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Merged Global Warming Discussion II: Heated Conversation

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Republicans and Conservatives often are seen in a very bad light here and other debates about AGW.

i find this a bit unfair.
there are several Republications that make a lot of very good points on the topic of AGW. and we should not just ignore what they say, but actually listen to what some of them have to say on this topic.

like here



https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCgF456DJTctf23o04uliJMw
 
Siberia is cooking already

Forest fires arrive early as Siberia sees record high ...
siberiantimes.com/.../forest-fires-arrive-early-as-siberia-sees-record-high-...
Apr 6, 2014 - New evidence of climate change as blazes come six weeks early in 2014.
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DC said:
Republicans and Conservatives often are seen in a very bad light here and other debates about AGW.

i find this a bit unfair.
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Generalisations usually are.

there are several Republications that make a lot of very good points on the topic of AGW. and we should not just ignore what they say, but actually listen to what some of them have to say on this topic.
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They're more like the 3% than the 97% in the US Republican Party though, which is why that party has nothing worthwhile to contribute on the subject.

In the UK, the Conservative Party does have something to contribute but is running so scared of the right, in the form of UKIP/GWPF and their own right-wing, that they daren't make a squeak. This is driving many actual conservatives to despair. (That's my impression, anyway, but I do tend to mix with only with the better sort of conservative :) .)
 
DC said:
Republicans and Conservatives often are seen in a very bad light here and other debates about AGW.

i find this a bit unfair.
there are several Republications that make a lot of very good points on the topic of AGW. and we should not just ignore what they say, but actually listen to what some of them have to say on this topic.

like here



https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCgF456DJTctf23o04uliJMw
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When they start voting according to their words and apparent understandings, instead of according to solely partisan political obstructionism goals, then their words will gain the strength of support apparent in their actions. Show me the action, then I lend a bit more weight to your words, otherwise it is all pretty prose that most likely reflects pandering to the middle while "wink,wink, nudge, nudging" their base in very purple districts.
 
Comedic Relief

just to add a little bit of lightness to the weight of the climate observations.

http://www.desdemonadespair.net/2014/05/yesman-mike-bonnano-hoaxes-reed-college.html
(Facebook) – An astonishing speech from YesMan Mike Bonnano as commencement speaker at his alma mater, Reed College -- including a perfect YesMan event embedded within it. Worth the 25 mins of listening. So smart, so funny.

“Graduating Reed College students and their parents gave a standing ovation Monday to an announcement by their commencement speaker that the college had decided to divest from fossil fuels.

“But the President and Chair of the Board of Trustees, who were sitting onstage with the speaker, quietly wrung their hands—because the announcement was a hoax, and the board had recently decided exactly the opposite.”
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OR to quote the XJ-212 Funnybot: "Awkward!"*

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*obscurant South Park reference - I mean it's not like he was "Scrotie McBoogerballs," but then, who is?

(Return to regularly scheduled postings)
 
Cost of solving AGW Climate drivers

CapelDodger said:
Perhaps we should avoid politics.
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ROFLOL

..., were you being serious?


If so, then there is no sense in talking about solutions or resolutions as all of these require policy actions (AKA politics). If we aren't going to talk about solutions, then discussing the problem and mechanisms of problem (AKA science) is largely irrelevant aside from anecdotal asides and tombstone carvings.

If you were just being a bit dry, lets look at what it cost/save us.

MIT has looked into this issue and conducted several studies:

http://www.technologyreview.com/news/527196/how-much-will-it-cost-to-solve-climate-change/

Highlights:
Major reports are concluding that stabilizing greenhouse-gas emissions to avoid catastrophic climate change is possible and can be done at a relatively low cost. But the details of the reports make it clear that when you factor in real-world issues—such as delays in developing and implementing technology and policy—the cost of solving climate change gets much higher. Switching from fossil fuels to low-carbon sources of energy will cost $44 trillion between now and 2050, according to a report released this week by the International Energy Agency. That sounds like a lot of money, but the report also concludes that the switch to low-carbon technologies such as solar power—together with anticipated improvements in efficiency—will bring huge savings from reduced fossil-fuel consumption. As a result, the world actually comes out slightly ahead: the costs of switching will be paid for in fuel savings between now and 2050.
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so, $44T is a tidy little bankroll, but it is cheaper than the costs of the fossil fuels that the investment would replace. SO, in essence it will cost us more to change nothing and keep going as we are, than it will to invest in energy systems that do not rely upon fossil fuels!

