Global Warming Thread

[Guest]

On 1/8/2016 at 2:33 AM, Aussie Mongrel said:

I don't know much about the science behind Global Warming but what I do know is one the reasons that we are all being duped on that science. In Australia it was called the Trading Emissions Scheme (Scam). This is where big companies would be charged for their emissions into the atmosphere and the more emissions the higher the fines / taxes.

This was part of the Global Elites agenda to put financial pressure on big companies so they would eventually close up shop here and set up shop in a third world country. They want this to happen so they can rid the world of 1st world countries and make every country more equal and more equally poor.

We called this Cap n Trade in the US.

[Guest]

5 hours ago, Blackmarch said:

1) H2O gets broken up in the upper atmosphere, the hydrogen leaves earth more or less and the remaining oxygen forms the Ozone layer. CO2 bonds with the oxygen in the upper layers which prevents the formation of the ozone layer. at lower layers co2 not only traps heat but will also trap other chemicals. h20 recycles quicker, whereas c02 only gets recycled through plants.

2) we really don't have solid proof of that, but they are two extremes one of too much and one of too little- either which is theorised goes into self destructive cycle. altho with mars a contributor to its loss of atmosphere and heat is that it lacks a uniform magnetic field

3) it's proposed that man has assisted the most recent warming. but man isn't the only source. this is more of case of erring on the safe side.

4) only to a point. you still need water and and the right temperature. affecting one variable tends to have affects on the other variables.... but also we are removing more plants than replacing and chemical dumps can kill (green) algae which are the largest recycler of CO2 by far.  It's problem in that if average temperatures change enough for long enough you'll end up with different weather patterns which is bad for farming.

5) the science I've seen doesn't place as THE guilty party, just a contributing one... and since human behavior is modifiable that is what is tended to focused on; ie if we can eliminate our contribution supposedly things will get back into the natural swing of things. as for who pays- that depends on which organization. i don't doubt that taxes are involved tho.

6) because in the end we do not have any sovereignity over other nation/states and the only way to really make them follow the rules or guidelines for sure would be to conquer them.

1) would you mind explaining that?  Since when does CO2 "bond" with oxygen (either O2 or O3).

2) What does that have to do with anything?

3) So, you're saying that it is a question of percentage?  Ok.  I'll see that and raise you a 0.001% contribution to global warming.  Are you really going to have the entire world become a 3rd world country so that we can undo that when natural factors are causing so much bigger an effect?

4) The rise in temperature will increase atmospheric water content causing more rain or more humid conditions so that plant life almost everywhere will increase.  Yes, there are other factors.  But all the factors involved in this discussion will provide a net positive for plant life around the world.

5) The point of Le's question was that the studies you point to are false.  It becomes obvious as you trace the money.  It isn't to improve anything.  It is to get government more power over us.

6) That's like saying,"We can't stop other countries from building their military.  So it is up to us to decrease our military to make sure we don't have wars."

[Vort]

18 minutes ago, Carborendum said:

Since when does CO2 "bond" with oxygen (either O2 or O3)

Blackmarch appears to be confounding CO₂ with CFCs (chlorofluorocarbons). CFCs have been demonstrated to provide a catalyst effect in breaking down ozone.

(So far as I know, no mechanism has yet been established for transporting CFCs from the earth's surface to the upper atmosphere -- but again, this was an important, urgent matter, requiring immediate attention so as not to Destroy The Earth. Evidence be damned. Or at least darned.)

[james12]

I have changed my tune on this issue recently. I think it is getting harder and harder to argue with scientific consensus on the matter of global warming. 

For example the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPPC) has more strongly worded their summary statements over the years. Here are some examples: 

Quote

 

1995: "The balance of evidence suggest a discernible human influence on global climate."

2001: "There is new and stronger evidence that most of the warming observed over the last 50 years is attributable to human activitites."

2007: "Human-induced warming of the climate system is wide-spread."

