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What's Really Warming the World?

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Re: What's Really Warming the World?

#71

Post by _petronius »

andyjohnson0 wrote: post #48
_petronius wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think in the context of convincing people that we urgently need to address the current climate problem (for economic, ecological, and security reasons), that might be distracting. Assuming there are probably other interglacial periods in Earth's long history that were a lot warmer than the current one[0], or maybe had lots more greenhouse gasses from some non-human source (if such a thing is geologically possible),…

"...the Earth has had worse ecological disasters than the human species..." True, but they were a long time ago and the human species wasn't around to experience them. The rate of change of present warming, and its likely effects, are going to cause very severe difficulties for our (and many other) species.

Totally agree. I'm not saying we should be sanguine about the current situation just because it isn't as bad as previous extinction events or the like (and in fact, being even fractionally as bad as any of the worst ones would be cause for outright panic).

Re: What's Really Warming the World?

#72

Post by fexl »

flavor8 wrote: post #22
nixy wrote: post #8

In climate 130 years is not a long time. I wish these articles showed graphs with historical data that go back thousands of years so that I could see how, in a historical context, greenhouse emissions are affecting the world. I've only ever seen data from the 1900's, and it looks pretty hockey stick, but would be interesting to see fluctuations with the ice age(s) and local highs included. Edit: historical data is of…

http://www.epa.gov/climatechange/science/indicators/ghg/ghg-... http://www.geocraft.com/WVFossils/last_400k_yrs.html http://www.sciencemag.org/content/339/6124/1198.abstract

Are there any data on water vapor concentrations? I ask that because I have read that the contribution of water vapor to the greenhouse effect is perhaps two to four times greater than CO2.

Re: What's Really Warming the World?

#73

Post by mikeash »

athenot wrote: post #63
moubarak wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm a non-secular person that's why. I certainly don't have the numbers, i read them here and there. But i base it on knowledge coming from scriptures. Scientists are hardworking people, but i don't take their numbers as faith.

I'm intrigued as to how you arrive to this conclusion. Faith explains the "why", science explains the "how". And there certainly is support in Scripture to take good care of the Earth, following a more generic pattern of being good stewards of what God has entrusted us with. This is why Laudato Si is nudging the faithful into action.

Faith explains both why and how. The Bible is full of "how." Almost all of the "how" has been discovered to be wrong, but it's there. Religion has responded to this by retreating from the realm of the "how," and so your statement that faith is just about the "why" is becoming a pretty common view.

However, a lot of people are still around who don't agree with that approach, and still stick with the "how" as described in their holy texts. Exhibit A, above.

Re: What's Really Warming the World?

#74

Post by _petronius »

semi-extrinsic wrote: post #56
_petronius wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think in the context of convincing people that we urgently need to address the current climate problem (for economic, ecological, and security reasons), that might be distracting. Assuming there are probably other interglacial periods in Earth's long history that were a lot warmer than the current one[0], or maybe had lots more greenhouse gasses from some non-human source (if such a thing is geologically possible),…

Science shouldn't care about "convincing people that we urgently need to address the current climate problem" when it comes to testing their models. Scientists should test their predictions against all available usable data with impunity. Of course you don't want to write about that in your fancy Nature paper, you put that in a climate modelling conference paper or something.

Yes, the division of concerns is important. I guess I'm more concerned with how we talk about what it is the climate models are predicting rather than how those models are constructed. I wouldn't want anyone to conflate "natural processes without human influence can cause similar effects" with "we aren't causing it therefore we can keep burning oil/coal/etc. and it doesn't matter."

Re: What's Really Warming the World?

#75

Post by batou »

mikeash wrote: post #32
batou wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Indeed. Didn't Feynman say that the real measure of science is experiment? Show me the experiments otherwise we have merely observations and conjecture. They might be right, but at the moment we've established hypothesis and nothing more.

The experiment isn't controlled, but it's being performed. The experiment is, "Let's dump gigatons of excess CO2 into the atmosphere and see what happens!" So far, what happens is that global temperatures go up noticeably. What are you proposing we should do? Should we just ignore the whole thing until it's proven?

Not at all. I'm saying that we should reduce emissions. What could possibly be bad about that?

Its what I'm not saying that is important. I don't proclaim an answer nor an idealism, merely cautious scientific thought that suggests the methodology needs to be considered. In any other field the lack of rigorous proofs would be laughed off the table.

Re: What's Really Warming the World?

