Climate change naysayers

[Boozy]

Time for a Boozy rant! :)

Despite a strong consensus among the world's leading climate scientists, including the National Academy of Sciences, the American Meteorological Society, and the UN founded Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, there are still a large number of global warming naysayers. These are people who refuse to look at all the data, read the reports, or even read newspaper articles on the subject.

Not into science? No problem, I can understand that. There are only so many hours in the day. But if they don't want to do their own research, why would someone feel they know enough to disagree with the vast majority of scientists who have done the research?

I understand the natural proclivity towards denying human-caused climate change. The consequences are frightening. To do anything about the problem is expensive and requires major lifestyle changes. Its not a pretty picture.

But burying your head in the sand and hoping it all goes away is not going to change the harsh reality we all face.

Agree, disagree, discuss. I'd love to hear what everyone thinks.

[Lace Neil Singer]

My view is that all the people waving their arms and shouting, "We're going to destroy the planet!" are talking BULLSHIT. We can't destroy the planet. We've only been here five minutes; the dinosaurs were there for billions of years, and they didn't manage it so it's very egotistical to assume we can. -.-

However, we can save the human race for destruction, which to me is what helping climate change is all about. We are NOT saving the planet; we are saving OURSELVES.

[Boozy]

We can't destroy the planet. We've only been here five minutes; the dinosaurs were there for billions of years, and they didn't manage it so it's very egotistical to assume we can.

Dinosaurs were fortunately not able to industrialize, probably due to their pea-sized brains and lack of opposable thumbs. Dinosaurs, despite being given a very generous allotment of time here on earth, failed to (among other things):

- Achieve massive deforestation preventing the absorption of excess carbon dioxide from the atmosphere
- Refine and burn fossil fuels, releasing previously unprecedented levels of carbon dioxide and methane into the atmosphere
- Drive SUVs

It is frankly impossible to be too "egotistical" in evaluating the impact of human industrialization on the planet. Nothing in the past 4.5 billion years of the earth's lifespan has prepared the planet for the onslaught of human progress.

Edited to add: I completely agree that the planet itself will not be destroyed by climate change - it could just become unrecognizable to us. Obviously we would be acting to save humanity as opposed to life in general.

[AFPheonix]

Dinosaurs also failed to reproduce like rats like we apparently can. My kingdom for blow dart Depo-Provera....

There's so many things about the anti-climate change argument that floor me.
1) The idiots who protest that conservation alone will never displace all the fossil fuels we use. Well no shit sherlock, but hey, we can still REDUCE the amount we use, thereby REDUCING the amount of CO2 we produce, thereby SLOWING climate change. Same for morons who quibble that any one of the alternative energy sources we have cannot replace fossil fuels. No, you're right. However, DIVERSIFYING the number of energy sources we utilize, and increasing our usage of alternative sources like wind, can still make a dent, thereby reducing our oil usage, reducing CO2 and reducing our trade gap while we're at it.

2) The idiots who protest that changing over will result in economic ruin. Last I checked, innovation was not bad for the market, it was good, creating new wealth and JOBS. Whodathunk. I'll grant, I only had a semester of Econ 101, but the above makes sense to me.
I will also grant that the market will not force us into trying to find alternative fuels until gas prices makes them look more appealing. Perhaps we as a country could maybe consider looking into those technologies now, so we have a head start when the market will bear them better.

Rant #2: Car emissions are not the only source of CO2. Large buildings are a big contributor. Would it cause economic ruination to retrofit them to be more carbon neutral? Hell no, it would help the construction sector. There are already private businesses springing up who's sole specialty is to make green skyscrapers.

Rant #3: The US Government is getting too much money from oil and coal producers. The House is trying to get the government complex to be carbon neutral, but they have a small problem. The plant that produces the steam that heats the place runs on coal. Tasty treats. The House has gotten enough members in line to get the place retrofitted, but they also have to get Senate approval. Which may not happen, cuz of the senators from coal-producing states. Way to show leadership there.

Rant #4: why WOULDN'T we allow the market to help reduce emissions through carbon trading? I think that would be a great idea to get companies who otherwise wouldn't care because it really wouldn't help their bottom line otherwise to take action.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=COZ4q1gpMmo
Guy applies Pascal's Wager to climate change. It's an oversimplified argument, but it's an interesting one.


