Originally Posted by Eric the Green

Your so-called facts are insulting to anyone with any degree of sense. Science shows that if we keep allowing CO2 to rise above 350, we will cook the planet and kill off species and all the other harmful effects of global warming you ought to know about by now (but don't apparently). What happened billions of years ago is not relevant, except to make yourself a laughing stock and a pro-growth fundie, as you and Copperfield are doing.

I don't know. He is right that life will not die off entirely with a return to an atmosphere where a lot less carbon was still in the atmosphere. I don't know that he is appreciative of the mass extinctions that tend to occur at the end of any given age, with major changes of climate. I'm beginning to think in terms of soft landing. Those who don't want to act will block action until the poles melt and we do go into hothouse mode. A lot of places are pumping their aquifers dry. Climate zones ideal for growing a particular crop are migrating uphill and towards the poles. The human populations that can't live where they are are going to want to migrate to where they might survive.

The Pentagon sees it as a security problem. They're thinking about it, but aren't sure exactly what form it will take it. It is also an ecological, economic and political problem.

But seemingly one shouldn't put off until tomorrow what can be put off until the next awakening.

Bob Butler 54

Originally Posted by Eric the Green

This is Copperfield's chief policy proposal; he's made it many times before.

Thanks, Eric !!! I hope his methods are more along the lines of "attrition" . Population control is a very hard thing to argue for from the right. They are even walking back on birth control in some far right segments (Santorum). Santorum needs to be careful he doesn't fall off the edge of the Earth ..

Originally Posted by Eric the Green

He posted numbers that are nonsense to anyone with a brain, after not reading valid scientific numbers that I posted in the links. His post does not deserve an intelligent reply, and so Grey's response was perfectly appropriate. Why are you continuing to debate this? You'll lose credibility if you do.

Worth discussing on the other thread. Perhaps I will. But for starters, I don't think my own consciousness is a fantasy. The "way the world works" according to you, apparently, wants to just forget about the one doing the fantasizing and observing of how the world works. It's your choice. Keep the spirit alive.

YOu think unless you have all your dirty oil and coal and fracking and nucs that screw up the environment, that we will have to go back in caves. That's pretty extreme and fundie if you ask me (I know, you didn't ask me ). Stop spewing hot air and get back to reality. It would help the global temperature.

Your so-called facts are insulting to anyone with any degree of sense. Science shows that if we keep allowing CO2 to rise above 350, we will cook the planet and kill off species and all the other harmful effects of global warming you ought to know about by now (but don't apparently). What happened billions of years ago is not relevant, except to make yourself a laughing stock and a pro-growth fundie, as you and Copperfield are doing.

Careful Eric, you are starting to froth at the mouth again. No, the web sites you included are rich in political agenda and as such speak the language of politics instead of science (just like you do). It's easy to see your attraction to them.

Actual science looks more like this or this or this or this.

I know some of those are heavy on math but maybe pictures are more your speed?

Originally Posted by Copperfield

Actual science looks more like this or this or this or this.

I know some of those are heavy on math but maybe pictures are more your speed?

Before you answer, Eric, remember the left is fact based.

James50

Originally Posted by Aramea

Thanks, Eric !!! I hope his methods are more along the lines of "attrition" . Population control is a very hard thing to argue for from the right. They are even walking back on birth control in some far right segments (Santorum). Santorum needs to be careful he doesn't fall off the edge of the Earth ..

I find it interesting that twice now in as many posts you have attempted to apply a standard right/left paradigm to what you feel I believe (or what Eric tells you I believe). So tell me, who do you believe I will be voting for in this election?

Originally Posted by Odin

"When does life cease" is the wrong question. The correct question is "how high does the CO2 have to get before we flip from the Ice-House World we evolved in, and are adapted for, to a Greenhouse World like in the early Tertiary that will be very uncomfortable for us"?

Ahhh but that is a radically different argument Odin. The extinguishing of all life on the planet does sound a lot more imposing and threatening than "we may be personally inconvenienced by climate change" doesn't it?