2013: "It is extremely likely that human influence has been the dominant cause of the observed warming since the mid-twentieth century"

 

Further the rhetoric on the other side of the argument has changed from, "There is no global warming", to, "There is global warming but it is not caused by humans", until now we hear, "There is global warming and it is caused by humans, but our impact is negligible". At what point will republicans and big business acknowledge the significant impact of humans on global warming? 

Edited April 8, 2016 by james12

[Vort]

14 minutes ago, james12 said:

I have changed my tune on this issue recently. I think it is getting harder and harder to argue with scientific consensus on the matter of global warming. 

For example the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPPC) has more strongly worded their summary statements over the years. Here are some examples: 

Further the rhetoric on the other side of the argument has changed from, "There is no global warming", to, "There is global warming but it is not caused by humans", until now we hear, "There is global warming and it is caused by humans, but our impact is negligible". At what point will republicans and big business acknowledge the significant impact of humans on global warming? 

When the global warming trumpeters produce convincing evidence. So far, pretty much everything I have heard has been, "All the smart people think this, so it must be true." Yet exactly no one -- and I mean, literally, no one -- has ever offered to explain to me what's going on. I have a reasonably good education and am reasonably smart, yet no one wants to tell me what's going on. I'm just supposed to believe them because they say it's so.

Really accurate data is not available from earlier than maybe 20 or 30 (max) years ago, yet that is supposed to establish a baseline for climate -- which we know perfectly well changes on a cyclical basis that varies between hours and 100,000 years. We are stabbing in the dark when we try to say that this or that temperature fluctuation is "abnormal".

Global warmingists further damage their credibility when they change their rhetoric so drastically, as e.g. changing "global warming" to "global climate change". Guess what? The climate ALWAYS changes! That's a feature of the Earth's climate! But now a cooling trend can be dismissed by a hand wave, and the orthodoxy of Global Warming reaffirmed.

The fixes proposed for Global Warming always, in every case, increase governmental power and regulatory abilities. This aligns with the political thought of some parties, but not with others (like me). And guess who just happens to be behind the push to control this environmental catastrophe? By an utterly astounding coincidence, it just happens to be the folks who want more government control and less freedom of self-determination. How about that.

I am perfectly willing to believe in anthropogenic global warming, but I want a great deal more than the say-so of so-called "experts". I also want evidence that any supposed "global warming" is harmful. We know beyond reasonable doubt that we emerged from an ice age about 12,000 years ago, and that the interglacial periods tend to be on the order of 10,000 years. So we have fairly good reason to suspect that a global catastrophe beyond our reckoning might come at any time, perhaps in the next 1000 years or less, in the form of giant sheets of ice covering the northern parts of Asia, Europe, and North America. It appears that the Earth's climate reaches a "tipping point", then suddenly plunges into a glacial period in a very short time, perhaps only decades or even less. Might anthropogenic global warming preclude or delay this?

Most of the "global warming" arguments strike me as a naked power grab. I'm all for reducing oil usage, both from an environmental and a political standpoint. So show me some ways to "go green" that do not involve increasing government power, and I'll jump on that bandwagon. Until then, paint me deeply skeptical.

[LeSellers]

21 hours ago, james12 said:

the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPPC) has more strongly worded their summary statements over the years.

It is not too difficult to discount these pronouncements since the IPPC advocates curtailing freedom (with the concomitant expansion of governments around the world) as the only means of preventing the "catastrophe".

21 hours ago, james12 said:

Further the rhetoric on the other side of the argument has changed from, "There is no global warming", to, "There is global warming but it is not caused by humans", until now we hear, "There is global warming and it is caused by humans, but our impact is negligible".

I believe you have missed the thrust of the counter argument. Perhaps the form has changed from "no global warming" to no "anthropogenic global warming" (ignoring the far more questionable change from "global warming" to "climate change" or even "climate weirding" — whatever that may mean — and going somewhat further back, to global cooling, an impending ice age predicted in the 60s and 70s). The primary argument has always been that climate changes naturally over time, and the past has a host of examples.

21 hours ago, james12 said:

At what point will republicans and big business acknowledge the significant impact of humans on global warming? 

