It's always nice to know how things will affect us! [url]New Government report.[/url]
It's always nice to know how things will affect us! [url]New Government report.[/url]
Or "may" effect us.
Playing devils advocate here, but... when forecasters struggle to tell us what the weather will be like next week, I do wonder about the confidence of people who try and predict long term climate, especially as history has shown that the planet goes through phases of lows and highs (cold and hot) over many many years.
It may just be a natural phase that we can do little to change (though certainly I think we don't help - personal opinion), but will change itself back in time to come.
Or "may" effect us.
Playing devils advocate here, but... when forecasters struggle to tell us what the weather will be like next week, I do wonder about the confidence of people who try and predict long term climate, especially as history has shown that the planet goes through phases of lows and highs (cold and hot) over many many years.
It may just be a natural phase that we can do little to change (though certainly I think we don't help - personal opinion), but will change itself back in time to come.
This sounds very like wishful thinking. You are flying in the face of the scientific evidence.
Climate is not weather. A lot of the arguments against global warming are based on the fallacy that they are the same. Global mean surface temperature is rising and shows no signs of stopping.
When you say 'history' do you mean history or pre-history. Because the GMST is now higher than at any time in human history. If you are talking about geological time scales - yes, there have been highs and lows. Not as abrupt as this one and there has always been a reason. The reason for this one is the burning of fossil fuels. What else could it be? Remember, global warming was predicted well over 100 years ago, not from observation but from the scientific reasoning of what MUST happen if fossil fuels are burned.
We are now in the 379th consecutive month with temperatures above the 20th century average.
When over 99% of scientists (and 100% of climatologists) know this is happening, where is your evidence that it is not?
The planet goes through natural cycles, when the sun gets more active and produces more solar flares the earth heats up, when the sun is more dormant it cools down, we do not know what has happened in the past because we do not have any long term records, the history of this planet has been destroyed and rewritten so many times that it appears that we have only inhabited this planet for a few thousand years, the reality is that we have been here for hundreds of thousands of years.
The permafrost has so much trapped carbon gas from past carbon emissions that you can set fire to it as it melts, what do you think happens when a volcano erupts and spews out masses of carbon emissions all in one go, it can also put so much rubbish into the atmosphere that it blocks out the sun and creates a mini ice age, we have heard nothing about what the nuclear weapons that have been used and tested do to the overall temperature of this planet, nor do we see heavy taxes being placed upon the aeroplanes that travel in the jet streams whilst pumping out masses of carbon emissions.
Are you advocating that we should shut down all of the power plants and stop extracting and using oil and gas from the planet and go back to working the land by hand to sustain ourselves?
This sounds very like wishful thinking. You are flying in the face of the scientific evidence.
Climate is not weather. A lot of the arguments against global warming are based on the fallacy that they are the same. Global mean surface temperature is rising and shows no signs of stopping.When you say 'history' do you mean history or pre-history. Because the GMST is now higher than at any time in human history. If you are talking about geological time scales - yes, there have been highs and lows. Not as abrupt as this one and there has always been a reason. The reason for this one is the burning of fossil fuels. What else could it be? Remember, global warming was predicted well over 100 years ago, not from observation but from the scientific reasoning of what MUST happen if fossil fuels are burned.
We are now in the 379th consecutive month with temperatures above the 20th century average.When over 99% of scientists (and 100% of climatologists) know this is happening, where is your evidence that it is not?
Told you it was playing devils advocate. 😉
You are flying in the face of the scientific evidence
Well science has always been right with it's 'evidence' hasn't it... erm.... hang on. (and don't get me wrong I'm a big supporter of science - just not a big supporter of scientific ego where they say they're right and nothing else is)
Certainly in terms of history I'm talking about long term pre-recorded history. Nature is a powerful, yet slow creature, so nothing happens 'fast' relative to our meagre short lives. 379 months is a mere fraction of a blink.
However, I do agree that burning of fossil fuels and suchlike (all the cr@p that the human race pumps out) doesn't help, either from a climate perspective or just a general health perspective.