Costs more to do nothing - a recurring theme when it comes to climate change

In 2012, the IEA estimate for the cost of switching to low-carbon energy was only $36 trillion, $8 trillion less than the current estimate. The increase is largely because in the intervening time, emission rates have increased and greenhouse-gas levels in the atmosphere have risen, making the problem harder to solve. The IPCC report showed that continuing to hold off on reducing emissions could increase costs by 40 percent if the delay leaves emissions 50 percent higher in 2030 than they are in ideal scenarios.
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There's another common theme, "the longer we wait, the more expensive the process will be." So, currently if we act before the economic breakeven point is reached, it is profitable to transition to non-fossil fuel alternatives. If we wait till after we pass the economic breakeven point transition becomes increasingly expensive and more difficult to fully achieve while insuring worst-case scenario outcomes with regard to climate impacts.
 
Warm waters hit my face...

Well, we know what this one is:

picture.php

But this is the view of the arctic during May

picture.php

Here's an animation that helps to demonstrate what can happen in 1 month

picture.php
 
Rusty Joe

'Coffee rust' fungus raises prices of high-end blends
http://www.cbc.ca/news/world/coffee-rust-fungus-raises-prices-of-high-end-blends-1.2646898

The U.S. government is stepping up efforts to help Central American farmers fight a devastating coffee disease — and hold down the price of your morning cup.

At issue is a fungus called coffee rust that has caused more than $1 billion in damage across Latin American regions. The fungus is especially deadly to Arabica coffee, the bean that makes up most high-end, specialty coffees.

Already, it is affecting the price of some of those coffees in the United States...

Washington estimates that production could be down anywhere from 15 per cent to 40 per cent in coming years, and that those losses could mean as many as 500,000 people could lose their jobs. Though some countries have brought the fungus under control, many of the poorer coffee-producing countries in Latin America don't see the rust problem getting better anytime soon...

USAID intends to work with Texas A&M to step up research on rust-resistant coffee varieties and help Latin America better monitor and respond to the fungus. The U.S. already collaborates with some of the coffee companies and other international organizations to finance replanting of different varieties of trees.

The effort is part of the Obama administration's Feed the Future program, which aims to rid the world of extreme poverty through agricultural development and improved nutrition.

While the effort has helped hungry children around the globe, "we're at risk of backtracking because of coffee rust," Shah says.
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While I'm not the coffee fiend I used to be, and my Blue Mountain Jamaican brand is still in pretty good shape, this is one area I expect to see a lot of genetic effort being put into over the next couple of decades.
 
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Arnold Martin said:
Yes , and all the plants on earth will consume the extra CO2 , not to mention how much better stuff grows when the environment is nice and warm

Greenhouses have done that for years .... here is one that adds CO2 ... and it is in MacDoc's Ontario

http://www.omafra.gov.on.ca/english/crops/facts/00-077.htm
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http://www.skepticalscience.com/co2-plant-food.htm

It is possible to boost growth of some plants with extra CO2, under controlled conditions inside of greenhouses. Based on this, 'skeptics' make their claims of benefical botanical effects in the world at large. Such claims fail to take into account that increasing the availability of one substance that plants need requires other supply changes for benefits to accrue. It also fails to take into account that a warmer earth will see an increase in deserts and other arid lands, reducing the area available for crops.
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Arnold Martin said:
Yes , and all the plants on earth will consume the extra CO2 , not to mention how much better stuff grows when the environment is nice and warm

Greenhouses have done that for years .... here is one that adds CO2 ... and it is in MacDoc's Ontario

http://www.omafra.gov.on.ca/english/crops/facts/00-077.htm
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mmmhh makes so much sense what you say, and you link to so convincing research.

and here iwas listening to institutions like NASA,ESA, MIT, Yale, MPI, ETHZ....
but some guy on the internet figured it all out.
and you didn't even have to use one of those climate models.

you are a genius. thanks for setting us straigth.
 
greybeard said:
http://www.skepticalscience.com/co2-plant-food.htm
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Even in the presence of more water, one effect of increased CO2 is that stomatal conductance decreases and plants take up less water (Taub & Wang 2008) this leads to a variety of impacts on growth. Increased photosynthetic activity but reduction of water usage, lead to nitrogen uptake issues, and protein production problems. Since the food value of such plants is reduced insects and animals have to eat more of it to gain the same nutrient value. Lots of issues and these are just the tip of the iceberg.

