[Vidmaster]

Regardless of what's causing it, it's happening, the question, for me, isn't 'who started it', it's 'what are we going to do about it?'

if only all would think that way instead of...

Hey, if we all pretend that we haven't got a problem, maybe it'll stop!

...this bull**** but this seems the later is the the popular opinion 

NO 80% if not completely natural. IT WOULD BE over a time of ABOUT 15000 YEARS but not 100!
You wanna do something smart? Protest against pollution. Especially you USA citizens 

[karajorma]

Do your research and you'll find a good 80% of the warming is completely natural.

Are you going to quote a creditable source for that or are you expecting us to believe a figure you pulled out of your arse?

No matter what anyone believes, global warming is real. There are a number of causes which could lead to global warming. During the last Ice Age, the Earth moved further away from the sun which caused a massive decease in temperature.

Ummm. No it didn't. There are many varied causes for the ice ages. Earth's orbit changing was not one of them.

Let's not go off the deep end here. Global warming does not mean the end of the human race. There are a lot of people wo say that but it's nonsense. Humans are supremely adaptable. Even the worst projections for global warming don't suggest the kind of runaway effect that affected Venus.

What is debatable is how much of the human race will survive. As I said before, too much of the human race stands on knife edge of starvation, throw in a rapidly changing climate and you will see more famines.

But it's never going to wipe us out. Well not unless it causes WWIII.

[Mika]

Somebody asked to clarify my stand on this, I think.

About the fancy scientific independence ideals, read IPCC's mission. It clearly states that it researches human caused climate changes. If I were nasty, I could point out that anything coming from there also is biased, since their personal working places depend on finding those connections.

Well, we know that C02 has a greenhouse effect itself, that can be easily tested in the lab.

Yes, I agree with this.

We also know that the temperature in the last 200 years rose at a rate far higher than every climatic change in earth history. (I think more than 20 times faster)

That is a pretty bold statement, regarding the whole earth history. What is the evidence supporting this?

I just wonder, why shouldnt C02 heat up the earth if it is undoubtedly having the effect of holding back infrared rays, while letting "normal" and ultraviolet light through.

It might be worthwile to check out this, actually quite fresh data from last year. I found the Spencer's article itself (not linked here) quite interesting, and I find it quite well fulfilling the scientific requirements. Worth checking out, definetely. Oh, and I know about guys views about God, so no need to point that out . It shouldn't really matter if he has a point about climate, which I suspect he has, having been constructing NASA's weather measurement satellites for some years.
http://oversight.house.gov/documents/20070320152338-19776.pdf
http://www.uah.edu/News/newsread.php?newsID=875

Shortly: Atmosphere contains more H2O than Co2. H2O is a lot worse than CO2 in terms of green house effect. Since the H2O vapour effects are not understood, anything coming from the computer models must be treated with uncertainity. In the IPCC's report it is stated that the H2O content remains pretty much constant in atmosphere, while there is no explanation why it is so - and it is written that this isn't a well understood area in the models. In Spencer's article, it is shown that there is a flaw in the climate models used in predicting the temperatures, the measured effect is actually the opposite of what is stated in the models.

One of the interesting factors here is the sea level rise (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sea_level_rise). It has been been going up before CO2 outputs were so large as nowadays. The important factor is that there is no consensus about if the sea level rise is accelerating since 1900s, something what would be expected if the CO2 had a large impact.

It is also clear by comparing the emissions to the atmosphere volume that human emmissions are having an effect in the C02 concentration.

I'm quite sure human actions have a measurable effect on CO2 concentration.

Then again somebody questioned the sun activity as causes here. Unfortunately, I'm not familiar with satellite instruments measuring the solar flux, but it would be interesting to see if they can measure a fraction of watt up there in absolute terms. For your reference, it is not that easy on the ground, either. Yeah, put a sensor there and so on, no problemo about that, but how do you do it exactly when there are sampling times, measurement frequencies, sensor types, measurement areas, noise and so on that affect the result...

What is known is that the solar activity cycle does change climate. However, this seems to be dismissed as there is no current evidence it could have changed, but this could be a limit of the sensors themselves. I suppose it will be better seen as the sun starts flaring again and dedicated sensors will be measuring these effects.

