King Canute returns

[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 and 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!

[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 and 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

1. 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!
2. 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.