Merged Global Warming Discussion II: Heated Conversation

[macdoc]

r-j

I remember when acid rain was damaging freshwater lakes and killing fish. Even before the laws could stop the high sulfur coal and oil from being uised, alkaline pellets were air dropped into ponds and lakes to stop the damage. Fish were restocked, things were done.

Yes and it was mitigated by legislation tho it is becoming a problem again in emerging economies.

The problem with C02 is a larger one and not as easily contained but Sweden and others have done so sucessfully as has been shown.

Are you denying that GHG is the primary driver behind the current climate change? Do you have a alternate thesis to present and defend?

 

[macdoc]

This Cold Snap Is Making It Colder Than The Surface Of Mars

Smithsonian magazine Nature
In northern Minnesota right now, the temperature has dipped to a staggering -42 F. The chill is running so deep in the North Star State that it’s not only colder than in the lands above the Arctic Circle, it’s actually colder than some of the daily temperatures on Mars—you know, the planet 78 million miles further from the Sun on average.

http://blogs.smithsonianmag.com/sma...is-making-it-colder-than-the-surface-of-mars/

No better demonstration of the Arctic dipole.

 

[Corsair 115]

What does it tell you that publishing climate scientists always seem to say the world is warming due to human influence?

Well, they're all obviously part of a grand global left-wing socialist conspiracy to do something bad to the United States.

On another forum I frequent someone posted that all the evidence indicating AGW was "socialist propaganda". No, I'm not kidding, he actually meant it.

 

[Corsair 115]

I remember when acid rain was damaging freshwater lakes and killing fish. Even before the laws could stop the high sulfur coal and oil from being uised, alkaline pellets were air dropped into ponds and lakes to stop the damage. Fish were restocked, things were done.

Interesting story about that. One of the major parts in fighting acid rain was a cap and trade system in regards to emissions which were contributing to acid rain. Yes, cap and trade, the same thing often vilified by some conservatives when suggested as a measure to control carbon emissions. But here's where it gets really interesting: cap and trade was originally a conservative idea, pushed by conservatives as a market-based way of dealing with troublesome emissions, rather than relying on a top-down system imposed by government.

See this article by Smithsonian Magazine: The Political History of Cap and Trade.

 

[Grizzly Bear]

For several regions solar is THE cheapest form of energy.

IF one can absorb the initial costs, and they live in a suitable latitude, sure. But the use of solar at the consumer level still has to be heavily subsidized to be remotely affordable for replacing traditional power production. Otherwise you're investing substantial amounts of money in something that will take 10 or 15 years to break even on with the returns. And the mean efficacy of converting solar energy into electricity is still around 30% (50% in the best class of products).

A real life example was with a house project that we designed and built for a competition a few years ago, where 720 square feet of "house" cost nearly $50,000 to equip with solar panels, and that was even with a steep discount counting the company's sponsorship for us. Another house in a previous competition year was completely clad in solar panels, and it wiped the floor with energy efficacy, but it was a $2 million house the size of my living room.

We did pretty well with our project BTW with energy consumption. Not purely through solar energy unfortunately. We used A LOT of passive design strategies to complement it so that we minimized consumption (net metering on an electric grid). Had it been purely based on solar energy, we could have probably gotten that with some different design considerations, but then the house price would have risen from $450,000 to a couple million like the counterpart from the previous competition.

http://www.dailykos.com/story/2012/...Presses-Oil-CEO-admits-Climate-Change-is-Real

I've seen enough of the scientific data collected that at the very least shows changes to the climate that will affect things during our life times. No need to try and convince me about whether the climate changes. What I dispute is how much can be directly attributed to anthropogenic reasons, and how much it's within our ability to do it. I tend to think of the focus on carbon levels as being too narrow anyway if people are focusing on human contributions to the issue. Urban sprawl and literal pollution (throw away economy anyone?) which have more significant impacts can be dealt with far more immediately, though that's likely focus for another thread. The satellite era has allowed far more accurate measurements on the climate, far more detailed than what can be taken by other means.

The path IS there. Political willingness to do so is missing.

On this I think we agree. We only disagree on how long and the priority.
Also, I think the cost-efficiency matter is still important to consider wrt replacing petrol based energy. Solar is still pricy by intial costs for only a modest gain in efficiency. Until solar or other forms of alternative fuels can supersede our current energy demands, the practical and political willingness to push it further will remain a challenge.

