Global warming?

[xoxoxoBruce]

We don't even know if we can make a significant difference in the grand scheme of things.
Alternative, sustainable, energy sources, is a no brainer to me. Not for climate change, for the self centered, take care of us, fuck them foreigners, national security. If it helps prevent climate change, that's a plus.

All the other stuff, I want to see cost/benefit before I'm onboard. For the people living on an island 2 ft above sea level, its a fuck of a lot cheaper to move them to the penthouse of any Hilton, than some of the proposals I've seen.

[classicman]

Originally Posted by SamIam

Temperatures were higher 100,000 or more years ago, but guess what? That climate did not support the life forms we see today.

And what makes you think we can change that? If this is all part of a natural phenomenon, then there is possibility that there is nothing we can do.

Originally Posted by xoxoxoBruce

We don't even know if we can make a significant difference in the grand scheme of things.
Alternative, sustainable, energy sources, is a no brainer to me. Not for climate change, for the self centered, take care of us, fuck them foreigners, national security. If it helps prevent climate change, that's a plus.

All the other stuff, I want to see cost/benefit before I'm onboard.

[ZenGum]

Then we should shoot somebody in the face with bird shot.

Good gracious, Spexx, do you have any idea how much CO2 a shotgun cartridge releases?

[Urbane Guerrilla]

Very satirical, Zen. True, Spexx does invite that sort of thing. I wish he'd learn not to yammer.

Greenland ice core data gathered by the NOAA actually support about a 3 Celsius drop in temperature over the last 3300 years -- the kind of stuff that had them worried about Earth going glacial if that went on. There are blips both up and down of around 0.5 Celsius, though a couple of the down-blips are thrice that and there have not been comparable up-blips.

And that's just recently. Go tens of thousands back and you find temps that are even higher. On the hundred thousand year scale, we see the orbital-variation effect on Earth's average temps.

Convenient assembly of graphs and links right here.

[SamIam]

I didn't find your site very convenient. Is it just that I have a cold and feel like shit, or is the site for tin-foil hatters only?

I know your favorite story is that the emperor wears no clothes, but you need to lighten up some on this one. Temperatures were higher 100,000 or more years ago, but guess what? That climate did not support the life forms we see today.

Greenland had a celsius increase in temperature before 1,000 AD. BTW, it had a farenheit increase, as well. Both are systems used to define temperature. Its amazing what you get out of a 6th grade science book.

Greenland's climate has fluctuated often over the past few thousand years. When doing a study of a pheunomenon, itonly stand to reason to collect as many data as possible. If you see a parrot escaped in downtown Kansas city, it is unlikely that parrots have found a new niche in the Midwest.

Didn't your buddy, Erik von Kühnelt-Leddihn, teach you ANYTHING?

[xoxoxoBruce]

Originally Posted by SamIam

That climate did not support the life forms we see today.

I know you want to chastise UG and I'ma gonna let you do that, but first let me say the resident lifeforms have been changing constantly throughout the history of the planet, and humans have been around a very short blip on that timeline.

[SamIam]

I am in total agreement with that, Bruce. Species come and species go. The interaction of climate, ecology, and speciation is a very complex one. Presumably, we want the human species to be one of the winners.

I freely admit to being pessimistic about this, because the human species is beginning to outstrip its natural carrying capacity.

One of my fav organisms is the Trilobites, a well-known fossil group of extinct marine arthropods. Trilobites first appear in the fossil record during the Early Cambrian period (540 million years ago) and flourished throughout the lower Paleozoic era before beginning a drawn-out decline to extinction when, during the Devonian, all trilobite orders, with the sole exception of Proetida, died out. Trilobites finally disappeared in the mass extinction at the end of the Permian about 250 million years ago.

Now 290 million years is hardly the blink of a human eye. These critters, whose closest descendents resemble the horse shoe crab, were a big contender in the evolutionary sweep stakes. Some say that the rise of sharks
plus changes in climate did them in.

Theoretically we are smarter than trilobites. We might want to take a look at global warming and destruction of habitat to give ourselves a few more thousands years. I grow exhausted by posts such as UG's when he starts "dancing with sharks."

Oh, and please excuse my typo's in my last post. I've got a case of bronchitis that would make an amoeba scream.

[Undertoad]

Don't worry. The human species has multiplied its natural carrying capacity by many times over in the last 100 years.

At the same time, an alarming trend towards overpopulation has slowed, and the curve now says we aren't going to grow infinitely.

(Which is good for AGW proponents who want to hurt man's natural carrying capacity by taxing energy. That includes energy for agriculture...)

Now the hurtful question: will an increase in global temperature increase or decrease the amount of arable land on the planet?

I don't know, but it's a tough one innit? Every climate change will have its positives and its negatives, and it's not fair to the question to just focus on the negatives.

[SamIam]

Originally Posted by Undertoad

Don't worry. The human species has multiplied its natural carrying capacity by many times over in the last 100 years.

Try doing some reading on Rwanda and Burundi. Technology is not always going to save us.

At the same time, an alarming trend towards overpopulation has slowed, and the curve now says we aren't going to grow infinitely.

Nothing grows indefinitely besides, perhaps, a cancer cell. Rwanda and Burundi got their growth under control by bloody civil wars. AIDS happened along to slow population growth in Africa, etc. AIDS and genocide may help the population problem, but they are not exactly the methods of choice in population control.

