Official Global Warming thread (merged)

#426
#426
IPorange said:
There's a reason why they were called philosophers and not scientists, yes?
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Philosopher?!?

Ptolemy was the most influential of Greek astronomers and geographers of his time. He propounded the geocentric theory that prevailed for 1400 years.

Ptolemy summary

In 2000 years what will scientist of today be called?
 
#427
#427
Since they follow the scientific method...

Seriously, any history of a scientific discipline would reference and talk about those guys... but they wouldn't call them scientists. Scholars. Forerunners of science... but not scientists.
 
#428
#428
IPorange said:
Since they follow the scientific method...

Seriously, any history of a scientific discipline would reference and talk about those guys... but they wouldn't call them scientists. Scholars. Forerunners of science... but not scientists.
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I suspect in 2000 years people will view our scientist the way you view those of 2000 years ago.
 
#429
#429
Maybe. I bet they'll wonder why we were such dopes about modifying our environment and not doing anything about it. Like we are about Easter Island.
 
#432
#432
IPorange said:
Humans won't go extinct from climate change. It just won't be the same as it is now, and there'll be a lot of misery in between.
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how so? Haven't your studies also shown that with every warming period there has been an explosion in the advancement of human civilization?
 
#433
#433
VolDad said:
Philosopher?!?

Ptolemy was the most influential of Greek astronomers and geographers of his time. He propounded the geocentric theory that prevailed for 1400 years.

Ptolemy summary

In 2000 years what will scientist of today be called?
Click to expand...

Newton was wrong. We got to the moon based on an approximation of reality. The difference between the Ptolemaic world and Newton's world was Newton was grounded in observation and the scientific method.

THAT is the real revolution that enables you and me to have such nice things - the change from taking things on faith and instead observing and measuring the real world outside the back door. That is why Newton is still revered.

So, you can almost draw a line at Galileo. There will be a BIG difference on almost all science after Galileo compared to that which came before. Or Copernicus. Or Kepler. Draw the line where you wish.
 
#434
#434
MG1968 said:
how so? Haven't your studies also shown that with every warming period there has been an explosion in the advancement of human civilization?
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You've asked for books. Brian Fagan's "The Long Summer" is truly excellent. He shows how climate has affected civilization throughout its history. Fagan's theme, however, is that humans have had essentially the same hardware (brain) for at least 100,000 years, but we only embarked on civilization when the climate calmed down at the beginning of the Holocene.

Despite this, climate has destroyed many civilizations throughout history. Jared Diamond popularized it (although I prefer his older books), but Joseph Tainter did the first serious scholarship on civilization collapse.

In our own time Tuvalu has already negotiated refugee status with New Zealand when they have to abandon their island, inhabited for some 10,000 years I believe. Alutians are being moved, their hunting and fishing grounds impoverished. Their identity as a people being destroyed.
 
#435
#435
VolDad said:
So how is the layperson supposed to reconcile all of the contradictory climate change information?
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A lot of the reason the "complicated" story has to be put out there is because of the well-funded and dishonest attempts to throw confusion on the science. The Global Climate Coalition (oil, coal, gas, chemical industry in an Orwellian name) had a mission statement of "casting doubt on the science of climate change." To say nothing of the six "hired guns" routinely foisted on public sensibilities: Lindzen, Singer, Baliunas, Soon, Michaels, and ?Lomborg.

At it's heart the science is freshman chemistry: burning carbon creates CO2. CO2 absorbs heat energy from the earth and radiates it in all direction. A significant portion of that heat comes back to the earth.

That should be enough right there. If you want to get into albedo / aerosols / Milankovitch cycles / thermohaline circulation by all means take the time to understand it in more depth. But at its heart it is freshman chemistry and physics - stuff we've known about for over 150 years.

Moreover:

The insurance industry is telling you the weather has gone wild.

Alaska is melting. Juneau is rising without its glaciers. Portage glacier can't even be seen from the observation platform built in 1986. Larsen B disintegrated in three weeks - an ice sheet the size of Rhode Island.

Scientists keep telling you the last three decades have been unlike any decade in the last 10,000 years - the start of the Holocene.

At its heart, it's simple. The devil, as always, is in the details. But the core problem is very, very simple.

The solution, however, is very, very complicated.
 
#436
#436
Rasputin_Vol said:
And you are asking us to drop our standard of living and pay high energy costs.
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This gets into the values, and the deep psychological resistance to the real world.

I feel ya. It's hard to look into the eyes of the 800lbs gorilla.

Our standard of living as a whole will go down under American-style capitalism. There is no doubt about that. The overall standard of living for most of the population has stagnated for almost 40 years. It's well-known real wages have stagnated in the US since the early 1970s. Studies have shown people were richer overall in the Middle Ages than the majority of the world now.

So our standard of living is already decreasing. American / Soviet style state capitalism will continue this trend. If we radically reinvent ourselves, we can come out better, healthier, AND wealthier, but we aren't going to do it with the ideology of the dominant culture. We could create a world where realizing the human potential - instead of making cheap tat and cheese doodles - is the true wealth.

Just as an example: we make fun of the woman who married the Eiffel Tower, but no one thinks twice of Milo confessing his deep love and satisfaction with an automobile. Cars are the biggest pains in the ass in the world, and have radically transformed our atmosphere, our bodies, our culture, and our minds. Yet, after a trillion dollars of advertising, they are an object of fetishization. QoL for the entire biosphere would go up immensely as the # of cars decreased exponentially.
 
#437
#437
IPorange said:
How are priests and Church-educated men guided by theology "scientists?"

I am not a fan of Gore because he is setting himself up as a profiteer, and is hypocritical.
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I know I've posted it before, but it makes me laugh

Gore54.jpg
 
#438
#438
utgibbs said:
This gets into the values, and the deep psychological resistance to the real world.

I feel ya. It's hard to look into the eyes of the 800lbs gorilla.

Our standard of living as a whole will go down under American-style capitalism. There is no doubt about that. The overall standard of living for most of the population has stagnated for almost 40 years. It's well-known real wages have stagnated in the US since the early 1970s. Studies have shown people were richer overall in the Middle Ages than the majority of the world now.

So our standard of living is already decreasing. American / Soviet style state capitalism will continue this trend. If we radically reinvent ourselves, we can come out better, healthier, AND wealthier, but we aren't going to do it with the ideology of the dominant culture. We could create a world where realizing the human potential - instead of making cheap tat and cheese doodles - is the true wealth.

Just as an example: we make fun of the woman who married the Eiffel Tower, but no one thinks twice of Milo confessing his deep love and satisfaction with an automobile. Cars are the biggest pains in the ass in the world, and have radically transformed our atmosphere, our bodies, our culture, and our minds. Yet, after a trillion dollars of advertising, they are an object of fetishization. QoL for the entire biosphere would go up immensely as the # of cars decreased exponentially.
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Yeah, let's talk about the real world.The real world runs on fossil fuels, and most people think that that is going to be the case for the next 40-50 years.
So live with it or get off the planet.

The problem I have with you, particularly you, and IPgreen , not as much, is that you are trying to alarm people into giving up their way of life. You want us to stop driving to work. Nice idea but I commute 40 miles. Actually, while living in Venezuela, I rode my bike to work everyday(About 4 miles), and I enjoyed it..plus the eye candy was great. But not so safe or practical in Houston. Hey, if you want to sell your car and take your family in live in a cave, I have no problem with that. You all can sing around the campfire all you want. I have no problem with that, but keep your ideal of life to you and your family. This is America and to each his own.

For the moment, I will concede that all your data is accurate, so please don't bother Googling more data...anybody can do that. So I will take a leap here and say all your data is perfectly correct. So what? I have 4 kids and I know their future will be much more impacted by such things as unemployment, the national debt, , medical insurance and the housing crisis etc. I am known at my work for being very practical. I don't put up with much BS. I always tend to address problems in priority.

If you think you will get the Texans out here to give up their SUV's and pick up trucks, then I would like to sell you some beach front property in Montana. Americans love their cars, and China and India are soon to follow.

In essence, they would rather live their life than the one you would purport for them. So what if we all don't live to be 100. I would rather live to be 60 enjoying life than live to 100 with your picture of my life. I''ll take a sentence from a movie here, "every man dies, but not every man really lives". I have enjoyed my life and if I died tomorrow I would be satisfied because I accomplished and lived the way I wanted,

So, go to OZ, follow the yellow brick road and find your wizard, but leave the rest of us to making our own choices. GeeZ....:mf_surrender:
 
#439
#439
MG1968 said:
how so? Haven't your studies also shown that with every warming period there has been an explosion in the advancement of human civilization?
Click to expand...

All of human civilization has occurred during the current interglacial.

Nothing like what is happening now has ever happened on this scale. When it has happened on smaller scales, it has always met with collapse. Check out Jared Diamond's aptly titled book, "Collapse."
 
#441
#441
overseasorange2 said:
Yeah, let's talk about the real world.The real world runs on fossil fuels, and most people think that that is going to be the case for the next 40-50 years.
So live with it or get off the planet.

The problem I have with you, particularly you, and IPgreen , not as much, is that you are trying to alarm people into giving up their way of life. You want us to stop driving to work. Nice idea but I commute 40 miles. Actually, while living in Venezuela, I rode my bike to work everyday(About 4 miles), and I enjoyed it..plus the eye candy was great. But not so safe or practical in Houston. Hey, if you want to sell your car and take your family in live in a cave, I have no problem with that. You all can sing around the campfire all you want. I have no problem with that, but keep your ideal of life to you and your family. This is America and to each his own.

For the moment, I will concede that all your data is accurate, so please don't bother Googling more data...anybody can do that. So I will take a leap here and say all your data is perfectly correct. So what? I have 4 kids and I know their future will be much more impacted by such things as unemployment, the national debt, , medical insurance and the housing crisis etc. I am known at my work for being very practical. I don't put up with much BS. I always tend to address problems in priority.

If you think you will get the Texans out here to give up their SUV's and pick up trucks, then I would like to sell you some beach front property in Montana. Americans love their cars, and China and India are soon to follow.

In essence, they would rather live their life than the one you would purport for them. So what if we all don't live to be 100. I would rather live to be 60 enjoying life than live to 100 with your picture of my life. I''ll take a sentence from a movie here, "every man dies, but not every man really lives". I have enjoyed my life and if I died tomorrow I would be satisfied because I accomplished and lived the way I wanted,

So, go to OZ, follow the yellow brick road and find your wizard, but leave the rest of us to making our own choices. GeeZ....:mf_surrender:
Click to expand...

Give us the over / under on 85M Barrels / day. 90M barrels / day. Let me know the ramifications of not hitting this anytime soon.

Let me know if you find it acceptable our standard of living has been stagnated (actually slightly lower) since the early 1970s.

Let me know if we should get alarmed about "the greatest market failure in history."

Let me know if a Sixth Great Extinction is worth getting upset about.

Let me know if your kids (my kids) having to cope with a "Long Emergency" - AS YOU PREDICT THEY WILL - is worth getting worried about.

And then, when those kids label us as the worst generation, I suppose we will have to hold up our hands and accept history's censure.

I've never purported to tell people how to live. I've just asked the question, "Maybe it would be better if....?" And, there is plenty else to worry about if we choose to go for a crash landing (as you desire) vice ditching in the water and trying to make it out safely.

But, yes, I can see the great wisdom in spending a cool trillion to ensure the car is an acceptable object fetish.

:hi:
 
#442
#442
utgibbs said:
Give us the over / under on 85M Barrels / day. 90M barrels / day. Let me know the ramifications of not hitting this anytime soon.

Let me know if you find it acceptable our standard of living has been stagnated (actually slightly lower) since the early 1970s.

Let me know if we should get alarmed about "the greatest market failure in history."

Let me know if a Sixth Great Extinction is worth getting upset about.

Let me know if your kids (my kids) having to cope with a "Long Emergency" - AS YOU PREDICT THEY WILL - is worth getting worried about.

And then, when those kids label us as the worst generation, I suppose we will have to hold up our hands and accept history's censure.

I've never purported to tell people how to live. I've just asked the question, "Maybe it would be better if....?" And, there is plenty else to worry about if we choose to go for a crash landing (as you desire) vice ditching in the water and trying to make it out safely.

But, yes, I can see the great wisdom in spending a cool trillion to ensure the car is an acceptable object fetish.

:hi:
Click to expand...

And with this, I can see I have wasted enough keystrokes on you....Have a good life:hi:
 
#444
#444
utgibbs said:
Awww, shucks! :cray:

At least give us the over / under on 90M barrels of oil. You seem the right man for those odds.
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We have already read in this thread about contributors to climate change outside our borders (i.e., rain forest deforestation, India, China, Africa, etc.). What is our contribution to climate change compared to the rest of the world... 10%, 50%, 80%, what?
 
#445
#445
VolDad said:
We have already read in this thread about contributors to climate change outside our borders (i.e., rain forest deforestation, India, China, Africa, etc.). What is our contribution to climate change compared to the rest of the world... 10%, 50%, 80%, what?
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Like, right now per day, or total up this point?

Per day, china is contributing... Oh I don't know, 25 % or maybe more. The US, slightly less, like 20 %- unless you consider that moat of china's manufacturing and industrial sectors are aimed at us. It is hard to divide it by nations with a global and mostly free economy. It's truly a world problem, as it is just a byproduct of how we do business now.
Posted via VolNation Mobile
 
#446
#446
IPorange said:
Like, right now per day, or total up this point?

Per day, china is contributing... Oh I don't know, 25 % or maybe more. The US, slightly less, like 20 %- unless you consider that moat of china's manufacturing and industrial sectors are aimed at us. It is hard to divide it by nations with a global and mostly free economy. It's truly a world problem, as it is just a byproduct of how we do business now.
Posted via VolNation Mobile
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So we are contributing 20% to the problem and it seems like we are supposed to shoulder 100% of the guilt.

.
 
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#447
#447
Look on the bright side, the spewing forth from Icelandic volcanoes should relieve pressure in Yellowstone. Its a win win for us.
 
#448
#448
VolDad said:
So we are contributing 20% to the problem and it seems like we are supposed to shoulder 100% of the guilt.

.
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Actually, we have a much higher debt than IP suggests.

England and the US still dominate the total per capita contribution since almost half of ALL the CO2 released since 1750 is still in the atmosphere. England had a head start on everybody, but we caught up very quickly.

In fact, I have the data:

Cumulative emissions from 1751 - 2008:

US 27.2%
China 9.1%
Russia 7.3%
UK 5.8%

And I think if you do the math, the US / UK contribution per capita are the highest by far. So, the truth is we are shouldering absolutely none of our debt burden.

However, IP is absolutely correct insofar as this is a GLOBAL problem. In fact, the IPCC scenarios suggest if we work on this simply at a local / community level it won't work at all. It requires global convergence.
 
#450
#450
utvolpj said:
damn those colonists and native americans for their CO2 output
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Climate scientists generally start the clock at 1750, the presumed beginning of the industrial revolution.

We were a backwater until the Civil War. But we made up for lost time in a big way.
 
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