Climate Change

[Aether]

1. Both the Earth and the Sun pass through natural cycles. The Sun is currently in a cycle of lower radiation as signaled by fewer sunspots representing magnetic storms.

2. There is currently no global warming. The Earth has been in a cooling cycle for 19 years. No child who has passed through K-12 classes in school has experienced a single day of “global warming.

3. Not one computer model that predicted increased warming has been accurate.

4. Carbon dioxide, (CO2) blamed for global warming, is not a “pollutant” despite a Supreme Court decision stating this. Our exhaled breath contains about 4% of CO2.

5. How can carbon dioxide be called a “pollutant” when it is directly responsible for the growth of all vegetation on the planet? Without CO2 there would not be a single blade of grass or a redwood tree. Or the animal life that depends on vegetation; wheat and rice, for example, as food.

6. There is zero evidence that carbon dioxide generated by human activities is causing catastrophic climate change. Climate is measured in centuries or shorter periods of many decades in order to determine its cycles. The weather is what is occurring where you reside and it changes every day.

7. At 78% nitrogen is the most abundant gas in the Earth’s atmosphere. It is an essential building block of amino acids present in all proteins. It is a very stable, unreactive gas. Oxygen is the second most abundant gas-of-life in the atmosphere at 21%. Water vapor is the third most abundant gas-of-life in the atmosphere; it varies up to 5%, It reduces incoming solar radiation by day and reduces surface cooling at night. Carbon dioxide is the least abundant gas in the atmosphere at 0.04%.

8. The assertion that 97% of scientists believe that climate change is man-made and an urgent problem is a fiction. In May Joseph Bast, president of The Heartland Institute, cited the Zimmerman/Doran survey in which, out of 3,146 respondents, only 79 listed climate science as an area of expertise. Hardly 97%. “Surveys of meteorologists repeatedly find a majority oppose the alleged consensus,” noted Bast.

9. In February, Patrick Moore, a Canadian ecologist, a co-founder of Greenpeace, a militant environmental group which he left in 1986, told members of the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee “There is no scientific proof that human emissions of carbon dioxide are the dominant cause of the minor warming of the Earth’s atmosphere over the past 100 years.”

10. Not only is the Earth not warming, but Heartland Institute analyst, Peter Ferrara, notes that “If you look at the record of global temperature data, you will find that the late 20th Century period of global warming actually lasted about 20 years, from the late 1970s to the late 1990s. Before that, the globe was dominated by about 30 years of global cooling, giving rise in the 1970s to media discussions of the return of the Little Ice Age (circa 1450 to 1850), or worse.”

11. The cooling of the Earth has led to a dramatic increase in both Arctic and Antarctic ice, up 50% since 2012.

12. One result of the false claims about carbon dioxide has been the Obama administration’s policies such as the refusal to permit the construction of the Keystone XL pipeline to import oil from Canada to U.S. refineries. The Environmental Protection Agency’s absurd restrictions on CO2 emissions have forced the closure of many coal-fired plants that are needed to provide low cost electrical energy. The administration has long wanted to impose a “carbon tax” on all energy use in America, a punishing and needless expense.

13. The Obama administration’s climate policies are entirely political in nature. It has announced that the EPA’s process of setting new rules affecting power plants will be delayed until after the November 4 midterm elections. It is extending the public comment period until December 1. The growing discontent over similar climate and environmental policies was evident when leaders of the European Union announced it was moving away from green policies that had driven up the cost of electricity across the continent.

I did a quick forum search on Climate Change and Global Warming, but I could not find anything definitive. Has anyone come across these "facts"? I would like some guidance on what resources I can read before going after these points since this reads like a laundry list, perhaps there is a resource that already deals with these points. The first few seem so backwards, but I would need something to help me articulate why.

[Borgholio]

1. The sun is going through a cycle of lower MAGNETIC activity...not radiative. The temperature of the sun does not vary much based on the number of sunspots. The temperature of the Earth is regulated by the greenhouse gases in the air, not by the sun.

