Global Warming - us, or <sinister background music> something else?

[Ocean1]

I've been wondering for a while: why are they all porn stars? I mean what about all the run-of-the-mill porn hack actors? How come you never hear about them?

Because run-of-the-mill porn hacks are all moonlighting scientists who's global warming opinions are being suppressed. Obvious init, if they sacrificed their professional ethics to support the rabid scaremongering rabble they wouldn't need to fuck nubile young ladies for a pittance. Fine upstanding bunch of fullas, salt of the earth etc.

[Grahameeboy]

I have always been sceptical about humans being responsible for global warming when you consider that our output is just a pin prick compared to when volcanoes were erupting on mass.

I reckon the earth adjusts to us anyway.

[Badjelly]

I have always been sceptical about humans being responsible for global warming when you consider that our output is just a pin prick compared to when volcanoes were erupting on mass.

Sorry if this sounds condescending, Grahameeboy, but that it just plain wrong.

The rise in CO2 since 1750 or so has been caused by humans:

http://www.realclimate.org/index.php?p=87

CO2 is a greenhouse gas and you'd expect an increase of the magnitude we've caused to have some effect:

http://www.realclimate.org/index.php...-6-easy-steps/

Beyond that, there's more room for research & debate, but you can't reasonably dismiss the whole thing on the grounds that it's impossible.

The Earth is round. Get used to it.

[Badjelly]

Because run-of-the-mill porn hacks are all moonlighting scientists who's global warming opinions are being suppressed. Obvious init, if they sacrificed their professional ethics to support the rabid scaremongering rabble they wouldn't need to fuck nubile young ladies for a pittance. Fine upstanding bunch of fullas, salt of the earth etc.

The pity of it is that sacrificing your professional ethics to support the rabid scaremongering rabble is worth so little.

I've just noticed that this forum is called "Rant or Rave" not "Rant and Rave". I'm going to have to choose.
__________________

[Pixie]

I think the greatest environmental threat we face is dihydrogen monoxide. Dihydrogen monoxide is colorless, odorless, tasteless, and kills uncounted thousands of people every year. Most of these deaths are caused by accidental inhalation of DHMO, but the dangers of dihydrogen monoxide do not end there.

Prolonged exposure to its solid form causes severe tissue damage. Symptoms of DHMO ingestion can include excessive sweating and urination, and possibly a bloated feeling, nausea, vomiting and body electrolyte imbalance. For those who have become dependent, DHMO withdrawal means certain death.

It is also the most common industrial solvent and evil wealthy capitalists dump it down drains with impunity

[Pixie]

Even if what the greenie anti-capitalists and global warming industry public teat suckers say is true,mass extinction is a good thing.It gives nature the opportunity to come up with new and interesting organisms.If it wasn't for the KT event we would still be in a burrow hiding our furry little shrew like bodies from the dinosaurs.

It can't be denied that the best thing for the environment would be to lose 6 billion homo sapeins

[Ocean1]

Beyond that, there's more room for research & debate, but you can't reasonably dismiss the whole thing on the grounds that it's impossible.

Sure you can, you can find compelling qualified opinion to support fucking near anything, that's my point, very few of us have the wherewithal to evaluate those opinions. Occasionally we can spot an error or a propensity to obscure unfavourable data, and trim the dependability of the source accordingly, but that’s about it. The real crime here is not that humans have shat in their own nest, it’s that political interest has completely destroyed the value of scientific research by introducing specialist lobbyist tactics.

Debate away, I’ve done it before, ad-nausea, from both sides and from neither. I’m none the wiser, I’m in the same position as everyone else: I’ll believe the predictions when they’re matched by incontrovertible fact, and that’s not yet. In the meantime, what balance my time can afford:

http://lanl.arxiv.org/abs/0707.1161

http://lanl.arxiv.org/abs/physics/0503119

[Ocean1]

The pity of it is that sacrificing your professional ethics to support the rabid scaremongering rabble is worth so little.

Oh the money's very good, just turns out not to enjoy quite the same fringe benefits.

I've just noticed that this forum is called "Rant or Rave" not "Rant and Rave". I'm going to have to choose.

Meh, nobody will notice the difference dude.

[James Deuce]

Sorry if this sounds condescending, Grahameeboy, but that it just plain wrong.

The rise in CO2 since 1750 or so has been caused by humans:

http://www.realclimate.org/index.php?p=87

CO2 is a greenhouse gas and you'd expect an increase of the magnitude we've caused to have some effect:

http://www.realclimate.org/index.php...-6-easy-steps/

Beyond that, there's more room for research & debate, but you can't reasonably dismiss the whole thing on the grounds that it's impossible.

The Earth is round. Get used to it.

Like all global warming activists you're operating in the very short term

http://links.jstor.org/sici?sici=008...3E2.0.CO%3B2-G

Did we do that? No! The Mid-Atlantic trench is one big line of volcanic activity and has a huge impact on the world's ecology. It also pumps out one heck of a lot more CO2 than we do.

