Global Warming? They were scared of Global Cooling not too long ago...

[MONOLITH]

Just goes to show you how 'off' the global warming fearists can be. Within the same generation, they were so scared of global cooling, they actually wanted to intentionally melt the polar Ice caps to 'warm up the earth'.

Pot smoking hippies..... :tongue:


Newsweek, 1975
http://www.rushlimbaugh.com/coolingworld.pdf

[MONOLITH]

Some interesting tidbits in here....

http://falkayn.blogspot.com/2006/11/challenge-to-journalists-who-cover.html

[Zazoo]

The media, politicians, and special interest groups have definitely taken the global warming thing to an absurd level.

~Mike

[TaLoN]

whateva, less smog means good.

[Frozyn]

I don't really think they've made it an Absurd level, Mike. I mean, they're definitely missing the idea that we can reverse the trends, but it is important for everyone to know. Some models have the ice caps melting in the next 60 years. We absolutely have to do something about it before it's too late - creating fear might be one way to get people to act.

[farmboy]

I'll just say this:
Minnesota on December 11 + no snow = something very fishy

[MONOLITH]

How can I feel confident to believe what they say when 30 years ago they were creating fear about global cooling?

And that second link has some interesting points about Gore's film.

It seems to me, that what they do is look at 'recent' temperature trends, and try apply them to the entire history of the earth, which would be a flawed way to look at things.

I have to assume (and I think there's data to support this), that the earth fluctuates in temperature trends greatly one way or the other. Just because the current trend during one persons very brief 70 year life is 'warming' doesn't mean that over the next 2000 years we aren't going to go back into a cooling trend again.

[Zazoo]

I don't really think they've made it an Absurd level, Mike. I mean, they're definitely missing the idea that we can reverse the trends, but it is important for everyone to know. Some models have the ice caps melting in the next 60 years. We absolutely have to do something about it before it's too late - creating fear might be one way to get people to act.

I agree people should act, but people rarely act intelligently when they are scared shitless. And that seems to be the problem now that the issue has been manipulated by special interests and politicians who are trying to win votes and power. And, there are people out there who see this whole issue as nothing but a political tool, and as such, they are working to destroy and discredit the legitimate scientific research taking place behind the scenes. With all this fear-mongering and politicizing of the issue people aren't getting accurate information -- and some are starting to think the whole global warming issue was made up by enviromentalist "loons" with a political agenda. It's making it very hard for climatologists to conduct meaningful, objective research since a great deal of them rely on public funding from the government. People need to realize that under all this bullshit political and media hysteria there is a real scientific issue that needs to be studied further.

EDIT: Here's a good editorial from earlier this year that basically says what I'm trying to say (only it does so much better than I could :tongue:):
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/07/04/AR2006070400789.html
~Mike

[DaSmerg]

AFAIK...does the earth, through it's natural cycles, when measuring global scale temperature trends, trend up and down?  Answer...yes.

Are we, human beings, affecting our natural world by contributing to greater than average tempurature changes on a global scale?  Answer...looks to be yes.  We currently expel far, far too much pollution by dumping it into our collective atmosphere.  It's a pretty simple concept really, take a cup of water, put in one drop of yellow food colouring.  You barely notice the results.  Take a fresh cup of water and put in 3 tablespoons of yellow food colouring and you change the mixture.  Our planet's atmosphere is a finite commodity, not infinite.

Is climatology, on a global scale, a newer area of scientific study and discovery or an older area of scientific study and discovery?  It is a newer area of study.  Caveat, we aquire knowledge at a faster rate now than we have ever before.  Still, with any new area of scientific discovery, there is a period needed to actually discover information.  The El Nino and La Nina effect is one such example.  It seems another discover has been made with the corelation between African dust storms and frequency of Atlantic borne hurricanes

[MONOLITH]

Our planet's atmosphere is a finite commodity, not infinite.

I don't know. Aren't the green plants filtering out CO2 and restoring oxygen?

I don't know how good they are with yellow food coloring though.   :yup:

I 'd have to research it, but I believe there's interaction between the atmospheric gases and water as well (H2O, water creatures using the oxygen, creating C02, water trying to maintain it's molecular structure, so it interacts with the atmosphere)

Seems like a giant self preserving, recycling filtering system.

