Author Stokes Climate Change Debate

San Diego Union-Tribune ^ | April 5, 2006 | Staff Writer

[Steve Van Doorn]

On this site is a petition signed by some 18,000 REAL scientists who question "global warming." This is many times more signers than the Left/Greens have mustered for their war on Civilization, and many of their signers have nothing to do with science. On the Left, politics trumps science.

http://www.oism.org/pproject/s33p41.htm

[Steve Van Doorn]

"mainly just the corrupt minority of scientists"

There are a few good articles on the origins of Global warming. It was Margaret Thatcher that first got it started politically back in the 70 and 80’s which helped her get pushed into prim minister.

There was a very good article a couple years back that was dealing with Enron and how they jumped started the global warming scare. Should be able to do a web search to find it.

[edsheppa]

Your comment about positive feedback loops makes sense in the absolute but I think it's a bit more complicated.

You mean the reality is more complicated than cogitator's claim that "most of the feedback loops are positive?" I agree, it is much more complicated.

For my own part I'm not too worried about it. Within this century we'll have the technical ability to feasibly control the Earth's energy budget.

[ditto5]

18,000 REAL scientists According to whom? Anybody can fill out the form and send in that petition. I can do it if I want to, and I could send in one hundred copies. It's right there on their website. Again, if a "scientist" has found something flawed in the climate research, all they would have to do is publish it in a scientific journal. If they really had found that the existing research was built on faulty premises or logic they would be famous and it would put the issue to rest.

[ditto5]

I do think it's complicated, but I'd also agree with him that it's looking like the near term cycles that we need to worry about are positive feedbacks.

Loss of Ice and Snow = darker surfaces = more warming = more loss of ice and snow

Thawed tundra = release of stored methane = more warming = more thawing tundra

Hotter temperatures = more forest fires = release of carbon = hotter temperatures

etc.

As for controlling the energy budget, now that would really be something. But, given that we can't even balance our national budget, I don't know if we should hold our breath on that one :{)

[Steve Van Doorn]

"Anybody can fill out the form and send in that petition. I can do it if I want to"

If you think their screening process is that poor then I would ask you to please put your name on it. Show it to me when your name is placed on the registry.

[edsheppa]

I agree that those are positive feedbacks, but they're exactly the kind I was talking about before. They've been operative for hundreds of millions of years. If they were going to cause runaway warming, they would have done so by now. They haven't. I conclude that they do not dominate climate change.

[Steve Van Doorn]

"Loss of Ice"

The ice caps are thicker today then we have ever seen them. I am not going to try and prove this to you, all I will say is look it up for yourself.

As I said at the very beginning there is climate change that is taking effect but it isn’t ‘warming.’ It is cooling and it could be very dangerous. One of many theories and the one I believe might be correct is that volcanism taking place as we speak is at an all time high.

Looks like Global warming don’t it?

This is the chart that bothers me.

here is a good article by a school teacher, I thought was very well done

[ditto5]

Sure thing - if I get some time I will do this with a fake name and made up credentials. If they're still keeping it up, then I bet it will be on there.

[ditto5]

The second one would bother me to, if I thought that I was going to live to be 100,000 years old. But seeing how I'm probably not going to make it that far, I think the one that is measured in decades is of a bit more relevant.

[Steve Van Doorn]

"The second one would bother me to, if I thought that I was going to live to be 100,000 years old."

100K years? your not reading the graph correctly. You are being very argumenitive with no substance, I am done.

[palmer]

Your article is unbalanced and biased. Although coral dies off at higher temperatures, those temperatures (about 90) have generally not been reached. Coral suffers much more from colder temperatures (70 or less) and natural coral deaths occur all the time. Under water chicken-little articles are easy since the public knows so little about it.

[Ditto]

If I've got a large number of mechanics that say my car needs a new alternator, then I'd buy one. If I have a large number of surgeons that say I need surgery, then I would do it.

What we have in reality is mechanics telling us we need surgery.

But, an overwhelming majority of climate scientists tell us that we are at an extemely high chance of some pretty bad consequences from climate effects induced by our actions, during our lifetime, and we do nothing.

Not true.

[ditto5]

Your article is unbalanced and biased. Although coral dies off at higher temperatures, those temperatures (about 90) have generally not been reached.

Coral bleaches at temperatures approaching 90 degrees, and this has been happening in the great barrier reef and Idian Ocean in repeated episodes.

Under water chicken-little articles are easy since the public knows so little about it.

