Merged Global Warming Discussion II: Heated Conversation

[macdoc]

You have not even come close to showing a mechanism and frankly I'm getting weary of you regurgitating arguments already made elsewhere.

I am arguing the exact opposite. That biology in large part drives the climate

You make enormous claims not reflected in the mainstream climate science .....which is the TOPIC of this thread.
Now I've done the courtesy of asking you to put it in a new topic or show main stream science paper support for you claim.

 

[CapelDodger]

... the science of AGW has nothing to do with political ideology.

It's remarkable how closely AGW denial and rightwing ideology have become intimately entwined over the last couple of decades. It's up there with small government and the feckless poor as a defining belief and campaign issue. So closely are they identified that rightwingers cannot view AGW as anything other than political.

As a result I (yes, me) have been taken to be a "liberal" simply because I accept the science and the evidence. It would be funny if it wasn't so ... well, actually, it is funny. That's what keeps me coming back .

 

[CapelDodger]

Yeah they don't even have the large corporations on board any more in the deniosphere...the climate deniers had to join forces with the anti-evolution crowd on the RR...

AGW denial has become too wacky for serious people to associate with; their focus now is on the real target - renewables. AGW was only ever a skirmish.

 

[aleCcowaN]

Strawman. I am arguing the exact opposite. That biology in large part drives the climate and humans have changed the biology on the planet, not in 100s of thousands of years, but very rapidly. That's why it is called AGW. We did it, and it is our responsibility to fix it. The only one using denialist arguments here on this thread is you. You are denying the impact humans have had on the biosphere, and the effect that impact has on climate.

How does your reply relate with my post you quoted? And, do you have the habit of announcing your strawmen? I mean, because you say strawman and following you make one. Also tell us where your sentence "humans have changed the biology on the planet" is to be found used in a real context.

Your preach won't change the fact that you are trying to cheat us in believing that your holistic manage and organic farming notions are going to provide a significant relief on man made global warming. About your gratuitous -you may imagine the real adjectives I'm using- accusation about the impacts humans have had in the biosphere, find and quote here of my +2,000 posts a single instance of me doing that. Surely you won't, because one thing is the easy innuendo and a different one is reality.

You also confess the mechanics of your denialism: "humans have changed the biology on the planet... That's why it is called AGW. We did it, and it is our responsibility to fix it." That's exactly what I said you were doing: AGW only exists if you can relate it to soil use and propose soil intervention as a solution. If not, you're not interested. That is a dormant variety of denialism.

You are a spammer and so long you have achieved that from 52 posts total 18 revolve around you. There would have been much less if we allowed you to spam unleashed.

A decent person would have replied immediately providing convincing assessments for the healing capacities of changing soil use. You have been asked that for months and you still resort to the same tactics: dropping the same garbage and making a fuss when you get criticism. And the garbage is garbage because of the use you make of it, as most papers and articles have their own merits outside the role you have tried to force them in. In your mind -the typical mind of an epistemological hedonist- the papers are good as they sustain your fantasies, hence your fantasies are good because the papers are good. Any criticism you got you have brazenly deflected it from your bad use of those papers to the intrinsic quality of those papers.

 

[Red Baron Farms]

You have not even come close to showing a mechanism and frankly I'm getting weary of you regurgitating arguments already made elsewhere.

I am arguing the exact opposite. That biology in large part drives the climate

You make enormous claims not reflected in the mainstream climate science .....which is the TOPIC of this thread.
Now I've done the courtesy of asking you to put it in a new topic or show main stream science paper support for you claim.

I am getting weary myself, having to explain the most basic concepts. But I will try again. You don't like my statement and think "That biology in large part drives the climate" is an enormous claim? Actually it is the most basic grade school knowledge. K-12

I should not have to even post and reference such basic info. But since you seem to think it is such a "huge claim". I guess I must.

