"Global warming is real and humans are responsbile"

The fact that mankind has altered the environment is true without doubt, any aerial photograph of an area that is occupied by people will show that. There is no doubt that CO2 levels have risen, the only thing in doubt is how much of an effect the extra "insulation" will have on the planet's climate.

So far it appears to be trending along the "mildest" affect line, but it is still having an affect.


All this talk about, we must do something about it to stop the changes are laughable, it's a bit like trying to stop the surge of water after blowing up a dam! The best we can do is to adapt to the changes as they come, we already know that the human race will not stop using fire (in all its forms)and abandon agriculture to stop the rise in CO2.

When the last of the viable fossil fuels are extracted in about a century or so, then the CO2 levels will start to decline and so will the population through starvation and lack of heat.

Turtwig

COYVB wrote: »

unless you think the world is 100,000 years old, it's mankind that's got a long way to go to catch up in the overall total

Right, yes but the point is at the moment volcanoes impact to [latex]CO_2[/latex] levels is negligible in contrast to human contributions. In 5 years we produce what takes volcanoes 500 years. And our rate is steadily increasingly.

enfant terrible

Jernal wrote: »

Right, yes but the point is at the moment volcanoes impact to [latex]CO_2[/latex] levels is negligible in contrast to human contributions. In 5 years we produce what takes volcanoes 500 years. And our rate is steadily increasingly.

What's the predicted rise for the next few years, does anyone know?

Akrasia

Deleted User wrote: »

The fact that mankind has altered the environment is true without doubt, any aerial photograph of an area that is occupied by people will show that. There is no doubt that CO2 levels have risen, the only thing in doubt is how much of an effect the extra "insulation" will have on the planet's climate.

So far it appears to be trending along the "mildest" affect line, but it is still having an affect.


All this talk about, we must do something about it to stop the changes are laughable, it's a bit like trying to stop the surge of water after blowing up a dam! The best we can do is to adapt to the changes as they come, we already know that the human race will not stop using fire (in all its forms)and abandon agriculture to stop the rise in CO2.

When the last of the viable fossil fuels are extracted in about a century or so, then the CO2 levels will start to decline and so will the population through starvation and lack of heat.

What we're doing is an uncontrolled experiment. We're releasing CO2 that has been stored in fossil fuels over hundreds of millions of years. The best climate models that we have show catastrophic warming if we continue to rely on fossil fuels as our primary energy source.

Your suggestion that we should just use up all the oil that's left and deal with the consequences is reckless. Unbelievably reckless.

If someone invented a new type of technology today that had a 95% chance of causing environmental damage that will make many of the most highly populated cities in the world uninhabitable in less than a century would you support it's introduction on the basis that we'll be able to adapt to the changes in the future?

When we increase CO2 levels we commit to warming for centuries to come, it's not going to peak and begin to fall when we enter a post oil economy. We're strictly in damage limitation mode now.

Akrasia

enfant terrible wrote: »

What's the predicted rise for the next few years, does anyone know?

http://skepticalscience.com/climate-best-to-worst-case-scenarios.html

Your suggestion that we should just use up all the oil that's left and deal with the consequences is reckless. Unbelievably reckless..

I'm not suggesting that at all! :mad: What I am stating is the reality that that is what WILL happen as the people who can make a real difference will NOT do so as it is not in their interests to do so.

Akrasia

Deleted User wrote: »

I'm not suggesting that at all! :mad: What I am stating is the reality that that is what WILL happen as the people who can make a real difference will NOT do so as it is not in their interests to do so.

Well we don't stand a chance if people take a defeatist attitude like that.

What would the people of earth have done if John Connor hadn't stood up against the machines?

canadianwoman

Akrasia wrote: »

What would the people of earth have done if John Connor hadn't stood up against the machines?

Pssssst.....it was just a movie.

LordSutch

I heard something very interesting on the BBC yesterday which I wasn't aware of.

Apparently that 95% of scientists who believe in 'Man Made' climate change, only subscribe to this theory on the basis that man is only partially responsible (but not totally responsible)!