 

[macdoc]

Solar is only one path and for southern Italy and for India...unsubidized solar represents the cheapest form of power.

Solar has changed dramatically in the past five years and is a disruptive technology at the moment with a difficult business model. You can catch up with it here

According to analysts from the global investment banking giant UBS, the arrival of socket parity – where the cost of installing solar is cheaper than grid-sourced supplies – is about to cause a boom in unsubsidised solar installation in Europe, and the energy market may never be quite the same again.

Read more at http://cleantechnica.com/2013/01/23...ion-starting-ubs-reports/#QwsLE5tfesfDghvr.99

What I dispute is how much can be directly attributed to anthropogenic reasons, and how much it's within our ability to do it.

There is no credible alternative to GHG - you need to get past that as we DO have the ability to mitigate for the future and slow things down so efforts like Sweden's can be multiplied.

This is OUR doing, and must be ours to both mitigate and adapt to.
There are scientists and climate scientists on this board that would be happy to answer your honest questions to shift you off that attribution doubt.

Here is what Gammon had to say concerning links between humans and climate change.

This is like asking, ‘Is the moon round?’ or ‘Does smoking cause cancer?’ We’re at a point now where there is no responsible position stating that humans are not responsible for climate change. That is just not where the science is.…For a long time, for at least five years and probably 10 years, the international scientific community has been very clear.”

In case there is any doubt, Gammon went on:
This is not the balance-of-evidence argument for a civil lawsuit; this is the criminal standard, beyond a reasonable doubt We’ve been there for a long time and I think the media has really not presented that to the public.”

Dr. Richard H. Gammon
Professor of Chemistry and Oceanography*
Adjunct Professor Atmospheric Sciences, University of Washington

The first and most damaging isse is to reduce coal use everywhere in the first world and replace it ideally with nuclear or at least with gas and mixed renewables.

This is occurring world wide and even in the US, cities and states move forward on their own.

Please don't swallow the fossil fuel Koolaid....they are getting subsidized to the tune of billions of dollars and even they recognize the need for a carbon tax.

Why Canada Oil-Sands Industry Wants CO2 Tax Harper Hates ...
www.bloomberg.com/.../why-canada-oil-sands-industry-wants-co2-tax-h...‎
Feb 1, 2013 - Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper has vilified political opponents who support a tax on carbon-dioxide emissions. The oil-sands ...

There is no one solution but the very first step is admitting

we did it....our use of fossil fuel to build our wealth has consequences - this is not a natural situation but a manmade one.
The world was slowly drifting towards a cooler climate since the Holocene Optimum 8,000 years ago.
We altered that.

Each nation, state, community and person has strategies available to reduce carbon use without damaging economic activity and in fact as Sweden shows can be part of a sparkling competitive economy that is also rapidly reducing CO2 emissions by an average of 3.6% per year ...year after year.

It CAN be done.....it IS being done in some regions and even in the US the emission rate is well down....11% last year - that is huge.

 

[Trakar]

IF one can absorb the initial costs, and they live in a suitable latitude, sure. But the use of solar at the consumer level still has to be heavily subsidized to be remotely affordable for replacing traditional power production. Otherwise you're investing substantial amounts of money in something that will take 10 or 15 years to break even on with the returns. And the mean efficacy of converting solar energy into electricity is still around 30% (50% in the best class of products).

Solar is one part of a multipronged approach to replacing fossil fuels, the idea isn't to replace all fossil fuel energy with one alternative technology. Rather, the idea is to replace fossil fuels with a range of local sources of alternative energy technologies. BTW, your car engine is only about 25% efficient at tapping and making use of the energy from gasoline (which itself requires energy in oil recovery and distillation), so why do you think that the solid state efficiency of solar makes it unsuitable for widespread energy applications?

A real life example was with a house project that we designed and built for a competition a few years ago, where 720 square feet of "house" cost nearly $50,000 to equip with solar panels, and that was even with a steep discount counting the company's sponsorship for us. Another house in a previous competition year was completely clad in solar panels, and it wiped the floor with energy efficacy, but it was a $2 million house the size of my living room.

Sounds like a project to incorporate leading edge technologies rather than with an emphasis on affordable, high efficiency, alternatives design; regardless, one-offs demonstrating new technology features are rarely accurate predictors of the costs of installing new tech features in either existing homes or as feature design elements in tract housing construction. Demand and experience in construction/installation usually realizes massive price/cost reductions over demonstration projects.