Vegetation: Its Role in Weather and Climate


Vegetation covers a considerable portion of the earth and has an effect on weather and climate. Vegetation influences both albedo of the earth and the amount of water vapor and carbon dioxide in the air.

Why do I care? Humans are altering the vegetation on earth, and it is impacting weather and climate. Farmers and other community professionals might find it interesting to learn about the role of vegetation in weather and climate. source Climate education for K-12

So: Number one, vegetation does in fact in large part drive climate. Secondly, humans are in fact changing the vegetation on Earth. Thirdly this human caused change is actually impacting climate. Not some huge claim that is beyond mainstream science. Just common knowledge for anyone actually educated beyond K-12.

Now the details and the exact quantification of that impact are a bit trickier. That's where we may have some discussion and debate. But if you and ale are so obstinate as to deny even the most basic science for children, how are we ever going to actually discuss it? Like I said before, I thought deniers were supposed to be removed from this thread, and only serious scientific discussion allowed? Yet a guy posting about beer gets no chastisement at all, and a serious paper by one of the leading scientists in his field gets dismissed as just one insignificant paper, simply because denialists refuse to accept that human activity has impacted one of the major drivers of climate? Don't you get weary of fighting climate deniers ignoring fossil fuel emissions are a factor in driving AGW? Well I get just as weary having to fight the AGW deniers myself, both the ones who say burning fossil fuels have little to no effect, and the ones who say vegetative changes caused by humans have little to no effect.

 

[Trakar]

I am getting weary myself, having to explain the most basic concepts. But I will try again. You don't like my statement and think "That biology in large part drives the climate" is an enormous claim? Actually it is the most basic grade school knowledge. K-12

I should not have to even post and reference such basic info. But since you seem to think it is such a "huge claim". I guess I must.

The attitude is inappropriate.

There is a significant and substantive difference between the assertion that "biology in large part drives the climate" and the proffered support's statement that "Vegetation covers a considerable portion of the earth and has an effect on weather and climate."

"has an effect" does not equal "in large part drives the climate"

It is not uncommon for people to feel passionate about issues that they are attached to, that can be an admirable quality. That said, there is no single causation or remedy for complex issues such as the modern episode of climate change. I would imagine that altering the traditional practices and policies of human land usage could, and probably will, play a significant role in how our species ultimately addresses and transcends modern climate change issues.

 

[Red Baron Farms]

"has an effect" does not equal "in large part drives the climate"

You are correct. And now we get to the trickier part. Quantifying. Which I would love to get to, but don't seem to be getting past the basics with the deniers constantly obfuscating.

 

[Arnold Martin]

so, your claim about being a scientis was a lie then.
very telling .

Nice try .... I said "scientists like me" .... want to see Dec 21st temp infrared's for every Dec 21 st for the past 500 years.

As opposed to "scientist like you" who post one day of temps and claim it as evidence.

 

[Arnold Martin]

It's well documented.....this forum relies on evidence...not the maunderings of a purported chopper pilot or is that a collective lie as well.

I rely on evidence that 10 years ago the warming agenda and politicians were almost successful in getting their way ... carbon trading et al. ... scarry stuff freedom wise and cost wise

Just take a look at what they did manage to squander .... the billions of dollars wasted on solar and other failing ideals.

And those folks want to control all the energy output of the world ??? ... Save the planet ??? .... they cannot even save themselves nor their fully subsidized feel good "renewal ideas"

 

[macdoc]

you are a caricature of the right wing denier waving the freedom flag in defense of using the atmosphere as a free sewer...how very noisome.
Ironic coming from a fossil fuel supporter about subsidies. What a shill.

It took the courts to finally deal with S02 emitters digging in their heels about emissions curbs.

thin edge of the wedge...

Families Seek Court Injunction Against Tar Sands Producer
Alberta Energy Regulator probe into Peace River emissions sparked in part by Tyee investigation.
By Andrew Nikiforuk, Yesterday, TheTyee.ca

Residents near Baytex bitumen facility say they are being poisoned by off-gassing. Photo: Richard Labrecque.