It's not a case of impossibility, but the lack of empirical data is astonishing, which HAS to bring into question the science around global warming. 160 years of data collection (some of it very poorly done) on a 4 billion year old planet that had twice the level of oxygen in the atmosphere than it does now only 150 million years ago means that scientists shouldn't be talking in absolutes.

During the 70s and 80s there was a lot of ranting about global cooling. The trend changed and now there's ranting about global warming.

There's no conspiracy of any sort, just the simple fact that if you don't buy into the Global Warming concept, less funding comes your University's way. Scientists have become pragmatists thanks to the desire of Governments around the developed world to have universities pump out "stuff" that makes money right now thanks, not as some indirect result of waffley research.

[Badjelly]

Yeah, Ocean1, I'm beginning to flag too. Thanks for the ArXiV links. I've read the abstracts. I'm inclined to think the Gerlich & Tscheuchner paper is not worth reading, but the Fabara & Hoenisen one might be. Don't get cynical on me, old man! What I try to keep remembering is that there is a real world out there, just one, and we've learned a hell of a lot more about it in the last few hundred years.

Jim2, can you give me a link or reference to support this (anything will do):

The Mid-Atlantic trench is one big line of volcanic activity and has a huge impact on the world's ecology. It also pumps out one heck of a lot more CO2 than we do.

I've heard this a couple of times recently and I wonder if there's actually anything behind it.

Re this:

During the 70s and 80s there was a lot of ranting about global cooling.

That's an oldie but a goodie. During the 70s there was a *bit* of ranting about global cooling. (I remember the 70s.) Well, speculation more than ranting. The vast majority of scientists at the time dismissed it as speculation and ignored it, as one does. The number of scientific papers that took it seriously could be counted on the fingers of Troy Bayliss's right hand. The IPCC assessments are not ranting.

[Badjelly]

Hi again Jim2. I'm surprised you didn't mention the Paleocene–Eocene Thermal Maximum:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paleoce...hermal_Maximum

Now that was a beauty!

Hmm, climate system is variable (not completely unstable, or we'd all be extinct, but certainly prone to oscillations & shifts). Better bump up the greenhouse gas concentrations for a couple of hundred years, then, and see what happens.

[Mr Merde]

....
I've heard this a couple of times recently and I wonder if there's actually anything behind it.


..

http://books.nap.edu/openbook.php?re...d=6238&page=28

[Winston001]

I think the greatest environmental threat we face is dihydrogen monoxide. Dihydrogen monoxide is colorless, odorless, tasteless, and kills uncounted thousands of people every year. Most of these deaths are caused by accidental inhalation of DHMO, but the dangers of dihydrogen monoxide do not end there.

Prolonged exposure to its solid form causes severe tissue damage. Symptoms of DHMO ingestion can include excessive sweating and urination, and possibly a bloated feeling, nausea, vomiting and body electrolyte imbalance. For those who have become dependent, DHMO withdrawal means certain death.

That....that's appalling! How come no-one knows about this stuff? Does it affect pirates?

Signed
Worried

[Badjelly]

That....that's appalling! How come no-one knows about this stuff? Does it affect pirates?

Aaarrr me lad, only if they drinks it.

[Badjelly]

I think that somewhere in this thread I asked for some justification for the idea that undersea volcanic CO2 emissions are (or might be) greater than (or comparable with) human CO2 emissions. A few posts back Mr Merde posted a link to a paper from a PNAS colloqium that talks about big changes in ocean carbon chemistry on century time scales near Bermuda, and much else besides. But it didn't talk about whether it was feasible for volcanoes to have produced a significant proportion of the rise in CO2 for the last few centuries or decades. (I mean, you'd think you'd notice something.) Damned interesting paper though, I'd lile to get hold of the full text.

However I did find the following on

http://volcanoes.usgs.gov/Hazards/Wh...as/volgas.html

Comparison of CO2 emissions from volcanoes vs. human activities.
Scientists have calculated that volcanoes emit between about 130-230 million tonnes (145-255 million tons) of CO2 into the atmosphere every year (Gerlach, 1999, 1991). This estimate includes both subaerial and submarine volcanoes, about in equal amounts. Emissions of CO2 by human activities, including fossil fuel burning, cement production, and gas flaring, amount to about 27 billion tonnes per year (30 billion tons) [ ( Marland, et al., 2006) - The reference gives the amount of released carbon (C), rather than CO2, through 2003.]. Human activities release more than 130 times the amount of CO2 emitted by volcanoes--the equivalent of more than 8,000 additional volcanoes like Kilauea (Kilauea emits about 3.3 million tonnes/year)! (Gerlach et. al., 2002)

So where are all these volcanoes?

This illustrates my point. In science, if you have an idea, an hypothesis, you have to write it down, consider its consequences (where might these volcanoes be, how would they change the ocean chemistry around them). Then you go out and test your ideas about the consequences (predictions) and see if they hold up. If your aim is just to obfuscate and confuse you just throw out vague ideas and by the time people have realised they're rubbish you've moved onto the next one. Meanwhile the old idea (which might have been discredited, or so vaguely described it can't be discredited) lives on like a zombie in the half-world of blog forums.

But re the underersea-volcano idea, I'm not ruling it out, I'd lust like more information on how it might work.

It's a nice day out there!