#76

Post by hackuser »

moubarak wrote: post #4

i read an article a while back on the economist which suggested that if you look at a longer span (much longer than 1880) you will find that this is a natural cycle that the Earth/Sun go through. We just happen to be at that point in the cycle. i really doubt we humans can affect climate changes in any way. An interactive colourful plot doesn't convince me.

The Economist, which I read, unfortunately pushes propaganda about climate change (as they do about some other issues too).

For example, many years ago they published an article[1] saying that a recent conference led by John Bolton[2] came to the same climate-denying conclusion as an earlier conference led by Bjorn Lomborg.[3] The Economist claimed that Bolton's results were independent corroboration for Lomborg's, saying the "conclusions were strikingly similar".

The Economist omitted a few things that made the similarity less striking: 1) The Economist co-sponsored Lomborg's conference; 2) Lomborg co-chaired Bolton's conference; 3) Bolton's conference was in fact marketed as the sequal to Lomborg's (Lomborg's was "Copenhagen Consensus 2004", Bolton's was "Copenhagen Consensus 2006", and a third was planned); 4) Former Economist writer Clive Crook co-chaired Bolton's conference.

I pulled those details from an email I sent to The Economist at the time. The article author responded professionally, but dismissed my concerns.

[1] "How to save the world: Bolton v Gore", June 22nd 2006 http://www.economist.com/node/7086861

[2] Bolton is a prominent US diplomat, whose career included being Ambassador to the United Nations, and a very outspoken neo-conservative.

[3] Lomborg is a leading climate denier, trotted out as a academic expert. His PhD is in political science and, at least at one point, he taught statistics at a business school. (My anecdotal observation is that few climate deniers have expertise in climate science.)

Re: What's Really Warming the World?

#77

Post by mcv »

jimhefferon wrote: post #55
crimsonalucard wrote: post #36

This article only serves to stroke the ego of people who already believe that CO2 emissions cause global warming. It does nothing for people who already deny it. Evidence, no matter how strong doesn't serve to change the nature of a man. People would rather bend the logic and the evidence to fit their convenient perception of reality. Which brings me to the question: "What can change a nature of a man?" Imminent dang…

FWIW, my parents were rabid climate deniers, after they got cable and foolishly started watching Fox, porn for the ancient (but I digress..). Then Super Storm Sandy. Now when it is being discussed they sit silently. Personally, it doesn't seem to me that one storm is all that persuasive, from a statistical standpoint. But we are not talking about reason here.

A single storm isn't, but if it's part of a trend, something might be up.

Re: What's Really Warming the World?

#78

Post by CurtHagenlocher »

crimsonalucard wrote: post #36

This article only serves to stroke the ego of people who already believe that CO2 emissions cause global warming. It does nothing for people who already deny it. Evidence, no matter how strong doesn't serve to change the nature of a man. People would rather bend the logic and the evidence to fit their convenient perception of reality. Which brings me to the question: "What can change a nature of a man?" Imminent dang…

People of all stripes have the tendency to weight the believability of the evidence based on how well it matches their beliefs instead of weighing their beliefs based on how well they match the evidence.

Re: What's Really Warming the World?

#79

Post by crimsonalucard »

mcv wrote: post #61
crimsonalucard wrote: post #36

This article only serves to stroke the ego of people who already believe that CO2 emissions cause global warming. It does nothing for people who already deny it. Evidence, no matter how strong doesn't serve to change the nature of a man. People would rather bend the logic and the evidence to fit their convenient perception of reality. Which brings me to the question: "What can change a nature of a man?" Imminent dang…

> "What can change a nature of a man?" Wasn't that Regret? I really hope we can act before it comes to that.

>Wasn't that Regret?

I think the canon answer was 'belief', or more accurately, "Whatever you believe can change the nature of a man, can." Ravel actually accepted any answer.

Re: What's Really Warming the World?

#80

Post by dnautics »

jimhefferon wrote: post #55
crimsonalucard wrote: post #36

This article only serves to stroke the ego of people who already believe that CO2 emissions cause global warming. It does nothing for people who already deny it. Evidence, no matter how strong doesn't serve to change the nature of a man. People would rather bend the logic and the evidence to fit their convenient perception of reality. Which brings me to the question: "What can change a nature of a man?" Imminent dang…

FWIW, my parents were rabid climate deniers, after they got cable and foolishly started watching Fox, porn for the ancient (but I digress..). Then Super Storm Sandy. Now when it is being discussed they sit silently. Personally, it doesn't seem to me that one storm is all that persuasive, from a statistical standpoint. But we are not talking about reason here.

Embarassingly, Super Storm Sandy wasn't even a hurricane (at the time that it struck New York).
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