King Canute returns

[James Deuce]

Except this time there's eight of him.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/8142825.stm

[Pwalo]

Except this time there's eight of him.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/8142825.stm

I think Canute may have had more scientific back up for his theory.

[James Deuce]

I've been there. I've stood down there on Southampton Water and looked at the spot where he parked. It's not a very nice place. He should have tried to stop the tide in Tahiti. It's much nicer there.

[oldrider]

And we think we have troubles with the Treaty of Waitangi! FFS :argue: ...:rolleyes:

[Mikkel]

Except this time there's eight of him.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/8142825.stm

Is your mythology up to standard (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/King_Canute#Ruler_of_the_waves)?

[vifferman]

Is your mythology up to standard (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/King_Canute#Ruler_of_the_waves)?
It's more accurate than this "global warming" crapola.
Sadly, "King Canute returns" is very apt indeed, Dr Jim2.

[Finn]

Wait for the 1% (an apt biker saying) of KB that will support all this fizzy poo.

[Mikkel]

It's more accurate than this "global warming" crapola.
Sadly, "King Canute returns" is very apt indeed, Dr Jim2.

The point of the myth is that King Canute knowingly used an attempt to command the waves to illustrate his own limitations - i.e. an act of humility.

I am pretty sure Jim didn't mean to imply that the G8 are humble...

[rainman]

Wait for the 1% (an apt biker saying) of KB that will support all this fizzy poo.

More an indictment of the other 99%, I'd say.... if that were an accurate number, even for here.


The point of the myth is that King Canute knowingly used an attempt to command the waves to illustrate his own limitations - i.e. an act of humility.

Yup, he was the archetypal good Cnut, all right.

Sorry.

[James Deuce]

The point of the myth is that King Canute knowingly used an attempt to command the waves to illustrate his own limitations - i.e. an act of humility.

I am pretty sure Jim didn't mean to imply that the G8 are humble...
That sounds like a Danish interpretation to me. The Angles pronounced him a silly Cnut.

It's widely accepted that the whole turn back the tide thing is a myth, designed to make him look good. The local populace thought he'd gone bonkers when he hung his crown on a crucifix and pronounced the "king of kings as more worthy than he".

There's abunch of arguments about whether or not it actually happened at all, and it may have happened in Sussex or it may have happened on the river near Westminster, or may have in fact been invented to give a leg up to the legend that he was aware of his own humility. Mostly though, no one now believes that Cnut had the self awareness to pronounce himself "humble".

Neither do those G8 feckers.

[Finn]

More an indictment of the other 99%, I'd say.... if that were an accurate number, even for here.

Every time I see or hear something "green" I do my best to fight back and do something like leaving lights on around the house or throwing all my plastic in the normal rubbish.

I'm doing an oil change on the Harley tonight... so go ahead, post again in this thread and make my day.

[rainman]

Every time I see or hear something "green" I do my best to fight back and do something like leaving lights on around the house or throwing all my plastic in the normal rubbish.

Jeez, are you really that insecure? Or are you just 15 years old?

[Badjelly]

I think Canute may have had more scientific back up for his theory.

More than this?

http://www.ipcc.ch/ipccreports/ar4-syr.htm

[Badjelly]

Every time I see or hear something "green" I do my best to fight back and do something like leaving lights on around the house or throwing all my plastic in the normal rubbish.


Jeez, are you really that insecure? Or are you just 15 years old?

It impresses the rubbish men, though. "Look at all this recyclable stuff in the rubbish bag. That must be Finn, the rebel without a clue."

[Finn]

Jeez, are you really that insecure? Or are you just 15 years old?

Glug, glug, glug.

You can almost hear those penguins weeping.

[James Deuce]

Jeez, are you really that insecure? Or are you just 15 years old?


I have a mental age of 15 months.

It's a giggle watching all the "Green Pontification".

The reality is, not that anyone will agree, is that to reach an 80% reduction in "greenhouse gas" emissions means your lifestyle, that's you, as in your lifestyle, will need to revert to the following.

1. Use no electricity.
2. Consume no packaged food.
3. Own no vehicles.
4. Burn no fuels for heating that are carbon sinks.
5. Go nowhere that you cannot walk.
5. Wear no synthetic clothing.

