Global warming?

[Lamplighter]

Originally Posted by toranokaze

Technical affluent , under 5000 words, 20 sources max.

Raw data would be appreciated.

1 pic = 1k words + a few words of picture legends
1 ref = http://climate.nasa.gov/evidence/

This graph, based on the comparison of atmospheric samples contained in ice cores and more recent direct
measurements, provides evidence that atmospheric CO2 has increased since the Industrial Revolution. (Source: NOAA)

Global sea level rose about 17 centimeters (6.7 inches) in the last century.
The rate in the last decade, however, is nearly double that of the last century.

Both the extent and thickness of Arctic sea ice has declined rapidly over the last several decades.

Glaciers are retreating almost everywhere around the world — including in the Alps, Himalayas, Andes, Rockies, Alaska and Africa

The oceans have absorbed much of this increased heat, with the top 700 meters (about 2,300 feet) of ocean showing warming of 0.302 degrees

[Undertoad]

Global sea level rose about 17 centimeters (6.7 inches) in the last century.
The rate in the last decade, however, is nearly double that of the last century.

That one struck me as odd. The same climate scientists that are, uh, consensing, say that there hasn't been warming during the last decade.

Both the extent and thickness of Arctic sea ice has declined rapidly over the last several decades.

The extent and thickness of Antarctic sea ice increased in the same time frame, although over the last decade it decreased. This stuff is hard.

Glaciers are retreating almost everywhere around the world — including in the Alps, Himalayas, Andes, Rockies, Alaska and Africa

25000 years ago the glaciers reached 100 miles north of where I sit (near Philadelphia); they have been retreating a long time, creating the geography of NY state and eastern Canada.

(co2 image)

Here is why that's bad news. To reduce co2 production to 1950 levels would mean cutting to about a third of 2010's global energy usage. But it's worse than that. The energy usage of 1950 supported 2.5 Billion people; the 2010 level supports 7 Billion people. So to return to 1950 quickly will mean tremendous amounts of poverty and death, as well as global warfare over disappearing resources.

[Pete Zicato]

Originally Posted by Undertoad

The extent and thickness of Antarctic sea ice increased in the same time frame, although over the last decade it decreased. This stuff is hard.

Not necessarily a good thing.

Originally Posted by Undertoad

Here is why that's bad news. To reduce co2 production to 1950 levels would mean cutting to about a third of 2010's global energy usage. But it's worse than that. The energy usage of 1950 supported 2.5 Billion people; the 2010 level supports 7 Billion people. So to return to 1950 quickly will mean tremendous amounts of poverty and death, as well as global warfare over disappearing resources.

Yes it is bad news. Be a problem worth working on don't you think?

[Undertoad]

I believe that a tremendous amount of human intelligence is being directed on the problem every day, which in turn will lead to enormous efficiencies for lower energy consumption and cleaner energy consumption.

And I believe that the only thing that can slow or prevent this work from happening is a ham-handed approach to the problem.

[HungLikeJesus]

I think that guy at the Discovery Channel building yesterday was trying to work on the problem.

Look where it got him.

[xoxoxoBruce]

Worked for him, he won't be bothered by it any more.

[TheMercenary]

Thank God, that will leave more Oxygen for those who really need it.

[glatt]

I didn't follow his manifesto very closely at all, because frankly, I don't care. But I saw that one of his gripes was that John and Kate Plus 8 was being aired, and I can't argue with him there. I've never seen the show, but it offends me that those two are in the news.

[Shawnee123]

I agree. "Famous" for being willing to prostitute your entire family.

Of course, my solution, as I'm sure is yours, is I don't watch it or read about it. One time I tried to read an article about them and was so disgusted I just don't do it anymore.

Why didn't the dude just take hostages at the set of Dancing With the Has-beens and Never-weres?

No hostages were taken in the making of this post.

[classicman]

and no sooner does it seem like ... oh nevermind. . . probably just another "denier" pissing in the wind.

The warming "scientific" community, the Climategate emails reveal, is a tight clique of like-minded scientists and bureaucrats who give each other jobs, publish each other's papers -- and conspire to shut out any point of view that threatens to derail their gravy train.

Such behavior is perhaps to be expected from politicians and government functionaries. From scientists, it's a travesty.

Read more:

[spudcon]

Couple the above with the scientists who were involved in the study, and disagreed with the conclusions and methods, but whose names were kept on the final version to make it appear as "consensus."

