Is global warming all that bad?

[Simon_Jester]

Re: NecronLord.
I can actually believe that the total biomass of termites on the planet exceeds the total biomass of humans. It stands to reason that termite flatulence contributes more to global warming than human flatulence.

Which would actually matter if the main reason we have problems with global warming was that people fart. Instead of, say, the greenhouse gases produced by burning thousands upon thousands of tons of coal and oil every day.

Apparently, our friend Baldrick thinks that the main reason to be concerned about global warming is increased levels of atmospheric flatulence, and that most of the average human's carbon footprint is digestive byproduct gases. I recommend that he cut back on the carbohydrates.

I wouldn't dignify it by the term "common sense." Common sense is something a person develops over time by actually thinking about issues- like a muscle, it needs exercise. If your common sense is flabby and weak, you wind up making stupid judgments with it because you think you know things you flat out don't know.

Which is why I put common sense in quotation marks. Citing common sense in an argument against global warming just shows the ignorance of the person making that argument. After all, what normal person has such a good grasp of the intricacies of the dynamic global climate system in order to develop a common sense feeling of what is really happening and what effects various changes will have. When people who have studied this stuff for decades still often enough see unexpected results - that should tell you something: this stuff is difficult.

The broad outlines of global warming make perfect common sense to me, given a few scientific facts stirred into the mix. Carbon dioxide is a greenhouse gas, we set a lot of shit on fire, QED.

You don't have to be a genius to know what it means when practically every damn year the north polar ice pack melts down to the smallest size since records began.

[madd0ct0r]

@Simon Jester - that also depends on the termite production of methane per kilo of body mass relative to humans.
But I doubt it's 10% of the human level, so you're probably right.

To feed the troll or not is the question? Given the concerns over his digestive system, feeding him seems a little risky. After all, we wouldn't want the sea's to mysteriously drain to somewhere to account for the extra water from the icepack. After all, the troll swims in those seas every day and knows they aren't rising.

[NecronLord]

Re: NecronLord.
I can actually believe that the total biomass of termites on the planet exceeds the total biomass of humans. It stands to reason that termite flatulence contributes more to global warming than human flatulence.

That is correct. I am posting that merely as a reaction to the pithy comment about it presumably meaning the total biomass of all termites, and the suggestion that Blackadder may actually believe in giant termites.

If you're actually wondering:

Biomass of termites and their emissions of methane and carbon dioxide: A global database
Sanderson, M. G.
Global Biogeochemical Cycles, Volume 10, Issue 4, p. 543-558
A global database describing the geographical distribution of the biomass of termites and their emissions of methane and carbon dioxide has been constructed. Termite biomasses were assigned to various ecosystems using published measurements and a recent high-resolution (10'×10') database of vegetation categories. The assigned biomasses were then combined with literature measurements of fluxes of methane and carbon dioxide from termites and extrapolated to give global emission estimates for each gas. The global emissions of methane and carbon dioxide are 19.7+/-1.5 and 3500+/-700 Mt yr-1, respectively (1 Mt=1012 g). These emissions contribute approximately 4% and 2%, respectively, to the total global fluxes of these gases. This database gives an accurate distribution of the biomasses and gaseous emissions by termites and may be incorporated into global models of the atmosphere.

So, approximately 19 Mt of Methane and 3500 Mt of CO2. The methane's significant, but the CO2 is nothing, compared to our 27,000 Mt/year as a species.

Just to shoot this down further, if the oft quoted Methane being 25% as damaging as CO2 is used, that gives the poor termite a total emission equivalent of 3975 Mt of CO2 vs our whopping 27,000.

[madd0ct0r]

plus our methane, plus the methane produced from our farming practices ect.

[Akhlut]

Let's not forget that termites convert unusuable, dead plants into mulch, essentially, that can be converted into new plants that can act as carbon sinks.

Whereas humans tend to destroy live plants and replace them with various things that cannot be carbon sinks.

It's like bitching that wolves kill deer and therefore are harmful to the environment.

[NecronLord]

Let's not forget that termites convert unusuable, dead plants into mulch, essentially, that can be converted into new plants that can act as carbon sinks.