2. Measured temperatures over the last couple of centuries prove otherwise, unless measured temperatures are all wrong. And every time you live through a day of new record heat, you're living through global warming. This statement is complete bullshit.

3. They have all predicted that temperature is going up. If you actually think the temperature is falling, then I can see how you'd think none of them are accurate.

4. Anything driven to excess levels is a pollutant. Just because it exists in nature doesn't mean it's harmless in large quantities and not polluting. Look at lead and ozone, for examples.

5. CO2 is not responsible for vegetative growth, sunlight is. Plants evolved to make use of the stuff but they don't grow simply because it's there. Plants are also capable of absorbing toxic heavy metals...are they not longer pollutants because a plant can use them?

6. Just look at a fucking graph and you see that the amount of CO2 entering the air matches the rise in global temperature and it all began during the industrial revolution. They're right about the weather though. That's why it's not called global weather change, it's called CLIMATE change.

7. The type of gas matters more than the amount. Nitrogen doesn't hold in heat as well as CO2 due to the nature of the gas. A chemist would have to go into more technical detail but methane can trap heat even better than CO2 and there's even less of THAT. In the past, the Earth's temperature was hotter due to higher levels of CO2 in the air, thereby making the amount of nitrogen decrease by proportion. Why would the temperature go up if the amount of Nitrogen decreased?

8. Does one have to be a climate scientist to believe that climate change is manmade? Ask people who aren't on the payroll of big oil and you'll find few who believe we aren't having an impact.

9. So he had to go back 30 years to find a statement made by someone who is probably an idiot anyways instead of relying on modern samples and evidence? Telling.

10. The Heartland institute is a far right-wing organization whose primary stated purpose is to debunk man made climate change. They also think smoking isn't dangerous and fracking is good for the environment. They are funded by Charles Koch. Their opinions are those of the Tea Party and not of the general scientific community.

11. No, the seasonal swings have increased due to instability in the climate. The ice grew at a faster rate than ever before, but then promptly decreased to a lower absolute level than ever before. So things are not actually getting any better there.

12. The biggest issue with the Keystone pipeline was not CO2, it was the fact it would destroy lots of private property in it's path, leak oil into the environment, would not create more than a handful of permanent jobs, and the US wouldn't see a penny of the oil revenue.

13. Of course it's political. Everything is. Passing something on your agenda so it's harder to defeat by your opponents is old-school. Everybody does it.

[madd0ct0r]

The political end point Can easily be further deflated. By pointing out every.major country except. Australia. Is working on similar or stronger policies. They will then mention China and you can confound them with the facts

[Aether]

This helps. I was curious to know if there was a definite site to go to much like TalkOrigins for discussion on evolution, but for now I will compile my own. I found a few good sites on climate vs. weather and the models used to describe both.

[SpottedKitty]

I found a few good sites on climate vs. weather and the models used to describe both.

I'm sure this must be a quote I picked up (and possibly mangled) from somewhere; "Weather is what you see when you look out of the window right now. Climate is what you see when you look out of the window at the same time every day for a hundred years."

[Aether]

I found a few good sites on climate vs. weather and the models used to describe both.

I'm sure this must be a quote I picked up (and possibly mangled) from somewhere; "Weather is what you see when you look out of the window right now. Climate is what you see when you look out of the window at the same time every day for a hundred years."

No, that is pretty much the difference.

https://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/noaa ... ather.html

What you will run into is:

"Climate change is a myth because we cannot predict the weather."
"Weather is the daily change over an area. Climate is the long term changes in weather over that given area."
"And climate data is made up of weather data points! If the weather data points are wrong then climate predictions will also be wrong!"

Nevermind that weather models =/!= climate models. Magnets? How do they work?

[Borgholio]

Weather data points are not prediction, they are measured facts. You don't need to try to predict the weather to look at a thermometer and see that it's 103 degrees outside. So if you get enough temperature measurements, you can get a clear trend over time. You can see that on a specific day of the year, the average temperature went up by x number of degrees over y number of years. Take the total annual average and it's the same thing. When you see a clear, steady increase in global temperature over the last century, that is the kind of thing that's very easy to predict.