I've seen enough of the scientific data collected that at the very least shows changes to the climate that will affect things during our life times. No need to try and convince me about whether the climate changes. What I dispute is how much can be directly attributed to anthropogenic reasons, and how much it's within our ability to do it. I tend to think of the focus on carbon levels as being too narrow anyway if people are focusing on human contributions to the issue. Urban sprawl and literal pollution (throw away economy anyone?) which have more significant impacts can be dealt with far more immediately, though that's likely focus for another thread. The satellite era has allowed far more accurate measurements on the climate, far more detailed than what can be taken by other means.

You do realize that human atmospheric GHG emissions are the well identified and understood primary factor in modern climate change and that due to both fossil fuel industry records and ability to identify the isotopic ratio of the carbon in our atmosphere, we can positively and with great precision identify that atmospheric carbon as coming from fossil fuels that we have mined and burned,...or did you not realize that this is what has led us to understand the primary anthropogenic character of this carbon?

On this I think we agree. We only disagree on how long and the priority.
Also, I think the cost-efficiency matter is still important to consider wrt replacing petrol based energy. Solar is still pricy by intial costs for only a modest gain in efficiency. Until solar or other forms of alternative fuels can supersede our current energy demands, the practical and political willingness to push it further will remain a challenge.

Energy technology has never transitioned in this manner. New forms gradually increase in application and improve in efficiency as they overtake systems that have become expensive, problematic or otherwise undesirable, until the older form is no longer profitable and it falls by the wayside.

 

[macdoc]

GB you may find this an interesting analysis of coal which is currently heavily subsidized in the US

http://www.skepticalscience.com/true-cost-of-coal-power.html

Yet allows Koch to spend millions on his wine collections

Is there not something odd that a company can.

Make billions in profits.
Freely pollute the atmosphere of the planet with a number of pollutants including C02

and get billions in federal subsidies to do so??

AND fund right wing denial "think tanks:" like Heartland with hundreds of millions of dollars....

Billion-dollar climate denial network exposed
Politics
21 December 13 by Duncan Geere

An extensive study into the financial networks that support groups denying the science behind climate change and opposing political action has found a vast, secretive web of think tanks and industry associations, bankrolled by conservative billionaires.

http://www.wired.co.uk/news/archive/2013-12/21/denial?utm_source=twitterfeed&utm_medium=facebook

It's so seriously stupid on so many levels it makes my brain ache.

 

[macdoc]

Bloody hell....half the country is colder than the South Pole just now.

http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/deep-freeze-extends-from-winnipeg-east-to-newfoundland-1.2481456

stalled Arctic highs are sooooooo fun....

 

[Blue Mountain]

Bloody hell....half the country is colder than the South Pole just now.

http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/deep-freeze-extends-from-winnipeg-east-to-newfoundland-1.2481456

stalled Arctic highs are sooooooo fun....

Well, it IS high summer at the South Pole right now.

 

[lomiller]

What I dispute is how much can be directly attributed to anthropogenic reasons, and how much it's within our ability to do it.

Not only do greenhouse gasses fully explain the last 50 years of climate change, not other source can come anywhere near explaining the enormous amount of energy building up in the atmosphere and oceans.

There are many many papers in the literature showing how anthropogenic facts impact climate.

There is no alternative explanation that comes anywhere close to explaining current climate change.

Even if someone were to come up with a viable alternative explanation, they would still need to explain why the many lines of research already in place are wrong. Give the shear volume of research involved, this is highly unlikely to say the ;east.


Of course there are papers that specifically address attribution, and have been for years. The one below comes to mind, but the new IPCC report sites references more recent papers.

http://journals.ametsoc.org/doi/abs/10.1175/1520-0442(2004)017<3721:CONAAF>2.0.CO;2


Given all that, what is your reasoning for disputing human impact on the earths climate?

The satellite era has allowed far more accurate measurements on the climate, far more detailed than what can be taken by other means.

In some cases yes, in others no. For example satellites can't measure surface temperatures at all. Instead they measure lower troposphere temperatures, which while linked isn't the same thing. Even these measurements are difficult incomplete, and contain the largest errors, by far, that have been found in temperature data. (The UAH group got their geometry wrong and had to completely revise their entire data-set in the early 2000's.)