Whereas humans tend to destroy live plants and replace them with various things that cannot be carbon sinks.

It's like bitching that wolves kill deer and therefore are harmful to the environment.

Never mind that we can fix our problem. Exterminating the termite, on the other hand, would have incredibly bad consequences.

[Surlethe]

Before industrialization, the global climate was in equilibrium. During industrialization, we dump a whole bunch of sequestered carbon back into the climate. Now the climate is headed toward a new equilibrium. *sigh* Is it really so hard to understand?

[Broomstick]

Apparently it is.

When someone asks me "what are YOU doing about global warming" my only answer these days is "planning to adapt", because the train has left the station and it's not coming back. The climate is changing so we'd best figure how to adapt.

[Einhander Sn0m4n]

Before industrialization, the global climate was in equilibrium. During industrialization, we dump a whole bunch of sequestered carbon back into the climate. Now the climate is headed toward a new equilibrium. *sigh* Is it really so hard to understand?

If we didn't have billionaires with all their money sunk into Big Oil and Big Lobbying, it wouldn't be. I'm wondering how many shares of BP Bladder is holding onto, because the only people who argue this hard (and stupidly) against Climate Change tend to have a financial dog in the fight.

[Zaune]

If we didn't have billionaires with all their money sunk into Big Oil and Big Lobbying, it wouldn't be. I'm wondering how many shares of BP Bladder is holding onto, because the only people who argue this hard (and stupidly) against Climate Change tend to have a financial dog in the fight.

He's from the UK. Petrol's US$8 a gallon over there, two-thirds of which price is tax. This is admittedly the device which several successive governments have used to look like they're serious about tackling climate change without going to the trouble of actually doing anything to reduce the number of cars on the road, which plays into the hands of the deniers rather nicely.

[Crossroads Inc.]

One of the things that makes me laugh about the "Global Warming is Good!" crowd, is how they seem to fail just how much climate changing is going to screw people over.

Hot places will get hotter, cold places colder. Look at Australia and places in the US southwest which are having the worst drought in decades. And up north they are getting earlier and earlier snows. Sure SOME places are changing, in Siberia it is warming up and thawing out, but guess what, that is going to turn the area into a massive mudbog and release untold amounts of CO2 that for thousands of years has been trapped in Ice.

I can't think of a single place on the planet where the changing climate could be seen as a "good" thing.

And yeah we are so far down the road on this, it isn't a matter of stopping it, it is a matter of surviving. Sure it won't be the end of civilization and all that, but the climate as we know it is fcked, and there are many small countries which simply may collapse under the stress.

[Simon_Jester]

Sheer statistics mean there will have to be winners as well as losers- but it's far too soon to identify the winners, and the losers will outnumber them.

[D.Turtle]

One of the things that makes me laugh about the "Global Warming is Good!" crowd, is how they seem to fail just how much climate changing is going to screw people over.

Hot places will get hotter, cold places colder.

This is not true. As an example you can look at the model runs made by the NASA GISS Model E runs made for the last IPCC report here.

Look at Australia and places in the US southwest which are having the worst drought in decades. And up north they are getting earlier and earlier snows.

The increase in snowfall is because of an increase in precipitations, not because of lower temperatures. In fact, if you look at far north areas, there is an increase in snowfall because of higher temperatures putting them into a range in which snowfall is possible (before it was too cold for snowfall).

At the same time there will be a decrease in precipitation in dry areas. (See a model run at the link above)

So, the globe gets warmer everywhere, and because of that dry places will get dryer and wet places wetter.

And yeah we are so far down the road on this, it isn't a matter of stopping it, it is a matter of surviving. Sure it won't be the end of civilization and all that, but the climate as we know it is fcked, and there are many small countries which simply may collapse under the stress.

This is far too pessimistic a view. While some warming is already locked in, the amount it goes up and the speed with which it goes up can still be drastically changed. Five degrees of warming is a whole different scale of fucked in comparison to stopping it at two degrees.

[Eagle1Division]

Here's the thing that gets me about climate science: What's the point?:
Well, the point is to better understand the climate, obviously.
But why is this important? When Congress asks why you need budget, why do you need a bigger one, or any budget at all?
To save the human race!