[Aether]

Weather data points are not prediction, they are measured facts. You don't need to try to predict the weather to look at a thermometer and see that it's 103 degrees outside. So if you get enough temperature measurements, you can get a clear trend over time. You can see that on a specific day of the year, the average temperature went up by x number of degrees over y number of years. Take the total annual average and it's the same thing. When you see a clear, steady increase in global temperature over the last century, that is the kind of thing that's very easy to predict.

I don't disagree, but the argument is that the "weather man on the TV said it would rain today, and it didn't". If I recall, there was supposed to be a blizzard on the east coast this past winter. There was, and I believe it hit New York really hard, but predictions included other cities/states that got an inch or so.

That is their "counterpoint." If we cannot predict weather with any given accuracy and if climate is based on weather then it will not be accurate either.

It's quite amusing.

[Borgholio]

Their counterpoint is bullshit because again, a precise weather prediction is different then a generalized "a snowstorm is coming" or "it's going to be hot next week". Climate science doesn't say it's going to be a certain temperature in a certain date, it says temperatures are going to keep getting hotter until bad things happen.

[SpottedKitty]

Their counterpoint is bullshit

"They keep using that word. I do not think it means what they think it means."

[jwl]

I'll skip a few which seem already answered well enough.

2. There is currently no global warming. The Earth has been in a cooling cycle for 19 years. No child who has passed through K-12 classes in school has experienced a single day of “global warming.

19 years is probably a little long, but for about the 21st century in general, using surface water and air temperatures? It's kind of hard to tell. Annual temperature fluctuates by quite a lot, so you need to take temperatures over quite a long time period to tell long-term trends. In fact, for this reason many definitions of climate say the word only applies over periods of 30 years or more for this reason.

However, it does sort of seem like the surface temperatures are plateauing or changing more slowly over this period. Whilst most of the hottest years are in the 21st century, they are disturbed pretty randomly over this period. It is thought that this is because heat is moving from the surface ocean to the deep ocean. You can see this because when water heats up, it expands, and sea levels have been consistently going up over this period.

However, more recent measurements, over the last two years or so, are starting to look like this plateau period might be over, and the surface temperatures will start going up again at normal rates. Again, it's very hard to tell over such a short time period, but watch this space.

4. Carbon dioxide, (CO2) blamed for global warming, is not a “pollutant” despite a Supreme Court decision stating this. Our exhaled breath contains about 4% of CO2.

This is true. Yes, carbon dioxide causes global warming. So does water vapour in contrails, and water vapour isn't a pollutant. Something is only a pollutant if it is toxic.

5. How can carbon dioxide be called a “pollutant” when it is directly responsible for the growth of all vegetation on the planet? Without CO2 there would not be a single blade of grass or a redwood tree. Or the animal life that depends on vegetation; wheat and rice, for example, as food.

See above

6. There is zero evidence that carbon dioxide generated by human activities is causing catastrophic climate change. Climate is measured in centuries or shorter periods of many decades in order to determine its cycles. The weather is what is occurring where you reside and it changes every day.

I think "catastrophic" is overstating the case quite a bit, but yes, there is evidence human CO2 is causing climate change.

7. At 78% nitrogen is the most abundant gas in the Earth’s atmosphere. It is an essential building block of amino acids present in all proteins. It is a very stable, unreactive gas. Oxygen is the second most abundant gas-of-life in the atmosphere at 21%. Water vapor is the third most abundant gas-of-life in the atmosphere; it varies up to 5%, It reduces incoming solar radiation by day and reduces surface cooling at night. Carbon dioxide is the least abundant gas in the atmosphere at 0.04%.

Right. And it is precisely the fact that CO2 is relatively scarce that means we can significantly affect it's levels. That's why people talk about rising CO2 levels but no-one talks about falling oxygen levels.

8. The assertion that 97% of scientists believe that climate change is man-made and an urgent problem is a fiction. In May Joseph Bast, president of The Heartland Institute, cited the Zimmerman/Doran survey in which, out of 3,146 respondents, only 79 listed climate science as an area of expertise. Hardly 97%. “Surveys of meteorologists repeatedly find a majority oppose the alleged consensus,” noted Bast.

