Bush ok's Gulf of Mexico Drilling

[TimAZ]

hehehe... you're still missing it

the warming trend of the last two centuries or so is unique

it is totally unlike anything that has happened during the past ten millenia

the warming trend itself has only been underway for less than 150 years

see?

The last ice age ended ten millenia ago. The ten thousand year trend would then be one of a warming period. The trend does appear to have been accelerating and there is good evidence of human "assistance," but it is still a continuation of the overall trend. Observing the deep cuts made by ancient seashores (as well as the current one) on Bonaire, it appears that not only is climate change normal, but even abrupt climate change may be normal. I think we should stop going out of our way to return long sequestered carbon to the atmosphere in an effort not to screw up the cycle furthur than we may already have, but with the climate induced increase in natural carbon emission I don't see how reducing our emissions will slow the trend in the next several centuries.

Once again: not a scientist, just interested

 

[H2Andy]

ok, i see what you're saying, but i am reading it that the current warming trend is unprecedented for at least the past 10,000 years

but yes, the last ice age ended 10,000 years ago or so, so you would expect a warming trend of some sort.

they are saying that even in the warming period of the last 10,000 years, the current trend is unprecedented

(i.e. on top of the fact that it's been a warming trend since the last ice age)

dam... i'm not doing a good job of expressing this

ok... let me try again:

ice age ends... you expect a warming trend

8,000 years ago... yup... getting warmer

7,000 years ago ... yup... still warm

warming trend is there

ok, good .... we've got a warming trend....

5,000 years

warming trend ... still there...

2,000 years ago ... yup... still warming trend

1,000 years ago... yup, still warming trend

200 years ago HOLY COW!!! the readings go off the chart!!! totally unlike anything else in the past 10,000 years...

this is different! what's going on here?

 

[Bill51]

so, there is no global warming?

scientists don't agree on that?

and it's not at least partially man-made?

scientists don't agree on that?

oy vey

:shakehead

Oy Vey!!

What we’re saying is that we (or at least me and many I know) could probably get a pretty strong consensus among physical scientists (not the social scientists driving so much of the debate today) that man may be contributing to 5% of the current climate change and that we may be able to make some small difference in the rate of climate change. The debate is not even so much about the science as it is the wisdom of spending 95% of our resources attempting to make a 5% difference when those resources could be better spent dealing with adaptation strategies and tackling the more pressing local pollution and environmental issues that are directly affecting people’s lives today. This whole climate change fiasco has sucked the funding, resources, and public attention out of too many other pressing critical environmental issues.

 

[H2Andy]

man may be contributing to 5% of the current climate change and that we may be able to make some small difference in the rate of climate change.

on the other hand, we may be contributing much more than 5% and may be able to make a great difference in the rate of climate change

on that, there is no hard and fast answer

i just ask you, do you think it's wise to assume we aren't and we can't? seems to be what you are doing

i say, if in doubt, throw in the kitchen sink. and we are in doubt as to the extent.

(general, there may or may not be a large enemy force hiding in this forest. do we call in an air raid? .... Nah.... they may not be there.... and if they're there, we may not do much damage to them)

 

[Bill51]

ok, i see what you're saying, but i am reading it that the current warming trend is unprecedented for at least the past 10,000 years

but yes, the last ice age ended 10,000 years ago or so, so you would expect a warming trend of some sort.

they are saying that even in the warming period of the last 10,000 years, the current trend is unprecedented

(i.e. on top of the fact that it's been a warming trend since the last ice age)

dam... i'm not doing a good job of expressing this

ok... let me try again:

ice age ends... you expect a warming trend

8,000 years ago... yup... getting warmer

7,000 years ago ... yup... still warm

warming trend is there

ok, good .... we've got a warming trend....

5,000 years

warming trend ... still there...

2,000 years ago ... yup... still warming trend

1,000 years ago... yup, still warming trend

200 years ago HOLY COW!!! the readings go off the chart!!! totally unlike anything else in the past 10,000 years...

this is different! what's going on here?

You may or may not be right, but until a lot more real research is done regarding the medieval warming period that statement is pure speculation based on very questionable data. Remember that until the US Senate called them on it, the IPCC was downplaying the rate and severity of medieval climate change based on the tree rings of ONE [/] individual tree in northern Europe. Prior to 1988, the medieval warming was an interesting field of study for anthropologists looking at social changes and very little hard science research was done from the geophysical perspective. When one looks at how much less ice was on Greenland during the time than today, and how rapidly it iced back up during the little ice age, there is tremendous social science evidence that this planet had a pretty spectacular climate change.

Many of the problems with claiming that the earth is warming faster than at anytime in 10,000 years is outlined in the National Academy of Sciences report and several other recent reviews - after Congress spent 8 years trying to force the release of the raw data to “true” peer review. Some of the issues I remember are the use of actual measured temperatures from 1900 to the present and using empirical evidence such as tree rings or ice cores for the period prior to 1900 – without having a valid standard of empirical evidence for modern temperatures to verify the correlations. In other words, it measures apples before 1900, and oranges afterward. There was no normalization done on the post 1900 data to account for the rapidly increasing number of reporting stations. There was not a statistically valid method used to account for reporting stations that were rural during the early 1900s, and deep in the heat island of a city later in the century. Other scientists have now come forward to question the adjustment factors used on deeper ice cores where the pressures were not properly accounted for. And the biggest problem is that while this hypothesis was called “peer reviewed” when it was touted by the IPCC in 1998, until 2005 every one of the scientists that participated in the “peer review” was also a co-author of the study they were reviewing, or a co-author on another paper by the same group. This is why the NAS made the statement in the first truly open peer review, “Overall, the committee believes that Mann’s assessments that the decade of the 1990s was the hottest decade of the millennium and that 1998 was the hottest year of the millennium cannot be supported by his analysis.”