Typically, Westerners who are "Green" want their cake too. Sorry, you have to ditch the cake to make a significant impact of human greenhouse gas emissions. Which are a tiny, tiny fraction of what the Mid-Atlantic trench spews out. But lets not let fact get in the way. No, its all our fault. It couldn't possibly be that western governments have tapped the vein of Catholic guilt that runs through our culture and has no expression since the failure of Catholicism within that society, could it? It couldn;t possibly be that that guilt can be manipulated to increase tax takes, could it?

With the proposals those eggholes are putting forward, people will die. Mostly kids and old people.

[Big Dave]

I'm humble. And I'm very good at it.

[rainman]

Glug, glug, glug.

You can almost hear those penguins weeping.

Y'know Finn, being a grown-up means taking responsibility for your own actions.

Possibly too big a message for a sulking climate change denier though. Ah well.

[Badjelly]

Sorry, you have to ditch the cake to make a significant impact of human greenhouse gas emissions. Which are a tiny, tiny fraction of what the Mid-Atlantic trench spews out.

<bleh>WTF?</bleh>

[Finn]

It impresses the rubbish men, though. "Look at all this recyclable stuff in the rubbish bag. That must be Finn, the rebel without a clue."

You clearly haven't seen my rubbish men. They couldn't put all those words together in one sentence. Nor do I believe they are at all interested in the environment given the only thing on their mind is their next rape.

This reminds me of when I was a child in suburbia. Every Christmas, we used to leave a couple of bottles of Double Brown beer on our rubbish bin for boys. I thought this was a very kind gesture but I later learned from my father that it was not so much about thanking them for their service to the community but more a bribe to stop the fuckers smashing our bin.

[James Deuce]

<bleh>WTF?</bleh>

The mid-Atlantic trench spews out more C02 in a year than mankind has in its existence.

[rainman]

The reality is, not that anyone will agree, is that to reach an 80% reduction in "greenhouse gas" emissions means your lifestyle, that's you, as in your lifestyle, will need to revert to the following.

1. Use no electricity.
2. Consume no packaged food.
3. Own no vehicles.
4. Burn no fuels for heating that are carbon sinks.
5. Go nowhere that you cannot walk.
5. Wear no synthetic clothing.


I don't dispute that major changes are required. (Don't agree with all of yours, though - in NZ, #1 is less of an issue, for a simple example). But what is the alternative? "Fuck future generations, it's too hard?" Man up, I'd say.



Typically, Westerners who are "Green" want their cake too.


Too true. Some of us are starting to work towards changes, though. And yes it isn't easy, or probably close to effective enough. But it beats apathy, and denial is just so immature.



Which are a tiny, tiny fraction of what the Mid-Atlantic trench spews out.

NZ's, or the worlds? If the latter, got any science to back that up? Or, care to explain why the increases in CO2 levels correlate nicely with the industrial age, when the geological processes (volcanos etc) have been operating on a longer time scale?

[James Deuce]

Y'know Finn, being a grown-up means taking responsibility for your own actions.

Possibly too big a message for a sulking climate change denier though. Ah well.

How is labelling someone with an emotive term who doesn't agree not infantile?

Climate change is one of those things that has happened from the moment the planet aggregated an atmosphere. Organisms have modified the climate from the time they evolved or were invented, depending on how credible you like your fairy tales.

The only current difference is the Human organism's overweening hubris.

[Badjelly]

Mrs Jelly and I have a couple of miniature dachshund puppies called Lucy and Finn. Finn is the male (obviously) but very soft and smoochy, not very adventurous, a bit of a sook and (I hate to say it) not all that bright. His sister runs rings around him. The names were Mrs Jelly's idea and I didn't have the heart to tell her about the other Finn, the Kiwibiker blowhard.

So every time I see a post from you, Finn, I think of a small furry puppy who wants to be a real dog some day.

[Finn]

The reality is, not that anyone will agree, is that to reach an 80% reduction in "greenhouse gas" emissions means your lifestyle, that's you, as in your lifestyle, will need to revert to the following.

1. Use no electricity.
2. Consume no packaged food.
3. Own no vehicles.
4. Burn no fuels for heating that are carbon sinks.
5. Go nowhere that you cannot walk.
5. Wear no synthetic clothing..