That survey is a bit dodgy, yes. But most climate scientists think global warming is happening, you can tell this by talking to them.

10. Not only is the Earth not warming, but Heartland Institute analyst, Peter Ferrara, notes that “If you look at the record of global temperature data, you will find that the late 20th Century period of global warming actually lasted about 20 years, from the late 1970s to the late 1990s. Before that, the globe was dominated by about 30 years of global cooling, giving rise in the 1970s to media discussions of the return of the Little Ice Age (circa 1450 to 1850), or worse.”

It is true that some scientists in the 70s thought that global dimming might become a thing, but the majority of scientist in the 70s still believed in warming. However, it is widely held that global warming slowed down during that period because of aerosols being blasted into the atmosphere. The problem is, the very same aerosols contributed to destroying the ozone layer.

11. The cooling of the Earth has led to a dramatic increase in both Arctic and Antarctic ice, up 50% since 2012.

In terms of the ocean surface, yes, the area of ice in the Antarctic seems to have been increasing over recent years. This isn't true for the arctic, however. Furthermore, ice volume, not area (i.e. what tells you whether something is melting or not) has decreased over the same period in both the Arctic and Antarctic. We can tell this by using satellites that measure gravitational field strength over these areas.

12. One result of the false claims about carbon dioxide has been the Obama administration’s policies such as the refusal to permit the construction of the Keystone XL pipeline to import oil from Canada to U.S. refineries. The Environmental Protection Agency’s absurd restrictions on CO2 emissions have forced the closure of many coal-fired plants that are needed to provide low cost electrical energy. The administration has long wanted to impose a “carbon tax” on all energy use in America, a punishing and needless expense.

Yes, global warming is a dumb reason to refuse an oil pipeline to Canada. Without the pipeline they would burn coal (which is less carbon-efficient than oil) or use more energy transporting it by boat.


Anyway, a few comments on Borgholio's posts:

5. CO2 is not responsible for vegetative growth, sunlight is. Plants evolved to make use of the stuff but they don't grow simply because it's there. Plants are also capable of absorbing toxic heavy metals...are they not longer pollutants because a plant can use them?

I'm pretty sure that the change needed to move plants from photosynthesis would mean they's cease being plants.

7. The type of gas matters more than the amount. Nitrogen doesn't hold in heat as well as CO2 due to the nature of the gas. A chemist would have to go into more technical detail but methane can trap heat even better than CO2 and there's even less of THAT. In the past, the Earth's temperature was hotter due to higher levels of CO2 in the air, thereby making the amount of nitrogen decrease by proportion. Why would the temperature go up if the amount of Nitrogen decreased?

It isn't CO2 and methane's ability at trapping heat that matters, it's the ability of the CO2 and methane we emit to trap infrared radiation which wasn't being trapped anyway. The reason why methane has a higher global warming potential than carbon dioxide is because when you emit a tonne of methane, it is a higher proportion of total methane than of a tonne of CO2 is of the total CO2, so a higher proportion of the infrared of the frequencies that methane absorbs is trapped.

[Borgholio]

I'm pretty sure that the change needed to move plants from photosynthesis would mean they's cease being plants.

Indeed, but my point was that plants made use of the abundant CO2 in the atmosphere at the time they first evolved. Without sunlight, they will die no matter how much CO2 you give them.

It isn't CO2 and methane's ability at trapping heat that matters, it's the ability of the CO2 and methane we emit to trap infrared radiation which wasn't being trapped anyway. The reason why methane has a higher global warming potential than carbon dioxide is because when you emit a tonne of methane, it is a higher proportion of total methane than of a tonne of CO2 is of the total CO2, so a higher proportion of the infrared of the frequencies that methane absorbs is trapped.

Oh I agree, methane is far worse than CO2 and should be regulated as well. The issue is when anti-climate people say that it's "only a small percent of our air, why should we care about that small amount?". The answer is simple. If they live near a nuclear reactor, would they be ok if the plant was only leaking a little bit of radiation? They'd probably choke on that one.