The planet goes through natural cycles, when the sun gets more active and produces more solar flares the earth heats up, when the sun is more dormant it cools down, we do not know what has happened in the past because we do not have any long term records, the history of this planet has been destroyed and rewritten so many times that it appears that we have only inhabited this planet for a few thousand years, the reality is that we have been here for hundreds of thousands of years.
The permafrost has so much trapped carbon gas from past carbon emissions that you can set fire to it as it melts, what do you think happens when a volcano erupts and spews out masses of carbon emissions all in one go, it can also put so much rubbish into the atmosphere that it blocks out the sun and creates a mini ice age, we have heard nothing about what the nuclear weapons that have been used and tested do to the overall temperature of this planet, nor do we see heavy taxes being placed upon the aeroplanes that travel in the jet streams whilst pumping out masses of carbon emissions.
Are you advocating that we should shut down all of the power plants and stop extracting and using oil and gas from the planet and go back to working the land by hand to sustain ourselves?
Scientists have speculated that the Maunder Minimum (a 70-year period of very few sunspots in the late 17th/early 18th Century) was linked to the ‘Little Ice Age’ of that time. However, since we are at the moment in another such weak cycle, this should cause cooling, not global warming. It is agreed by solar scientists that solar cycles are not driving climate change.
According to one study (Turco et al, 1983) the main effect of nuclear testing is a localised cooling. (If you want to look at the maths of the energy transfer, have a look here.) Besides, records show that human-led climate change had started over the last few hundred years, long before nuclear weapons were developed.
What is your point about volcanoes? Yes, big eruptions like Mount Pelée or Nevado del Ruiz can cause cooling – again, the opposite of global warming.
We do know what has happened in the past – through the study of paleoclimatology.
No. We don’t tax aeroplanes heavily. In my opinion we should. I’m not advocating anything – I was sharing an article about a government report. However, ‘going back to working the land by hand’ (or horse or oxen) may come about whether we want it to or not. And I for one will miss my diesel chainsaw and electric concrete-mixer, but we do what we can. Yes, fossil fuels should stay in the ground. But it’s not going to happen since there’s way too much money to be made from getting every last bit out.
Told you it was playing devils advocate.
Well science has always been right with it's 'evidence' hasn't it... erm.... hang on. (and don't get me wrong I'm a big supporter of science - just not a big supporter of scientific ego where they say they're right and nothing else is)
Certainly in terms of history I'm talking about long term pre-recorded history. Nature is a powerful, yet slow creature, so nothing happens 'fast' relative to our meagre short lives. 379 months is a mere fraction of a blink.
However, I do agree that burning of fossil fuels and suchlike (all the cr@p that the human race pumps out) doesn't help, either from a climate perspective or just a general health perspective.
This is not about the egos of scientists – although the denial of climate change may have something to do with the egos of politicians.
The situation is similar to that concerning tobacco towards the end of the last century. Big money paid for scientists who were prepared to claim that there was no danger in smoking. The evidence however told a different story. Another area is macronutrients – the ‘carbs vs fat’ argument. This is just getting started, even though the evidence is clear. Most people, of course, don’t look at evidence.
Some things happen fast, even in geological time. The Cleveland Dyke, created by volcanic eruptions on the Isle of Mull, was formed by magma that travelled from Mull to the Yorkshire coast in a single pulse, taking between one and five days. But most occurrences happen more slowly. It is, in part, the speed with which the earth is warming that is such a cause for alarm. 379 months is over 30 years. What are the chances of this happening by chance?
Graphs based on information from Nasa:
Hi Crowan
Although pushing lots of matter into the atmosphere as with a volcano or nuclear detonation can cause localised cooling following the event because it block out the suns rays, it was how much heat the eruption or explosion itself gives off as it happens, now if scientists are saying that a nuclear explosion actually creates cold rather than heat, then someone needs to look at the evidence from Japan as to how much heat a small nuclear bomb actually generates (not the same as lighting a fire) which has to go somewhere.