That's because the great unwashedemployed (I just made that word up) are conveniently using the the green movement to create a world of equals. Now there's a term for this but it's lost me at the moment.

As you can see from Rainman's post, he put his greater cause before the environment. All he had to do was keep his trap shut and the penguins would have enjoyed their weekend.

[Badjelly]

How is labelling someone with an emotive term who doesn't agree not infantile?

Emotive language on Kiwibiker? Surely not!


Climate change is one of those things that has happened from the moment the planet aggregated an atmosphere. Organisms have modified the climate from the time they evolved or were invented, depending on how credible you like your fairy tales.

Indeed.


The only current difference is the Human organism's overweening hubris.

And our ability to take a large fraction of the carbon that's been removed from the system over the last few hundred million years and burn it in a few centuries.

But what was that about the Mid-Atlantic trench?

[Deano]

The mid-Atlantic trench spews out more C02 in a year than mankind has in its existence.

We should fill the fecker with all of our waste. That'll fix it.

The world's largest land (sea) fill.

[Finn]

Mrs Jelly and I have a couple of miniature dachshund puppies called Lucy and Finn. Finn is the male (obviously) but very soft and smoochy, not very adventurous, a bit of a sook and (I hate to say it) not all that bright. His sister runs rings around him.

You just wait until little Finn's balls develop, then it'll be lil Lucy's ring that gets the run around. He'll sort the bitch out.

Funnily enough, my dog is called Finn too.

[rainman]

How is labelling someone with an emotive term who doesn't agree not infantile?


You are right, it is. But insulting Finn is too much fun.


Climate change is one of those things that has happened from the moment the planet aggregated an atmosphere.

And that is a great strawman. The debate, as you well know, is about exceptional climate change, induced by human activities, and above the natural baseline. Actually, it was - to quote Obama from your linked article:



The science is clear and conclusive and the impacts can no longer be ignored.

[Finn]

But insulting Finn is too much fun.

When are you going to start?

[Badjelly]

The mid-Atlantic trench spews out more C02 in a year than mankind has in its existence.

Can you point me to any evidence for that claim?

[Badjelly]

You just wait until little Finn's balls develop, then it'll be lil Lucy's ring that gets the run around. He'll sort the bitch out.

He's already giving it a damned good try.


Funnily enough, my dog is called Finn too.

It's a good name for a dog.

[Badjelly]

You are right, it is. But insulting Finn is too much fun.


When are you going to start?

Now come on, Finn. All these people are jumping in to cry foul when the meanie greenies attack you. The least you could do is pretend to be just a little bit hurt.

[Magua]

Do we have to have one of these threads every month? :P

Oh, and I loled at this.


The science is clear and conclusive and the impacts can no longer be ignored.

[Badjelly]

The mid-Atlantic trench spews out more C02 in a year than mankind has in its existence.

The British Geological Survey reckons mid-ocean ridge volcanism emits 66-97 Mt/yr CO2

http://tinyurl.com/lmd36w

Human emissions are about 26 GT/yr CO2 (too lazy to look up a source for that right now, but I could do if you want).

M = million, G = 1000 million.

[James Deuce]

Some science.
This one is a paper on using deep sea basalt for CO2 storage, and discusses the mechanisms that nature uses to store CO2. Natural CO2 production is immense, but the literature is really clouded thanks to Al Gore's Oscar winning lie-fest. 750 Billion tonnes on the sea floor of the Atlantic.
http://www.pubmedcentral.nih.gov/articlerender.fcgi?artid=2464617

It does beg the question about balance, but we're not qualified to comment on global climate balance. Simply not a big enough verifiable sample of data collection

Remember the crap weather in the '90s? Aerosol suspension of sulphuric acid from the Mt Pinatubo eruption was largely responsible for that, not CO2. It reflects sunlight, which interupts the La Nina, ElNino cycles, which in turn spazzes out phytoplankton product, whihc in turn buggers up Oceanic CO2 scrubbing and so on. Krakatoa was vastly worse for the climate, but the Greenies won't let you use volcanoes as bad guys because they simply can't compete on the CO2 production figures, as compared to humans. 150-200 million tonnes of CO2 per year compared to 2-6 billion for humans (note the precise figures cadged from the Greenpeace site).