Related
Alberta's Tar Sands Pollution Refugees
'Gassed' by oil sands operations, families say they've been forced to evacuate.
Another Alberta Family Flees Oil Sands Pollution
Mother who left her Peace River region home behind could 'smell the bitumen.'
Regulator belatedly investigates Peace River oil sands pollution

Two of five families forced from their homes by chronic air pollution from oil sands facilities in Peace River have filed a court injection to stop Baytex Energy from using the atmosphere as a toxic garbage dump.

The injunction application, now before Court of Queen's Bench, seeks to stop the company from venting toxic gases from 86 bitumen storage tanks in the Reno Field just south of the town of Peace River for a period of eight months.

"Baytex leaves the top hatches open on its processing tanks and the aerosol plumes make you dizzy, gives you the worst headache you can imagine, makes your throat and nose sore and lots of other bad health effects," said Alain Labrecque, one of the family seeking an injunction.

more

http://thetyee.ca/News/2013/12/26/Tar-Sands-Injunction/

free ride is over, time to pay for the pollution..even the financial companies are reluctant to fund coal anymore....plants are closing, plans for new ones on hold and the tar sands barely viable.

For some regions unsubsidized solar is now THE cheapest form of energy.

G(Phys.org) —Germany's Deutsche Bank has released a report that concludes that generating electricity using solar collectors has reached grid parity—cost competitiveness with other industry standard sources—in some countries. Analysts with the bank claim that both India and Italy have reached grid parity and that other countries are poised to do so over the next couple of years.

The German Bank is particularly optimistic about solar power price parity in India, the U.S., China, the U.K., Germany, Spain and Italy and because of that is forecasting a 20 percent (30 GW) increase in worldwide demand this year—it's already pushed above 100 GW. They note that Germany alone accounts for approximately a third of all solar power production, but project that China will soon surpass that country because of a very strong push by the government there. India too is making a strong push—the government has set a goal of producing 20 GW by 2022. The U.S. is also making strides with construction underway in the Mojave Desert of what will soon be the largest solar farm in the world.

Because of the optimistic numbers seen over the past year, the Deutsche Bank is suggesting the world is on a path that will mean moving from solar power as a subsidized source to one that is considered sustainable much sooner than industry analysts had predicted. Also, despite the large increase in numbers of solar farms, and their size, the bank believes that rooftop solar installations will lead the way to grid parity and that it will happen without the traditional government subsidies used to entice both commercial and residential customers.
Read more at: http://phys.org/news/2013-04-german-bank-solar-power-india.html#jCp

you are a fun chew toy in a science forum tho.

 

[macdoc]

Um you now have been asked several times nicely to put up or shut up on an argument you imported from another thread.
Calling Alec a "denier" in a climate thread is not doing your credibility any favors nor avoiding the direct question about your claims which are simply not scientifically supportable on the scale you state.

AN effect yes.
THE driver of climate change???
Ability to "heal the planet"??!!!!
Sorry the greater the claim the more rigorous the support must be and so far I've seen one paper, and that paper in no way supports the scale of your claim.

Once more, either start a new thread or provide the science to support the claim on the scale you are purporting.

You spent time in the post above
a) restating your view without any supporting science
b) complaining about "denier" of which I am now one which is wrong and insulting given this topic
c) complaining about "quantifying" as tricky

You are not making your scientific case at all. You now have a third person asking for the same supporting evidence.
At some point you need to get the message and stop playing victim and start making a case.
You haven't.

Just a hint...the boreal forest changes far outweigh any arable land claims

The Boreal forest is the world's largest land-based biome. Spreading over continents and covering many countries, the Boreal plays a significant role in the planet's biodiversity and even its climate. Here are 30 facts you want to know about this incredible space. 1. The Boreal Forest is named after Boreas, the Greek god of the North wind.