Please do not get me wrong here, I think it would be good for the planet for human beings to become more responsible, though if necessary the planet has ways of resetting the balance. 🙂
The heat is localised and miniscule compared with the things humans do. Of more import in a volcanic eruption is the release of gases: some carbon dioxide (about 1% of the amount fossil fuel burning causes) and a lot of sulphur dioxide which is what has a cooling effect. There's also a lot of water vapour which rains out very quickly.
Yes, the planet can restore balance. However, this is long term. In the meantime people (and other animals and plants) will die. And the balance the earth reaches may well not be able to support human life.
Why are you looking for other reasons? What is it about the burning of fossil fuels that you don't believe/understand?
I am not looking for alternative reasons for the temperature of the planet, it has been going up and down for millennia without our interference, not quite sure why you think that setting off a megaton nuclear bomb has very little effect upon the temperature of the planet compared to lighting a fire to stay warm, I see all sorts of reasons for global warming, forest fires in different parts of the planet, wars etc, in the mean time we could all stop utilising anything which creates greenhouse gasses, not quite sure what we would do about the natural planetary and universal occurrences that are completely outside of our control though. 🙂
You haven't been reading up on this for the last several years, have you? Okay - it's not what I think, it's what science says. [url]Try this.[/url]
You say
in the mean time we could all stop utilising anything which creates greenhouse gasses,
This is the problem, of course, bring us back to the burning of fossil fuels, building with concrete, making plastic, factory farming etc. I'd like us all to stop doing these. I don't think it's likely that, as the entire human race, we are going to stop any time soon.
When I asked why you were looking for alternate reasons for global warming I meant: do you not believe that our production of greenhouse gases is heating up our planet? From your comment above, I assume you do.
I think it has the potential to add to what occurs naturally, but at the moment all I see is the government using it as a cash cow without doing much about it, I am sure that if the government could not levy taxes upon it, we would not be hearing much about it. 🙂
rI don't understand your reasoning.
First, because the Conservative Government is ideologically against taxes. Osbourne froze carbon taxes so as not to 'penalise' fossil fuel producers. Any 'climate change tax' is peanuts compared with other taxations.
Second, because it isn't 'The Government' that is talking about it. It's scientists. It's NASA. It's places like the Solomon Islands and the Maldives. Sogomou, one of the Solomons, has lost 55% of its land due to rising sea levels.
The places - like the UK, the USA, Australia etc - where the governments are more interested in money and power are far more likely to have climate sceptics in their ranks. And those politicians in these places who do accept that global warming is happening are too invested in the short term to care.
If, as you argue, this is a natural cycle - how does it work. The 'sun activity increase' argument doesn't work. The balance is changing it. What is driving this?
Carbon dioxide has increased (35%) since the start of the Industrial Revolution. Theory predicts temperature will rise given an enhanced greenhouse effect. How can this not be having an effect? I know that over the course of this discussion you have slipped from 'it's naural' to 'it's natural PLUS human-made' but really, you are giving no evidence. All you are doing is changing your arguments from one dis-credited notion to another. Where is your evidence?
Every major scientific institution dealing with climate, ocean, and/or atmosphere agrees that the climate is warming rapidly and the primary cause is human CO2 emissions.
As you correctly state, global warming is a theory, in the news recently vast areas of forestation have been alight around the planet, this is a natural occurrence of the planet to promote regrowth, the planet has been through times of excessive heat and times of excessive cold, areas of land have been pushed up from the sea bed and other land masses have been swallowed up by rising sea levels, this is all natural and most of the most dramatic climate changes that have occurred upon this planet have had little to do with the beings that live on its surface.
As for taxation, forget about the big companies, we are all being penalised with climate taxes which are not being utilised to devise new ways of creating clean energy. 😉
As you correctly state, global warming is a theory, in the news recently vast areas of forestation have been alight around the planet, this is a natural occurrence of the planet to promote regrowth, the planet has been through times of excessive heat and times of excessive cold, areas of land have been pushed up from the sea bed and other land masses have been swallowed up by rising sea levels, this is all natural and most of the most dramatic climate changes that have occurred upon this planet have had little to do with the beings that live on its surface.