So, naturally, the best and only way to secure funding is through something like global warming.
I wouldn't go so far as this article that calls them "global warming hoaxers", but it does have some interesting points:
http://biggovernment.com/jdunetz/2011/0 ... ata-again/

Even though I'm a huge space advocate, satellite measurements, what intuitively I'd say are the best, have been wildly off:
http://objectivistindividualist.blogspo ... d-now.html

http://www.climatechangedispatch.com//c ... -disgraced


And then there was the huge incident months back where hackers stole emails that, once again, showed climate scientists fudging data, known as "climategate". And what were the news stories about? "Was it okay for the hackers to steal these emails?" seemed to be focus of most reports.

I would be interested to hear people's thoughts on this.

My first thought is... where is your climatology PhD?

What makes you think you, presumably a lay person, know more than the overwhelming majority of climate scientists in the world? Do you have any qualifications in the matter (qualifications are after all, proof of competence in a topic) or any specialist knowledge they lack?

If he was on a team that was studying global warming, which is how a climatology PhD earns a living, then he would have strong incentive to hint global warming. Extremely valuable in science is objectivity. When your career and project could get pulled if you don't bring back results, that objectivity is lost.

One thing I will admit is that there probably is some measure of global warming. But any human being who comprehends the sheer size of the planet will tell you it's a massive measure of arrogance to think our species is even capable of changing the composition of the atmosphere by any significant measure, which, btw, masses 5×10^15 metric tons. And C02 isn't even the most potent greenhouse gas, I'm no scientist, but even I know methane is far more potent, and water vapor outright puts it to shame in terms of heating effect.

Also, from my own airplane experience, you can fly for a few hours at any given time here in Alabama and see tens of huge forest fires billowing up massive clouds of smoke. Call it unscientific, but for any given area on Earth's surface, from my own observations, forest fires put out far more C02 than any human industry, perhaps with the exception of China. So if you really care about global warming, you should try to prevent forest fires. Those also have much greater direct impact on wildlife, it's quiet sobering, actually, and I do care about nature, believe it or not.

Finally, this comes from psychology: in order to be happy a human seeks
A) Something to love
B) Something to hope for
C) Something to do
That's not me: That's what I was taught in psychology.

Political causes, in the past it was unionizing labor, civil rights, etc. and now it's global warming, give 2 of those things; which means there's strong psychological incentive to become attached to the idea.

Just as an example of the type of science that goes into global warming; take a look at the break-even fallacy. On the surface it looks obvious, and even somewhat frightening, but there's a major flaw to it if you take a deeper look...
You don't power drills with the oil they collect. If you gathered oil, and burned it to power the drill to get more oil, then yes, there would be a break-even. But we don't. The electricity my computer is running on, and possibly the electricity that powers the drill, come from powerplants that use things like radioactive decay, which we'll have for an impractically large amount of time, and the water cycle, which will continue as long as the Earth exists with liquid water. Petroleum products are for specific applications of power, i.e., mostly engines, including car engines, and so even after the "break-even" point, electricity will be used to power drills (if it isn't already for economic reasons), and gasoline will still be useful.

My ultimate point in the "break-even" digression is that while on top charts, and little logical arguments can be quiet convincing and frightening, further probing will reveal that somewhere, in all those assumptions and logical points, there's a weak link, and the entire argument crumbles like a house of cards. These things play off of fear, very good presentation and human emotion. I call this "fear-mongering", and it's most often used in scams to get you to buy them.

(I'll digress a little and cover another point; namely this specific radical website is anti-capitalist. What they author clearly doesn't understand, is that capitalism is a self-regulating system. As it gets rarer and harder to obtain, it will naturally become more expensive, and it will regulate itself to handle the situation perfectly. That's the beauty of capitalism: It's free market and self-regulating.)

All this said, as I got near to earlier, humans do put out C02 through industry, that's not incorrect. But what is incorrect is the belief that our feeble C02 output, in comparison to Earth's atmosphere and the many negative feedback processes that keep it's composition stable, and the many natural factors that put out far more C02 than humans do, is capable of drastically effecting the entirety of Earth's climate as a whole.