2. The biome is known as boreal in Canada, but is also known as taiga, a Russian word. Taiga is most commonly used to refer to the biome's more barren northern locations while boreal is used for the more temperate, southern area (we're just using boreal for ease).

....

9. The warming trend threatens to transform the boreal forest area into grassland, parkland or temperate forest, introducing a significant shift in species of both plants and animals.

10. The boreal forest stores enormous quantities of carbon, possibly more than the temperate and tropical forests combined, much of it in peatland.

The report from the Canadian Boreal Initiative and the Boreal Songbird Initiative, entitled "The Carbon the World Forgot", estimates that the boreal forest—which survives in massive swathes across Alaska, Canada, Northern Europe, and Russia—stores 22 percent of all carbon on the earth's land surface.
According to the study the boreal contains 703 gigatons of carbon, while the world's tropical forests contain 375 gigatons.
Read more at http://news.mongabay.com/2009/1112-hance_boreal.html#PphV3ulSIfz7dHFq.99

The role of rainforests in the global carbon cycle is complex and little known. Plants and animals contain a great deal of carbon, which they take up as carbon dioxide (CO2) during growth and photosynthesis, and which they release to the atmosphere during respiration and decomposition. Although rainforests form less than half of the total forest on earth, their leaf systems comprise approximately 70% of the world’s total leaf surface area. Rainforests have ten times more leaf area than temperate forests of comparable size and fifty times more than grasslands.

It is not surprising, then, that they account for between 30% and 50% of total primary productivity (photosynthesis) in terrestrial systems, although they cover only 6% of the total land area of the earth. This means that they store more carbon (as sugars and starches) per unit area than any other type of ecosystem. Rainforests are thought to contain between 40% and 50% of the carbon in the terrestrial biomass (Phillips, et al., 1998), which has been estimated as more than 17 kilograms of carbon per square meter. The rainforests of Amazonia contain between 14 and 40 kilograms of carbon per square meter. The soils lying under rainforests also contain substantial amounts of carbon (in roots, microorganisms, soil fungi and plants), which amounts to about 27% of global soil carbon (Lodge, et al., 1996).

Now where is the comparable lever for arable/agricultural land you claim you can modify in such a way as to "heal the planet".

You simply do not have enough land mass just as as start let alone the kind of vertical leverage a forest, boreal or tropical offers and I've not even touched on the ocean biome.

There ARE land uses that can help store carbon/prevent it's release and they can play a role.

They cannot do what you claim.

So stop the wild claims and show what they can do on an appropriate scale right down to greening up the cities.

 

[aleCcowaN]

Nice try .... I said "scientists like me" .... want to see Dec 21st temp infrared's for every Dec 21 st for the past 500 years.

Basically you disguise yourself as a scientist in a a school play and say that you'll move the threshold of sufficient evidential proof one step further of what is attainable during your lifetime. It's like saying it is sound the one that passes trough the two huge wads of wax you decided to press into your ears.

As opposed to "scientist like you" who post one day of temps and claim it as evidence.

Duh, it is evidence, peanuts! I reckon you have a very limited vocabulary like every person who failed school because of being a genius, according to the apocryphal biography written by yourself, but you are failing miserably even while you concoct an argument in support of your vision.

 

[aleCcowaN]

I rely on evidence that 10 years ago the warming agenda and politicians were almost successful in getting their way ... carbon trading et al. ... scarry stuff freedom wise and cost wise

Just take a look at what they did manage to squander .... the billions of dollars wasted on solar and other failing ideals.

And those folks want to control all the energy output of the world ??? ... Save the planet ??? .... they cannot even save themselves nor their fully subsidized feel good "renewal ideas"

Wait a minute, pal! "carbon trading et al. ..." with et al. including a period? freedom wise and cost wise? You need to stay in the character you chose: the old, school dropout, chopper pilot who's stuck in the border of the northwards expanding taiga. Otherwise, how do you expect other people might believe your other deceptions?