As for taxation, forget about the big companies, we are all being penalised with climate taxes which are not being utilised to devise new ways of creating clean energy. 😉
Paul, I seriously do not believe that a man as intelligent as you appear to be does not know the difference between 'theory' as it is commonly used and 'theory' as it is used in science. In common parlance it means an untested idea - what in science would be a hypothesis. To be accepted as a theory in science - as climate change is - it has to stand up to scientific scrutiny. And there has to be nothing to contradict the theory. The theory has to be well developed and internally consistent. You are being ingenuous here.
We have covered climate changes in the past. There is always a cause. I asked you - what is the cause now if not humans? The fact that you don't actually answer this makes me suspect you haven't got an answer. And if you think that the fires of this year are 'natural occurrence' you need to explain why there has been such a huge increase from the usual baseline.
I have answered your question, but because some scientists do not think that the suns activity directly effects the temperature of the planet for some unknown reason, you choose to disregard it, I talk about the relation to setting of megatons of heat in nuclear explosions, forest alight around the globe and volcanoes going off and you say that science says that actually cools our climate, well climate records only go back a couple of hundred years, that is a drop in the ocean in relation to how long this planet has had an atmosphere and beings on it, the geology of this planet shows what has happened in the past, we have coal mines thousands of feet deep, that was part of the planet surface which was covered in trees which where absorbing the co2 being produced at that time, as well as plants and beings.
I have answered your question, but because some scientists do not think that the suns activity directly effects the temperature of the planet for some unknown reason, you choose to disregard it, I talk about the relation to setting of megatons of heat in nuclear explosions, forest alight around the globe and volcanoes going off and you say that science says that actually cools our climate, well climate records only go back a couple of hundred years, that is a drop in the ocean in relation to how long this planet has had an atmosphere and beings on it, the geology of this planet shows what has happened in the past, we have coal mines thousands of feet deep, that was part of the planet surface which was covered in trees which where absorbing the co2 being produced at that time, as well as plants and beings.
'Some' scientists make it sound as if it's only one or two! And you know that is not so.
Do you understand 'the Greenhouse Effect'? Even if there were an increase in heat from the sun, it would not have this effect. The heat from the sun is trapped below the greenhouse gases. These greenhouse gases are there because we have put them there.
You are grasping at myths (in the sense of 'media lies that people like to believe') rather than looking at the science. Who are the scientists that you choose to believe? Or are you simply making it up?
What is the point you are making about the coal mines? The huge (by modern standards) mass of carbon locked in those trees and other plants was buried, fossilised. This cooled the planet at the end of the Carboniferous and the start of the Permian by taking CO2
out of the atmosphere. By burning the coal and oil so produced we reverse this chemical process, releasing CO2 once more into the atmosphere. This is joined by methane (CH4), from factory farming but even more so by the release of the gas from previously frozen tundra. This is one reason there are so many fires - you are confusing cause and effect.
I know from things you have written in other threads that you are scornful of science. But we are destroying this world and climate change deniers (backed by money. Always follow the money. Money leads us into short-term thinking.) are responsible for allowing so many people to sleepwalk into disaster.
'It's not happening' / 'It's a natural occurrence' / 'Science will come up with a way to save us' are all various ways of staying firmly in our comfort zones and ignoring the very unnatural, dangerous things that are happening around us.
To be accepted as a theory in science - as climate change is - it has to stand up to scientific scrutiny. And there has to be nothing to contradict the theory. The theory has to be well developed and internally consistent. You are being ingenuous here.
Well, bang goes string theory, the multiple universe theory and many other scientific theories then. Some of the 'theories' contradict the other theories, and are only scientifically accepted by certain groups of scientists, whilst not by others. The problem being that science has created divisions within itself in order to be able to claim the glory of their 'theories' rather than work universally together to either prove or disprove them.
"Well developed and internally consistent". Look it up.