[PeZook]

Just because I know what will happen next, allow me to state: I will not have a dogpile here. Make your arguments count and think about what you write, because I will ruthlessly prune all repetitions, mee-toos and pointless peanut gallery spam.

Eagle's is an opposing viewpoint, and I will not tolerate attempts to drown him in simplistic counterarguments made by people who should shut up.

[madd0ct0r]

938 words in 6 separate arguments sharing 9 examples.

6 separate arguments? I dislike multi-quoting but it may be necessary here.

Ok: Eagle1Div's five main arguments, restated for clarity.

1) Climate scientists have a vested financial interest in scaring people enough to get funding. This can lead them to ignore inconvenient results, distort findings ect

2) The media seem to sympathise with the scientists (the example given is the 'climategate' emails - why were not more media outlets denouncing the scientists?). Although not stated by E1D, i assume it is implied that they sell more papers through alarmism. He didn't say this, so I will only attack the first statement.

3) The amount of CO2 humans output is tiny compared to the planet's size.

4) CO2 isn't that potent anyway - look at methane and water vapour.

5) Besides, for any given area forest fires put out more C02 then any human industry except maybe China. (Got to get the chink bashing in somewhere!). I'm not sure how to reconcile this with point 3 or point 4, but never mind.

6) A lot of people 'believe' in anthropic global warming because it fulfils their need for action and hope.

Ok. 6 arguments, 3 relating to why people would want to believe and 3 relating to the science.

The science should be quicker and involves maths. we are going to have to agree on some data to use, and since you're challenging the validity of the data that might be difficult. In the meantime I'll note where I get the numbers from. Let me know if you find a more amenable reputable source.

ok. http://www.iea.org/stats/indicators.asp?COUNTRY_CODE=29 gives the global CO2 emissions for 2008 from fuel combustion only as: 29381.43MT
(so not forest fires, cement production ect)

here: http://unfccc.int/resource/cd_roms/na1/ ... TAR-03.pdf
gives CO2 in atmosphere in 1750 as 280+-10 ppm and in 1990 as 367 ppm. The same source states "The present atmospheric CO2 concentration has not been exceeded during the past 420,000 years, and likely not during the past 20 million years." A net increase of 87 ppm over 240 years, or a change of about 31%.

(wikipedia has the current level as 390ppm, which sounds about right, but we'll use the IPCC numbers)

I was going to calculate that increase in ppm as a tonnage and compare it to both the 2008 output and the total tonnage of the atmosphere. Problem is, at these low percentages, the exact tonnage of the atmosphere changes the numbers easily, and getting an exact tonnage is near impossible because the amount of atoms moving back and forth from gas to other states - eg rust binding up oxygen, the seas dissolving air, nitrogen being 'fixed' by bacteria. Not to mention increasing CO2 by burning hydrocarbons also increases water vapur and decreases oxygen by tiny amounts.

fuck it, lets have a go anyway: (5x10^15 / 10^6) *87 = 435x10^9 tonnes of extra CO2 in the air between 1750 and 1990.
2008 alone contributed a further 29*10^9 tonnes. Obviously not all of that stayed in the air - plants, algae ect. but if it did it would increase the ppm value by 5.8. This would be a 2% difference from the 1750 value, and this is only one year of emissions. You do plan on living for more then a year yes?

So. I can show that humans have and can increase the percentage of CO2 significantly. This might be enough refute your claim that 'humans are unable to affect the atmosphere significantly'. I think further work is needed in this thread to show that the small percentage of the atmosphere that is CO2 is significant.

Oh. what a coincidence. It happens to be covered in your next argument - the effect of CO2 is insignificant compared to methane and water vapour.

lets have a look here: http://www.grida.no/publications/other/ ... .htm#tab61
fortunately, they've done the calc for us: taking into account the amount of the gas and it's ability to trap EM radiation, CO2 comes out a clear winner at 1.46 Watts per m^2. At a third of it's value Methane is bubbling along with 0.46 Wm^-2 and Nitrous Oxide huffing along well behind. Sure methane's a problem, but it's a smaller one in net effect and a much smaller one in volume. People are looking at it, but CO2 is bigger and requires a far more fundamental change to pretty much everything civilised.

