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So...can the earth adjust to global warming?

Maybe we wong all die in thirty years.

But SOMETHING is happening, so what will happen in the end?

It has before, the earth has been warmer in the past.The earth temperatures are constanly changing. When I was in school they were forcasting the next iceage. I haven't died under a mile of ice yet. Why do you believe the earth is spiraling to doom?

The odds are pretty good that I'll be dead in thirty years no matter happens, but I suspect man will stilll populate the globe for many many generations to come because the earth is just fine.

There is no end Adam only change.

Just to remind people that the waters are muddy, figuratively speaking, just saw this today.

http://www.csmonitor.com/2006/0727/p17s01-stss.html

So, we were thinking that scientists agree that increased CO2 concentration from human activites is responsible for melting polar ice? Doesn't sound like it in this article. This article doesn't challenge the idea that global warming is occurring or that humans are responsible, but you have to ask whether we might get more comprehensive benefits by reducing emissions more generically rather fixating on CO2 at this point.

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Mike

That's really reassuring Willy. I agree that everything will be balanced out and that our population will be "regulated," in fact, I already made that clear in prior posts and said the question will be HOW our population explosion ends. Just knowing that it will hardly seems like a solution or a reason not to worry. So I suggested we put the brakes on our numbers voluntarily before disaster ensues (fewer people means less concern about global warming, since you seemed to miss the link), and your reply just seems to be that nothing matters because we can count on disease or starvation at some point, after which the Earth is seriously damaged? I just don't follow your... logic.

Two minor points: take up your PTSD issues with the other urban dwelling econuts who offended you years ago--I have nothing to do with them and feel no need to defend my efforts to live with the smallest impact on the earth that's feasible for me. Lastly, we haven't been using fossil fuels since fire was discovered. We used wood (renewable if used judiciously). I doubt they immediately made the jump to coal, oil shale, and oil reserves (nonrenewable as they took a very long time to develop, too long to regenerate as we use them).

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--Ian

Seriously? Thats surprising.

Yeah Adam the experts were claiming the sky was falling when I was a kid. Ice age cycles were reported to be 10,000 years apart. But "The experts" were forecasting the next one might be less than 2000 years down the road. Their supporting rational was that all the air pollution was blocking the suns rays from warming the earth and data indicated things were cooling down. Today the experts tell us the exact opposite.

What real distorts things are all the eco advocates promoting the global warming myth. Lots of scientists don't buy it, lots do. Bottom line is no one understands how the system cycles long term. Decisions driven by this flawed science are questionable.

To make a decision to deliberately reduce ones contribution to the waste stream or to use cleaner energy sources for the sake or air quality and water quality is common sense for most of us.

Sorry if I’ve offend you Ian. Thanks for the free public diagnosis on my mental state. I hope one day I get the opportunity to pay you for your efforts. Possibly you can pm me your mailing address so I can mail you your two cents.

This conversation is getting less than polite so I’m gone.

Ah Yes, well, depending on whether or not temperatures gradually soared or dropped (gradually being the operative word) a continuing warming trend is less alarming to some than a cooling one.

Should global warming, whether natural or human abetted, kick off a precipitous change in temperature, in either direction, then the call becomes one between two really nasty choices.

I believe cooling trends and mini ice ages have occurred during recorded history. A mini ice age occurred in the 17th century, it is proposed that one also occurred in the 5th CEntury BC and the first century AD..

It is suggested that both started significant population movement toward the mediterranean basin.

Can anyone shed a light on these dates?

Gontrans de Poncins, a student of the Inuit, noted that in the event of substantial warming or cooling, the Inuit (as he new them) would probably notice it first and be affected by it least.

JT

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"All Enlightenment Gratefully Accepted"

http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news ... e_age.html

http://news.softpedia.com/news/Russian- ... 7621.shtml

So is the earth warming up or cooling down?

It's interesting to note that the first article about the "mini ice age" coming explains that the effect will be limited to europe and due not to declining heat over the Earth but a failure of the Atlantic currents to moderate European temperatures, as a result of, you guessed it: global warming (specifically changes in salinity due to melting ice).

Back to the myths from before:

#1: I don't think anyone has said there has been "catastrophic" warming yet... they're saying the warming suggests future catastrophy. And none of us are in a position to support or refute the hockey stick graph, etc--scientists disagree, and lay people won't fuly understand why without more knowledge than I wager this thread can develop.

#2: if the hockey stick is obviously flawed, why aren't scientists scrambling to get a publication out of refuting it? Where is that publication? I know some scientists, and they'd give their first born for a publication.

#3: the refutation doesn't actually comment on the supposed myth. Just because CO2 fluctuates, does not mean that superimposing human prduction on natural variation is wise or safe.

#4: just because other factors contribute to the greenhouse effect, does not mean that changing CO2 (and other industrial product) content in the atmosphere is wise or safe.

#5: just because computer models are wrong when the data entered is wrong does not mean the models predicting human influenced climate change are wrong. That requires looking at the entire computer model, and all of the data entered, something none of us are qualified to do. But this refutation is a lot like saying that evolution (or gravity) is a "theory." And what?

#6: if we take the statement as 100% true, we've at least acknowledged that there WAS climate change, right? and what level of "proof" is required for change? I don't want to ruin the world's economy, but again, we are going to change our ways, what's wrong with doing so now, given that the consequences of being wrong could be severe?

