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Exxon knew that fossil fuels were influencing the climate in 1978

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Re: Exxon knew that fossil fuels were influencing the climate in 1978

#331

Post by reitanqild »

throwaway66666 wrote: post #329
reitanqild wrote: post #106

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not sure how to vote this: Totally agree with the first part. The second part describes a thing I regularily do as "pretty creepy". To clarify: before deciding to flag, downvote or vouch for someone I might have a look at their comment history to see if I am misunderstanding something. Also if someone posts something nice I look through their history to find more good comments. I don't think I'm the only one who does…

I did not mean to offend you. And I am sorry I used that terminology. To me it felt odd that if you reach the front page suddenly eyes are looking at your history and everything you have done. If you put yourself out there, suddenly eyes are watching everything. That seemed a bit scary (and again sorry for using emotional words), though of course makes sense why it happens. But in general, I fully agree with you. The…

> If you put yourself out there, suddenly eyes are watching everything. That seemed a bit scary (and again sorry for using emotional words), though of course makes sense why it happens.

I'm painfully aware. Which is why I often use this account :-)

> Apologies again.

No need for that after you cleared it up. I might even have been too harsh myself. I actually prefer if there is some room for thought here and I might have read more into your original post than you intended.

Re: Exxon knew that fossil fuels were influencing the climate in 1978

#332

Post by tempestn »

ThomPete wrote: post #327
tempestn wrote: post #325

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You're saying a 1 degree increase over a hundred years is not significant? That's an unprecedented rate of change.[1] And again, most of the effect from the greenhouse gasses released over the past 50 years hasn't been seen yet, because it affects the rate of change of temperature, not the instantaneous temperature. Unfortunately by the time the effect is impossible for you to ignore, it will be too late to prevent m…

Again please explain this 1-degree increase first 0.5 from late 1800 to mid 1900 when we didn't emit much CO2 second 0.5 degree where we emitted a lot. You were the one claiming your graph illustrated something. You have no basis for this claim: "And again, most of the effect from the greenhouse gasses released over the past 50 years hasn't been seen yet," Of course, it has and as we have learned it doesn't have as b…

The relationship between greenhouse gas concentration and heat transfer is logarithmic, not linear, so it's not surprising that we don't see a linear relationship between CO2 concentration and temperature rise. Also, once again, greenhouse gasses affect heat transfer, which affects the rate of change of temperature, rather than temperature directly. That's my basis for the claim that the full effect of the gasses being released now is yet to be seen. Finally, temperature is noisy and in the short term is impacted by many factors, so looking at a short term (in geological terms) graph, an increase may not seem large compared to the noise. However, if you look at the recent increase on a longer time scale, you can see that it is unprecedented. And it is entirely consistent with what is scientifically expected based on atmospheric CO2 levels. If you'd like to understand why more deeply than my outline here, this is a good primer: https://skepticalscience.com/empirical-evidence-for-co2-enha...

I'm always open to new information. I'm no expert in this stuff, so I can certainly learn more—learned a couple of details while reading to try to fully answer your question actually. And it's a reasonable question why the temperature increase over the past 100 years (in particular broken into two periods) isn't proportional to the C02 increase over the same time. I think I've fully answered it now though; is there anything specific that I wrote above or that's included in that link that you dispute?

Re: Exxon knew that fossil fuels were influencing the climate in 1978

#333

Post by toper-centage »

namarie wrote: post #71
sosborn wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't think humans will have much trouble adapting. Cities will move to accommodate the rising sea, we will move on to other food sources as the need arises, and life for us will go on. It's the other species – the ones that had no hand in this – that I worry and feel regret about.

And where are those food sources coming from? As good farmland becomes too hot and the colder regions that warm up don't usually have good soil... And sure, "cities will move" - so much political chaos happening on Europe just because of a million refugees - now imagine 50 times more coming to northern europe just from southern europe. Similar things happening all over the world. What fun!

Aquaponics everything!

Re: Exxon knew that fossil fuels were influencing the climate in 1978

#336

Post by ThomPete »

tempestn wrote: post #332
ThomPete wrote: post #327

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Again please explain this 1-degree increase first 0.5 from late 1800 to mid 1900 when we didn't emit much CO2 second 0.5 degree where we emitted a lot. You were the one claiming your graph illustrated something. You have no basis for this claim: "And again, most of the effect from the greenhouse gasses released over the past 50 years hasn't been seen yet," Of course, it has and as we have learned it doesn't have as b…

The relationship between greenhouse gas concentration and heat transfer is logarithmic, not linear, so it's not surprising that we don't see a linear relationship between CO2 concentration and temperature rise. Also, once again, greenhouse gasses affect heat transfer, which affects the rate of change of temperature, rather than temperature directly. That's my basis for the claim that the full effect of the gasses bei…

No it doesent explain it. I know the answer but its not convincing and no the models so NOT actually predict anything without the curve fitting. They are more wrong than right. Yes its logaritmic but question is how much of the increase is man made how much is natural. This is the question we cant answer. If 10% of the change is caused by humans its a very different thing than if 90% is human as one scenario means we can do something and should, while the other mean its waste of time. As long as that number isnt clear i wont loose my sleep over it.