--- To the other topic then ---
Flipside brought an interesting point of view, it doesn't really matter what is causing it but can we stop it? It could be dangerous, if we don't know what it is about. Soot in the atmosphere has a documented effect of dimming the irradiance on ground level. I haven't heard about this option from any agencies, but it is quite certain that it would work, based on experiences with volcano eruptions. The thing is, we already have the delivery equipment to do this, namely the airplanes. It is the fastest, best-known method, and could be started almost immediately if this was seen as a real threat.

Anything else is multi-billion euro business. One of the things that I always thought strange that Western countries are supposed to curtain their relatively stabile emissions, while developing countries that hold most of the population on Earth can put out as much as they want. Personal buying decision effecting this would be stopping buying anything from China and India.

Unfortunately, views like this are not politically correct, but are the only reasonable way if the global warming is really a threat. Common sense dictates that the output must be slowed down where it is growing at the fastest rate, especially when quite a lot of people more are doing it. Otherwise, it will end up so that Western countries give up the technological edge, and turn out to be putting out a lot more emissions while developing countries do nothing!

Off the record, this is coming from a person that lives 3 km away from the sea, about 10 m above the sea level. And I'm already regretting I put two hours of my weekend on this post, since nobody is going to take it seriously anyway.

Mika

[Bobboau]

I was inspired...

Manmade global warming is a reasonable bet; it is worthwhile to assume that manmade global warming exists. If it does, we win all; if it does not, we lose nothing.

...by pascal's wager.

[BloodEagle]

I think that society at large would greatly benefit if we would all shut the Hell up about 'global warming', and start talking about pollution. Because, while 'global warming' can be contested (e.g., real/not real or man-made/natural), pollution is universally considered as both a real and bad thing.

Then again, everyone loves a good conspiracy theory. 

[Mika]

I think that society at large would greatly benefit if we would all shut the Hell up about 'global warming', and start talking about pollution. Because, while 'global warming' can be contested (e.g., real/not real or man-made/natural), pollution is universally considered as both a real and bad thing.

Then again, everyone loves a good conspiracy theory.

Reduction of overall pollution is the good thing that could result from curtaining CO2 emissions. However, to do this all phases of production of a certain product must be considered more carefully. It does not help to get a nice and shiny energy-saving light bulb if it is manufactured in China, and cannot be recycled. By the way, computers themselves cause quite a lot of pollution during their physical existance. From digging up the metals and gathering the plastics, up till the point someone needs electricity to run the formidable double X800 in the latest Kill-'em-all, and even after disposing the thing poisonous materials prove to be a health hazard in the dumps.

Mika

[General Battuta]

Kara, Goober, I respect both of you guys immensely, but I don't think you're going to reach an agreement here. (This is the Internet, after all.) And it's painful for us little 'uns to see you two fighting.

Although I didn't see much of a response to my earlier post, I think Kara's brought up some of the points contained in it. I just think it's striking that the scientific community has come to such a consensus on the issue, but we're not willing to accept it. Is distrust of scientists so widespread? Or do we seriously believe we can interpret reams of carefully gathered, rigorously analyzed, peer-reviewed data better than they can?

I am willing to put my faith in the broader scientific community on this issue. They say there is real, dangerous, human-caused global warming, and I'm ready to listen.

Perhaps we can all find some common ground on this issue. What evidence would the dissenters need to see in order to be convinced?

[nubbles526]

But it's never going to wipe us out. Well not unless it causes WWIII.

Ummm....I think that is like 50-50 chance. And WWIII wouldn't be about conquering land nor showing of military might, but over water or/and fuel. I believe that because there is so much famine and drought that some countries (3rd World Countries)  would attempt to capture other country's water sources. On the other hand, a lot of the developed countries would be fighting over the petroleum for their weaponary. So, the developed can't fight because they don't have fuel, and the developing can't fight because they don't have food or water to feed their men.

[Mika]

Pascal's wager, eh, was best and most humorously opposed by Pratchett on the philosophical grounds. I think the story went so that the guy who proposed that believing in gods is a good call, since you lose nothing, finally died and met a group of angry Gods who had certain opinions about people being smart-asses...

Meaning that if you don't certainly know the outcomes of each, there is no such thing as Pascal's wager.