Previously I thought that 95% of scientists blamed mankind 100% for this bout of global warming, but they don't . . .

Ironically, saying that man kind is only partially responsible for global warming (percentage unknown) brings their understanding into line with people like me, whose opinion states that global warming is part of the natural cycle of the planet but enhanced/quickened by humans and their industries (% unknown). In which case I agree with the 95%, and they agree with people like me :cool: :eek:

zenno

I'm just curious to know as to how many tons of Co2 would it be for only human, animal, and insect flatulence and exhaling ? can the IPCC measure this alone ?
as to differentiate between how much natural Co2 measured from these, and how much Co2 measured from industrial and vehicle exhausts.

Akrasia

Akrasia wrote: »

Well we don't stand a chance if people take a defeatist attitude like that.

What would the people of earth have done if John Connor hadn't stood up against the machines?

Are you going to lead a global revolution and eliminate the man made sources of production of CO2, which would effectively mean eliminating human existence, or at least 90% of the population with the remaining 10% living a basic existence.

cnocbui

Akrasia wrote: »

The best climate models that we have show catastrophic warming if we continue to rely on fossil fuels as our primary energy source.

Catastrophic you say. The models are appallingly inaccurate and should not be referred to unless they are very significantly improved.

a new study in the journal Nature Climate Change that compared 117 climate predictions made in the 1990's to the actual amount of warming. Out of 117 predictions, the study’s author told FoxNews.com, three were roughly accurate and 114 overestimated the amount of warming. On average, the predictions forecasted two times more global warming than actually occurred.
Some scientists say the study shows that climate modelers need to go back to the drawing board.
"It's a real problem ... it shows that there really is something that needs to be fixed in the climate models," climate scientist John Christy, a professor at the University of Alabama in Huntsville, told FoxNews.com.

http://www.foxnews.com/science/2013/09/12/climate-models-wildly-overestimated-global-warming-study-finds/

inocybe

cnocbui wrote: »

Catastrophic you say. The models are appallingly inaccurate and should not be referred to unless they are very significantly improved.

which is why the opposite to a climate change denier should be called a climate change alarmist, which just as much derision.

Pushtrak

I'm so glad I frequent After Hours. Experts here can really tell those scientists how they should be doing their jobs.

zenno

Indeed. we have all the relevant and detailed analysis needed to divert this chaotic pseudo-science garbage once and for all.

The environmentalist extremists/alarmists are the conspiracy nuts telling us day in, day out, that we will be cooked like a lobster. There is more chance of human destruction from war than there is from a few industrial farts,

darkpagandeath

Pushtrak wrote: »

I'm so glad I frequent After Hours. Experts here can really tell those scientists how they should be doing their jobs.

You missed a word "Climate" you know that thing that changes from day to day. That they report on day to day and even in the same day they revise the forecast .. And your trying to tell me there Climate models are right ? No one here has said there has been no change just the massive scaremongering and being wrong then changing there minds that's what people disagree with

Corkfeen

zenno wrote: »

Indeed. we have all the relevant and detailed analysis needed to divert this chaotic pseudo-science garbage once and for all.

The environmentalist extremists/alarmists are the conspiracy nuts telling us day in, day out, that we will be cooked like a lobster. There is more chance of human destruction from war than there is from a few industrial farts,

Yep, your detailed analysis where you're incapable of producing some peer reviewed research that backs up your stance. If your position is so correct, do the research and send your result to a journal. Otherwise it's nothing but hot air and you sir, are the conspiracist.

Pushtrak

darkpagandeath wrote: »

You missed a word "Climate" you know that thing that changes from day to day. That they report on day to day and even in the same day they revise the forecast .. And your trying to tell me there Climate models are right ? No one here has said there has been no change just the massive scaremongering and being wrong then changing there minds that's what people disagree with

I really hope you are just trolling.

zenno

Corkfeen wrote: »

Yep, your detailed analysis where you're incapable of producing some peer reviewed research that backs up your stance. If your position is so correct, do the research and send your result to a journal. Otherwise it's nothing but hot air and you sir, are the conspiracist.