#7: pollutant, exhaust, product of combustion, whatever, they're all true in a way or at times. Poop is good for plants too but we don't want it everywhere, correct? It's just a matter of your political slant whether you call it fertilizer, manure, waste, or feces. Back to the science anyone?

#8: what would the proof consist of, exactly? Wait for global warming then look for more storms? We're dealing in predictions; we have to. Is there "proof" that warmer oceans wouldn't increase storms, when storms are driven by heat?

#9,10: can we hear more about our little ice age? how do we reconcile the increasing ice thicknesses in the antarctic with well publicized breakdowns in large formerly stable ice masses with the release of large icebergs? I don't have the expertise to comment on the temps and thicknesses at the poles, but there are those who would and could easily write paragraphs, without references, reaching opposite conclusions.

I think the most important point is that with one exception (someone who has experience in computer modeling) none of us have the expertise to judge the experts who appear in films supporting or refuting global warming, or telling whether the info from one side or the other is accurate or not. That's why I haven't tried to produce graphs and stats. There's a controversy and we could duplicate it here forever (although recently, we've heard that the controversy is less controversial than we thought and most scientists in the field believe in the risk). Rather, I've focused on the inevitable, such as a leveling off or decrease in our population, and asked whether we want that to be a soft landing or one that involves catastrophy or long term damage to the earth. Is that so unreasonable?

PS: Laird, if you can't tolerate it when I respond to your attacks (that I'm one of those antienvironmental urban types who attacked your family just because of where I live) I'll try ignoring them--better?

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--Ian

I remember the first time I ever heard about global warming. It was in 1992 when I was a summer intern at the then Massively Parallel Computing Research Laboratory at Sandia National Laboratories in Albuquerque (now I think it's morphed into http://www.cs.sandia.gov/ ). Back then the idea of a supercomputer was the 1024-processor hypercube of 386-equivalent processors and a Connection Machine (a type of supercomputer referenced briefly in the film Jurassic Park). My reaction to the idea was that it was probably a bunch of hooey, since the evidence back then was just a handful of anecdotes, mostly about breaking weather records, but even if it was true, building a credible mathematical model that would yield useful results was probably intractable, not impossible, just impractical. I still think it was back then, but the guys who were interested in it have done a lot of work since then, and supercomputers have come a long way as well. To be honest with you, I've only recently reached my personal "skepticism" tipping point in the last year or so, since, as I said, some of the large scale physical events that that climate researchers have predicted have been observed.

Yeah, I read Michael Crichton's book. If you were thinking that scientists didn't make mistakes as individuals or as a group, then you just haven't been paying attention, but you have to ask yourself what are the odds in this case. I don't mean odds that all these scientists are wrong simultaneously, because on a given subject that probability might be considerable, but what are the odds that, given the observed data and the initial successes they've built at predicting climate phenomena in the last decade, global warming is still just a bunch of hooey based on random anecdotes. I don't think those odds are very good now. Now it seems to me that the roles are somewhat reversed, with the evidence against global warming being a handful of anecdotes.

Suppose for the sake of argument that
1. Global warming is occurring and that at least its pace and severity is due to human activities.
2. This will have some devastating consequences as have been described over the next century if we do not curb the burning of fossil fuels.
3. We can prevent these consequences by modifying our behavior in ways that are economically viable.
What, exactly, would scientists have to do to convince the general public, and particularly governments, of the situation while there's still time to alter the outcome to be more desirable?

At this point I'm thinking that they've pretty much done it. I would encourage listening to what scientists say directly when possible rather than relying on politicians and activists to filter it for you. I can well imagine that many scientists wince a little at the thought that their mouthpiece in the politically-polarized US is predominately from the "left". Unlike most of the liberal arts faculty in universities, physical scientists have been known on occasion to be...(gasp)...conservative (except when it comes to government funding of research grants, of course).

But all knowledge is to some extent uncertain. I think it's about time to stop using uncertainty as an excuse for ignoring the issue. Reducing greenhouse gas emissions is something that we can do and "dial it in" to work in the global economy. We can also begin research on more drastic (and possibly risky) countermeasures if conditions worsen despite our efforts.

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Mike

I'm not sure they've acomplished a lot. There's a ton of visibility now--but no one in charge appears convinced, at least at the level of the US Gov't. We won't even set tougher but easily achievable mileage standards because our automakers would rather us not--and experience has already shown we can have purely electric cars that satisfy many people's needs (or we could have legitimate public transportation, gasp). From what I've heard, fossil fuel use, gas emissions, etc are accelerating--the increase is increasing--because our population is exploding and india and china and others are begining to get serious about industrialization. We'll need to reduce a rate of use that's currently accelerating, and come to some state where people can still be comfortable and happy with a sustainable form of energy. That's a tough task.

What needs to be done is create a financial incentive to be energy conscious. And we don't want to wait until proof is in hand because that may be a little late. We learned that if CA requires some of its cars to be zero emissions, viable zero emissions cars appear in not too long--and disappear once the automakers complain and get back to business as usual, which is selling Hummers with tax incentives.

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--Ian

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I was dreaming of the past...

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I was dreaming of the past...

I don't know that I would measure the science by whether those knuckleheads (90% of them) are convinced by it, but I take your point.

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Mike