I'd rant more, but there's so many issues about this topic, including radiating issues that head over into the corruption of our government, the inability of our society to figure stuff out on their own, that I'd be here for hours and this would turn into a monster post that would make all of you glaze over.

[Dreamstalker]

I'm not sure how many of you have heard of Lyndon LaRouche (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lyndon_LaRouche); he's some nutball running for president (what party, I'm not sure). Every few years I get harassed by his local campaign. How they got a hold of my number, I have no clue as I always use fake info when approached by them...I don't even know what his platform is.

He's one of the naysayers; basically, his shtick is that climate change/global warming is a complete hoax and Al Gore is a Communist (I thought that insult died out). I caused a flunkie's brain to vapor-lock last year when using his own graph against him: "If climate change is a natural cycle, how come your chart here shows a sudden drastic increase? Aren't cycles by definition supposed to remain largely consistent? This one isn't." I made my escape while he tried to redefine "cycle".

[Lace Neil Singer]

Dinosaurs were fortunately not able to industrialize, probably due to their pea-sized brains and lack of opposable thumbs.
They however farted continuously; all that methane gas can't have been good for the environment. O_o

I completely agree that the planet itself will not be destroyed by climate change - it could just become unrecognizable to us. Obviously we would be acting to save humanity as opposed to life in general.
That's the point I was trying to make, hidden as it was by my rantery. XD

[Boozy]

They however farted continuously; all that methane gas can't have been good for the environment.

:lol:

One of those would really put my dog's gaseous contributions into perspective.

[AFPheonix]

There we go, we can blame global warming on farts.
http://www.popsci.com/popsci/science/0203101256a23110vgnvcm1000004eecbccdrcrd.html

Apparently whales let em' rip pretty good too, according to the first entry in that article.

[Greenday]

Dinosaurs were fortunately not able to industrialize, probably due to their pea-sized brains and lack of opposable thumbs.

Lack of opposable thumbs - True
Pea-sized brains - Load of crap

No real scientist would have the gall to say they had pea-sized brains, unless they were extremely small themselves. And brain size has absolutely nothing to do with intelligence. On average, male humans have larger brains than female humans, but that means pretty much nothing. There's a few species of birds who hide HUNDREDS of seeds for various reasons. And they find them all. Their brains are a lot smaller than ours. I know I couldn't do that.

Is global warming happening? Yes
Is it as big a deal as people make it out to be? Not a chance. The change over time is slow enough that the effects won't occur for a long time. Something should be done to slow it down more, but on the list of priorities, it's not that high on the list.

[Boozy]

Is it as big a deal as people make it out to be? Not a chance. The change over time is slow enough that the effects won't occur for a long time.

Where do you get data to support this position?

Effects are already being seen, and are predicted to become rather serious by the year 2030.

By the time the effects of climate change become serious enough to alarm the average person, it will be far too late to do anything about it. This is something that must be headed off immediately.

(PS - "Pea-sized brain" was used metaphorically.)

[AFPheonix]

Perhaps we can start instituting "pea-sized frontal cortex" or something like that ;)

[Greenday]

People look at temperatures rising and say that's significant reasoning for global warming. They haven't been skyrocketing. They've slowly been going up. I mean, everyone freaks out over the temperature in a certain area being higher than normal and it has to be from global warming. Then the next year is colder than normal. Global warming again? Nope...

[AFPheonix]

But an overall increase in global temp leads to greater pressure fluctuations, leading to different jet stream and current behavior, which can lead to cold weather the next time.
The global increase in temperature isn't necessarily going to lead to higher temperatures and desertification and drought all over (although we definitely observe that happening in many places across the globe). What it DOES do is lead to greater volatility in the weather from the reasons stated above.



Not to mention the effects of decreasing glaciers and ice cover from the poles, and we have some interesting storms coming up, along with species migration, increased political strife due to lack of potable water (see Darfur), and we have a clusterfuck in the making. Heck, it's a clusterfuck that's already making itself felt.

[protege]

I'm surprised nobody figured jets into the CO2 equation. I'm sure those things spew out huge amounts of pollutants even idling at terminals--everyone seems to leave those out, and ill-maintained diesel trucks too. When's the last time you saw a diesel truck that was *not* spewing black clouds when accelerating?

[Boozy]

People look at temperatures rising and say that's significant reasoning for global warming. They haven't been skyrocketing. They've slowly been going up. I mean, everyone freaks out over the temperature in a certain area being higher than normal and it has to be from global warming. Then the next year is colder than normal. Global warming again? Nope...