So, you'd suggest the public should avoid the popular media, and get there news directly from the scientists? Fine, here is the early report from NOAA that came out last fall:

http://www.noaanews.noaa.gov/stories2005/s2526.htm

[ditto5]

What we have in reality is mechanics telling us we need surgery

How do you figure? Climate scientists should talk about baking, instead? And who should we trust to describe climate for us? Firemen? Neurosurgeons? Janitors?

[palmer]

Not much there in your article. So "80-95 percent of coral colonies were bleached in some reef areas". So what? Did the warm ocean cause it? Are the oceans warmer than past events? Unlikely since these are strictly local phenomena, and the satellite monitoring started in 1997. From the NOAA link in your article: The bleaching events reported prior to the 1980s were generally attributed to localized phenomena such as major storm events, severe tidal exposures, sedimentation, rapid salinity changes, pollution, or thermal shock. The events since 1980 have not been so easily explained. http://www.coralreefwatch.noaa.gov/satellite/index.html

IOW, before the 1990's it wasn't fashionable to blame everything on man-made global warming and now it is. Here's a more balanced perspective: Fears fade on Barrier Reef bleaching disaster

[ditto5]

And the article you link to concludes:

Numerous laboratory studies have shown a direct relationship between bleaching and water temperature stress. Elevated water temperatures have been implicated in the majority of the major bleaching events of the 1980s and 1990s.

[palmer]

Actually that came from your NOAA link. The point is that the "hockey stick" stick pronouncements of coral dieoffs are about as sound as the temperature hockey sticks. It's obvious from even a cursory study of temperature proxies that we have experienced warmer decades and much warmer years in the recent past (500 years). Likewise corals have undoubtedly waxed and waned particularly in local areas over centuries and millenia due primarily to local factors. Ocean temperatures have warmed about 1F over the last century (a continuation of a 500 year trend) but a lot of the warming took place in the arctic.

Before we jump on some corals-are-dying-humans-must-stop-CO2 bandwagon, we need to consider whether there is really any crisis and whether we can actually do anything about it.

[ditto5]

Well, part of the problem is that by the time we really know for sure, it's probably too late to prevent massive damage. Oceans are slow to warm and also slow to cool. We have early warning signals (slight warming oceans leading to die-offs). We know that carbon dioxide, methane, and other gases trap heat in the atosphere. We know we are releasing these gases in prodigious quantities. And we know that temperatures are warming. It doesn't take much to connect the dots.

You skeptically say that it's been warming for the last 500 years, which is a convenient timeshot that cuts right out of the little ice age. But it's warming much more rapidly during the past 50-100 years, since industrialization occurred, and a natural trend doesn't explain this.

We can't say with absolute certainity what is going to happen until after the fact, so you're saying this argues for no action? I'd disagree. If you think there is 1 in 100 chance that an earthquake is going to occur, then you consider earthquake insurance. Based on the accumulated evidence the odds of global warming occurring are much higher. So, why wouldn't we take some precautions?

So, what would insurance be? We'd have to cut our fossil fuel consumption, probably drastically in the long run, but we could start moderately. This means we'd be developing energy sources within our country, building new jobs, rather than shipping our money to places like Saudia Arabia and Venezuela where it is probably going to be used against us. It won't happen now until oil really starts to run out because we subsidize fossil fuels. But with some economic incentives, we could have a homegrown energy economy, could worry less about the middle east, and would be building ourselves some breathing room on climate change at the same time. What is the downside to that?

[palmer]

We have early warning signals (slight warming oceans leading to die-offs)

There is slight overall warming, but it's the uneven warming that has led to some dieoffs. The rest of the dieoffs are due to other factors as they always have been. Even uneven warming has always been around and always will be irregardless of overall temperature.

But it's warming much more rapidly during the past 50-100 years, since industrialization occurred, and a natural trend doesn't explain this.

The warming in the first half of last century was followed by cooling until the 70's, then more warming. The warming is indeed part of the exit from the last ice age and the link from human-caused CO2 to warming is only a theory.

But with some economic incentives, we could have a homegrown energy economy, could worry less about the middle east, and would be building ourselves some breathing room on climate change at the same time. What is the downside to that?

It's a decent question and I'm not opposed to incentives. But I see hybrid cars that take more energy to build and maintain. They use more energy than a car with the same gas engine in many cases like open highway travel. I see ethanol that takes more energy to produce than it yields. There are other better alternatives, I don't see any downside to subsidizing solar in Arizona for example.