In the end it really doesn't matter if you or Paul prefer to ignore science and if everyone else has seen this thread and thought either "boring" or "scary". It's still happening. Happening faster than even the most ardent doomsayers had predicted. So - enjoy the couple of decades we have left. It'll be bad.
[url]The Climate crisis is already here.[/url]
Hi Crowan
It was not that long ago that people believed that the world was flat, we may or may not have a problem, predictions are only that a prediction of what might be according to one way of looking at things, but things like cutting down the trees to make so called cleaner fuel for power plants, will in effect get rid of the mechanism the planet provides to rectify this sort of problem, trees absorb co2, therefore stop cutting them down and plant more trees would be a step in the right direction. 🙂
Cutting down trees for power plants? If you mean Wilton10, it uses recycled wood, sawmill waste, Forestry Commission waste and short-term rotation coppiced wood. These last are the only ones cut down specially and are an on-going crop.
However, this has nothing to do with the science of climate change.
No I mean power plants like Drax which would require the full production of trees (that is full trees) that this country can produce in one year to keep it running.
Not to mention that everyone who installs a biomass burner to heat their homes, which produces more co2 than coal gets a kickback for each ton they burn from the government, why because some boffin convinced them that biomass was both sustainable and green, but that is the nature of scientific evidence which is created to support financial gain. 😉
I repeat - this has nothing to do with the science of climate change. So what is your point?
By the way, in case any of the 646 views of this thread are interested: [url]Report on the state of the planet 2015 [/url]- from the American Meteorological Society.
Quite simple Crowan, without the scientific predictions of climate change which have instigated new legislation, it would not be viable to cut down millions of tons of trees per year to create biomass fuel at the expense the planet, the environment and our pockets, we would have vehicles that ran 20% more efficiently etc. 😉
Of course it wouldn't and no one is suggesting it. This idea is a straw man.
No this is not an idea, it is the reality of what is happening right now, so yes in 20 years time when there are very few trees left on the planet, the planet and us will be in trouble, but for a different reason than the one that is being predicted. 😉
No reason is being predicted. You've said things before that indicate you are scornful of science. Since Climate Change is proved by observation and an understanding of statistics and explained by science, your arguments don't change the basic fact - human-driven climate change is happening. Now. It is likely going to kill (more of) us.
Wood fired power stations are not going to happen on any large scale. Too expensive in both money and in CO2 terms. And (as I pointed out before) where it does happen (or is being considered) wood will be grown specially or sawmill waste will be used. But yes, there are too many trees being destroyed, worldwide. This doesn't change the facts of Climate Change. Nor do your economic arguments.
No reason is being predicted. You've said things before that indicate you are scornful of science. Since Climate Change is proved by observation and an understanding of statistics and explained by science, your arguments don't change the basic fact - human-driven climate change is happening. Now. It is likely going to kill (more of) us.
Wood fired power stations are not going to happen on any large scale. Too expensive in both money and in CO2 terms. And (as I pointed out before) where it does happen (or is being considered) wood will be grown specially or sawmill waste will be used. But yes, there are too many trees being destroyed, worldwide. This doesn't change the facts of Climate Change. Nor do your economic arguments.
Hello Crowan
You obviously did not bother to read the link that I put up earlier, a large part of Drax power station has already adapted to bio-fuel, it has bought the rights to vast areas of the worlds forestations, it is right now chomping through them at an alarming rate and shipping the bio-fuel half way round the world to supply our current energy needs, this is not a speculation of what might happen in the future, this is a reality that is taking place right now as a direct result of global warming predictions, you probably will not bother doing any research on this as it does not appear to be as important as proving that global warming predictions will be right, so I will leave it at that. 🙂
I read it. It was the Daily Mail!
You are clearly not interested in debating the overwhelming evidence for global warming, preferring to go off at tangents that do not effect the science of climate change. Fine. We'll leave it there. After all, no one else on HP seems to have the slightest bit of interest in the extermination of human life, and you, clearly, have no interest in the lives already lost.
First seabirds started falling out of the sky, washing up on beaches from California to Canada.
Then emaciated and dehydrated sea lion pups began showing up, stranded and on the brink of death.