I don't think you understand what has to happen in order for global temperatures to go up even one degree celsius. Since 1900, global temperatures have risen "only" .79 degrees...and this change alone has turned glaciers that have been there untouched for thousands of years into water. One degree is a very big deal.

Cold winters mean nothing. People who fall back on the "I was cold last winter" defense know little to nothing about our earth's complex weather patterns.

Like I said in the original post, the biggest thing holding us back from making major policy changes to address this serious problem are people who step outside in the mornings and say, "I don't feel hot. There's no problem."

[AFPheonix]

I'm surprised nobody figured jets into the CO2 equation. I'm sure those things spew out huge amounts of pollutants even idling at terminals--everyone seems to leave those out, and ill-maintained diesel trucks too. When's the last time you saw a diesel truck that was *not* spewing black clouds when accelerating?

Oh, but they have. Unfortunately, there isn't a viable alternative to them at this point in the game.
The biggest polluters by far are coal-fired power plants.

Guess which country has one of the largest coal supplies and a very powerful lobby for the industry in government?

[Greenday]

Guess which country has one of the largest coal supplies and a very powerful lobby for the industry in government?

South Africa?

[AFPheonix]

Wrong continent ;)

[ElMarko]

Several reasons.

1) Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice shame on me.
Environmentalst have a history of lying. Remember the Alar scare. It was cooked up ty the NRDC with a marketing firm to increase donations. The supervisior of a government agency (I forgot which one) told some underlings when they presented an negative evaluation of the NRDC's claims that they had to come back with different results.

Government agencies can't be taken at their word. If they can't find problems in their purview their budgets get cut. No bureaucrat likes that.

2) The climate has been warming for 10,000 years, at least.

3) None of the models they use account for the medieval warm period and the following little ice age.

4) In one of the often cited models you could input noise and still get the scarry warming output.

5) Whenever the people trying to sell it use graphics they do so deceitfully (A great book on this is The Visual Representation of Quantitative Information by Edwart Tufte.). Consicer Algores propaganda piece. When he shows population projections he conviently chopped it off his graph before the 2100ish leveling off point, leading people to believe that if nothing is done it will keep growing exponentially. BTW if he was really concerned he would have flown commercial when he was promoting the movie instead of taking a private jet with only him and his cronies on board.

6) If a bandwagon is full of Hollywood people it is usually heading towards stupidville.

[Boozy]

1) Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice shame on me.
[INDENT]Environmentalst have a history of lying. Remember the Alar scare. It was cooked up ty the NRDC with a marketing firm to increase donations. The supervisior of a government agency (I forgot which one) told some underlings when they presented an negative evaluation of the NRDC's claims that they had to come back with different results.
Government agencies can't be taken at their word. If they can't find problems in their purview their budgets get cut. No bureaucrat likes that.

You're right. We cannot rule out a global consortium of scientists and scientific organizations, both public and private, from over thirty countries, all getting together and putting together an elaborate conspiracy to fool the human race.

But its a risk I'm willing to take.


2) The climate has been warming for 10,000 years, at least.

Quite possibly due to human activities. Clear cutting of forests started more than five thousand years ago, as well as wet rice farming, a huge contributor of methane.
The natural cycle of the earth's climate change would indicate that we should have been in a cool period for the last few hundred years - but we aren't.
The changes seen in the last few hundred years, since the western world industrialized, are almost certainly due to the increase in carbon dioxide in our atmosphere. No other historical climate change culprits (polar tilt, solar/volcanic activity) are being observed.


3) None of the models they use account for the medieval warm period and the following little ice age.

False. Solar activity is usually pointed to as the culprit here. This behaviour is not occurring now.
It is also important to note that the MWP and the LIA was not global in scale, unlike today's climate change activity. It was mainly limited to the North Atlantic area.
This argument is a popular one with global warming skeptics. Scientists have expressed confusion over why its being grasped at...its not even close to being the same thing.


4) In one of the often cited models you could input noise and still get the scarry warming output.