So let me ask you a few questions:

1) What does "uncomfortable" mean?

2) Uncomfortable for whom? Put in another way, if the climate changes (which it always does anyway regardless of human interference) and makes life uncomfortable for Americans but more comfortable for India, China and Africa, is that important? If life is made uncomfortable for humans but more comfortable for other species... Well you get the idea.

Originally Posted by Copperfield

If life is made uncomfortable for humans but more comfortable for other species... Well you get the idea.

I don't think being extinct is more comfortable Copperfield, do you?

Originally Posted by Copperfield

the web sites you included are rich in political agenda and as such speak the language of politics instead of science

No yur wrong...

Originally Posted by James50

Before you answer, Eric, remember the left is fact based.

James50

Why should I "answer?" There was no question.

Copperfield asked me a question about what level of co2 scientists think is dangerous. The answer is 350 or above. I guess Copperfield was extending the issue to "all life at all times." But that is obviously not the issue. It's just Copperfield being Copperfield. A copperhead snake, maybe

Well, I guess he answered his own question. It's a trap!

With the likes of copperfield around, this thread is starting to feel a lot like TOL, from the reverse side.

Right now (on TOL) we're doing the Genesis vs evolution trip. (trap)

Originally Posted by Copperfield

I find it interesting that twice now in as many posts you have attempted to apply a standard right/left paradigm to what you feel I believe (or what Eric tells you I believe). So tell me, who do you believe I will be voting for in this election?

It is possible that I have mischaracterized your position, of course. I, myself, am not easy to place on the left/right scale. Obviously, the posts that I have read have led me to the conclusion that you are to the right of center. I have no idea who you will be voting for. Tell you what, in lieu of a frustrating game of "I Spy", why don't you just tell me?

Originally Posted by Aramea

It is possible that I have mischaracterized your position, of course. I, myself, am not easy to place on the left/right scale. Obviously, the posts that I have read have led me to the conclusion that you are to the right of center. I have no idea who you will be voting for. Tell you what, in lieu of a frustrating game of "I Spy", why don't you just tell me?

I don't vote since you asked. I don't play the game.

Originally Posted by Copperfield

I don't vote since you asked. I don't play the game.

You might want to spell it out diretly because Youtube wants to put up a bullshitte screen before anyone entering from here is allowed to see anything there. F---'em. :

Originally Posted by herbal tee

You might want to spell it out diretly because Youtube wants to put up a bullshitte screen before anyone entering from here is allowed to see anything there. F---'em. :

Looks like someone in your neighborhood really likes Youtube.

The Big Picture

Originally Posted by Odin

The Big Picture

Nice charts. I guess your implication is that we are looking at too short a period. Also, I have to point out that you are depending on land temperature records. The satellite records are somewhat different. You know of the urban heat island effect.

But what do you make of the Greenland ice core readings? I mean if you want to go back, lets go back. These are pure data sets with no models or computers. The famed hockey stick is only a blip. Can you explain that record?

James50

Originally Posted by Odin

I would have thought they could have produced a better case for the skeptics on this one. Given the 11 year solar cycles, one should be able to produce cherry picked periods showing intervals of lowering temperatures, with each such period having a higher temperature average than the one before. The skeptics do tend to cherry pick specific timing intervals where temperatures have gone down. Still, the way to do this is to plot from the high point in one solar cycle to the low point in the following cycle.

The diagram is thus a maybe sort of valid parody of a broad type of skeptic argument, but I don't recognize it as an accurate representation of any argument used by a real skeptic.

Bob Butler 54

Some interesting charts, James. One response is to go to a chart that shows even longer term trends. Google for "wiki 65 myr climate change rev" to find one such.

There are several well known mechanisms at work over the time period covered by the skeptic's charts. Unfortunately, the skeptic's text does not identify any of them.