I know of no one who denies that mankind may have some impact on climate, but there is simply no convincing evidence that this impact is "significant". The sun is the source of climate, and it has demonstrated changes enough to account for all but a minuscule fraction of any supposed climate change, and we have absolutely no reason to assume that the known solar cycles will reverse themselves and return us to "normal", whatever that is.

If mankind is responsible for climate change (itself a mystical term, since it has become both warmer and colder over the recent past), what caused exactly the same phenomenon in the past? For climate has undergone both cooling and warming in historical time as well as prehistoric periods, when "man" has had no technology or capacity to affect climate in the least?

Lehi

Edited April 8, 2016 by LeSellers

[Guest]

1 hour ago, james12 said:

I have changed my tune on this issue recently. I think it is getting harder and harder to argue with scientific consensus on the matter of global warming. 

What was it that caused you to change your mind?  Is it really because you just don't know enough about the science behind it and therefore have to have faith in "experts"?

1 hour ago, james12 said:

For example the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPPC) has more strongly worded their summary statements over the years. Here are some examples: 

Wow.  I get a completely different view from those statements.  I see them as the same statements repeated over and over again until people start believing them.  And the more power is fed to government, the more strongly worded the statements get.  These statements do not indicate a change in the data.  The Executive Summaries are written by politicians, not the scientists.  

In case you didn't read my comments before the hiatus:  They keep making more and more certain statements.  But when you go to look for the new evidence, or new argument, or new data, etc. there is none.  It is purely political pressure that is causing any changes in the consensus.  And it is still a pretty weak consensus.

None of the old school scientists who really knew about climate change have changed their positions based on any new evidence.  The only change in scientific consensus has been due to a concerted effort to squeeze out any climate change skeptic from academia.  Therefore, all the next generation of scientists have become indoctrinated, not by any new scientific evidence, but by political power.  This happened at UC Denver.  The old head of the department that covered atmospheric studies was demoted and forced into early retirement because he was still teaching that there has been no new evidence to lead one to believe the global warming theoris.

1 hour ago, james12 said:

Further the rhetoric on the other side of the argument has changed from, "There is no global warming", to, "There is global warming but it is not caused by humans", until now we hear, "There is global warming and it is caused by humans, but our impact is negligible". At what point will republicans and big business acknowledge the significant impact of humans on global warming? 

The rhetoric did not change on the climate skeptics side.  There was none.  The consensus for a decade or more was that the earth was cooling.  And it was.  Then it entered a warming phase.  So, guess what?  We said there was global warming.  Now it's cooling again.  So, guess what?  Now we're saying it's cooling again.

At what point?  When 1) It actually happens beyond what can more easily be explained by other means 2) When it is explained by unadulterated science and data 3) When the legislation and regulation do not require further curtailments of individual rights to bring about change 4) When people stop falsifying data to make their point.

Edited April 8, 2016 by Guest

[Guest]

Take a Look at the following graphics.

Do you see a pattern?  What I see is that the space between ice ages is becoming longer and longer.  And this pattern started long before man was found on the earth.  This last ice age was longer than previous ones.  So, it would stand to reason that the warming period immediately following it would last longer too.  But no one wants to mention that fact when they're trying to peddle alarmism.

Do you notice something else?  The numbers.  We are actually still in an ice age based on truly ancient historical data.  The planet SHOULD be heading for a great warming period where global temperatures are another 20 degrees hotter.  But we're not.

Edited April 8, 2016 by Guest

[Guest]

Now take a look at this graphic.

It shows a linear relationship between CO2 and temperature.  But the radiation characteristics of heat are proportional to T^4, not to T directly.  So, this likely shows a reverse correlation.   i.e. temperature drives atmospheric CO2 levels, not the other way around.

Edited April 8, 2016 by Guest

[james12]

45 minutes ago, Vort said:

When the global warming trumpeters produce convincing evidence. So far, pretty much everything I have heard has been, "All the smart people think this, so it must be true." Yet exactly no one -- and I mean, literally, no one -- has ever offered to explain to me what's going on. I have a reasonably good education and am reasonably smart, yet no one wants to tell me what's going on. I'm just supposed to believe them because they say it's so.