I guess God never intended for it to filter out man-made refrigerants, aerosols, and beer farts though.  

[Fixxxer]

CO2 (although we produce a larger amount then would normally be produced) isn't as big of a problem as HC's and NOx. This is the reason everything is so strict when it comes to buying refrigerants and why many places have adopted automotive emission standards. That and automotive manufactures have to build cars that continually reduce the amount of pollutants they emit.

Global warming and global cooling are indeed a natural cycle, you can't very well have an ice age without global warming. But there's no doubt that we are increasing the speed of global warming.

[Frozyn]

I don't know. Aren't the green plants filtering out CO2 and restoring oxygen?

To clarify that a bit more - most of the carbon dioxide that's removed from the atmosphere is done so by the phytoplankton that exists in the top level of the ocean (Photic zone).

Seems like a giant self preserving, recycling filtering system.

For the most part, Earth is exactly that. The problem comes with man-made things, specifically CFCs. The chlorine from the CFCs reacts the with Ozone, creating an unstable ClO molecule, which in turn dissociates, leaving the Chlorine molecule alone and capable of destroying more ozone (The other product of the reaction is diatomic Oxygen). This type of reaction is what is causing the holes in the ozone layer.

The holes in the ozone layer are leading to an increase of temperature, which is causing the ice caps to melt (as seen when the Larsen shelf broke off of Antarctica). This breaking off, combined with the movement of frozen rivers (glaciers) into the ocean is causing an influx of cold, freshwater. If the caps melt, the cold water - more specifically from the North Pole - will push down the warmer waters that cause the temperate climate of the Northern Hemisphere. Push those waters down, and Europe, Asia, and North America will all freeze over. The ocean levels will also rise by up to 300 feet, according to certain predictions.

No worries about The Day After Tomorrow happening - estimates say it takes approximately 60 years for something like that to happen.

Mike - You're right about how the Media handles it. I was focusing more on the attention it gets. Unfortunately, as you point out, the attention it receives isn't the right kind of attention with the wrong information/slant.

[MONOLITH]

I agree people should act, but people rarely act intelligently when they are scared shitless. And that seems to be the problem now that the issue has been manipulated by special interests and politicians who are trying to win votes and power. And, there are people out there who see this whole issue as nothing but a political tool, and as such, they are working to destroy and discredit the legitimate scientific research taking place behind the scenes. With all this fear-mongering and politicizing of the issue people aren't getting accurate information -- and some are starting to think the whole global warming issue was made up by enviromentalist "loons" with a political agenda. It's making it very hard for climatologists to conduct meaningful, objective research since a great deal of them rely on public funding from the government. People need to realize that under all this bullshit political and media hysteria there is a real scientific issue that needs to be studied further.

EDIT: Here's a good editorial from earlier this year that basically says what I'm trying to say (only it does so much better than I could :tongue:):
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/07/04/AR2006070400789.html
~Mike

Mike's spot on; becasue it fits me.

I'd listen much more intently to the whole situation, if I didn't have guys like Gore running around being proven to have been telling a bunch of stretched truths, falsehoods, and flawed data.

Here's a shocking one, supporting the warmists.....An Iceless northpole in 30 years;

http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,235981,00.html






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[MONOLITH]

No worries about The Day After Tomorrow happening - estimates say it takes approximately 60 years for something like that to happen.
.

60 years is a very short time, especially when you have kids.

The ocean levels will also rise by up to 300 feet

Mono's Tip of the Week:  Buy land at the Georgia/Florida state line. Sounds like it will be beach front property in 60 years. :tongue:




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[Ronin]

From what I've been able to glean from reading is that CO2 levels are indeed rising.  There _seems_ to be some correlation between CO2 levels and global temperatures.  But no causal link has actually been proven.

It's not at all certain if the higher CO2 levels are there because of the higher temperatures or if the higher temperatures are because of the higher CO2 levels.  Shouting that rising CO2 levels cause global warming is tantamount to saying that polar bears growing heavier coats makes winter come.  We don't know what cause and effect are without studying the phenomenon.

In most cases the variability of the sun's output is completely left out by most of the chicken little crying that the "Earth is warming".   With just a 1% change in the sun's output the Earth can become a snowball or a baked cinder.  But this seems to be ignored completely by most "global warming experts".