Ice ages become possible when continents cover or surround the polar regions. Only then can major ice sheets form. On ultra slow time scales where the movement of continents come into play, ice ages are rare as the poles are usually in open ocean. Thus, ice ages do not dominate Earth's climate.

When the poles are not in open water, as has been the case recently, the Milankovitch Cycles are the major influence over whether the glaciers are growing or shrinking. The spinning Earth's orbit shifts much as a spinning top does, allowing the planet to hold or not hold heat depending on the shape of the orbit, the degree of axial tilt, and other similar factors. Of course, the skeptic either did not know about these, or didn't bother to explain them, he just treated them as unexplained noise to confuse the issue and make the hockey stick look small. And, yes, the hockey stick is small when compared to a glacial / interglacial swing.

Another major trend visible on the 65 Million Year chart is plants taking CO2 out of the atmosphere. There has been a broad very slow drop in temperature from 50 million years ago to recent times. One might ask how much of this carbon is being returned to the atmosphere to judge how temperatures might respond.

One other factor the skeptic doesn't mention is the thawing or glaciation of the arctic and antarctic. Ice ages come and go when both poles are frozen. When the poles thaw, there is a four degree Celsius jump as the darker planet starts holding more heat. One of the problems to consider is that the hockey stick is bringing temperatures up mighty close to the theoretical pole thawing point, and the real ice is reflecting (or no longer reflecting) this.

So, yes, if one looks at the long term histories, there are many forces at work, but these forces are known, at least to those who care to dig a bit into the science. The broad propaganda technique of throwing in lots of data, making no attempt to explain the data, to put it in context, is rhetorical garbage. If one is going to discuss the hockey stick, one might give honor to the environment under which the hockey stick appears. In the time scale of the hockey stick, the continents are not moving, and the Earth's orbit is essentially fixed. Of course shifting time scales to the point that the longer term factors are in play does effect the data, but has nothing to do with why the hockey stick is the hockey stick.

RealClimate recently posted an article, Global Temperatures, Volcanic Eruptions, and Trees that Didn’t Bark. There have been problems with inconsistency in tree ring data. The authors propose that when a winter is cold enough, there is no tree ring produced, thus the ring record in one place can easily get out of sync with the ring record at another location. In short, the simple assumption of one year one ring isn't always true.

It's not a decisive paper which will turn the tides of any debate, but it is an example of refining how one views questionable data. So often you here the skeptics say this data is inconsistent or hard to understand, therefore we'll ignore the data and reject the entire field of climate science. Sometimes one has to look at exactly why the data looks fuzzy and refine how it is handled.

Bob Butler 54

NASA mission calculates global ice melt and rising sea levels

A while ago on this thread, melting ice was an issue. NASA has had satellites up tasked to monitoring the melting, with a new report out. The melting is there, but not as much as some earlier estimates.

It also seems that if one measures the retreat of the easiest to access Himalayan glaciers, one is measuring the lowest glaciers that are effected most by changing temperatures. Extrapolating ice loss in the lower glaciers to higher up glaciers didn't produce an accurate result.

Seems obvious with 20 20 hindsight. I guess that's why there are satellites.

2011 Updates to model-data comparisons

2011 is in the books, and the temperature curves are being ticked out another year...

Great article from that rightwing rag "Der Speigel" about the global warming scam...

http://www.spiegel.de/international/...813814,00.html

Pic I found on the Alberta tar-sands:

It is sadly ironic how many people don't realize that rather than being a cure for peak oil tar sand mining is actually a symptom of peak oil.

Originally Posted by herbal tee

It is sadly ironic how many people don't realize that rather than being a cure for peak oil tar sand mining is actually a symptom of peak oil.

Exactly!!!!!

Originally Posted by herbal tee

It is sadly ironic how many people don't realize that rather than being a cure for peak oil tar sand mining is actually a symptom of peak oil.

At what point will those doing it realize there's no way to make money off it long-term, regardless of the price of oil? (Not that such dilemmas stopped big business before.)