Really accurate data is not available from earlier than maybe 20 or 30 (max) years ago, yet that is supposed to establish a baseline for climate -- which we know perfectly well changes on a cyclical basis that varies between hours and 100,000 years. We are stabbing in the dark when we try to say that this or that temperature fluctuation is "abnormal".

Global warmingists further damage their credibility when they change their rhetoric so drastically, as e.g. changing "global warming" to "global climate change". Guess what? The climate ALWAYS changes! That's a feature of the Earth's climate! But now a cooling trend can be dismissed by a hand wave, and the orthodoxy of Global Warming reaffirmed.

The fixes proposed for Global Warming always, in every case, increase governmental power and regulatory abilities. This aligns with the political thought of some parties, but not with others (like me). And guess who just happens to be behind the push to control this environmental catastrophe? By an utterly astounding coincidence, it just happens to be the folks who want more government control and less freedom of self-determination. How about that.

I am perfectly willing to believe in anthropogenic global warming, but I want a great deal more than the say-so of so-called "experts". I also want evidence that any supposed "global warming" is harmful. We know beyond reasonable doubt that we emerged from an ice age about 12,000 years ago, and that the interglacial periods tend to be on the order of 10,000 years. So we have fairly good reason to suspect that a global catastrophe beyond our reckoning might come at any time, perhaps in the next 1000 years or less, in the form of giant sheets of ice covering the northern parts of Asia, Europe, and North America. It appears that the Earth's climate reaches a "tipping point", then suddenly plunges into a glacial period in a very short time, perhaps only decades or even less. Might anthropogenic global warming preclude or delay this?

Most of the "global warming" arguments strike me as a naked power grab. I'm all for reducing oil usage, both from an environmental and a political standpoint. So show me some ways to "go green" that do not involve increasing government power, and I'll jump on that bandwagon. Until then, paint me deeply skeptical.

In regards to global warming there are many factors that effect the earth's temperatures. These many factors no doubt do make the science more complex. Moreover, I'm sure on this forum I will not be able to provide all the science to change your mind. So my suggestion would be to investigate attribution studies on global warming. But maybe for some this graph can represent a start. The National Center for Atmospheric Research evaluated five different factors: volcanoes, sulfate aerosol pollution, solar activity, greenhouse gases, and ozone depletion. Each factor had a distinct influence. They attempted to model the current warming trend without accounting for human induced factors. The model could not reproduce our recent warming trend without including greenhouse gases. 

Let me just quickly comment on the politics of the issue... Unfortunately, politics is a significant player in the information we receive and our attitude to global warming. I certainly do agree that the left has tried to use global warming as an opportunity to gain more control over industry and individuals, just as the right has tried to distort the message on the other extreeme. However, in evaluating the issue it is critical to divorce the science from politics until evidence has been well evaluated. So many do not do so, and around and around we go carried by every wind of doctrine.

[Guest]

14 minutes ago, james12 said:

They attempted to model the current warming trend without accounting for human induced factors. The model could not reproduce our recent warming trend without including greenhouse gases. 

The "model" is part of the problem.  They place variables in there that are not scientifically accurate with algorithms based on their preconceived notions and voila!  GIGO.

Look, I've made a lot of perfectly valid scientific arguments, but you've offered nothing but "these people say that it is so".  Do you have their logic and methodology?  A "model" is not a methodology.  It is a tool.  The logic, data, and math that goes into the model is the methodology.   Unfortunately, they don't offer that to the public because "we're just too stupid to understand".

Do you have any real undisputed scientific theories and evidence that point to this being true?

Edited April 8, 2016 by Guest

[LeSellers]

On 4/8/2016 at 8:49 PM, james12 said:

the right has tried to distort the message on the other extreeme.