(Which is good for AGW proponents who want to hurt man's natural carrying capacity by taxing energy. That includes energy for agriculture...)

I’ll give just one example. Ever hear of “eutrophication”? This is what happens to bodies of water when near-by farmland has vast amounts of chemical fertilizer dumped on them. The ferilizers are carried to streams and lakes where the sudden upsurge in nutrients cause algal blooms. The algae use up all the O2 in the body of water and fish die off results. Maybe those fisherman downstream do deserve to have an energy tax to offset their loss of livelihood.

Originally Posted by Undertoad

Don't worry. The human species has multiplied its natural carrying capacity by many times over in the last 100 years.

At the same time, an alarming trend towards overpopulation has slowed, and the curve now says we aren't going to grow infinitely.

(Which is good for AGW proponents who want to hurt man's natural carrying capacity by taxing energy. That includes energy for agriculture...)

Now the hurtful question: will an increase in global temperature increase or decrease the amount of arable land on the planet?

I don't know, but it's a tough one innit? Every climate change will have its positives and its negatives, and it's not fair to the question to just focus on the negatives.

Despite the minor dust-up resulting from the hacked e-mails, we know with absolute certainty that CO2 is a greenhouse gas. That is not up for debate. And despite the "gotcha" claims from deniers, there has still been no evidence released of data being faked. A recent AP analysis is the latest that debunks that claim. ("Science not faked, but not pretty").

To deny that CO2 has an impact on warming one would have to claim that CO2 is the perfect conductor, letting temperatures and radiation go through without any loss. No climate scientist has made this claim.

We also know the fact that because CO2 only makes up a small part of the atmosphere doesn't preclude it from being a major factor. The overwhelming majority of climate scientists are convinced that it has a multiplier effect, increasing the likelihood that massive anthropogenic CO2 emissions contribute to global warming. Climate scientists also agree in near unanimity that this multiplier effect does not show itself immediately, but is delayed over time.

There are absolutely no scientists who have suggested that anthropogenic emissions of C02 at the current levels of hundreds of billions of tons a year has any positive value.

So the question remains...what to do about it.

Ignore it and wait for those multiplier effects to kick-in decades from now (at an even far greater rate than they have since the significant anthropogenic emissions of the last 100 years) or begin to act in an environmentally and economically sustainable manner.

The choice is easy for me.

[TheMercenary]

Cap and trade will not work.

The reality is that cost estimates for climate legislation are as unreliable as the models predicting climate change. What comes out of the computer is a function of what politicians type in. A better indicator might be what other countries are already experiencing. Britain's Taxpayer Alliance estimates the average family there is paying nearly $1,300 a year in green taxes for carbon-cutting programs in effect only a few years.

Americans should know that those Members who vote for this climate bill are voting for what is likely to be the biggest tax in American history. Even Democrats can't repeal that reality.

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB124588837560750781.html

[SamIam]

The Brit's projected $108 tax amount/ per month doesn't sound that high to me That's what they'll have to pay under the new program. What do you wanna bet that even that amount will be reduced if the Brits put in more, efficient safety features, and start sleeping with their pets. Brits are gaga over pets, anyway. What if they start using nuclear instead of coal. What if the Brits start running around in little morris minors?

What if some of the more efficient farming techniques are put into play? By, say nitrates.

The smartest bet is to play it safe. Sure all this or some other thing may be coming down the pike. You never know. Just ask the pre-Columbian Indians if the gamble was worth the price they ended up paying.

Here is a win win situation. If the climate people are wrong, we get increased crop yields with less damage to arable parts of the earth. If a nitrate molecule never approaches arrable ground, well lets put on our doofy Cellar hats and celibrate.

The worst could be saying we were wrong. EEEKK! I have been wrong on one or two occasions and have lived to tell the tail.

[xoxoxoBruce]

A new study published in the journal Geology shows that if carbon dioxide emissions reach extreme levels, the changes in the world’s oceans might result in lobsters 50 percent bigger than normal. Lobsters can take carbon from the water and use it to build their exoskeletons, says marine geologist Justin Ries, who oversaw the study. The theory, he tells NPR’s Guy Raz, is that lobsters are able to convert the extra carbon into material for building up their shells.

link

[dar512]

Originally Posted by TheMercenary

Cap and trade will not work.

Hmm. Hell has not frozen over (see below). And yet Merc and I agree on something. What's up with that?
.
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[ZenGum]

Alas, it is some rather dodgy cherrypicking by whoever wrote the neatorama article.

Ries and colleagues grew 18 different species of economically and ecologically important marine calcifiers (animals that make shells out of calcium carbonate) at various levels of CO2 predicted to occur over the next several centuries, the UNC statement explained. "When CO2 combines with water, it produces carbonic acid, raising the overall amount of carbon in seawater but reducing the amount of the carbonate ion used by organisms in their calcification."

Seven species (crabs, lobsters, shrimp, red and green calcifying algae, limpets and temperate urchins) calcified at a higher rate and increased in mass under elevated CO2. Ten types of organisms (including oysters, scallops, temperate corals and tube worms) had reduced calcification under elevated CO2, with several (hard and soft clams, conchs, periwinkles, whelks and tropical urchins) seeing their shells dissolve. One species (mussels) showed no response.

What, cherrypicking environmental research for an attention-grabbing headline? I would never have expected such shennanigans!