Ah, don't be like that. I'm no climatologist, nor am i a scientist, it is after hours after all, people need to relax a bit here and have a sense of humour as well as being serious imo. It can be a touchy subject i agree.

A few comments from members here have opened my eye's i will agree, and may have educated me a bit more in the understanding of this Co2 effect.

I have a problem with the IPCC's computer models thats all, they have shown themselves to be arrogant and incapable of being professionals, especially their treatment to other real scientists of which disagree with their faulty computer models, of which some have got sacked just because they don't agree.

here's a little love and respect toward you folk that have so much admirable love for the climate and planet, I commend you.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uVBtwD2YimM

Sam Kade

Jonny7 wrote: »

Why would should this have any bearing?

We shouldn't be polluting the environment to the level we currently are. Full stop.

Are you living in a tree?

Pushtrak

Sam Kade wrote: »

Are you living in a tree?

Read the post you replied to again. Is it advocating an extreme approach? No? Why the strawman, then?

darkpagandeath

Pushtrak wrote: »

I really hope you are just trolling.

Maybe look up the word trolling ?

KyussBishop

An interesting perspective from Philip Mirowski (not sure who that is personally) on why global warming narrative is so dirty, and how it relates back to 'neoliberal' type economics in general; read this catching up on some RSS feeds (highlighting in original):

...
NT: The politics of Climate Change are more widely known and discussed than many of the other issues you cover in this book. Yet your understanding of these other issues give you a view of the politics of Climate Change that I think is unique. In particular, how are the political responses to climate change a classic example of the Neoliberal response to crisis?

PM: It may seem odd to raise the issue of global warming in a book about the economic crisis, but I do it in order to suggest something that has escaped notice, namely, that the thought collective has developed a generic strategy to deal with really daunting crises that would seem to challenge its world view, and that this fact is easier to perceive in the case of global warming than it has been in the case of the global economic crisis. In pursuing this, I am suggesting that works like Naomi Klein’s Shock Doctrine and her more recent writings on global warming don’t adequately comprehend the logic of neoliberal political economy.

Neoliberals neutralize their opponents by mounting a full spectrum response to crises: a short-term easily mobilized response to stymie their opponents; a subsequent medium-term response which involves a strong state in instituting more new-fangled markets; and a long-term science fiction response (also involving the state) to present an upbeat optimistic version of neoliberal doctrine. The shorter-term responses buy time for the thought collective to mobilize their longer-term panaceas. The book describes the dynamic in greater detail, but here, let me just indicate that, in the case of the climate crisis, the short term response is global warming denialism; the medium-term response is to institute trading schemes for carbon emission permits and offsets; and the long term science fiction response is geoengineering, such as schemes to pump particulates into the stratosphere to supposedly block out the sun and mitigate the warming process—but not, significantly, to actually cut back on carbon emissions. What Klein and others get wrong is that neoliberals are not really ‘anti-science’ as such; rather, ploys such as denialism simply postpone political attempts by opponents to cut emissions until they can recruit and train a cadre of entrepreneurial neoliberal scientists, whereas meanwhile the situation gets so dire that their preferred ‘market’ solutions come to seem the last refuge for a desperate populace. It is significant that each of these ‘ideas’ were innovated in neoliberal think tanks.

The striking aspect of the history of the economic crisis is that the thought collective has resorted to the very same pattern of full-spectrum response to demands to restructure the financial sector after the crisis. The initial short-term response was crisis denialism, as documented in the book: banks did nothing wrong, it was all the fault of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, the economics profession was not blind-sided, and so forth. The medium-term response comprised the market-based rescue of the banks. People attribute far too much agency to central banks as saviors, when the details of the rescue reveal that the privatization of balance sheet restructuring and outsourcing of asset management was the clear alternative to nationalization and breaking up the banks.*** The long term science-fiction solution is financial engineering: the doctrine that the only way The Market can transcend its problems is by entrepreneurial souls whipping up even more complex financial instruments to ameliorate the burden of the previously hobbled balance sheets. Robert Shiller’s Finance and the Good Society is one hymnal to such deliverance.