The only way the "right" has done anything with the message (I reject that the right has "distorted" it, the right hasn't changed the data again and again), is not to an extreeme [sic], but only to maintain something like the status quo: we don't want to lose any more freedom.

On 4/8/2016 at 8:49 PM, james12 said:

in evaluating the issue it is critical to divorce the science from politics until evidence has been well evaluated. So many do not do so, and around and around we go carried by every wind of doctrine.

The left is the only one injecting politics into the discussion. So, I agree, we need to divorce politics from the science. And thus, we will arrive at the point where "climate change" is just a natural phenomenon, one that will most likely reverse itself, as it has many times in the past.

Lehi

Edited April 10, 2016 by LeSellers

[Guest]

12 minutes ago, LeSellers said:

The only way the "right" has done anything with the message (I reject that the right has "distorted" it, the right hasn't changed the data again and again), is not to an extreeme [sic], but only to maintain something like the status quo: we don't want to lose any more freedom.

Actually, I'm going to give James the benefit of the doubt on this point.  While the scientists and those who really understood the science have not changed, the average person on the right has slowly been changing.

I was part of a conservative book club.  And I was the only one who understood the science behind it.  All of them believed that man had nothing to do with it and all the alarmists theories were false.  I had to educate them and state that some of the overriding theories were correct.  But they just misapplied them or exaggerated their outcomes.  It took a while to convince them.  But they finally accepted that I was the only person who had any significant level of technical knowledge among them.  

So, maybe the problem is that the average person just doesn't understand the science behind it.  Maybe in spite of my first four posts trying to describe it in layman's terms, people still don't understand it and just "trust whomever they trust".

Edited April 8, 2016 by Guest

[james12]

1 hour ago, LeSellers said:

It is not too difficult to discount these pronouncements since the IPPC advocates curtailing freedom (with the concomitant expansion of governments around the world) as the only means of preventing the "carastrophe".

I think you discount the IPCC much too quickly. It evaluates studies carried out by thousands of researchers across the globe and tries to synthesize the results to help policy makers. It represents hundreds of researchers from dozens of countries nominated by government or non-government entities. 

1 hour ago, LeSellers said:

I believe you have missed the thrust of the counter argument. Perhaps the form has changed from "no global warming" to no "anthropogenic global warming" (ignoring the far more questionable change from "global warming" to "climate change" or even "climate weirding" — whatever that may mean — and going somewhat further back, to global cooling, an impending ice age predicted in the 60s and 70s). The primary argument has always been that climate changes naturally over time, and the past has a host of examples.

I know of no one who denies that mankind may have some impact on climate, but there is simply no convincing evidence that this impact is "significant". The sun is the source of climate, and it has demonstrated changes enough to account for all but a minuscule fraction of any supposed climate change, and we have absolutely no reason to assume that the known solar cycles will reverse themselves and return us to "normal", whatever that is.

If mankind is responsible for climate change (itself a mystical term, since it has become both warmer and colder over the recent past), what caused exactly the same phenomenon in the past? For climate has undergone both cooling and warming in historical time as well as prehistoric periods, when "man" has had no technology or capacity to affect climate in the least?

Lehi

I certainly do know of people who reject global warming, in fact, Donald Trump comes to mind... 

The sun is just one factor in the global climate (though a very important one). However, it does not account for the entire warming trend. In fact over the last 35 years there has been a slight cooling trend with regards to the sun. Below is a graph of this (see http://www.skepticalscience.com/solar-activity-sunspots-global-warming.htm) 

[Guest]

@james12,

First, I'm going to do some research to verify the data (it has been falsified before).  Even so, we're still talking about less than 1 deg C over 35 years.  Is that what you consider proof that there is no correlation?  I'd consider that still pretty close.

[james12]

41 minutes ago, Carborendum said:

What was it that caused you to change your mind?  Is it really because you just don't know enough about the science behind it and therefore have to have faith in "experts"?

To some extent we all have faith in "experts". The only difference is you have faith in different "experts". Certainly you don't believe you yourself have a better understanding of all the issues than many researchers and scientists?