Right on the cusp of the Industrial age, Northern Europe was on the verge of an Ice Age. The Sunspot cycle is normally 11 years. We went 27 years from the late 60s without significant sunspot activity. Sattelite comms took off during that period and people were deeply put out when that burst of solar activity 2 years ago blew up one of Sky's major satellites and a couple of GPS birds.

The biggest problem we face is food packaging and the billions of tonnes of CO2 used to make it, and the mountains of crap in landfills as a result. Stop eating packaged, processed food for a start. I don't mean start eating filthy organic crap, I mean don't buy it if it is in plastic.

I'm serious about not using Electricity. There's a perception that NZ is largely Hydro powered. Given the state of the Sth Is - Nth Is link, I'd be surprised if the major supply for the Nth Island wasn't a combination of Coal, Oil amd Geothermal in Winter. I may be wrong.

[James Deuce]

The British Geological Survey reckons mid-ocean ridge volcanism emits 66-97 Mt/yr CO2

http://tinyurl.com/lmd36w

Human emissions are about 26 GT/yr CO2 (too lazy to look up a source for that right now, but I could do if you want).

M = million, G = 1000 million.

That figure is contestable and even Greenpeace don't subscribe to the Giga-tonne figure. Vulcanism is NOT the only source of CO2 from the mid-atlantic. SImple plate tectonics release large volumes of CO2 as the plates move apart. CO2 is suspended in all sorts of different ways.

[Finn]

(too lazy to look up a source for that right now, but I could do if you want).

Typical greenie. Go on, work for the dole...

[oldrider]

Typical greenie. Go on, work for the dole...

Dole?......Bet he is a state school teacher, legally poisoning the minds of our little kids! :argh:

[Badjelly]

That figure is contestable and even Greenpeace don't subscribe to the Giga-tonne figure. Vulcanism is NOT the only source of CO2 from the mid-atlantic. SImple plate tectonics release large volumes of CO2 as the plates move apart. CO2 is suspended in all sorts of different ways.

If that figure (which figure?) is contestable, then contest it.

Even Greenpeace don't subscribe to what? Are you saying human emissions are much smaller than 26 GT/yr CO2? It's very much in line with other estimates I've seen.

If you think non-volcanic CO2 release from mid-ocean ridges is large, then by all means point to any evidence you have.

The CO2 from undersea geology theory (as an explanation for the rise in atmospheric CO2 in the last couple of centuries) still has a few difficulties though:

Why now and never in the last 650,000 odd years?
Isotope ratios suggest a fossil fuel or plant source
Ocean-atmosphere CO2 flux has been estimated in several different ways and they all say down, not up.

[Badjelly]

Dole?......Bet he is a state school teacher, legally poisoning the minds of our little kids! :argh:

Nah, teaching's too much work.

[puddytat]

Cant understand why folk have a problem with wether,we are the ones to blame for Climate change or ,wether your a flat earther & belive its the planets ebb & flow of things....

The Fact is we are the only ones capable of doing anything about it.


If we dont,well.....

[Badjelly]

...150-200 million tonnes of CO2 per year compared to 2-6 billion for humans (note the precise figures cadged from the Greenpeace site)....

Sorry, didn't notice this earlier. I wouldn't go to a Greenpeace site for estimates of the global carbon budget. I'd go to BGS (British), NGDC (USA), IGNS (NZ) or IPCC and then I'd follow their links into the scientific literature if necessary.

But I think there's some confusion over mass of CO2 versus mass of carbon. Based on molecular weights 1 kg CO2 contains 0.273 kg C. So 26 GT CO2 is equivalent to 7.1 Gt C. I prefer to talk in terms of C, but the BGS report I linked to used CO2 so I followed that convention.

Actually I lied in the first paragraph, the place I'd go first is this page:

http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2005/06/how-much-of-the-recent-cosub2sub-increase-is-due-to-human-activities/

[Badjelly]

Cant understand why folk have a problem with wether,we are the ones to blame for Climate change or ,wether your a flat earther & belive its the planets ebb & flow of things.... The Fact is we are the only ones capable of doing anything about it.