A greater comprehension of the full-spectrum politics of the neoliberal thought collective has many profound implications; the most obvious is that the Left possesses nothing even remotely approaching its sophistication, which explains why it gets so repeatedly outfoxed.

http://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2013/08/fixing-old-markets-with-new-markets-the-origins-and-practice-of-neoliberalism.html

I said earlier in the thread, that I don't really expect much of anything to be done about climate change (that things will go on as they are 'until the oil runs out'), because those in power (and their descendants) largely won't be all that affected personally, and this seems to dovetail nicely with that.


So if you want to do anything about climate change and properly educate yourself on it etc., probably have to educate yourself on the far dirtier topic of economics, to properly understand what is driving it politically.

All the while, you've got to avoid getting sucked into any of the ideological intellectual-traps in economics - I've seen very very few people (many extremely smart) who are able to avoid those traps (usually end up accepting economic 'common knowledge' uncritically, when a lot of it is wrong - few take a skeptical stance; that is, until they've already accepted the standard narrative and are skeptical to everything else), and far far less who are even willing to take a passing glance at economics in any way whatsoever.

Means Of Escape

Jonny7 wrote: »

Why would should this have any bearing?

We shouldn't be polluting the environment to the level we currently are. Full stop.

That's fine but for the size of our country we are getting in the neck with carbon taxes to a ridiculously high degree .
Thanks again for the memories Mr Gormley.

Akrasia

For those who are interested, there is a free online course available from Coursera.org starting next week.

It's delivered by the University of Chicago
https://www.coursera.org/course/globalwarming

This class is an introduction to the science of global warming for students without a science background. Students will examine the evidence surrounding climate change from a variety of perspectives and approaches, and, in the process, gain a multidisciplinary understanding of the scientific process.

darkpagandeath

Akrasia wrote: »

For those who are interested, there is a free online course available from Coursera.org starting next week.

It's delivered by the University of Chicago
https://www.coursera.org/course/globalwarming

So after my 8 week course my opinion on here will be taken seriously ?

Turtwig

darkpagandeath wrote: »

So after my 8 week course my opinion on here will be taken seriously ?

Don't care if somebody has a Nobel prize or a no primary school education their opinion is judged on the merit of what they say. So, to answer your question :
No, it most probably won't.

Akrasia

darkpagandeath wrote: »

So after my 8 week course my opinion on here will be taken seriously ?

Not if you start the course with the attitude that you're not going to learn anything from it.

It actually looks like a really fun course to do. I'd love to do it myself but I'm already signed up to 4 courses on there and I still have work and family to fit in there somewhere

Give it a go, it's free and if you don't like it, you can always drop out after the first few weeks.

FootShooter

darkpagandeath wrote: »

So after my 8 week course my opinion on here will be taken seriously ?

Do the course and actually try to understand the science instead of just dismissing it and your opinion will change. Unless you're too stupid understand the science.

When I was younger I also had the opinion it was all just part of the natural cycle. My opinion was formed by watching youtube videos about it and looking at graphs that showed past climate change. I know now I didn't know anything about climate change back then, but I understand why I had that opinion. It was because I lacked knowledge about it, and didn't properly understand the science so I just dismissed it.

_Redzer_

FootShooter wrote: »

Do the course and actually try to understand the science instead of just dismissing it and your opinion will change. Unless you're too stupid understand the science.

When I was younger I also had the opinion it was all just part of the natural cycle. My opinion was formed by watching youtube videos about it and looking at graphs that showed past climate change. I know now I didn't know anything about climate change back then, but I understand why I had that opinion. It was because I lacked knowledge about it, and didn't properly understand the science so I just dismissed it.

So many if the deniers have had their arguments completely picked apart because they genuinely hadn't a clue what they were talking about. The discussion about volcanos just goes as one example.

This reminds me about the opposition against GMOs. People without the faintest idea and nothing but the media's influence opposing it so strongly. It's quite desperate.