The fact is, that we don't know what triggered the ice ages.  We don't understand the extremely complicated climate of our planet except in the very   extreme macro (why we have seasons, basically and _some_ convection systems).  Anyone who tells you that he knows that more CO2 is _causing_ global warming is a liar.  He may suspect that, but he can't _know_ it.

No one knows what caused the Little Ice Age.  No one knows why we had the Medieval Warming Period.  No one really knows what the "normal" climate is on Earth because it doesn't have one.

And if rising CO2 levels is deemed the cause of Global Warming by so many then why is no one talking about ways to try to reduce CO2 levels?  We all know that if everyone followed the Kyoto Accord to the letter it would barely slow down the rise in CO2 levels.  It certainly wouldn't stop it.  In addition to destroying the economies of most of the world.

I think this is something that needs to be studied from ALL angles and not just to prove the theories about anthropogenic global warming.  If it's as important as many people say it is, then we need to be sure that they are right.  Because if they're wrong, it could make the problem much worse.  Not better.

I'm tired of the alarmists.  They predicted that we would run out of oil in the 1990s.  They predicted that we were entering another ice age.  They predicted that there would be world wide famine as the population grew so much we could no longer feed the masses.  All of these predictions were wrong.  And not just wrong but ridiculously, completely, stupidly wrong.

So forgive me if I'm somewhat reticent to believe them this time.  I've heard "wolf" and "the sky is falling" my whole life.  I just don't believe them anymore.

[DaSmerg]

Interesting turn in Washington politics today on this topic...

Panel Hears Climate 'Spin' Allegations -ABC News

The jist...""It appears there may have been an orchestrated campaign to mislead the public about climate change," said Rep. Henry Waxman, D-Calif. Waxman is chairman of the Oversight and Government Reform Committee""

Something to keep in mind about who sits on this Committee...Senators Hillary Clinton, Barack Obama and John McCain to name 3 Presidential hopefuls.

Something else to keep in mind with keeping in mind the above...election build up hype plus a hot button issue usually makes for some pretty sound byte worthy news reporting.

Still, that's a pretty serious allegation when I think about it after stripping away the nonesense.  This isn't the first time this charge has been laid against the Bush administration either though from the scientific community (stem cell research).

[Frozyn]

It wouldn't surprise me if they did. Unfortunately, a lot of predictions about what could occur are simply that - predictions. We have no historical basis to lean up to understand what exactly is going to happen and when.

The 60 years model that I alluded to earlier is a great example - it's just one of many models. Scientists aren't exactly sure on when it will happen. They do know it will happen - as said before it's a natural cycle of the Earth. We've just immensely sped up the process.

Like Mono said - 60 years to the people in the White House is meaningless because they'll all be dead. But as Mono and some recent eco-commercials have pointed out (namely the one where the guy is standing in front of an oncoming train, but moves out of the way and leaves his son there), the sons and daughters of today, possibly including myself (60 more years and I'll be 79), will suffer the consequences.

[Ronin]

I am about fed up with how political this whole "global warming" thing has gotten.  Now we have people saying that anyone who questions the "global warming" (now called "climate change" which it does all the time) "consensus" should be either dismissed from the scientific debate as some sort of Luddite or just plain evil.

So, far it appears that the Earth is warming up.  But whether it is from increased CO2 or solar variability or a slight change in the Earth's orbit or cow farts no one has a definitive answer.  It may be all of the above, one or more or possibly even none.  We don't know.

The predictions made by the "chicken little" crowd are mostly ridiculous (some have predicted that sea level will rise 70 meters).  There are people advocating all sorts of stupidity in the name of stopping global warming.  So far, not even one solution suggested would even slow it down.  Much less stop it.

People the world over seem to think that the Earth is in a steady state and has always been so.  Most people don't know that we had a little ice age about 800 years ago followed by weather even warmer than it is now.  This was NOT caused by humans.  CO2 levels then were (from what I've read) about the same during the Medieval Warming Period as they are now.  But which phenomenon caused the other?  Or IS there a causal link?  Again, we don't know.

The Earth has had ice ages and ages where there were no polar icecaps (and probably no glaciers to speak of).  All of these (except the last ice age) were before humans even existed.  We couldn't have caused those changes but they happened anyway.