Actually it does make a difference, because if we didn't understand why recent climate change was happening, we...

wouldn't know if it was likely to continue
wouldn't know what's the most effective way of dealing with it


But we've pushed the gas composition of the atmosphere well outside the bounds it's been in for at least the last 650,000 years (probably more like 30-40 million) and we've got reason to believe this is going to have an effect. It's already had some effect, but it's what happens in the future that is the worry.

[James Deuce]

If that figure (which figure?) is contestable, then contest it.

Even Greenpeace don't subscribe to what? Are you saying human emissions are much smaller than 26 GT/yr CO2? It's very much in line with other estimates I've seen.

If you think non-volcanic CO2 release from mid-ocean ridges is large, then by all means point to any evidence you have.

The CO2 from undersea geology theory (as an explanation for the rise in atmospheric CO2 in the last couple of centuries) still has a few difficulties though:

Why now and never in the last 650,000 odd years?
Isotope ratios suggest a fossil fuel or plant source
Ocean-atmosphere CO2 flux has been estimated in several different ways and they all say down, not up.



Bob McDavitt and Augie Auer are/were both discredited as non-believers, however they did point to a variety of climate change factors that were natural phenomena, and repeatedly pointed out that CFCs and CO2 were not the chief concern for climate change.

FOr every figure that gets quoted there is another source discrediting it elsewhere. 26 Giga Tonnes (or is it Tons - no one seems to know if the consistency of the source material that is easily available is anything to go by) is one of those, "it's so huge I'll believe it" numbers.

[Pwalo]

And that is a great strawman. The debate, as you well know, is about exceptional climate change, induced by human activities, and above the natural baseline. Actually, it was - to quote Obama from your linked article:

You do realise that The annointed one is in fact a politician.

[Badjelly]

Bob McDavitt and Augie Auer are both discredited as non-believers, however they did point to a variety of climate change factors that were natural phenomena, and repeatedly pointed out that CFCs and CO2 were not the chief concern for climate change.

I didn't know Cheery Bob was a non-believer.

Of course the climate varies naturally. Of course there are factors other than CO2. Some of the scientists who are most alarmist about climate change (I'm thinking here about Wally Broecker (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wallace_Broecker) and James Lovelock (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_Lovelock)) are very well aware of the amplitude of climate fluctuations in the past. That's what scares them.

Before I'd discuss a statement like "CFCs and CO2 [are] not the chief concern for climate change", I'd need to know what time period we're talking about. Everything I know about past & present climates suggests that CO2 is a major player, though never the only one.


For every figure that gets quoted there is another source discrediting it elsewhere. 26 Giga Tonnes (or is it Tons - no one seems to know if the consistency of the source material that is easily available is anything to go by) is one of those, "it's so huge I'll believe it" numbers.

It's tonnes. (These days the preferred unit is petagram, which is the same as gigatonne, because 1 peta = 1 million x 1 giga.)

Are you really suggesting that the human emissions from fossil fuel burning are uncertain, that the estimates you'll see in the IPCC report have been discredited? Granted, numbers like this get repeated & quoted, get converted from on unit to the other and it can get confusing, but ultimately there's a pretty well known quantity in there. 7 Pg C per year, near enough.

[Ixion]

Of course the climate is changing. It always has.

Once, not very long ago, but before I was born, grapes were grown commercially in England and wine was produced in quantity.And the notion of the river Thames freezing over would have been viewed as ludicrous. It had never happened.

Fast forward just a few years , and there are no more grapes (or wine). And the Thames freezes over every year. And in far off forn parts, Asiatic hordes are on the move, driven from their homelands by cold and seeking new places to live. Not unnaturally the folk already living in such places object to sharing them. Which leads to wars and pyramids of skulls and such like

Global temperature goes up. And global temperature goes down. So what. Just all part of life's rich tapestry. Only fools would claim that everything must always be as it is now.

And, if the world's getting warmer , so much the better. Warm times are good times. When the world is warm , people stay home, raise crops, hunt animals , make babies. Everyone is happy. When the world is cold, the crops fail, there are no animals to hunt , the babies die, and people start amassing materials for a new set of skull pyramids. Warm is good m'kay?

The only slightly deleterious effect of warming that the doomsayers have been able to point to is that sea levels will rise. Whoopy-doo. So what? Oh, they cry,whilst rending their raiment, ports and cities will be inundated.