I don't know what model you're talking about, and my google-fu fails me. :(


5) Whenever the people trying to sell it use graphics they do so deceitfully (A great book on this is The Visual Representation of Quantitative Information by Edwart Tufte.). Consicer Algores propaganda piece. When he shows population projections he conviently chopped it off his graph before the 2100ish leveling off point, leading people to believe that if nothing is done it will keep growing exponentially. BTW if he was really concerned he would have flown commercial when he was promoting the movie instead of taking a private jet with only him and his cronies on board.[

Graphs can be used by both sides of the debate in a deceptive manner, as I'm sure they have. I haven't seen "An Inconvenient Truth", but it is important to note that the documentary was put together for non-science minded people. I have not drawn any of my conclusions, nor has the scientific community drawn theirs, from looking at graphs. They analyze the data.

Your dislike of graphs supports neither side of the issue. Moot point.


6) If a bandwagon is full of Hollywood people it is usually heading towards stupidville.

I don't need to refute this one, because I know you put it in for laughs. And I did get a chuckle out of it! :)

[mauispiderweb]

Oh, but they have. Unfortunately, there isn't a viable alternative to them at this point in the game.
The biggest polluters by far are coal-fired power plants.

Guess which country has one of the largest coal supplies and a very powerful lobby for the industry in government?

Unfortuantely, that would be the US, though Russia and China are not far behind when it comes to reserves.

[rahmota]

When's the last time you saw a diesel truck that was *not* spewing black clouds when accelerating?

Umm when its powered by bio diesel? Bio diesel runs quite a bit cleaner and smoother than petro-diesel.

This post brought to you by the Bio-diesel promotion co-operative....

http://www.biodiesel.org

[AFPheonix]

Not to mention that the newer diesel trucks and cars are cleaner burning than they used to be, and are frankly more fuel efficient than their gas counterparts.

As a bonus, in my limited experience, diesel pickups tend to have more torque than gas powered equivalents.
More of a pain to fix though, and heaven help you if you run it out of fuel.

[rahmota]

AFP:As a bonus, in my limited experience, diesel pickups tend to have more torque than gas powered equivalents.
More of a pain to fix though, and heaven help you if you run it out of fuel.

Oh yeah the torque band on a diesel is a lot wider and deeper than a gas powered vehcile. Ie you get more power over more rpms at lower rpms. Which is really nice as some gas engines have real narrow shallow power bands. It basically means a person should look at what they are going to use a vehcile for and match the amount of power band to the job.

And as for being harder to fix it all depends on what goes wrong with them. In many ways the fuel system is a bit simpler as well as the electrical system being somewhat simpler. Mainly everything is built a bit tougher/durable than in a gas engine due to the higher compression ratios that they have to withstand.

As for running out of fuel that is a major pain. But then agian you can have similar issues with a gas powered engine as well. Air in the lines is still air in the lines.

[AFPheonix]

I suppose I should say more of a pain for ME to fix, because nothing looks right under the hood ;)

But then, I really can't recognize much on my Forester, either. Fortunately it's still under warranty so if something goes kablooie, I can take it in.

[rahmota]

Dont feel bad AFP, I've been workign on cars since I was old enough to know which tool to hand my dad and stuff under the hood of a newer vehicle still doent look right to me either. Thank the gods for repair manuals....:)

Oh well eventually when hydrogen fuel cell electric cars get common there wont be much under the hood to repair anyhow. Just unplug everything pull it out and plug in a new one. Easier than fixing your computer.

[AFPheonix]

Heh heh heh....I really haven't had to really work on a car since my 83' Subaru. God, that thing had so many vacuum hoses it looked like a spider had crawled in there and died.
That, and it had so many oil leaks, it pretty much changed itself every 3k miles :D

[rahmota]

Well it seems like they've replaced the vacuum hoses with electric wires and all sorts of other nice neat black boxes that go kablooey when least expected or wanted........

Yeah I've had a few of those self oil changing cars before. Very convenient....My old buick before it caught on fire was nicknamed the exxon valdez.

[Seshat]

Regardless of whether the scientists are right about global warming or not, we will be running out of usable oil. Maybe we'll figure out ways to fully drain the world's oilfields, but it's still a limited resource. Coming up with alternatives is only sensible.

Here in Aussieland, we're more vulnerable to weather than you guys bordering the Atlantic seem to be. We're in a decade-long drought right now, and everyone's on water restrictions. Even the real estate agents and businessmen are driving dirty cars and putting up with un-manicured lawns and dry gardens.

Next year, they're expecting the hydroelectric generators to fail, unless we get rain. (And unless the media is blowing things out of proportion.) Even if it's not next year, though, it'll happen unless we get enough rain.