 

[aleCcowaN]

I am getting weary myself, having to explain the most basic concepts. But I will try again. You don't like my statement and think "That biology in large part drives the climate" is an enormous claim? Actually it is the most basic grade school knowledge. K-12

I should not have to even post and reference such basic info. But since you seem to think it is such a "huge claim". I guess I must.



So: Number one, vegetation does in fact in large part drive climate. Secondly, humans are in fact changing the vegetation on Earth. Thirdly this human caused change is actually impacting climate. Not some huge claim that is beyond mainstream science. Just common knowledge for anyone actually educated beyond K-12.

Now the details and the exact quantification of that impact are a bit trickier. That's where we may have some discussion and debate. But if you and ale are so obstinate as to deny even the most basic science for children, how are we ever going to actually discuss it? Like I said before, I thought deniers were supposed to be removed from this thread, and only serious scientific discussion allowed? Yet a guy posting about beer gets no chastisement at all, and a serious paper by one of the leading scientists in his field gets dismissed as just one insignificant paper, simply because denialists refuse to accept that human activity has impacted one of the major drivers of climate? Don't you get weary of fighting climate deniers ignoring fossil fuel emissions are a factor in driving AGW? Well I get just as weary having to fight the AGW deniers myself, both the ones who say burning fossil fuels have little to no effect, and the ones who say vegetative changes caused by humans have little to no effect.

So you basically are now kicking the ball out of the field again and starting it all over.

To the occasional reader:

This individual, using the Red Baron Farms identification here, has a long story of promoting a notion that he cannot back. For many months he has asserted that grazing managements like the holistic one and organic farming in general have the power of curbing and potentially solving the part of global warming originated in CO2 rising levels, besides other contributions regarding other GHG and more. To that effect he has shown a bunch of loosely related papers, articles and web pages and he has mainly trimmed them and shape them into fitting in his notions -not even a single paper claims what he claims-. And he has done the same once and again and again ... and again.

When he was asked to provide assessments of such extraordinary capacity of grasslands and whatnot as well as the numerous times he was corrected and criticized for logical errors and twisting the very papers he cited, he resorted the this pattern:

• Replying with general notions what required more specific answers instead.
• Failing to follow an analysis.
• Being innumerate. When the simplest arithmetic would do the trick, he goes rhetorical.
• Dismissing without reading or ignoring every paper presented against his beloved notions. His arguments boil down to "my papers are right, the other papers are wrong so they are easily dismissed".
• Moving to more general knowledge -with the excuse of his critics being ignorant of the propedeutics of science, because, if not, why the criticism?- when further specific details were needed and asked.
• Starting all over again every time he was easily cornered sustaining unsupported notions.
• Repeating the same pattern of behaviour once and again: if he didn't get a free pass to spam he would disrupt the thread. If he couldn't get it, nobody could. That is why from 57 posts in this thread so far, 23 revolve around him (40% and going up).

 

[DC]

btw, why don't you adress my earlier post, you claimed warming will increase cloud cover, yet climate models predicted the opposite and that is also what they found in reality.

so after all, you do not understand the process as well as you believed.

care to adress this?

 

[Arnold Martin]

Many Global Warmists still deny these facts:
I do not


(snip) ... The IPCC’s goal today — certainly the explicit goal of many of its 195-member countries who have bought into its climate alarmism — is not to study climate.
It’s to re-distribute global wealth, as senior IPCC official Ottmar Edenhofer confirmed in 2010 when he emphasized, “One must say clearly that we redistribute de facto the world’s wealth by climate policy.”

This explains the IPCC/UN push to impose carbon taxes on the developed world, even though they’ve proven ineffective in places where they’ve been tried, like Norway.

It explains its push for cap-and-trade markets, even though they’re awash in fraud, as is Europe’s Emissions Trading Scheme.

In Canada, Ontarians wondering why their electricity prices are skyrocketing should understand their Liberal government foolishly bought into the climate of hysteria generated by IPCC reports that come out every five or six years.