But what of Water Vapour? Well, the thing with water vapour, is it's almost impossible to remove from the atmosphere. I mean, if only the earth periodically cooled (say for 8hrs of every 24). If only the temperature range of the planet varied enough to allow us to just condense this pesky water vapour out as a liquid and if only we had enough Storage Extra Area (SEAs for short). We are actually adding water vapour when we burn hydro-carbons but if you think that's the main problem you'd be an idiot.

Incidentally, does increasing the amount of CO2 by a third count as significantly affecting the earth's atmosphere when it results in an extra 1.46Wm^-2? Because, given the surface area of the Earth, I'd call that a significant bit of extra heat. Oh, but you do agree the Earth is warming slightly, so that's all good.

The last 'scientific' argument.

forest fires are more significant, except them damn chinese.

I was going to look at USA's CO2 emissions, the area of it's forest, calc the results of burning all of it and point at you and laugh. But someone's already done it:
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/20 ... 085029.htm

"Overall, the study estimates that fires in the contiguous United States and Alaska release about 290 million metric tons of carbon dioxide a year, which is the equivalent of 4 to 6 percent of the nation's carbon dioxide emissions from fossil fuel burning"

So it is significant. But only stopping all fires would still leave 95% of the USA's emissions intact.
For the record, China's 2008 CO2 emissions are 6508.24MT, some 22 times larger then the USA's.
Of course, that's only 4.91MT per person, compared to the USA's 18.38MT. As further consideration, I wonder how much of each country's total comes from making stuff for the other country?

ok. that does it for the science. I'm off to get my bike fixed and bake a quiche. If no-one else has turned up by then I'll tackle the 3 conspiricy theory arguments.

[Simon_Jester]

What is the unit referred to as an Mt or MT?

[madd0ct0r]

A Mega tonne. 10^9, Next step up from kilo.

I've used metric tonnes throughout.

pedantically should be using kilos with an even bigger prefix.

[Simon_Jester]

Of course, that's only 4.91MT per person, compared to the USA's 18.38MT.

Um, in that case, I don't think China emits 4.9 million tons of carbon per person. For any reasonable definition of 'ton.'

[Magis]

A Mega tonne. 10^9, Next step up from kilo.

I've used metric tonnes throughout.

pedantically should be using kilos with an even bigger prefix.

A megatonne is 10^6 tons. A kilotonne is 10^3 tonnes.

If you are talking about kilograms, then one megatonne is 10^9 kilograms.

If you are talking about grams, then one megatonne is 10^12 grams.

That is all.

[Magis]

By the way, "MT" in this case is probably "metric tonnes", not "megatonnes".

According to Lord Wiki, carbon dioxide emissions per capita in the United States are 19.1 metric tonnes per year. Therefore, the mass of carbon alone is 0.27 metric tonnes per capita per year.

Cheers.

[madd0ct0r]

Mea Culpa.

so a tonne is a ton is a metric ton, and a mega-tonne is a 10^6 tonne abbrievated to Mt or Mmt if you're american. Learn something new every day.

ok, the global CO2 emissions from the from the Iea are in Mt - Mega-tonnes. I'm going to stick with SI if you don't mind.
the next stat is in ppm, so is ok. (10^-6)

the resulting calculation is ok, I got a figure of magnitude 10^9 tonnes.

skip...

chinese and forest fires - quote is from the article - 290 million metric tonnes.
the chinese total CO2 output and USA CO2 output are both from the IEA again - so Mega-tonnes again.
the per capita values are from the same place BUT SHOULD HAVE BEEN TONNES ONLY.
ie (t CO2/capita)

do I get a gold star for doing my corrections ?

[Simon_Jester]

I have ceased awarding gold stickers, but I do give you +i points on your next lab grade for effort.

By the way, "MT" in this case is probably "metric tonnes", not "megatonnes".

According to Lord Wiki, carbon dioxide emissions per capita in the United States are 19.1 metric tonnes per year. Therefore, the mass of carbon alone is 0.27 metric tonnes per capita per year.