What I would need to hear, is pretty much already answered. As far as I remember, there are satellite missions coming to measure the cloud effect, and also more accurate solar output measurements. Then water vapor cycle, it being the largest contributor to green house gases, must be known better, also answered partly by satellite missions.

Also, there are some comments about the longevity of CO2 in the atmosphere. Some reports state it could stay there for 200 years. Where is the measurement data of this? How could you even monitor a single CO2 particle?

The problem of IPCC report is that it is not peer-reviewed by normal scientific standards. This can be seen from the US senate committee report:
http://epw.senate.gov/public/index.cfm?FuseAction=Minority.Blogs&ContentRecord_id=f80a6386-802a-23ad-40c8-3c63dc2d02cb

Several interesting links follow from there. Of course, you can spot shady names like Gray and McIntyre in the author list there. But, what if they have a point? It was exactly names like these that showed the Mann's Hockey stick graph to be in a serious statistical error, as the software predicted the same graph for random numbers. Mind you, this graph came through that IPCC's peer-reviewed process. And was actually noted by those who are generally called climate sceptics (=nutters, in this case, it seems). Also, there seems to be quite a lot of inside "dirt" about the IPCC there. Everyone is entitled to their own opinions about that, but this should be kept in mind also.

And what I have seen, no, I haven't noticed any consensus about the issue what is actually causing it. But the good thing about science is that sceptism is part of it, and if you are right, there is no other option for the resisters than to accept the facts after studies are completed. I think we are only starting to see the peer-reviewing process. The good thing about Science is that it corrects itself all the time.

Mika

[karajorma]

Pascal's Wager is a rather flawed argument. I've never particularly liked it as an argument. I could use it to say that you must spend 10 trillion dollars protecting Earth against the mutant space badger I believe is going to eat Earth.

And any argument that can justify that is obviously false.

Kara, Goober, I respect both of you guys immensely, but I don't think you're going to reach an agreement here. (This is the Internet, after all.) And it's painful for us little 'uns to see you two fighting.

I'm not fighting with Goober. He said I was wrong, I pointed out why I wasn't. Pretty simple.

Although I didn't see much of a response to my earlier post, I think Kara's brought up some of the points contained in it. I just think it's striking that the scientific community has come to such a consensus on the issue, but we're not willing to accept it. Is distrust of scientists so widespread? Or do we seriously believe we can interpret reams of carefully gathered, rigorously analyzed, peer-reviewed data better than they can?

And that's what scares me about the anti-global warming position. I see echoes of several other anti-science positions there.

I worry whenever people without training in a subject insist that they know better than people who spend their lives studying a subject. I especially worry when paid corporate advocates are taken as experts over actual scientists.

[General Battuta]

All right, makes sense to me. And I concur when it comes to the echoes of anti-scientific thought. I don't like that.

[Uchuujinsan]

First about my basic statement about the rate of the climate change:
"More than ever, ->I think<- more than 20 times than ever before"
As I cannot (yet) prove this statement, in fact its an argument I reused, i have compared the official rate of temperature increase (0.6+-2 in 100 years) or ~0,7 as seen with the graph about the relative temperature in this thread with the temperatute history of earth from this article (scroll down) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Geologic_temperature_record
Note that the graph is not on a linear scale, so take care with comparing.
Well, the results are unstatisfying enough as the picture isnt clear, big and detailed enough to realy prove my claim, but at least it isnt disproven as well. Try putting a "6°C in 1000 year change" anywhere in the graph, it should "increase" (I really cant find the correct word here ) faster than the graph itself. Though thats not a real prove for my claim, as the graph simply isnt detailed enough.
If I get some time I will do some more research, and tell you if I get  evidence or if I am proven wrong.

About Mikas links (yes I read them), neither of them deny a manmade global warming, only the extent of it, to be more the extent of the positive feedback of water vapor.
Spencer writes

In my own case, I would rather be the researcher who discovers that global
warming will be relatively benign – after all, what sane person could wish catastrophic global warming upon humanity for selfish political or social engineering reasons?

stating himself he has a little bias towards "no global warming", only intending to balance all the bias (somehow I am reminded of conservapedia :/ )
Still, one of the better formulated critics.