A lot of the hysteria about "climate change" is based on computer models which are woefully inadequate and terribly flawed.  NONE of them can predict today's weather patterns based on feeding data into them from 100 years ago to present.  In short, they are worthless.  But huge numbers of people base their ENTIRE belief in global warming on these computer models and their predictions.

I also believe that the government should NEVER get involved in issues like this from a scientific standpoint.  The people involved will inevitably put forth their own views as the official viewpoint and try to make it a fact when there are other people who would disagree with them.  This makes it nearly impossible for scientists who have legitimate disagreements with the government "scientists" to get funding for their own research.

The quest for cash in the scientific community has come down to two sources of money: the government and big business (generally big oil).  And we basically then have two camps that are diametrically opposed to each other.  The pro anthropocentric global warming government endorsed crowd and the not at all sure but skeptical privately funded crowd.

Those who believe in anthropocentric global warming tend to be big government liberals.  Those who are skeptical generally can only find research that questions the "consensus" (read government) view that is funded by business (generally oil companies).

Both camps engage in questioning the motives (and rightly so in my view) of the other camp based on their personal biases.  The people who join the "consensus" view (and there really isn't one) that people are causing global warming say that the skeptics are just in the pocket of the oil companies who don't want their profits threatened (as if we're all going to stop using oil tomorrow or something).  The people who join the skeptical view (and this contains a wide range of stances and beliefs) think the people who join the "consensus" view generally just want to punish the industrialized world.

They're both right and they're both wrong.  We _may_ be contributing to global warming through our CO2 emissions; we may not.  Our planet is an enormous and almost infinitely complex system. Our sun is a star with all that entails including solar flares, solar mass ejections, sunspots and output variability.  Even minor fluctuations in the Sun's output can either freeze or fry the Earth. That anyone thinks they can write a computer model to predict our climate 100 years into the future shows mind boggling hubris.  I just isn't going to happen.  I don't think it will EVER happen.

To make this whole issue even more annoying and more frustrating we have very little actual FACTUAL data to base our conclusions on.  Yes there appears to be some warming (on the order of 1C degrees).  But the Earth is a very large body and we don't have very many data points at all.  To make matters worse, there are gaps in our data, some people mis-report and outright fabricate data, and the data we have is open to very wide interpretation.  And interpreting this data is an exercise in statistics.  And we all know what they say about statistics (lies, damn lies and statistics).

I also question both the intelligence and motives of the most vocal global warming alarmists.  I was around when the SAME people were predicting a coming ice age, the oil running out, and global famine.  None of those things happened.  And they weren't just wrong; they were mind numbingly, tremendously, completely, stupidly wrong.  They weren't even close.  They didn't get tagged out at first base or fly out or even hit a foul ball.  They didn't even make contact with the ball.  They didn't even have a bat.  They weren't even in the ball park. So forgive me if I seem a bit skeptical about the whole anthropocentric [EDIT: I meant anthropogenic] global warming hysteria.  I've seen it before.  I'm sure I'll see it again.

I'll take my chances with the skeptics.  At least they usually discuss the issue without resorting to name calling when people don't agree with them.  And they certainly don't act irrational by trying to have people locked up, or censored or charged with a crime when they don't toe the global warming line.

What alarms me is that this time the alarmists have gotten political traction.  I don't know how.  And I don't know why.  But they have and they appear to be intent on using it to try to change my life to suit their ends.  I am _very_ suspicious of anybody who wants to impose their views on me. AND make me pay for the privilege.  All the while saying that anybody that disagrees with them is stupid, crazy or evil. (sounds like candidates for the Communist "re-education" camps to me)

With regard to the ABC News story, I think it shouldn't even be a story.  Government "scientists" (most of whom are actually just bureaucrats) should be gagged completely. I am not in any way interested in their views. There should be NO "official" government position on science other than to support the research on both sides EQUALLY and the science speak for itself.  The National Science Academy should only decide which issues should be funded and not which side of the issue on which to fund research.

But that's just my opinion... :tongue:

[Zazoo]

Don't hold back Ronin... Tell us how you really feel.


~Mike

[Ronin]

Don't hold back Ronin... Tell us how you really feel.


~Mike

Um, err, okay...