Cheers.

No, that's wrong. Because carbon makes up 12/(12+16+16) ~= 27% of a carbon dioxide molecule by mass- burn 270 kg of carbon and get one (metric) ton of CO2. So the 'mass of carbon alone' ought to be more like, oh... five tons of carbon per capita per year, though that's an eyeball number.

[Eagle1Division]

Alright Mad, I'm here.
My point about it being too subjective and the long track record of scientists fudging their own numbers has yet to be disproven. IEA is hardly a good source for combating that fact; International Energy Agency? An environmental organization? I had might as well ask Toyota if I should buy their cars.

And about my reference to the Chinese - It's not any sort of racism or whatnot that I mention the Chinese - well, aside from the fact the nation is ruled by a ruthless dictatorship, I find their culture, particularly those of the Buddhists and the monks, to be a good example for mankind as a whole. While I personally disagree with some of their beliefs, I highly respect and admire their wisdom, peace, and temperance.
I mentioned them because I know of cities where you have to wear a mask to walk outside on certain days because the pollution is so bad. The U.S. doesn't have anything near this level of pollution. Whatever numbers you pull - I don't think I've ever heard of the inhabitants of New York, Chicago, or any major U.S. city being forced to wear surgical masks to walk outside due to the wind blowing the wrong direction and a filterless coal plant.

And anyways, it's an extremely difficult dynamic situation to model, climate change is. All you can dependably use is raw data (which has been shown to be fudged in the past), and a model to show Earth's temperatures for different Co2 concentrations given Albedo, atmospheric mass and thickness, etc. etc, based on lab experiments with different concentrations of different gasses regulated and measured. As opposed to physics, or mathematics, climatology is about as "hard" as psychology; i.e, many of the variables aren't fully understood, and there may even be variables unknown altogether.

For instance; a simple question: How much Co2 is filtered out of the atmosphere every year? Is it proportional to Co2 concentrations? Does it go by partial pressure of total pressure? You can give rough estimates, but the rough estimates range drastically depending on who and when you ask. There's so many unknowns the only thing you can rely on is raw observation (which has a long track record of fudging).

P.S.:

I have ceased awarding gold stickers, but I do give you +i points on your next lab grade for effort.

Nice!

[madd0ct0r]

you're still conflating too many issues.

the Chinese air particle pollution doesn't have anything to do with the discussion at had, so I'll leave it for another thread.

You don't believe the IEA? the institute set up to mange the oil markets to prevent a repeat of the 1974 shock? the institute long considered biased in favour of fossil fuels?

Ok. but you need to give me some numbers to use. Discrediting the source is all well and good but where is your data to show that things are not happening? Or if CO2 is going up it doesn't affect anything because of XYZ compensation cycles?

Just saying 'their numbers are fudged' is not a counter observation. I need your numbers to compare the difference in effects. Just saying 'their models are flawed' does not show your prediction is more valid.

The wall we come up against is that neither of us are climate scientists. I've played around with some simple homeostasis models, but as you said, the earth's climate is hugely complex and all that can really be done is build a model and compare it's predictions to observations.

As an engineer, occasionally I come up against things that people believe that are just plain wrong. It's professional courtesy to not call them on it unless you can prove it. if you can prove it, then take them to the fucking cleaners. It takes 4 years of study and another 2-3 years of work plus a final set of exams before I can claim to be a 'qualified engineer'. A layman trying to shout me down pisses me off big time, but it happens.

It takes a comparable amount of time to lead a climate science team, and then you would immediately discredit their opinion as they'd have ' a strong incentive to hint global warming.' Basically as soon as someone become qualified to talk on the subject, in your eyes they're discredited. How's that for a Catch 22?

You may not believe it, but engineering is as much assumption and modeling as climates. Take three engineers and you'll have four opinions. But I've not heard anyone claiming we're shills for the construction industry recently.
I could also mention that there are significant institutions and corporations in place that require widespread fossil fuel use to survive. Shell as an example. Much like the the university phd could be biased because he needs funding, don't these behemoths have their own research departments? What are the results coming out of them?

What would it take for you to trust a climate scientist?