 

[Arnold Martin]

GB you may find this an interesting analysis of coal which is currently heavily subsidized in the US

http://www.skepticalscience.com/true-cost-of-coal-power.html

Yet allows Koch to spend millions on his wine collections

Is there not something odd that a company can.

Make billions in profits.
Freely pollute the atmosphere of the planet with a number of pollutants including C02

and get billions in federal subsidies to do so??

AND fund right wing denial "think tanks:" like Heartland with hundreds of millions of dollars....


http://www.wired.co.uk/news/archive/2013-12/21/denial?utm_source=twitterfeed&utm_medium=facebook

It's so seriously stupid on so many levels it makes my brain ache.

What about the $1 million your oceanographer friend Stefan Rahmstorf received ?? (I like his videos by the way)

What about the three largest "renewable" fuel subsidies :
Alcohol Credit for Fuel Excise Tax ($11.6 billion)
Renewable Electricity Production Credit ($5.2 billion)
Corn-Based Ethanol ($5.0 billion)

What about The Suzuki Foundation .... any subsidies - tax breaks there ??

What about the billions wasted recently in the collapse of solar industries ... nearly all of it was govt money aka subsidies

What about Wind turbines .... they would not be in business without subsidies.

If only you would look at both sides your head would not hurt so much.

Why do I have to point these things out ??

Dont get me started on who George Soros influences and sends money to. Scary stuff.

40% of the worlds electricity comes from coal .... would you like it all turned off tomorrow ?? ... of course not .... you want it just like I do .... but rather than accept the truth that you and I are the ones using the coal you duck and hide and blame corporations like Koch. Typical of your "group"

 

[Iamme]

I often wonder how the debate would be right now if "Climate Change" had been used from the start instead of "Global Warming" so that so many people couldn't get hung up on the "But it's cold where I'm at right now, how can there be global warming?" disconnect.

It`s cold here right now. Way below zero. Monday the high for the day to be minus 15. The HIGH! I havent seen that in 40 years, if that comes to pass.
So, i guess either its the global cooling argument, or the AGM argument that says this warming is shifting the polar air southward.
Park your car too long in those temps and then drive and it feels like you are driving down the road with square tires at first. Well, 50 below anyway. I been in that too, with minus 25 for the high.

 

[Arnold Martin]

I should not have to tell you this, as it’s remarkably obvious. Collecting meteorites doesn’t qualify you as an expert on ice cores.

If you don’t understand how ice cores can be used, read the papers that detail how the sites are selected and how the cores are analyzed. Do not just say “I collect meteorites so the papers on ice cores are all wrong, even though I’ve never read any of them or made any attempt to understand the science in them.”

.
.

Nice try ... I never claimed to be an ice core expert ..... what I claimed was that the Antarctica ice constantly moves toward the sea where it calves off in a continuous manner .... the moving ice causes the meteorites to gather along the edges of the mountains

With that in mind I remain skeptical that you or anyone else can measure CO2 levels in ice from almost 800,000 years ago

Same as the Ice cap on Greenland .... those 1942 fighter planes were recovered under 260 feet of ice .... and they had moved many miles from where they originally landed ....

In other words if we have moving ice it could not remained in place for almost a million years. (for CO2 sampling)

That was my point sir.

If the Antarctica ice was to melt (as predicted) it would have exposed thousands of meteorites for researchers to gather ... however the planet did not cooperate.

Here are pictures of a Nickle-Iron & a cut and polished Pallasite meteorite sitting on my desk

 

[Iamme]

....which then gets me wondering. What then explained what happened 40 years ago to get those temps? Variations in jet streams that just occur once in a blue moon?
Although, back then cars were billowing out smog. I remember hearing how LA was choking in it. But there was less people back then.
So maybe now, less polution per capita + more people(like double?) = same amount of total polution...maybe worse?
Oh. Then about 35 years ago my south Texas beach house on the gulf froze for days and i have photo of a wall of ice bridging underside of a beach house with the ground. Right on the Gulf!
I guess we cant ever go by such stories as these though.
I guess we go by what thermometers say planted around the entire world, or however they do the measuring. Maybe when i was freezing my ______________ off, it was 160 degrees in the equatorial zones then.
They say energy can be neither gained or lost. Do temps work the same way, where say in the northern hemisphere has a say 10 colder than average period, that then the southern hemisphere must conversely rise 10 degrees above average?