For us, it's worth converting. Installing rainwater tanks and solar/wind generators in private homes. Setting up graywater systems to water our gardens and flush our loos.

And the alternative fuels (http://www.farmersfuel.com.au/) are on their way, and watching the spread of this company, they're price-competitive.

[protege]

Yeah I've had a few of those self oil changing cars before. Very convenient....My old buick before it caught on fire was nicknamed the exxon valdez.

My parents had a Dodge Caravan and a beat-up Taurus that would self-change. The van did it by burning, and the Taurus simply had an oil leak.

As for developing alternative fuels, I'm all for it. Sooner or later, our oil reserves will run out...and we'll have to do something. Also, I'd rather *not* depend on the Middle East for oil.

[IDrinkaRum]

I'm not a nay-sayer nor am I a aye-sayer to the global warming stuff.

However, 30 years ago, scientists and environmentalists said where saying we were in a time of global cooling, meaning we would be seeing another ice age.

Also, I know I have mentioned this before, the temperature fluctuates in the world, this is normal. From the time Maryland was settled until sometime in the early 1700's, there were orange groves in Maryland. Maryland had a climate like Modern day Florida and Modern day California. (And for those who live in NoVa and DC and MD, that is a little hard to believe, right?)

Global warming may or may not be happening, but we really do need to do something about saving the human race and making sure the Earth doesn't implode in the future.

[CancelMyService]

From wikipedia, emphasis mine:


Global cooling in general can refer to a cooling of the Earth. More specifically, it refers to a conjecture during the 1970s of imminent cooling of the Earth's surface and atmosphere along with a posited commencement of glaciation. This hypothesis never had significant scientific support, but gained temporary popular attention due to press reports following a better understanding of ice age cycles and a slight downward trend of temperatures from the 1940s to the early 1970s.


It's like nails on a chalkboard to hear the talk radio types bringing up Global Cooling as the trump card to win any battle with someone arguing climate change.

Granted I was born in 1978, but I personally never heard about Global Cooling before the right wing types started using it as a catchphrase and making it sound like it was accepted fact until those wacky unreliable science people changed their minds and made SUVs evil.

[Seshat]

Science, as has been discussed in the Creationism/Intelligent Design thread, is the process of making hypotheses and trying to disprove them through empirical testing.

Weather and climate are incredibly complex systems, and our human understanding of these systems is very imperfect and limited. However, the global warming hypothesis has not yet been disproven to the satisfaction of a majority of climate scientists and meteorologists.

That said, it is possible that there's a Darwin or a Galileo or a Columbus in the scientific community, holding an empirical test in his hands which will shed a new light on climate theory and overturn the currently accepted 'probably-truths'.

But for the moment, global warming is a theory which is not yet disproven, and thus as true as the human race is currently capable of figuring out.

[AFPheonix]

From what I've gathered from the journals, the scientific community is not at all torn on the fact that global warming is occurring. They pretty much all agree that it is. There is still debate on the overall cause, although almost all do think that the actions of humanity are most definitely contributing and that it's not all part of a common cycle.
Frankly, most of the ones who ARE disagreeing with it are often in the pockets of Big Oil.

[rahmota]

I was talking to a friend and he made an interesting claim. Just thought I'd throw it out here as I've never seen/heard this anywhere else but he said that part of global warming is all the microwave towers for cell phones and stuff are heating the atmosphere. Sort of like having a microwave oven working on the thigns. :rolleyes: I've never heard this one but was wondering if anyone else did?

Suffice it to say that regardless of if a person believs in global warming or not it is that the world is changing and we are goign to need to do something to deal with the issues in both the short term and the long term. Otherwise thigns will happen and there will not be 6 billion people to worry about anymore and the ones left will be able to try and pick up the pieces. With their 8 legs and antenna if things go too bad......

[Seshat]

If as many people as are willing do what they can to use renewing resources sustainably, and minimise our 'footprint', we'll improve our situation regardless of whether Global Warming is true or not.

By 'renewing resources', I mean things like forests, fisheries and topsoil - resources which have a self-renewing rate. If we use them at less than or equal to their self-renewing rate, we can keep using them forever. If we use them at more than their self-renewing rate, we'll destroy their ability to self-renew.

I've known people who call the idea that we're all connected 'hippy crap' - I don't understand how anyone can not see this. We all breathe the same atmosphere, and drink water from the same water cycle. It confuses me. :confused: