The Farce of Global Warming

[ThatGuyFromThatPlace]

I'll state right off I don't even pretend to believe in Global Warming as a human influenced event. The information is sketchy at best and proponents of the theories are often as bad or worse than creationists.

Anyway, its late. I shouldn't really be posting but I'm going to throw a couple of links at you guy's and see what comes out.

Telegraph Article from earlier this year defacing Global warming. Mostly presenting evidence regarding failed predictions and and the censoring of data sets (notably the 'elimination' of the medieval warming period) To yield data favorable to global warming. Provides a PDF of sources and abstracts etc.

and of course The Petition Project Debunking the Kyoto Protocols and proving that the so called 'unanimous' support for global warming in the scientific community is worse than a farce.

I've got more sources to back the anti-global warming side but they'll have to wait for later (since it's ridiculously early in the morning and I can't believe I'm awake)

[Darth Judas]

Global Warming is occuring. It may or may not be speeded up by humans, but it is occuring nonetheless. I recently read an article that stated that global warming is also occuring on Venus and Mars. If this is true, then it's not a matter of global warming, but inner system (at the least) warming. If humans have anything to do with it on Earth, they are merely speeding up (and possibly augmenting) a natural process that would occur regardless.

I'll try to find that article for the thread.

[K. A. Pital]

The Royal Society says there's a worldwide scientific consensus. It brands Apocalypse-deniers as paid lackeys of coal and oil corporations. I declare my interest: I once took the taxpayer's shilling and advised Margaret Thatcher, FRS, on scientific scams and scares. Alas, not a red cent from Exxon.

Yeah. I haven't yet seen into the calcs, but the pretext is not inspiring... His ramblings about "market failure" and "zero-freedom, high-tax policy" in what was supposed to be an apolitical scientific review also reveals.

And the petition is what, ~17,000 scientists over 2 years? The "Four-day petition" against creationism/ID and in support of evolution amassed 7,732 signatories in 4 days.

[Covenant]

Global Warming is occuring. It may or may not be speeded up by humans, but it is occuring nonetheless. I recently read an article that stated that global warming is also occuring on Venus and Mars. If this is true, then it's not a matter of global warming, but inner system (at the least) warming. If humans have anything to do with it on Earth, they are merely speeding up (and possibly augmenting) a natural process that would occur regardless.

I'll try to find that article for the thread.

Oh lord.

Mars? Fuckin' Mars?

Mars has a negligable atmosphere. It's sure as hell not experiencing global warming. And Venus has already gone through it--it went through it loooong ago, that's why it's hot enough on Venus to melt lead and why it snows metal.

Now, as for that OP...

First of all, Global Warming is a term applied to the heating of the planet. That's absofuckinglutely happening, there's not a shred of evidence to say it isn't.

The Greenhouse Effect is what happens when you pump greenhouse gases into the air and they trap more heat. We know that is real and we know it does indeed trap heat. That's why Venus is as it is, and our Venus probe showed us as much. So that's real science too.

Now, putting them together and wrapping it in the bow of Human Impact is different. You can say we may not be causing it, but then you'd just be ignorant instead of insane. You need to look at the amount of greenhouse gases we are letting squeak by into the atmosphere each year, while bearing in mind the other damage we've done to the upper atmosphere (such as the Ozone Layer) and then ask yourself if it's outside the realm of possibility that by us adding a lot of greenhouse gases to the planet during a cycle in which the planet appears to be warming if there is infact perhaps a degree of that heating process that could be attributed back to us.

To say that there isn't any chance that making greenhouse gases helps the greenhouse effect to create global warming is saying that a man who gets shot didn't die from that--he was already on a dying cycle and it was just a coincidence.

If you want to say that humanity's impact is slim then that's fine, but it's just inane to say that hard science is suspended only on Earth, and that the very simple metric of A-B-C doesn't apply. If I introduce a heat trapping element into the air, and we do notice a heating of the oceans, then isn't it safe to say that there's the possibility that me releasing heat trapping elements may have trapped heat that warmed the oceans? Yes? No?

Don't fall into the trap of saying that just because 17,000 idiots don't believe reality that reality is somehow failing. Show me an article in Nature or any other credible scientific community outlet, where these theories can be tested by their peers, and I'm sure you'll find what's left of the author slowly dragging their battered form under a rock. Nobody should ever deny that global warming is happening, because it is. It is, and it does, and it has in the past and it will again, just like how it's gotten cold in the past and it will again eventually in the future. We can either recognize this and deal with it or bury our head in the sand and end up like the Maya.

Throw your ire at the scientists who are actually doing the work of figuring out how to fix things and what's to blame. I don't mind people looking into the causes of this global warming stint--maybe we're not to blame. It could be. I think we're helping, but I won't deny you the chance to check it out. If you don't believe the oceans and planet are warming up then alright, you're just flat out wrong. But if you accept that it's warming, and just think it's not our fault, then that's a scientific argument you can have and it has merit (if not a lot of credibility yet). Either way, just assume it's happening and look for ways to fix it. If we find out that not a damn thing we did caused it, but oh shits it's happening anyway... as it has in the past... then we're still going to need solutions.

[NecronLord]

Mars? Fuckin' Mars?

Mars has a negligable atmosphere. It's sure as hell not experiencing global warming. And Venus has already gone through it--it went through it loooong ago, that's why it's hot enough on Venus to melt lead and why it snows metal.

I'd presume they're talking about say, reduction of its surface ice or somesuch, as opposed to a greenhouse effect: It'd be awesome if there was one on Mars, mind, as I seem to recall that being phase one of most terraforming plans.

[Darth Judas]

Yes, Mars. It may have a negligable atmosphere, but no matter what, it does have an atmosphere. And an atmosphere is required for global warming. If there is an atmosphere, that is all that's necessary for global warming to be possible. An atmosphere can contain greenhouse gases, which can lead to global warming. That, or the fact that the planet can be recieving more heat than it can radiate. (An atmosphere plays a big part in this, since the existence of an atmosphere, no matter how thin, can trap greenhouse gases, and, though those gases, heat.)

[Spoonist]

->ThatGuyFromThatPlace
Two incorrect ideas here.
That there are other factors that interact into global warning does not disprove human influence on global warming.
That there are stupid opinions from people advocating an idea does not disprove the idea itself.

It is really quite simple even though those debating the issue tend to make it more complex than need be.
1. There is a global warming effect. This is beyond doubt and proven as a fact.
2. Global warming is bad for humanity as a whole (even though some will be affected less than others).
3. There is not research enough and no theory that can account for the whole warming effect with testable predictions and until there is we need to do more research so that we can understand the effect/phenomenon.

Given these points one can take certain standpoints all of them with their own set of ethical dilemmas.
Proactive - regardless of if humans are responsible for the bulk of the warming or not we should act now to reduce those effects that we know are probable or proven causes. The dilemma being that you sacrifice productivity/economics on environmental safeguards that might not have a significant enough effect on the global warming.
Wait-and-see - since it is not proven yet that humans are responsible for the bulk of the warming we should wait until such proof exists. The dilemma being that if it turns out that humans are responsible it is probably going to be to late to do anything about it, so it is a calculated risk.

And then there are the ignorant masses that join the debate, with them trying to make it black/white fallacy.
Ignorant side 1 - Humans have no effect at all on global warming.
Ignorant side 2 - Humans and humans only are responsible for this.

The problem with the sites you quote is that they are from the Ignorant side 1 targeting the Ignorant side 2. Both of which are just trying to justify their normal political agenda and not realistically look into the problem at hand.

One can compare this with having an insurance or not. You seem to be of the opinion that one should not have an insurance since you are throwing money on something which only has a remote chance of occuring.

So the real question is if we feel lucky. Well, do we?

[Covenant]

Yes, Mars. It may have a negligable atmosphere, but no matter what, it does have an atmosphere. And an atmosphere is required for global warming. If there is an atmosphere, that is all that's necessary for global warming to be possible. An atmosphere can contain greenhouse gases, which can lead to global warming. That, or the fact that the planet can be recieving more heat than it can radiate. (An atmosphere plays a big part in this, since the existence of an atmosphere, no matter how thin, can trap greenhouse gases, and, though those gases, heat.)

I think this is what you're talking about.

This is global warming in the strictest sense of the word, but not what we're talking about really. I will give you the nod for the reference though. Planets normally go through cycles, Earth too. Mars has no moon like ours (it has moons, but not like our moon) and it wobbles all over the place, giving it incredibly variable climate patterns. Earth is much more stable in it's wobble, but even we have ice ages followed by hot times followed by ice ages. What we're concerned about now is that our carbon addition to the atmosphere is throwing things out of whack and rocking the boat too much. It'll end up righting itself eventually, but we might not be here afterwards.

And that's not based on doomsday science, it's just the reality of what would happen to our food production. Here's another article that you might find interesting.

Another lovely way to die. The Sun burning hotter.

If there's any truth to that, and we just have the poor luck to be living in a time when the sun is going through a heating-up phase (maybe it's running out of some of it's fuel for all we know) then this is still a pretty nightmarish scenario. If we don't do what we can to curb the damage we're doing, then if there IS a cycle at work, or some other thing like a Too Hot Sun in play, then we're going to be fucked even harder if we haven't fixed things on our end.

[Velthuijsen]

On a first reading of the linked telegraph article the writer commits a fallacy. The writer implicitly states because the predicted temperature rise was 0.3 but we only got 0.1 the ideas behind the prediction were wrong ergo no global warming.
Instead of maybe going hmm maybe the models weren't accurate enough or need more data. Both of which the people working with those models have been saying are causes for inaccuracy in their predictions.

Then he (the writer) goes into a detailed explanation that might be correct if (and only if) the only thing that humans are pumping in the atmosphere that has an effect on the temperature would be greenhouse gasses. Which I already pointed out in the 'Sun Burning hotter?'-thread is not correct (link used here). We are pumping other stuff into the atmosphere that is effectively increasing the albedo of the planet and has little side effects (including but not limited to) killing forests, causing famines in Africa (evidence is circumstantial though) and being a component of smog.

[SirNitram]

I'll state right off I don't even pretend to believe in Global Warming as a human influenced event. The information is sketchy at best and proponents of the theories are often as bad or worse than creationists.

Really.

That's quite a claim. Will we be seeing evidence to this claim, that the individuals who have performed studies on the changing climate have been originating at their conclusion, abusing all manner of scientific theories, and been preaching about a 'conspiracy' within the community?

Or will we instead be seeing you pretending your opinion counts for something some more?

[Rye]

I'll state right off I don't even pretend to believe in Global Warming as a human influenced event.

You're an idiot, then, when two independent global warming trend models show us out of step with the normal trend as it should've been and almost all of this change can be tracked to post industrialisation, you have to be fucking nuts or hideously ill-informed, likely by libertarian "think tanks".

Firstly, there are icecores that show the correlation between carbon in the atmosphere and global warming trends over thousands of years. The concentration of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere has increased more in the northern hemisphere where more fossil fuel burning occurs. Since the Industrial Revolution the concentration globally has increased by 30%. You'd have to be fucking retarded or something to think 30% more carbon in the atmosphere isn't going to affect anything, when the icecores show the exact opposite.

Secondly, the modern climate models, which factor in human carbon contributions and how they'd related to global temperature show that without post industrial human impact, the temperature would actually be lower, not that different from pre industrialisation temperatures, though obviously, there's still peaks and troughs from various other things like volcanoes or whatever. These models predict what we see in the ice record, as well as the natural peaks and troughs we've seen post industrialisation and the general trend is still out of whack and getting worse while China and the developing world pump out carbon without a care in the world.

Thirdly, there are all sorts of other little things happening like spring arriving earlier and autumn arriving later, the transatlantic thermal conveyer getting weaker, ice shelves, glaciers, etc, disappearing and that sort of thing that make a general warming trend impossible to deny.

The information is sketchy at best and proponents of the theories are often as bad or worse than creationists.

Lol, yeah, it's not like you can directly correlate the carbon in the atmosphere to how warm it is, right? Oh, well aside from the icecores that show exactly that, I guess. That's just like saying the world must be created because Genesis says so.

Telegraph Article from earlier this year defacing Global warming. Mostly presenting evidence regarding failed predictions and and the censoring of data sets (notably the 'elimination' of the medieval warming period) To yield data favorable to global warming. Provides a PDF of sources and abstracts etc.

I'm not well acquainted enough with the references, nor do I have the patience to sift through it and determine if his conclusions are all that sensible. However, the anti-global warming "skeptics" have been less than forthcoming with proof of science being biased against them.

and of course The Petition Project Debunking the Kyoto Protocols and proving that the so called 'unanimous' support for global warming in the scientific community is worse than a farce.

There are legitimate issues with the Kyoto protocols, but human impact on carbon in the environment isn't one of them. The anti global warming crowd is the minority just like ID is in biology, and yes, most of them are either libertarians or in the pockets of some petrochem company.

I've got more sources to back the anti-global warming side but they'll have to wait for later (since it's ridiculously early in the morning and I can't believe I'm awake)

Cool, could you do me a favour and try to only use .edu ones rather than .orgs, and ones that aren't "libertarian think tanks" or "groups of people dedicated to a free market and against environmental alarmism" because, 9 times out of 10 that's what they'll be.

[Rye]

Yes, Mars. It may have a negligable atmosphere, but no matter what, it does have an atmosphere. And an atmosphere is required for global warming. If there is an atmosphere, that is all that's necessary for global warming to be possible. An atmosphere can contain greenhouse gases, which can lead to global warming. That, or the fact that the planet can be recieving more heat than it can radiate. (An atmosphere plays a big part in this, since the existence of an atmosphere, no matter how thin, can trap greenhouse gases, and, though those gases, heat.)

Measurements made in 1976 by the Viking landers established the exact composition of the atmosphere on Mars as 95.3% carbon dioxide, 2.7% nitrogen, and 1.6% argon, with smaller amounts of oxygen (0.15%) and water vapor (0.03%). The average surface pressure is only about 7 millibars (less than 1% of the Earth's), though it varies greatly with altitude from about 9 millibars in the deepest basins to about 1 millibar at the top of Olympus Mons, the highest point on Mars. This is still thick enough to support strong winds and enable occasional planet-wide dust storms to obscure the surface for months at a time. On the other hand, the Martian atmosphere results in only a weak greenhouse effect that raises the surface temperature by about 5°C over what it would be without any atmosphere at all.

http://www.daviddarling.info/encycloped ... atmos.html

[SirNitram]

Yes, Mars. It may have a negligable atmosphere, but no matter what, it does have an atmosphere. And an atmosphere is required for global warming. If there is an atmosphere, that is all that's necessary for global warming to be possible. An atmosphere can contain greenhouse gases, which can lead to global warming. That, or the fact that the planet can be recieving more heat than it can radiate. (An atmosphere plays a big part in this, since the existence of an atmosphere, no matter how thin, can trap greenhouse gases, and, though those gases, heat.)

You, sir, are fucking high.

Seriously. Put the bong down. 'Can' trap greenhouse gases.. But only if there's meaningful production of them on Mars. Since the vast terraforming effort has not yet begun, the burden of proof that these exist is extremely high. Well, extremely high compared to 'I heard..'.

[Rye]

You, sir, are fucking high.

Seriously. Put the bong down. 'Can' trap greenhouse gases.. But only if there's meaningful production of them on Mars. Since the vast terraforming effort has not yet begun, the burden of proof that these exist is extremely high. Well, extremely high compared to 'I heard..'.

Um, I just posted the proof?

[SirNitram]

You, sir, are fucking high.

Seriously. Put the bong down. 'Can' trap greenhouse gases.. But only if there's meaningful production of them on Mars. Since the vast terraforming effort has not yet begun, the burden of proof that these exist is extremely high. Well, extremely high compared to 'I heard..'.

Um, I just posted the proof?

Sorry, the hazards of replying to these knuckleheads as I see them.

5 degrees above non-Atmospheric temperatures. Woo, beach weather!

[GrandMasterTerwynn]

Global Warming is occuring. It may or may not be speeded up by humans, but it is occuring nonetheless. I recently read an article that stated that global warming is also occuring on Venus and Mars. If this is true, then it's not a matter of global warming, but inner system (at the least) warming. If humans have anything to do with it on Earth, they are merely speeding up (and possibly augmenting) a natural process that would occur regardless.

I'll try to find that article for the thread.

The Martian and supposed solar-system-wide global warming was discussed in this thread.

[Surlethe]

I'll state right off I don't even pretend to believe in Global Warming as a human influenced event. The information is sketchy at best and proponents of the theories are often as bad or worse than creationists.

Why do you think someone would, to the point of denying or dishonestly overlooking evidence, want to come to the conclusion that the Earth is warming catastrophically, that it is caused by humans, and that, as a result, our society needs to drastically cut back on its use of our main fuel source, transportation, and, in general, radically alter the way Western civilization is structured?

I also haven't seen that 99% of established climate scientists oppose the idea that the warming is caused in part or chiefly by humans. That's a pretty strong implicit claim there; you up to providing evidence?

[Darth Wong]

I'll state right off I don't even pretend to believe in Global Warming as a human influenced event. The information is sketchy at best and proponents of the theories are often as bad or worse than creationists.

Anyway, its late. I shouldn't really be posting but I'm going to throw a couple of links at you guy's and see what comes out.

Telegraph Article from earlier this year defacing Global warming. Mostly presenting evidence regarding failed predictions and and the censoring of data sets (notably the 'elimination' of the medieval warming period) To yield data favorable to global warming. Provides a PDF of sources and abstracts etc.

That looks really neat, with pretty pictures and everything, but it also takes the form of an essay published directly to the public rather than a peer-reviewed research paper. Not coincidentally, the exact same tactic employed by creationists.

and of course The Petition Project Debunking the Kyoto Protocols and proving that the so called 'unanimous' support for global warming in the scientific community is worse than a farce.

How many of those people have actually examined the issue or have the appropriate qualifications to do so? Or are you one of these raving dumbshits who thinks that scientists don't specialize?

I've got more sources to back the anti-global warming side but they'll have to wait for later (since it's ridiculously early in the morning and I can't believe I'm awake)

Could you please explain why the permafrost is melting up north? Why houses are collapsing in the northwest territories of Canada and Alaska because the foundations are literally sinking into the ground? Eskimos who have lived the same way for centuries and who are now seeing the disruption of their entire way of life due to this supposedly non-existent phenomenon would love to hear your answer.

[haard]

Could you please explain why the permafrost is melting up north? Why houses are collapsing in the northwest territories of Canada and Alaska because the foundations are literally sinking into the ground? Eskimos who have lived the same way for centuries and who are now seeing the disruption of their entire way of life due to this supposedly non-existent phenomenon would love to hear your answer.

To be fair, the op explicitly stated this (my emph):

I'll state right off I don't even pretend to believe in Global Warming as a human influenced event.

[Darth Wong]

Could you please explain why the permafrost is melting up north? Why houses are collapsing in the northwest territories of Canada and Alaska because the foundations are literally sinking into the ground? Eskimos who have lived the same way for centuries and who are now seeing the disruption of their entire way of life due to this supposedly non-existent phenomenon would love to hear your answer.

To be fair, the op explicitly stated this (my emph):

I'll state right off I don't even pretend to believe in Global Warming as a human influenced event.

That disclaimer is just put there to take advantage of the complexity of environmental modeling to cast doubt and ignore the question of whether we should be trying to do something about it. I'm sure the dinosaurs took great comfort in knowing that their destruction wasn't exclusively caused by their own activities.

[K. A. Pital]

Their logic is simple: if it's not entirely our fault, let's not do anything and hope it evens out by itself.

[GrandMasterTerwynn]

I'll state right off I don't even pretend to believe in Global Warming as a human influenced event. The information is sketchy at best and proponents of the theories are often as bad or worse than creationists.

And the people who don't realize that our current spate of global warming is directly influenced by human activities tend to be creationists. Or at least right-wing retards.

Anyway, its late. I shouldn't really be posting but I'm going to throw a couple of links at you guy's and see what comes out.

Telegraph Article from earlier this year defacing Global warming. Mostly presenting evidence regarding failed predictions and and the censoring of data sets (notably the 'elimination' of the medieval warming period) To yield data favorable to global warming. Provides a PDF of sources and abstracts etc.

Moot point. Human-influenced global warming is still taking place.

Greenhouse gasses are also at a 650,000 year high.

Analysis of marine fossils supports the "hockey-stick" graph by demonstrating that events such as the Little Ice Age (trotted out by anti-global-warming tools like you) were largely regional phenomena, and that the planet, in general, wasn't appreciably cooler during that time. In fact the graph on the article you quoted compares a global graph to a graph of climate change in Europe.

and of course The Petition Project Debunking the Kyoto Protocols and proving that the so called 'unanimous' support for global warming in the scientific community is worse than a farce.

Oh my gods, it's a fucking online petition. Not only that, but it's a petition that is quite controversial and has been generally dismissed as invalid, as many of the signatures come from questionable sources. For that matter, one doesn't even need to prove their credentials to sign the petition.

I've got more sources to back the anti-global warming side but they'll have to wait for later (since it's ridiculously early in the morning and I can't believe I'm awake)

Keep it coming.

[Patrick Degan]

I'll state right off I don't even pretend to believe in Global Warming as a human influenced event. The information is sketchy at best and proponents of the theories are often as bad or worse than creationists.

Could you please explain why the permafrost is melting up north? Why houses are collapsing in the northwest territories of Canada and Alaska because the foundations are literally sinking into the ground? Eskimos who have lived the same way for centuries and who are now seeing the disruption of their entire way of life due to this supposedly non-existent phenomenon would love to hear your answer.

Or for that matter why Kilamanjaro is losing the ice cap which made the title of a certain Ernest Hemmingway novel possible and why the North Pole seems to be melting.

[Einhander Sn0m4n]

Or why hurricanes are getting stronger and more frequent (I know, 2K6 was a washout hurricane-wise, due to El Nino), summers are getting hotter (March 21 1988ish, I was bundled up tight like an Inuit for first day of spring; 1998ish I was wearing short sleeves and jeans; this year I was in shorts and nothing else!), and winter storms are getting worse.

I have seen the weather patterns changing with my own eyes over my lifetime, and I know a fat lot of other people who've noticed this as well. Global Warming is real, we're causing it, and nothing any oil-company shill can say will fix it.

[Chiaroscuro]

It's too bad ThatGuyFromThatPlace has decided to go away and hide, because I really would have liked to see him/her defend the claim that global warming is a farce and/or that humans aren't affecting it.