 

[a_unique_person]

.
.

Nice try ... I never claimed to be an ice core expert ..... what I claimed was that the Antarctica ice constantly moves toward the sea where it calves off in a continuous manner .... the moving ice causes the meteorites to gather along the edges of the mountains

With that in mind I remain skeptical that you or anyone else can measure CO2 levels in ice from almost 800,000 years ago

Same as the Ice cap on Greenland .... those 1942 fighter planes were recovered under 260 feet of ice .... and they had moved many miles from where they originally landed ....

In other words if we have moving ice it could not remained in place for almost a million years. (for CO2 sampling)

That was my point sir.

If the Antarctica ice was to melt (as predicted) it would have exposed thousands of meteorites for researchers to gather ... however the planet did not cooperate.

Here are pictures of a Nickle-Iron & a cut and polished Pallasite meteorite sitting on my desk

That's why they have to look to find the appropiate places to get the ice cores. Then they can verify the age, as well.

Also, you could google the question and find some answers.

for example, http://www.livescience.com/40962-oldest-ice-core-in-antarctica.html

 

[Arnold Martin]

r-j

Yes and it was mitigated by legislation tho it is becoming a problem again in emerging economies.

The problem with C02 is a larger one and not as easily contained but Sweden and others have done so sucessfully as has been shown.
Are you denying that GHG is the primary driver behind the current climate change?
Do you have a alternate thesis to present and defend?

Now you are coming around to the original point I have always been trying to make .... all Sweden has done is increase TAXES on fossil fuels

So what happens now ?? ... the planet sees that and begins to cool down ?? ... yeah right.!!

I have a better proposal .... how about we increase taxes 1000% on all the carbon products the Global Warmists consume .... CO2 levels would drop right off and the planet could live another day.

 

[lionking]

Evidence of Australia's hottest year ever:

http://www.smh.com.au/environment/c...as-hottest-year-on-record-20140103-308ek.html

Australia smashed its previous annual heat record in 2013, with a summer heatwave and spring hot spell among the outstanding periods of unusual warmth.
The Bureau of Meteorology on Friday confirmed that last year was the hottest nationwide in more than a century of standardised records, with mean temperatures 1.2 degrees above the 1961-90 average.

Temperatures approaching 50C tomorrow.

Deniers are idiots.

 

[Arnold Martin]

That's why they have to look to find the appropiate places to get the ice cores. Then they can verify the age, as well.

Also, you could google the question and find some answers.

for example, http://www.livescience.com/40962-oldest-ice-core-in-antarctica.html

.
Thank you sir .... it concurs with exactly what I have been saying. It is not settled science ... notice I highlighted the words "could" and "suggest" and "potential" from the article

.............................
Regions of Antarctica could hold 1.5-million-year-old ice that would reveal key parts of Earth's ancient climate history, new research suggests.

The potential locations of the ice were described today (Nov. 5) in the journal Climate of the Past. One of those locations could allow scientists to drill miles-long sections of ice to explain why natural cycles in climate shifted about 1 million years ago.

The trouble is, finding clues to the past atmosphere is tricky

The weight of the ice sheet forces lower, older layers to spread out and become thinner over time

But finding high sheets of ice isn't enough. When the ice gets too high, geothermal heating can melt the oldest layers of ice. And shifting bedrock can also jumble the annual layers of ice close to the bottom.

Because of shifts in the Earth's orbit, the planet naturally goes through warmer and cooler periods. Prior to this transition, the Earth's cycles shifted every 41,000 years. Afterward, the Earth shifted to a 100,000-year cycle. Exactly why this occurred isn't known.
Many scientists have proposed that a change in greenhouse gas levels in the atmosphere spurred this transition, but confirming that hypothesis requires climate data from the period.
.....................................

Best wishes as we all seek the truth in these matters.

 

[Arnold Martin]

Evidence of Australia's hottest year ever:

http://www.smh.com.au/environment/c...as-hottest-year-on-record-20140103-308ek.html

Temperatures approaching 50C tomorrow.

Deniers are idiots.

.
.

WE just had -51*C wind chill temps (Southern Manitoba Canada)

Where we idiot deniers do our part to balance the planet extremes.

We live on this planet too and should not be discriminated against.