FACE experiments are a great reference for outdoor open-air increased CO2 growth conditions.

http://www.nature.com/scitable/know...atmospheric-concentrations-of-carbon-13254108

http://news.stanford.edu/pr/02/jasperplots124.html

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/15720649

http://www.bnl.gov/face/pdfs/Long.pdf
 
Arnold Martin said:
Yes , and all the plants on earth will consume the extra CO2 , not to mention how much better stuff grows when the environment is nice and warm

Greenhouses have done that for years .... here is one that adds CO2 ... and it is in MacDoc's Ontario

http://www.omafra.gov.on.ca/english/crops/facts/00-077.htm
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Not necessarily Arnold. I am a huge proponent of using plants to mitigate atmospheric CO2 and thus global warming. But it isn't that easy or simple. Not by a long shot. Farming Claims almost half the Earth. When you consider most of the rest of the land is unfit for agriculture, like for example Himalayan mountains covered in ice or Sahara desert with blowing sands, that means MOST of the Worlds potential to mitigate global warming with plants is compromised by agricultural systems that do not hold carbon into deep time. Almost all gets released in the short carbon cycle and almost none stays in the soil.

Your friend has a greenhouse and he can relatively precisely control the environment in that greenhouse. But when the greenhouse is the whole world, we really can't precisely control it. In fact at this point we can't control it at all, except with rather crude things like irrigation and tillage.

So while what you are talking about is technically possible, and I am actually a huge advocate of changing agriculture worldwide in order to make the attempt, your simplistic comments are ridiculous in the context in which they are made. It simply can not happen without a worldwide radical change in agriculture, and even then it isn't guaranteed by any stretch.
 
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Arnold Martin said:
Yes , and all the plants on earth will consume the extra CO2 , not to mention how much better stuff grows when the environment is nice and warm

Greenhouses have done that for years .... here is one that adds CO2 ... and it is in MacDoc's Ontario

http://www.omafra.gov.on.ca/english/crops/facts/00-077.htm
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And a rise in ocean level means more shallow environments for marine life to thrive in, therefore climate change is nothing but rainbows and unicorns. No downsides whatsoever. No siree. None at all. :rolleyes:

You understand that greenhouses are controlled environments, right? If it gets too hot in the greenhouse (which it does on very hot days), we can open a door, panels in the roof, or ventilate the building in some other fashion to remove the excess heat. We don't have that luxury when it comes to Earth.
 
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Global average temperatures have risen about 0.8oC (or 1.44oF)over the last century, of course that is a global average. Depending upon where you live that increase is realized differently. If you live on the equator, the temperature has only increased a fraction of that amount, if you live much closer to the poles the temp. difference can be more than 10-12 degrees already. Over the course of the next 4-5 decades, conservative estimates indicate that the global average temp will increase by an additional 2-3o C (or an additional 3.6 - 6.3oF) and remember this must be adjusted for how far you are away from the equator. For the US, this translation should be ~5-10oF. By 2100 we'll be looking at 4-6oC if things continue as they have and we don't trigger any major natural releases due to the human induced warming.

A lot of people don't understand the significance of a few degrees of average temperature difference. 3, 5, 7, even 10 degrees does not seem to be a perceptually large difference. 5oC, however, is roughly the difference between the average global temperature at the depths of the last ice age and the average global temperature of more than a century ago. In natural, extreme climate warming events, "rapid warming" would experience 0.8oC warming over a period of thousands of years. This current warming has happened over a period of decades. Moreover it won't end in 2050 or 2100 or even 5100, we are triggering a warming cycle that will continue for thousands if not tens of thousands of years as our planet adjusts to the new energy imbalances we are creating. The reality is that the CO2 from a gallon out of every tank of gas will continue to affect climate for tens and even hundreds of thousands of years into the future.

Archer, D., Fate of fossil-fuel CO2 in geologic time. J. Geophys. Res. Oceans, in press. - J. Geophys. Res. doi:10.1029/2004JC002625, 2005

http://press.princeton.edu/chapters/s8719.pdf
 
Arnold Martin said:
Yes , and all the plants on earth will consume the extra CO2
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1) plants won't absorb any more CO2 than they need
2) plants are generally not CO2 limited so they don't need more
3) plants that do absorb more CO2 emit more CO2 when they die so plant respiration doesn't change long term atmospheric CO2 levels
4) CO2 LEVELS ARE RISING RAPIDLY AND IT'S BEEN PROVED THAT THE NEW CARBON IS FOSSIL IN ORIGIN.
 
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