Yep, probably so. That's cos ports (and their associated cities0 are where they are for a reason. Like, it's where the sea is at the moment.

If the sea level rises we'll just build some new ports and new cities at wherever the sea is then. Most ports and cities are pretty old and cruddy, nice new ones would be a good thing. Climate changes. What *is* constant is the psychological need that some people have to convince themselves (and anyone else who will listen) that doomsday is at hand, that the world is about to end

Once upon a time, it was the Archangel Gabriel who was going to bring this about, he of the flaming sword. And regularly some new prophet or minister would convince his flock that the moment was nigh and the would assemble on hill tops to await the end (and maybe have sex - no point in keeping it , eh).

As far as I know the world never ended (admittedly I might have not been paying close enough attention)

Then people stop believing so wholeheartedly in the avenging hand of the Almighty. Not to worry , cried the doomsayers (well, more like "Keep worrying" , really). The world *is* about to end. but not at the hands of God. Now, it's nuclear war that is about to turn the planet into a cinder.

And many novelists grew rich producing scary novels for people to scare themselves with

As far as I know the world never ended (admittedly I might have not been paying close enough attention)

Now, nobody really believes that we're all likely to disappear in a mushroom cloud any time soon.

But the doomsayers will not be cheated of their doom. And since Science has become the new opiate of the masses (and since Science can prove absolutely anything if you already know the answers), the doomsayers have discovered a new way in which the world is going to end

Why people have this fixation I do not know But great numbers do. Probably all down to sex. Not enough, too much , who knows.

[oldrider]

In the interest of Webb space, I wont quote you Ixion but I do believe we are reading from the same page on this one! :niceone:

[Badjelly]

Climate has always changed and life has adjusted. Life will go on. Unless, of course, an extra tax on petrol is introduced to stop us burning all the fossil fuel in the Earth's crust. This will lead to an end of life as we know it and will bring pestilence, poverty and no more SUVs. We know this because some economists say so, and economics is a very reliable science.

[Badjelly]

The only slightly deleterious effect of warming that the doomsayers have been able to point to is that sea levels will rise.

I'm more worried about big changes in rainfall & evaporation in the drier agricultural areas of the globe, myself.

But I'm not the worrying sort really. I just get pissed off by willful ignorance.

[James Deuce]

I didn't know Cheery Bob was a non-believer.

Of course the climate varies naturally. Of course there are factors other than CO2. Some of the scientists who are most alarmist about climate change (I'm thinking here about Wally Broecker (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wallace_Broecker) and James Lovelock (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_Lovelock)) are very well aware of the amplitude of climate fluctuations in the past. That's what scares them.

Before I'd discuss a statement like "CFCs and CO2 [are] not the chief concern for climate change", I'd need to know what time period we're talking about. Everything I know about past & present climates suggests that CO2 is a major player, though never the only one.



It's tonnes. (These days the preferred unit is petagram, which is the same as gigatonne, because 1 peta = 1 million x 1 giga.)

Are you really suggesting that the human emissions from fossil fuel burning are uncertain, that the estimates you'll see in the IPCC report have been discredited?
Yes I am simply because different "you're all going to die if you don't stop masturbating, errr, using light bulbs with a filament" web sites interchange tonnes and tons with little thought to what that means. Not IPCC of course, but I simply cannot give any credibility to any "international" organisation that waves a big stick and yells "fear me, I have big numbers".

Rapid climate change is effected by light reflecting aerosoled compounds in the upper atmosphere. CO2 makes up 1.7% of our atmosphere. There's a lot of shrieking about gross tonnages that are insignificant in terms of overall atmospheric content. I more worried about diesel particulates and plutonium particulates than CO2 output.

[Badjelly]

Yes I am simply because different "you're all going to die if you don't stop masturbating, errr, using light bulbs with a filament" web sites interchange tonnes and tons with little thought to what that means. Not IPCC of course, but I simply cannot give any credibility to any "international" organisation that waves a big stick and yells "fear me, I have big numbers".

You've lost me there, mate.

Naive fool that I am, I shall continue believing that the fossil fuel burning is adding 7.1 Pg C per year to the atmosphere in the form of CO2. I believe this because

I have some idea of how the estimate was made: take the total amount of coal, oil and natural gas consumed and multiply each by an appropriate factor. It's not that hard FFS!
I have seen no serious criticisms of the estimate.