Why hysteria? As German Green Party politician Hermann Ott frankly admitted to Spiegel Online leading up to today’s IPCC report, “Climate policy needs the element of fear. Otherwise, no politician would take on this topic.”

A major controversy this year has been a 15-year pause in global warming the IPCC’s climate models failed to predict. (snip)

more here http://www.torontosun.com/2013/09/26/time-to-end-the-climate-of-fear

 

[macdoc]

No wonder your ignorance of climate science is so blatant...consider the source.

oh yeah....what "pause" was that again??? you mean in the atmospheric temps...of course...

The ocean is sort of ignoring your premise....

Even the deep ocean is now warming which is a monumental task....and your're in denial that anything is happening at all.



So the head of Exxon acknowledges it and you don't....what a joke your premise is. Just right wing nonsense with no place in a science forum.

 

[Trakar]

Many Global Warmists still deny these facts:
I do not


(snip) ... The IPCC’s goal today — certainly the explicit goal of many of its 195-member countries who have bought into its climate alarmism — is not to study climate.
It’s to re-distribute global wealth, as senior IPCC official Ottmar Edenhofer confirmed in 2010 when he emphasized, “One must say clearly that we redistribute de facto the world’s wealth by climate policy.”

This explains the IPCC/UN push to impose carbon taxes on the developed world, even though they’ve proven ineffective in places where they’ve been tried, like Norway.

It explains its push for cap-and-trade markets, even though they’re awash in fraud, as is Europe’s Emissions Trading Scheme.

In Canada, Ontarians wondering why their electricity prices are skyrocketing should understand their Liberal government foolishly bought into the climate of hysteria generated by IPCC reports that come out every five or six years.

Why hysteria? As German Green Party politician Hermann Ott frankly admitted to Spiegel Online leading up to today’s IPCC report, “Climate policy needs the element of fear. Otherwise, no politician would take on this topic.”

A major controversy this year has been a 15-year pause in global warming the IPCC’s climate models failed to predict. (snip)

more here http://www.torontosun.com/2013/09/26/time-to-end-the-climate-of-fear

Each and every one one of these assertions is demonstrably false.

 

[Arnold Martin]

.
Anyone here going to deny these South Pole temperatures ?

Is it OK if I believe them ?

,

 

[Red Baron Farms]

@ Macdoc,

I guess you missed this:

An appropriate modern comparison is between grassland and woodland vegetation of similar climatic belts. Grasslands have only about one sixth the biomass of woodlands, but the biomass is dwarfed by an order of magnitude more C in grassland soils. Globally averaged, tall grasslands store 16.0 kg C m2 organic matter underground and 0.7 kg C m2 aboveground, compared with 11.1 kg C m2 underground and 4.5 kg C m2 aboveground for dry woodlands, for a net C storage of 16.7 kg C m2 for tall grasslands compared with 15.6 kg C m2 for woodlands.

Which is why I posted it. Because while stored biomass is larger in forests, the net carbon cycle is nearly neutral. While on the other hand, a functioning grassland biome sequesters an order of magnitude more carbon in the soil than in its biomass. This makes it a net carbon sink. It is the missing key passed over by many in the past.

Problem is by the time we figured it out, most the productive grassland biome was already gone. Most of it can't even be restored actually. But in agriculture, we don't necessarily have to restore a pristine biome. Simply understand how it functions and use that knowledge to our advantage.

Actually most farmers using this are not doing it out of some kind of altruistic quest to save the world from global warming, it is just a side effect. A beneficial one. They do it because sequestering carbon in the soil improves yields and profits and makes the land more drought resistant. That goes for crop farmers just as much as ranchers.

Here is what the United States Department of Agriculture Natural Resources Conservation Service East National Technology Support Center (USDA NRCS ENTSC) has to say about it. I hope that is mainstream enough for you.
Under Cover Farmers - Feature Length