[Pico and ME]

That was a bullshit article Classic. (Biting my tongue, biting my tongue).The InterAcademy Council reports intent was not necessarily to find fault with IPCC conclusions. What they did do was examine the procedures and processes used to carry out their assessments in order to help the organization produce better reports in the future, considering the few errors discovered in the last report. Ultimately, they did in fact commend the IPCC for the valuable service they provide.

From the report itself:

IPCC assessments have been instrumental in informing national and international climate policy options (e.g., Hulme and Mahony, 2010) as well as in raising public awareness of climate change, which earned the IPCC a share of the Nobel Peace Prize in 2007.2 However, amidst an increasingly intense public debate over the science, impact, and cost of climate change, the IPCC has come under heightened scrutiny about its neutrality toward specific climate policies (e.g., Pielke, 2007) and the accuracy and balance of its reports (e.g., PBL, 2010). The scrutiny reached a pinnacle in early 2010 when errors, including a highly publicized mistake in the melting rate of
Himalayan glaciers, were discovered in the Fourth Assessment Report. The revelation of errors came on the heels of another highly publicized controversy in which the unauthorized release of email exchanges between prominent climate scientists at the University of East Anglia and elsewhere, many of whom had contributed to IPCC assessments, purported to show attempts to misrepresent some climate data (e.g., Oxburgh et al., 2010). Although many scientists noted that neither the leaked emails nor the IPCC errors undermined the principal scientific findings regarding human contributions to climate change (Gleick et al., 2010), public opinion polls in the United States and United Kingdom showed that public confidence in climate science has waned (e.g., BBC, 2010; Jasanoff, 2010; Jowit, 2010).

[piercehawkeye45]

Originally Posted by Spexxvet

The money spent to counter global warming is like the money you spend on insurance - you may never need to use it, but if the shit hits the fan you're glad you paid the premiums all those years.

Spexxvet, I read an interview with Bjorn Lomborg and his views make a lot of sense. Basically, he believes we should invest a lot of money making green energy cheap instead of wasting more of it on failed programs like "Cap and Trade". He talks a bit about geoengineering as well which I'm not such a big fan of.

link

A selected quote from the article:

We've got to stop discussing global warming as if it's a contest between: Is global warming the end of the world, or is it a hoax perpetrated in the American people? It's neither. I think in some ways, the fact that the Guardian made it look like I flip-flopped is because it's so hard for anyone to see the world through any other prism than "It's either black or white -- it's a hoax or it's the end of the world."

It seems like we're still debating if the world is round or flat. I mean, come on, its round. But the real question for Christopher Columbus was: How do I best get to the West Indies? And that's the real issue: How do we plot a course to get from A to B. That's what this book is all about. It's about finding the smartest ways to get to that point

[SamIam]

Originally Posted by classicman

and no sooner does it seem like ... oh nevermind. . . probably just another "denier" pissing in the wind.


Read more:

The man who wrote that story is Matt Peterson who serves as a mouthpiece for the ultra conservative Capitol Research Center.

The Center got its 15 minutes of infamy in the 1990s for publishing studies highly critical of charities which engaged in anti-tobacco lobbying efforts. These charities include the American Heart Association, the American Lung Association and the American Cancer Society. It was later revealed that tobacco giant Philip Morris provided $50,000 in funding to the Capital Research Center.

Nuff said.

[classicman]

Originally Posted by SamIam

The man who wrote that story is Matt Peterson who serves as a mouthpiece for the ultra conservative Capitol Research Center.

Nuff said.

Perhaps not when you read the whole story....
Actually his name is Matt Patterson not Peterson. However I would gladly venture a guess that the 50k donated by Philip Morris was a mere drop in the bucket... lets take a quick look.
Hey lookie here - Googling your paragraph links directly to the Wiki page and right above the part you quoted is this....

Funding
According to MediaTransparency, CRC has received 182 grants between 1985 and 2003 totaling $7,778,153, its most generous contributors being Sarah Scaife Foundation, Claude R. Lambe Charitable Foundation, and the Lynde and Harry Bradley Foundation, among others.

From Wiki
so the 50k your are discussing is not really all that significant relative to the 7.7+ million they've gotten over the years. Heck, PM was probably forced to donate to something and they chose this.

If you really want to complain about Philip Morris- look here. Heck there are a lot worse that they've done and are at fault for plenty, just not so much in this instance. Well not that I could find real quickly.