Rapid climate change is effected by light reflecting aerosoled compounds in the upper atmosphere.

That statement is fine provided you don't try to imply that the word "only" belongs in there somewhere.


CO2 makes up 1.7% of our atmosphere. There's a lot of shrieking about gross tonnages that are insignificant in terms of overall atmospheric content. I more worried about diesel particulates and plutonium particulates than CO2 output.

CO2 currently makes up 380 ppm of our atmosphere by volume. That's, er, let's see if I got this right ... 0.038%. It may not sound like much to you, it certainly doesn't sound like much to me, but that's not the point, is it?

The rate at which we're burning fossil fuels is enough to increase the atmospheric CO2 concentration by about twice the amount it has actually increased. It's certainly not insignificant in those terms.

[Big Dave]

In the interest of Webb space

Deep. Veryy deep.

[Badjelly]

Ixion's post reminded me of something that struck me when I read a book on estuaries a decade or 2 ago. (Yes, I read books about estuaries--well, I've read at least one, anyway.) The book said that the abundance of estuaries around the world was very unusual in geological time, a result of the 120 m or so rise in sea level at the end of the last ice age drowning lots of river valleys. Makes you think, dunnit?

In 30,000 years or so the current estuaries will all have silted up and the slow fall of sea level as we go into the next ice age will give our descendants (if applicable) a lot of rocky, steep beaches, I suppose.

Except that the next 2 or 3 ice ages have been cancelled due to the CO2 we've added to the atmosphere, or so I understand is the assessment of the few people who think about these things(*). That also makes you think, dunnit? ... No? Oh well.

(*) Mind you they may be greenie hippies who took too much acid in the 1970s.

[Ixion]

Originally Posted by oldrider View Post
In the interest of Webb space
Deep. Veryy deep.
Reply With Quote


Just a fancy way of saying he can't be forked.

(Only the very old will get this joke but it is immensely funny. So funny that I'd fall of my chair laughing , except that I am too afraid I'd land on Mr Peasea)

[James Deuce]

CO2 currently makes up 380 ppm of our atmosphere by volume. That's, er, let's see if I got this right ... 0.038%. It may not sound like much to you, it certainly doesn't sound like much to me, but that's not the point, is it?



You're dead right, I was thinking of Neon. Something to do with the colour Green.

Don't get bent out of shape, and I'm allowed to be willfully ignorant if I want. Nyah.

[RON SOAK]

If the sea level rises we'll just build some new ports and new cities at wherever the sea is then.

there are some good ex sea level shelfs cut into the waitaks from warmer times, long ago.......

[rainman]

Of course the climate is changing. It always has.

...snip...

Why people have this fixation I do not know But great numbers do. Probably all down to sex. Not enough, too much , who knows.

Eloquently written, as ever. May I be so impudent as to attempt a brief summary:


Climate varies over time
Warm is good, anyway
We are clever primates and can magically adapt to anything
People have been wrong about prospective doom before
Repeatedly
Science is bad, mmmkay? (I can't believe this is your actual view, so I may have this one wrong)
... and something about sex


In a similar spirit of brevity, my response:

That's a(nother) strawman
If you think slightly warmer weather is all that could happen, perhaps you should read more
Life will indeed continue, and the world won't end. But at what cost?
Adaptation is likely to be expensive (not only in monetary terms), and the consequences of our inaction inequally, and unjustly, distributed.
Science beats superstition and self-interested (apathetic?) disbelief any day


I share your respect for the long view, but we have, over the past few short generations, done something that has never been done before - we've extracted and burned a vast amount of fossil fuel, that took a much, much, much longer time to form in the first place. (In the course of doing this we've reconfigured our civilisation to only work well when supplied with said fossil fuel, but that's a different topic).

To expect an intelligent person to believe that "she'll be right', there will be no consequences to speak of, this is how it always has been, and we can carry on as we are with gay abandon without leaving our kids an almighty mess, is indeed asking a lot.

[Badjelly]

Nyah.

Boo. Sucks. :bleh:

[Finn]

About time someone sued Al Whore.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FfHW7KR33IQ&eurl=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.whaleoil.co.nz%2F&feature=player_embedded