[Bobboau]

I think that society at large would greatly benefit if we would all shut the Hell up about 'global warming', and start talking about pollution. Because, while 'global warming' can be contested (e.g., real/not real or man-made/natural), pollution is universally considered as both a real and bad thing.

truth

somewhat relevant to the conversation

[WeatherOp]

One of the reasons the media is stupid.

http://www.newsweek.com/id/143787

Hey, if we all pretend that we haven't got a problem, maybe it'll stop!

Regardless of what's causing it, it's happening, the question, for me, isn't 'who started it', it's 'what are we going to do about it?'

We can argue about 'who is to blame' for years, but saying 'tough it up' is probably one of the dumbest ideas ever, because you can be pretty sure that the people ignoring the fact that there is a problem, regardless of the source, will be the first people screaming 'Where are the government?!?' when it's their homes that are threatened.

I wish I could agree with you Flip, but the argument that if we do something and the core of man made global warming is false that is hurts nothing is extremely flawed. First off, there are idiots who scream and fuss when a tv station breaks programming due to a tornado warning. Same goes when people leave there home due to a Cat 5 hurricane coming in and it weakens to a Cat 2 at landfall and does very little to their home. The thing is that comes from just short term events, I don't know how it will happen with a big thing like global warming. Then you have the media, which will take no time before they start shredding organizations, meteorologists and climatologists on how they have lead everyone and governments off. 

So, if this all turns out to be false it could really, really hurt government programs such as the NOAA in both name and possibly funds later on down the road, because it's all gonna be put on them by nominees in future elections. And then comes the possibility of UN sanctions on nations if they do not comply to reduce co2 emissions. So, it could possibly end up a huge deal if this is proved wrong later on. That is why we've got to be sure we are right.

[karajorma]

And you really think that all the repeated claims that scientific experts from NOAA are wrong and the layperson is right isn't hurting them? You're complaining that they might get hurt down the line if they are proved wrong and all the while putting the boot in yourself and trying to prove them wrong with what in mostly spurious nonsense.


As for the media being idiots. Since when have the media NOT been idiots when it comes to science?

[WeatherOp]

And you really think that all the repeated claims that scientific experts from NOAA are wrong and the layperson is right isn't hurting them? You're complaining that they might get hurt down the line if they are proved wrong and all the while putting the boot in yourself and trying to prove them wrong with what in mostly spurious nonsense.

Well, for one, I am not publishing anything calling them idiots. But, then again as you say if I'm spouting nonsense, no harm will really come anyways. But, it should be noted, just because I don't agree with all their stances on global warming, the NOAA and all the programs under them(NHC, NWS) are very crucial for current weather to short range forecasts, and any harm that goes to those programs could really be bad and it's those programs that worry me.

[Akalabeth Angel]

No one is saying that life is going to end or that we are going to destroy the planet. That would be be completely ****ing idiotic. However it is a different thing to point out that there are nearly 7 billion people on Earth and we are already having trouble feeding them. Stir in rapidly changing climates and you end up with famine on a massive scale.

And it is beyond simple vanity to say "Well I'm all right so I don't give a damn if other people starve as a result of my actions."

    Africa's been starving for years, but few in the West give a damn. Why would they give a damn if global warming intensifies it?

[General Battuta]

Because the same problem might put major US cities underwater.

[karajorma]

Africa's been starving for years, but few in the West give a damn. Why would they give a damn if global warming intensifies it?

Cause this time it might affect them.

Well, for one, I am not publishing anything calling them idiots.

You've pretty much refused to believe anything they say about global warming, believing your own interpretation of the matter. By doing so you help make the "scientific controversy" surrounding global warming seem more real. By implication you're accusing them either of being guilty of a hoax or being so biased that they can't see the truth. Neither of which is good for public confidence in them.

You also give aid to bull**** sites and groups like those belonging to Steve Millroy who are getting money for "research" into climate which otherwise might have gone to real scientists like NOAA. If companies like ExxonMobile weren't funding him they might actually have to accept that they won't manage to bury the truth about global warming under a pile of bull**** and might actually have to spend that money on real climate research.

[Akalabeth Angel]

Africa's been starving for years, but few in the West give a damn. Why would they give a damn if global warming intensifies it?

Cause this time it might affect them.

    Exactly, people will only care when they have to say "oh, a loaf of bread is 5 dollars now! How outrageous!"; they still won't care about people in Africa, just their own inconvenience.