we fucked it up that bad.

And the Himalayan Glaciers will be gone by 2035!

:snerk:

 

[Sean Renaud]

The climate had nothing to do with the extinction of the dinos and the subsequent emerging of the mammals. As far as we know, it was based on pure coincidence (one dominant species was killed off by an extinction event just as another was ready to take over).

Humans can thrive in all climate zones, but physiologically we tend to deal better with heat than cold. We would probably had done well in the jurassic climate... if we could have avoided getting eaten.

No, no, the prevailing theory has everything to do with climate. Granted there are competing theories but the main one is climate. (At least as far as this conversation needs to be concerned) And mammals took quite a while to take over depending on where you're talking.

No, humans do not thrive (naturally) in all climate zones. We have no reason to believe we could even breathe the air from the Mesozoic Climate (you keep using Jurassic, what is the reason for that? Is there something particular about it that I'm unaware of?) Avoiding getting eaten would likely be easy enough.

 

[haurni]

It's complete bullshit. It's using a scary story in a uninformed and blatant attempt to frighten people into behaving stupidly.

It represents a complete misuse and/or a profound lack of knowledge of probability/statistics.

For what it's worth, I have two decades of experience as a research scientist in experimental psychology and neuroscience and as a biostatistician. My knowledge of risk management specifically is only rudimentary, but I do have a decent knowledge of statistics and probability.

In the article you cite from 'Climate Etc.' the question being discussed is whether or not uncertainty about the exact parameters of the risk function justifies action or inaction. The 'climate change denier' says either that, a) because we don't know the nature of the probability distribution function, we shouldn't waste resources on something that may not happen, or b) even if climate change occurs there is not likely to be any significant negative outcome so we don't need to be concerned about it. The 'climate change supporter', on the other hand, says that, while we may not be able to quantify the exact risks, there is a 'reasonable' probability, based on evidence, that bad things could happen. If this is granted, then a risk assessment approach indicates that a catastrophic risk, even with a low probability, should be addressed. This is why programs exist to search for near-Earth asteroids (which you will doubtless consider a waste of money), and why insurance companies continue to offer their products.

For something like climate change that is incremental, the longer one waits, the greater the cost to intervene (if indeed such a thing is possible [e.g. geoengineering], which is also debatable). This is not to say that we should immediately divert the entire global GDP to arresting climate change, but the sooner efforts are made, the less likely it is that the bad things, if they happen, will be really bad. On the positive side, investing in clean technologies is likely to reduce waste and a dependence on foreign and/or strategic resources, reduce the health costs associated with pollution, and improve energy efficiency. To me there is enough evidence that there are significant risks (non-zero probability of occurrence and potentially high cost of outcome) and so we should take action, but it also makes sense to take action in ways that will benefit us even if the negatives don't materialize. I consider this 'behaving prudently' rather than 'stupidly'.

 

[haurni]

The climate had nothing to do with the extinction of the dinos and the subsequent emerging of the mammals. As far as we know, it was based on pure coincidence (one dominant species was killed off by an extinction event just as another was ready to take over).

Humans can thrive in all climate zones, but physiologically we tend to deal better with heat than cold. We would probably had done well in the jurassic climate... if we could have avoided getting eaten.

The asteroid impact that caused the extinction of the dinosaurs is hypothesized to have created a 'nuclear winter' scenario that obscured the sun over the entire globe for several years, leading to mass starvation and breakdown of the food chain (e.g. photosynthetic plankton in the oceans). Some creatures that did not require large amounts of food and were particularly adaptable were able to survive.

Yes, humans can survive, but this isn't just about humans. The entire food chain depends on many other creatures - bacteria, worms, insects, birds, bats, etc. - that are responsible for, if nothing else, pollinating our crops and protecting them from being devoured by insects. I mentioned issues of soil compatability, migration of non-crop plants and animals, and rainfall patterns in a previous post, all of which will also affect the ability of those crops to survive.

 

[Sean Renaud]

^^^ What, you say a giant rock might have thrown up dust that caused climate change?! Insanity. It's almost like you know what you're talking about.

Lets not even start getting in on the entire complexity of the ecosystem.

 

[StrangeLife]

No, no, the prevailing theory has everything to do with climate. Granted there are competing theories but the main one is climate. (At least as far as this conversation needs to be concerned) And mammals took quite a while to take over depending on where you're talking.

No, humans do not thrive (naturally) in all climate zones. We have no reason to believe we could even breathe the air from the Mesozoic Climate (you keep using Jurassic, what is the reason for that? Is there something particular about it that I'm unaware of?) Avoiding getting eaten would likely be easy enough.

As far I can tell, the most popular theories support a sudden extinction event. Not a slow climate change.

Why the Jurassic? The earth before the Jurassic age was quite different from the way it is today and it would take a lot more than a little CO2 to recreate the conditions back in the Triassic. We would also need to move all our landmasses together in a Pangaea and lower the sea-level with a few hundred feet for instance. As far as breathing the air, I see no immediate problem. CO2 is not poisonous for humans and the oxygen level was twice as high as today.

Without using tools humans are very fragile and can only exists in a subtropical and tropical climate. Even a temperate climate is too cold for us without clothing. But with our tools we can exist everywhere - even in space and under the sea. A minor climate change is no challenge for us.

 

[StrangeLife]

Yes, humans can survive, but this isn't just about humans. The entire food chain depends on many other creatures - bacteria, worms, insects, birds, bats, etc. - that are responsible for, if nothing else, pollinating our crops and protecting them from being devoured by insects. I mentioned issues of soil compatability, migration of non-crop plants and animals, and rainfall patterns in a previous post, all of which will also affect the ability of those crops to survive.

Increased CO2 level in the atmosphere doesn't increase the temperature evenly in all climate zones - it kinda evens out the differences. So the effect would be most prevalent in the colder areas and less felt in places that are warm already. The net effect could thus easily be better conditions for life... apart from the fact that plants and crops love CO2 and will grow a lot better.

 

[Sean Renaud]

Considering the difference between the Triassic and the Jurassic is an arbitrary line drawn by a mass extinction event. A comet hitting the earth would have caused almost immediate climate change, not gradual. . .excuse me if I assume you really don't know much about what your talking.

CO2 isn't poisonous to humans? Even though you can get CO2 poisoning? And die from it?

Keeping the right PPM is kinda important.