So your opinion is based on a study that has circulated for 8 years with much press falsly claiming to have been properly peer reviewed, yet the National Acadamy of Sciences disagreed in the past year after their first pass at reviewing it. There are several other open reviews being done now also and their results should be avaible in the next year or so, but preliminary reports (leaks) from them show they are finding much wrong with the IPCC claim also.

 

[H2Andy]

So your opinion is based on a study that has circulated for 8 years with much press falsly claiming to have been properly peer reviewed,

please, how can you say that?

there have been at least (at least) 928 scientific studies, all properly peer reviewed, and all but 3 or 4 (less than 5 anyway) supported the concensus view.

the results have been supported by the IPCC, the American Meteorological Society, the American Geophysical Union and the American Association for the Advancement of Science, not to mention all the national scientific boards of the G8 nations and Japan to mention but a few. for christ's sakes, even Bush admits there's global warming and humanity is at least partly to blame.

just two years ago, a new report by the Arctic Climate Impact Assessment -- a consortium of eight countries, including Russia and the United States -- confirmed that major changes are taking place in the Arctic, affecting both human and non-human communities, as predicted by climate models.

it's at this point that you start wondering whether ANY amount of persuasive date would ever convince those who simply refuse to accept the facts.

 

[Bill51]

on the other hand, we may be contributing much more than 5% and may be able to make a great difference in the rate of climate change

on that, there is no hard and fast answer

i just ask you, do you think it's wise to assume we aren't and we can't? seems to be what you are doing

i say, if in doubt, throw in the kitchen sink. and we are in doubt as to the extent.

(general, there may or may not be a large enemy force hiding in this forest. do we call in an air raid? .... Nah.... they may not be there.... and if they're there, we may not do much damage to them)

I have proposed several actions that can be done to curb CO2 emissions in this thread and everyone of them has run into road blocks in DC, primarily from industrial urban area politicians and have seen ZERO support from a single major environmental organization. While you may wish to throw in the kitchen sink, are you willing to accept what that really means to 300 million Americans? We can use governmental powers to reduce our standard of living to that of many third world countries. We can commit to the US making more of a sacrifice than any other nation in the world to the cause. We can accept that as we drive the national economy down those at the current bottom will be the hardest hit by far. Is the rest of the nation as convinced as you that they should make the same sacrifices as you just because you think it’s that important?

Preventing American firms from drilling for natural gas on American territory is not going to do one thing to reduce the amount of CO2 in the atmosphere, and in fact it could increase the CO2 output by the time the world markets get done with it. What it will do is slow the US economy enough that we won’t be able to afford many pressing environmental issues that need to be addressed.

Given that we’re middle class, it’s very gracious of us to commit those less fortunate to throwing in their kitchen sink to solve what you see as a problem to you. Don’t destroy the forest with an air raid until you have some degree of confidence that’s where the enemy really is.

 

[rookers]

I believe its been published in numerous locations that ExxonMobil is responsible for funding a great deal of the 'climate change dissent' community. Taking its cue from the tobbacanista lobby.

 

[ReefHound]

(general, there may or may not be a large enemy force hiding in this forest. do we call in an air raid? .... Nah.... they may not be there.... and if they're there, we may not do much damage to them)

on the other hand, it may be one of our allies but what are the odds of that? Bombs away...

 

[Bill51]

please, how can you say that?

there have been at least (at least) 928 scientific studies, all properly peer reviewed, and all but 3 or 4 (less than 5 anyway) supported the concensus view.

the results have been supported by the IPCC, the American Meteorological Society, the American Geophysical Union and the American Association for the Advancement of Science, not to mention all the national scientific boards of the G8 nations and Japan to mention but a few. for christ's sakes, even Bush admits there's global warming and humanity is at least partly to blame.

just two years ago, a new report by the Arctic Climate Impact Assessment -- a consortium of eight countries, including Russia and the United States -- confirmed that major changes are taking place in the Arctic, affecting both human and non-human communities, as predicted by climate models.

it's at this point that you start wondering whether ANY amount of persuasive date would ever convince those who simply refuse to accept the facts.

The majority of those studies listed started with the assumption that the Dr. Mann/IPCC climate changes were valid. Garbage in, garbage out. How many of those studies that were picked by Oreske actually looked at what prior global temperatures were? It would have been impossible for any of those studies to do a peer review on the actual data used by Dr. Mann since only his 43 friendly scientists had access to the data prior to the Senate forcing him to make it public – since he did the research using taxpayer money, but wouldn’t let Congress see what they paid for.

Now, do you have a solution to your perceived problem yet or do you just have more complaints about what you see the problem to be? Do you agree that Senators Rockefeller and Snow have the right to threaten firms or organizations that publish scientific papers contradicting your opinion of climate change?