Re: Exxon knew that fossil fuels were influencing the climate in 1978

#337

Post by tempestn »

ThomPete wrote: post #336
tempestn wrote: post #332

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The relationship between greenhouse gas concentration and heat transfer is logarithmic, not linear, so it's not surprising that we don't see a linear relationship between CO2 concentration and temperature rise. Also, once again, greenhouse gasses affect heat transfer, which affects the rate of change of temperature, rather than temperature directly. That's my basis for the claim that the full effect of the gasses bei…

No it doesent explain it. I know the answer but its not convincing and no the models so NOT actually predict anything without the curve fitting. They are more wrong than right. Yes its logaritmic but question is how much of the increase is man made how much is natural. This is the question we cant answer. If 10% of the change is caused by humans its a very different thing than if 90% is human as one scenario means we…

OK, I'm not sure why you're not convinced. It seems to me that at the heart of it, if we massively increase atmospheric CO2, we know that atmospheric CO2 causes a greenhouse effect, and we do indeed see temperatures rising, then by far the most likely explanation is that the CO2 is causing the warming. We should require good evidence to the contrary to not accept that as at least a working theory. What's more, reducing the atmospheric CO2 will decrease warming, even if there is some other, unknown factor that is also contributing. And given that just a couple degrees of warming will cause mass extinction as well as likely significant human suffering, it would be prudent to act to counter it, even if it were actually unlikely that humans were the cause (which again, I have no reason to suspect).

So, as someone who seems eloquent and informed, your position is truly perplexing to me. The only explanation I can think of is that you have some vested interest in believing as you do, be it conscious or otherwise. Do you feel that accepting human-caused climate change would be betraying your political affiliations? Or is your livelihood, or those of close friends or family tightly coupled to the fossil fuel industry? Do you tend to distrust scientific evidence in other areas?

You don't need to answer these questions, but maybe ask yourself if there might be another reason why you're resistant to the most likely explanation here.

Re: Exxon knew that fossil fuels were influencing the climate in 1978

#338

Post by ThomPete »

tempestn wrote: post #337
ThomPete wrote: post #336

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No it doesent explain it. I know the answer but its not convincing and no the models so NOT actually predict anything without the curve fitting. They are more wrong than right. Yes its logaritmic but question is how much of the increase is man made how much is natural. This is the question we cant answer. If 10% of the change is caused by humans its a very different thing than if 90% is human as one scenario means we…

OK, I'm not sure why you're not convinced. It seems to me that at the heart of it, if we massively increase atmospheric CO2, we know that atmospheric CO2 causes a greenhouse effect, and we do indeed see temperatures rising, then by far the most likely explanation is that the CO2 is causing the warming. We should require good evidence to the contrary to not accept that as at least a working theory. What's more, reduci…

The heart of it is that we don't know how much humans affect the temperature increase.

If we don't know that then how can we know whether we can do anything about it?

Re: Exxon knew that fossil fuels were influencing the climate in 1978

#339

Post by ThomPete »

ThomPete wrote: post #338
tempestn wrote: post #337

Earlier quoted context omitted.

OK, I'm not sure why you're not convinced. It seems to me that at the heart of it, if we massively increase atmospheric CO2, we know that atmospheric CO2 causes a greenhouse effect, and we do indeed see temperatures rising, then by far the most likely explanation is that the CO2 is causing the warming. We should require good evidence to the contrary to not accept that as at least a working theory. What's more, reduci…

The heart of it is that we don't know how much humans affect the temperature increase. If we don't know that then how can we know whether we can do anything about it?

And yes I have vested interest. My children who I don't want to grow up in a world that is based on hysteria and so I do what I can to teach them not to just be reactive and listen to the media without understanding the underlying data and to make sure they ask the right question.

The right question is to figure out how much humans affect the climate.

Re: Exxon knew that fossil fuels were influencing the climate in 1978

#340

Post by [deleted] »

sctb wrote: post #324
madaxe_again wrote: post #83

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Almost every one of your posts here is to refute climate change. Someone could be forgiven for thinking you have an interest in fossil fuels. Edit: I see from your CV that you have a history of working with the fossil fuel industry - specifically, Exxon in Calgary in the early 80’s. I think it’s safe to disregard anything you have to say on the topic.

> Please don't make insinuations about astroturfing. It degrades discussion and is usually mistaken. If you're worried, email us and we'll look at the data. Besides this, it's rude to address other community members this way. Just email us at hn@ycombinator.com if you have such concerns, we take them seriously and we have better options for addressing them. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

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