41 minutes ago, Carborendum said:

Wow.  I get a completely different view from those statements.  I see them as the same statements repeated over and over again until people start believing them.  And the more power is fed to government, the more strongly worded the statements get.  These statements do not indicate a change in the data.  The Executive Summaries are written by politicians, not the scientists.  

In case you didn't read my comments before the hiatus:  They keep making more and more certain statements.  But when you go to look for the new evidence, or new argument, or new data, etc. there is none.  It is purely political pressure that is causing any changes in the consensus.  And it is still a pretty weak consensus.

First, the consensus for significant human caused global warming is not weak at all. In fact, I think the consensus against human caused global warming is the weak argument. For instance NASA's website says this:  

Quote

Multiple studies published in peer-reviewed scientific journals¹ show that 97 percent or more of actively publishing climate scientists agree: Climate-warming trends over the past century are very likely due to human activities. In addition, most of the leading scientific organizations worldwide have issued public statements endorsing this position. (http://climate.nasa.gov/scientific-consensus/)

They go on to quote statements affirming the above from 18 scientific journals.

[james12]

15 minutes ago, Carborendum said:

@james12,

First, I'm going to do some research to verify the data (it has been falsified before).  Even so, we're still talking about less than 1 deg C over 35 years.  Is that what you consider proof that there is no correlation?  I'd consider that still pretty close.

I simply give it as evidence, not proof. But at some point the evidence continues to mount until we find ourselves being buried by it.  

[Guest]

22 minutes ago, james12 said:

To some extent we all have faith in "experts". The only difference is you have faith in different "experts". Certainly you don't believe you yourself have a better understanding of all the issues than many researchers and scientists?

No, the difference is that I base my position on two things: 1) What is not in dispute?  and 2) What are the logical outcomes from what is not in dispute?  You're simply trusting the expert opinions without considering the logic behind it.  See the last paragraph of this post.

No, I don't believe I have a better understanding.  I have a cynicism streak that makes me question someone who gives an opinion/interpretation based on money more than data.  I also don't trust a position that has had to have the so called experts exaggerate and falsify data to support their claims.

22 minutes ago, james12 said:

First, the consensus for significant human caused global warming is not weak at all. In fact, I think the consensus against human caused global warming is the weak argument. For instance NASA's website says this:  

Make your argument against anything I've said here that leads me to believe as I do.  Let's see how weak it is.

22 minutes ago, james12 said:

They go on to quote statements affirming the above from 18 scientific journals.

Take a close look.  All of them are from government sponsored origins.  Independent experts who agree simply cite the government sponsored positions.  As far as the 97% statistic: It isn't exactly false, but it is misleading, mischaracterized, and misrepresented.

http://www.climatechangedispatch.com/97-articles-refuting-the-97-percent-consensus.html

http://www.wsj.com/articles/SB10001424052702303480304579578462813553136

http://www.nationalreview.com/article/425232/climate-change-no-its-not-97-percent-consensus-ian-tuttle

It's not that they've independently looked at data and models, etc.  They've just read whatever "the PTB" says and simply repeat it.  They're not thinking on their own.  This is what is so disappointing about so called experts.  I once debated with a man proclaiming himself as a climate scientist.  I asked him the simple question "How does CO2 act as a one way blanket?  Why not two-way?"  He couldn't answer it.  He never thought to ask the question.

I asked him about the T^4 correlation problem.  He couldn't answer it.

I asked him about methane vs CO2.  He couldn't answer it.

I pointed out the long term ice ages and where the historical earth cycle is.  He couldn't answer it.

So, in some ways, YES! I do have better understanding than some experts.

 

Edited April 8, 2016 by Guest

[james12]

39 minutes ago, LeSellers said:

The left is the only one injecting politics into the discussion. So, I agree, we need to divorce politics form the science. And thus, we will arrive at the point where "climate change" is just a natural phenomenon, one that will most likely reverse itself, as it has many tmies in the past.

I think we must recognize that politics is coming from both sides of the fence. But I do agree with you about reviewing the science. 

Now, I personally am Republican and lean Libertarian on many issues. I want freedom for people. But a capitalistic economy does not, by itself, deal well with externalities. In fact Milton Freedman, one of the great voices for freedom, once addressed the issue of pollution on the Phil Donahue show. He said:  

Quote

Phil Donahue: Is there a case for the government to do something about pollution?

Milton Friedman: Yes, there’s a case for the government to do something. There’s always a case for the government to do something about it. Because there’s always a case for the government to some extent when what two people do affects a third party. There’s no case for the government whatsoever to mandate air bags, because air bags protect the people inside the car. That’s my business. If I want to protect myself, I should do it at my expense. But there is a case for the government protecting third parties, protecting people who have not voluntarily agreed to enter. So there’s more of  a case, for example, for emissions controls than for airbags. But the question is what’s the best way to do it? And the best way to do it is not to have bureaucrats in Washington write rules and regulations saying a car has to carry this that or the other. The way to do it is to impose a tax on the cost of the pollutants emitted by a car and make an incentive for car manufacturers and for consumers to keep down the amount of pollution. (http://www.forbes.com/sites/jeffmcmahon/2014/10/12/what-would-milton-friedman-do-about-climate-change-tax-carbon/#6716ac5b4573)

I agree with this statement. In fact, if I had much say in the matter I would push for a revenue neutral carbon tax to deal with pollution and global warming. The reason I like this option is that it allows Adam Smith's invisible hand to still influence the direction of the economy while not adding any net tax increase. In fact I like it even more because we could reduce capital gains and income taxes which might benefit the economy. I would also aim to remove subsidies and tax breaks from companies and special interests across the board.

[james12]

3 hours ago, Carborendum said:

I asked him about methane vs CO2.  He couldn't answer it.

Since I don't have enough time for every item, let me spend just a minute answering the above comment. I believe your contention here is that methane has a larger impact on global warming than CO2 because of it's absorptive and radiative properties and therefore should be the gas we address, not CO2. The problem here is that there is over 200 times more CO2 in the troposphere than Methane. This is because Methane only accounts for 9% of green house gas emissions (CO2 accounts for 82%), and because Methane only lasts 12 years in the atmosphere while Carbon Dioxide can last 100's to 1000's of years.  

Further, if you question the above, more direct evidence can be provided. Using high resolution FTIR Spectroscopy scientists can measure the percent of long wave radiation reaching the earth. This will give a direct indication of which gases have the greatest impact. Note also that the Suns radiation is centered around the visable spectrum and so is not much of a factor. After filtering for the effect of water vapor, CO2 has by far the largest impact. Methane (CH4) still has an impact but it is less significant.

[james12]

10 hours ago, Carborendum said:

It shows a linear relationship between CO2 and temperature.  But the radiation characteristics of heat are proportional to T^4, not to T directly.  So, this likely shows a reverse correlation.   i.e. temperature drives atmospheric CO2 levels, not the other way around.

Your summation that temperature drives CO2 levels is too simplistic and ultimately in accurate. In the past ice ages have been caused by Milankovitch Cycles, in which changes to the orbit, tilt, or wobble of the earth cause the earth to begin a warming or cooling cycle. However, these orbital/rotational cycles cannot by themselves account for the temperature changes. Rather, as the earth begins to warm outgasing of CO2 from the oceans continues the cycle. In fact over 90% of the warming occurs after the CO2 increase. 

[Guest]

7 hours ago, james12 said:

 

This is a highly simplified and therefore misleading graph.  In fact, it doesn't really say much at all.  There are multiple ranges of each of these gases at multiple intensities (absorbtion coefficients) which are not depicted here in any readable sense.

It is also mislabeled.  What does "greenhouse radiation" refer to?  Is it the earth's radiation spectrum?  If so, it is inaccurate.  Is it solar radiation?  If so, it is a self-defeating argument because it would lead to cooling instead of warming.  And all this must be adjusted for mass, specific heat, and comparative concentration to earth's historical levels.

I don't have time to put together all the graphs, but I'll get to it later as I have time.

[unixknight]

Whenever someone uses the word "consensus," run.  There is NOT a consensus on this issue and even if there were, it would mean precisely nothing.  There was a time when scientific "consensus" told us that cigarettes were beneficial to our health, along with opiates, cocaine and laudanum.  There was one a scientific "consensus" that Mars was covered in canals and there was life on the Moon. 
 

"Don't take refuge in the false security of consensus."
—Christopher Hitchens

"Consensus" is a word people use to show off their membership in the popular kids club.

We had a debate about this matter on my wargaming club forum.  In the course of this, I started to look into the way in which temperatures are measured to produce the data used to prove Global Warming in one particular study.  Turns out, the temperature monitoring sensors are often not well maintained, and are sometimes left in direct sunlight or near heat vents from nearby buildings that weren't there when the sensor was first installed.  It was unbelievable to me just how sloppy the temperature data gathering was, and yet when I pointed out these glaring problems, the Global Warming alarmists on our forum just disregarded these problems and insisted I take the data as reliable anyway. 

....   and they accuse our side of being unscientific.

Meanwhile they massage the data to claim "consensus with."

Quote

After the Obama administration took office, however, and started pushing the global warming narrative for political purposes, NASA was directed to alter its historical data in order to reverse the cooling trend and show a warming trend instead. This was accomplished using climate-modeling computers that simply fabricated the data the researchers wished to see instead of what was actually happening in the real world.

Learn more: http://www.naturalnews.com/045695_global_warming_fabricated_data_scientific_fraud.html#ixzz45FDHJQKG

Then there was that case a few years ago when a British team fiddled with the source code for an atmospheric prediction model.  I found a copy of that source code and looked at it for myself, as I am a professional software engineer.  What I saw was code that was written to disregard actual historical temperature data and substitute a series of numbers that would produce the infamous "hockey stick" graph to show planetary temperature increases coincidental with industrialization.

If there's such a reasonable "consensus" and the planet is indeed warming the way they claim, then why would it be necessary to cheat to show it?  Shouldn't it be self-evident?  If man-made Global Warming is so obvious and such a certainty, then someone please explain to me why these kids of falsehoods are necessary?

Because that, right there, is why I'm a skeptic of Global Warming.  I'm a computer programmer, not a meteorologist or climatologist, so I can't claim to be able to analyze all that data (such as it is) and give an educated conclusion, but I know B.S. when I hear it, and I know cheating when I see it, and I know what software code looks like when it's been monkeyed with.  If Global Warming is  true, then there's no reason at all to lie.  If the people who make these claims are lying, then their claims are false.  I find it laughable that I'm accused of "Science Denial (TM)" because I am skeptical of Global Warming even when I point out that science has nothing whatsoever to do with the alarmism. 

[Guest]

49 minutes ago, james12 said:

Your summation that temperature drives CO2 levels is too simplistic and ultimately in accurate. In the past ice ages have been caused by Milankovitch Cycles, in which changes to the orbit, tilt, or wobble of the earth cause the earth to begin a warming or cooling cycle. However, these orbital/rotational cycles cannot by themselves account for the temperature changes. Rather, as the earth begins to warm outgasing of CO2 from the oceans continues the cycle. In fact over 90% of the warming occurs after the CO2 increase. 

This doesn't even address the issue.  The issue is the T^4 relationship as opposed to the T relationship.

[Blackmarch]

18 hours ago, Vort said:

Blackmarch appears to be confounding CO₂ with CFCs (chlorofluorocarbons). CFCs have been demonstrated to provide a catalyst effect in breaking down ozone.

(So far as I know, no mechanism has yet been established for transporting CFCs from the earth's surface to the upper atmosphere -- but again, this was an important, urgent matter, requiring immediate attention so as not to Destroy The Earth. Evidence be damned. Or at least darned.)

whups, Vorts right >.<.  Sorry I've been dealing with some cold or something this past this past week that's been messing with me a lot.